talk about slacking.

so we finally got a life here. got into the swing of things. met aussies (like my doll lily) and partied with them...and now we are being taken away. i sit here thinking about how we only have about three and a half weeks left until the program is over and how i am going to be in thailand in less than a month.

last time i posted i just got back from cairns and whit sundays which was amazing. we started the internship and kinda got a feel for it. since then i have sat in on a grading sesson of music videos, sat in on a shoot for a music video, been to four live television recordings, saw johnny knoxville get wasted on david tench, went out with straight up aussies, went surfing in a storm and almost died, rocked havana club, bet on horses and trumped the city with anna on melbourne cup day and had a ridiculous halloween celebration. i mean, its been pretty alright here.



so halloween was ridiculous here. whoda thunk that dressing up where halloween isn't celebrated would be more fun than dressing up in the states. after pregamming endlessly in the unilodge, in a stunning 80's track onesie, we went to a local backpackers bar to dance the night away. the walk and the bus ride consisted of glares and people smirking at us, "look, they're americans" didn't phase us one bit. later that week we dressed up again, this time as lilu from the fifth element. i like wearing wigs. it makes me feel like jennifer garner.



from the end of october to the beginning of november i was thinking about boston a lot. the fall, the holidays, the crisp air. i miss it. its great being here and i know that i can have that great fall feeling again if id like, but its just weird and intruging to think about the world and how far i am from everyone i love. some days i will talk to friends and when i am looking at the sky, think that they are just around the corner, but they are on the other side of the world. beautiful skies can deceive you into believing certain things appear closer than they really are.

the surf has been alright. i almost died about a week ago when i went surfing with steve and tom (villanova cats). it was raining and crappy out and i got sucked under a huge ass wave. i couldn't find the sky, opening my eyes under water i tried to get up. when i did finally find the air, i took a huge breath and tried to figure out what had just happened to me. two men, an aussie and a guy from europe were screaming of joy and exihiliration as i stood there in shock reconsidering my life and whether it was worth this hobby. they looked over at me and said "hell yes! hell yea! that was incredible, you ripped that shit." still not realizing what just happened, i tried to smile and stood there, shin-deep in water debating whether to paddle back out again.

nights at havana have been ridiculous. i have ventured three times to this club on a friday or saturday night. with a $10-$20 cover, the crew inside is glamorous, decked out in retro gear, usually shades on to disguise their drug usage and eccentricly dancing. oh did i meantion people dance odd down here. its insane and i love it and i am going to do it when i get back to the states, no matter how weird i look. its a kinda rave, hip-hop type of dance. can't really explain it accurately, but it entails a lot of shoulder jerking and kind of swing-influenced.



alex and i bought jumpsuits-retro style-and went out there one night with lil and her friends and met up with anna and val. it was unbelievable. so unbelievable that we were there til seven am. the next day for alex and i consisted of laying in bed, watching the office, an old rob zombie film, more office and then burritos. pathetic, and absolutely divine.



alyssa and i hung out with her fam one weekend and went to the blue mountains with the fam. we met a lil british boy who was four and we fell in love with him. being with the gantz family is always great. they are such a family. lil homey house in plymouth which you always feel welcomed at with no cable--sitting there talking about life instead of being lured by tube. the family is just so real. jeremy was here but ryan wasn't. i had a couple of amazing meals with them and was very thankful to have a friend who's family makes me feel so welcome and part of their fam. i love them.



what else what else. ah yes, how can i forget...anna and i rocking out sydney. we have been trying to imagine what sydney is going to do when we leave and we can't quite figure it out. we had a ridiculous day last week on melbourne cup. we got dressed up with flowers in our hair and went out to mint during the day. we were pretty set on the alcohol when at 1:30 we realized it was stil light outside and we were wasted. we kinda thought it was a big deal and decided to take numerous pictures of us wasted with our sunnies on. after that we were hungry, made some phone calls...a quite memorable one to hamoodi, and then went to darling where we persisted to eat at three different bars and get an unecessary passionfruit martini since i messed anna up and told her to bet only for place, not win, for the seventh race. then the damn horse won. dont worry, i reckon i got enough shit for it.



besides being obsessed with people and being a stalker with alex at work and telling people we dont know that we love them, its been pretty calm here. its pretty messed up how that right when we get situated we have to think about leaving. i guess that's how life if at this age. that's how i would always want life to be rather. i dont want to ever feel stuck or not able to try something new. i would hate that. i like that i am going to thailand and i dont know where i am staying yet. i like how i am going to work in boston on new years, but i dont know how long i am going to be there for. i like that i am hopefully moving to la but can have random appearances in boston whenever i want and be with people i miss. everything messes with your head at this age, politics, feelings, emotions, life. it makes us stronger i guess.

oh and alex and i have been talking to exotic animals a lot.

slacker. i know.

so yea, way to keep your blog updated, andie. nearly a month has gone by and i have filled anyone one in on what is going on.

since melbourne there has been a few highlights:
lots of surfing
fox studios
darling harbor
spanish festival
sneaky sound system
cairns
whit sundays
boston

so first and most importantly, the surf. im still obsessed with manly, which is amazing. my board is my baby, but unfortunately i think that i am going to have to sell it before i leave because i can't bring it to asia with me. that's alright though. that means some extra dough right away when i get back to boston. corey and i caught some serious waves and i am actually starting to do some tricks.

i had my interview at fox studios and i am actually sitting at work right now. i am working for spectrum films within fox studios which is a post-production company who hosts several diffrent productions at a time. most of the productions that they host are in the editing process, but there are some who are shooting and hanging out during pre-production as well. it is basically a host facility. anyways, fox studios is awesome. it used to be a theme park and has old buidlings surrounding my office. they still have the old ride names posted up all over the place, popcorn stands and cafes. every wednesday there is a market where there are flowers, fresh fruits, vegetables, honey, breads, etc. its super cute. i had a turkish lunch today. next week i think i will finalyl try ethiopian.

i think that i have found my favorite place to go out. i love darling harbor. it is amazing. the bars and the atmosphere and the places that you can just cruz around to. anna and i went last weekend and it was too much fun. it was on a saturday after the horse races (which we didn't go to) but everyone in the bars was dressed like a flapper from the races. it was amazing. we went to bungalow 8, cargo (snuck in twice by acting like we were very important people) and have checked out slip in recently which was great as well.



the spanish fireworks and festival was at the darling harbor the week before. it was a fun night. fireworks over the water while sitting at HOME bar drinking fancy drinks. i think that i had one drink which i bought for myself. the other ones were thanks to the bartender wearing a thrift ski-sweater and faux-hawk and older gentlemen who approached us intrigued by our views on american vs. australian politics.



the weekend before spring break, we had a three day weekend. on sunday night we went to the entertainment quarter in fox studios to the forum to see sneaky sound system. they are a bondi beach based electronica band with funk and style. the concert was amazing. afterwards, jackie, alex and i met up with anna and we hit up havana bar on oxford. everyone in there was filled with drugs and there were girls wearing bathing suits accompanying the sunglasses which everyone in there was wearing.



last week we had our "spring" break in the middle of october. my last spring break ever. tear. a whole group of us went up to cairns. we stayed at a hostel called calypso. it was pretty groovy, very backpacker oriented and a lil more tropical than what we have been used to in sydney. our first night, we decided to go into town and check out gilligans. we had plans to get pretty toasty to help us sleep that night since we were going to be sky diving the next day (our nerves were getting to us a lil). the bar was a total sausage fest. the men were disgusting...i mean they were all pretty good looking, but their mannerisms and the way that they were looking, touching and making expressions towards women was degrading and frowned upon by all of us american girls. we went home at around 2 am and got in bed, ready to wake up 5 hours later to plunge towards the earth from a plane 14,000 feet high.

in the morning i awoke alex, "alex...its time to go jump out of a plane now." our canadian roomie chuckled as we all nervously got ready. cass, alex, lizzy, justin and i all went outside to wait for the bus with the other victims. we took a two hour bus ride to mission beach where we pulled up to a building on a random road and it was then our stomachs dropped. we looked over and found the tiny ass plane that we would soon be jumping out of.

it was a ten seater plane, eleven with the pilot. tiny. we walked over "inside" of the office/building. it was an open room with people doing yoga and rolling up the parachutes into the tiny ass backpacks which would be our mere means of survival. terrified, we all just sat at a picnic table waiting for our names to be called. we were called into the office and checked out a previous tape of a guy sky diving. it was motivating in two senses. it motivated me to get a video and it actually was reassuring to visually see someone survive it and the way that he felt during it. he love it. he was so thrilled and happy.

we waited around for about three hours until it was our turn. when it was, this russian dude, igor, came up to me and told me that he would be my tandem master. "i am igor (pronounced eye-gore) from russia. i have been parachuting for two months and i used to be a male gigallo." smart ass. he strapped me into the harness which felt incredibly loose and unsafe. everyone else got buckled up as we did our interview with our tandem master's video cameras and hung out.

the walk to the plane was the scariest walk i have ever had in my entire life.
i felt like there should have been bad ass theme music playing as we walked. we all piled on into the plane and i pretty much had to sit on igor's lap. another tandem master was in front of me and lizzy in front of him. alex sat across from us since she was the first one diving. her tandem master, issy, whipped out a turkey sandwich on rye and started eating it as the plane was ascending 2,000....3,000 feet. they finally closed the door at about 4,000 feet. as i looked out the window...i asked igor, "how high are we, are we about there?"

he smiled and showed me his measurement watch...4,200 feet only!!

traveling up 10,000 more feet...i swear i could see the world curving at the skyline. the ground looked like i was looking at it from a satelite and alex got ready to go. they rocked, rocked...fell. i couldn't really see that much becasue jake and lizzy were in front of me. lizzy went while igor was strapping me in, didn't see her. cassidy moves up to the door. rock...rock...plunge. that was when it happened. i couldn't speak. i just saw my friend fall out of an airplane and get sucked down by the gravity of the earth. it was as if you stuck him into one of those tubes at the bank that suck up money...although it was just falling into nothingness. blue skies all around as igor pushed me up to the door. i help onto both ends and sat on the ledge of the plan. i held on for dear life, nervous that if we fell too soon or anything bad were to happen, everything would go wrong. all i could see was blue...straight ahead, there was a dark rim of blue where the earth curved down. rock...rock...suck. we got sucked down...it hit me, this could be the last two minutes of my life. free falling towards the earth...flipping around, spinning out of control. my legs were swinging around like crazy and igor wrapped his legs around mind to keep them from flailing around. the cold wind pinched my face and my mouth was completely dry in five seconds. we free fell for 60 seconds. 60 seconds of pure fear, full of the realization that i am alive, more alive than ever.

the parachute opened when we were just under 4,000 feet. "AMAZING! UNBELIEVABLE! HOLY SHIT" i kept yelling in between telling him that i loved him for saving my life. we coasted down over the great barrier reef and landed on the beach. i couldn't believe i was on the ground. this was the ground that i was just falling towards 120 mph. this was the ground beneath me as i plummeted towards the earth. i was alive and felt incredible.



that night was a shit show. happy that we were alive we went out to the woolshed in cairns and partied. we showed our skydiving videos at the hostel on the big screen and everyone watched as jack johnson and bob marley played in the background. everytime i watch the video i relive the experience and it makes me so happy.

the next day we took a two hour boat ride out to the great barrier reef. we started off my goig snorkling. half an hour later we got a 10 minute crash course on scuba diving...got geared up and went under. i was terrified. i think i was more nervous to scuba than to jump out of a plane. i did it though, and i am happy i did. it was beautiful and an amazing experience.



after snorkling...we traveled down to airlie beach on a 12 hour over night bus ride on a greyhound. miserable. i sat in front of this dutch girl with enormously long legs...causing me to not be able to lay my seat back and i ended up laying in alex's lap. we got there and it was raining. we went to our boat and it was beautiful. the most amazing boat ever. it was named the pacific sunrise. the next four days consisted of fabulous food, wine, snorkling, cliff jumping into lagoons, beaches made of coral. it was great. it was a sad day when we docked which also led to a sad next 24 hours where our plane got delayed...cancelled...left with no accomodations or transportation in the middle of no where airport with two gates both outside. did i mention it was in the middle of nowhere?

got back to sydney on sunday afternoon. wanted to check my email, chat with long lost friends, be re-connected to the world. i had 1511 emails, 5 myspace messages, etc. insane, right? i started work two days ago. i am currently at spectrum films within fox studios australia. i take two buses to work every morning...start work at nine, hang out on the computer, visit the editing rooms and talk to wicked people. its a cool company, they host facilities for post-production work. today i helped organize and file through film rolls and stuff.

there is some good news: i am going to be traveling to south east asia (thailand, laos, cambodia, vietnam) as my graduation gift in december. i will be leaving the day of my final exam on dec. 12 and coming back to boston around the 29th. i will be working at match on new years eve to be helping out and hopefully working on a film and visiting my friends/family in boston. i dont know how long i am going to be there or what i am going to be doing besides working, but i am excited, so excited to see everyone. i dont know how long i am going to be there for since i am going to be moving to la with morgan (YAY) but when i am there i would love to see you. especially those of you i haven't seen for a year (coughcoughbeccachristiecough).

please let me know how you are all living and how your life is going. my email: averbance@gmail.com. i would love to hear about your lives, gossip, friends, families, classes, so that i can be caught up when i get back ;) lots of love.

xo,a

melbourne.

i love melbourne. it is unbelievable. i love the culture, the color, the fashion, the music everywhere, the cafes, the alleys, the galleries, brunswick street, chapel street, the people. it is amazing. the only flaw that i found was the public transportation is pretty damn expensive.

the first night that we got there, we went out to dinner (after a long nap) to the dockside and ate at this italian restaurant called medici. it was right on the water and it was based off of this fashion designer from italy. we had a bottle of red wine, cannelloni and salad and then finished off with a toberlone drink. it was amazing. then we went over to the dockside and played with all of the cool statues. haha. they were beautiful. it was a little chilly there, actually, we were freezing.



after dinner we went to the esplanade. it was so much fun. it was a triple leveled bar with bands performing, pool tables and another concert hall all in the bar. it was so ridiculously hot. everyone from the boston university program was there. the next day in our briefing before we went off for the day, our advisor asked us how many of us made it out to the espy. i think that only two people didn't raise their hands (out of 85 mind you.) after this meeting we went to the australian center for moving image which was amazing. it had an exhibit of 50 years of australian television and it was beautiful. they also had an area where you just sit down and watch short films. whenever, for as long as you want, for free. it was great.



the next day we went to the basement of myers which is pretty much my closetx1000000. it was amazing. i think i was too overwhelmed to shop though. i just spent a lot of my time looking around. i bought a little shrug thingy though. i like it. after leaving there we headed over to south yarra and met up with sami's friend, drayden. we went to lunch at this little gormet french cafe called "laurent" and then went shopping on chapel street. i found the stores i love: quick brown fox, genki, fat. they are amazing. then we got into the vintage area of town. which was amazing as all.

on the way back to the train station we went into MAC to get alyssa some makeup so that she would stop using mine :) and we met an american in there. his name was jay and he was the cutest man ever. he moved out here because he was in love with a man that he met in england and he moved out here with him. that ended and his love moved back to england but he stayed in sydney. he went to a psychic in byron bay and she told him that melbourne was calling him. two nights later, he met a man from melbourne and moved out there and has been there since (and he is still with him). kinda cute, right?

we went back to the unilodge at flinders station and got ready to go out. we went to this thai infused restaurant named "cookie" we loved it. we went to bimbos on brunswick street afterwards but it was a monday night so it was dead.

the next day we did it all over again and went shopping. we went to brunswick street and it was so fun. we are back in sydney now with a lot of stuff to do before my entire academic education ends in a week and a half. ahh!

xo, a.

wine and wildlife.

lyss, alex and i just got back from hunter valley wine tasting tours. it was my first time on anything like that so it was really a lot of fun. it was a great day for the three of us to get out of the city and see the country side and wine country. we discovered a new wine that we like to. it is called verdelho. its a white wine and it is really crisp and amazing.

yesterday, alex, liz, lyss, al and i all shot "the addict." it was amazing and so much fun. everytime i pick up the camera to do a shoot again, i forget how much i enjoy it. it makes me that much more excited to edit too. i know, i am a dork. a huge one. anyways...we shot that and then we shot parts of alyssa and liz's movie. it is a music video to this funky-ass song. it is full of glass breaking, zippers, cars beeping and moving. it is beautiful. it has some electronic piano in there too. its going to be a very cool video. anyways, i tumbled for them. it was my first time tumbling in 3 years. we went over to victoria park and i did back handsprings and front handsprings and aerials. i was so proud of myself to know that i can still put that on the "talent" part of my resume. although i can't really flex any part of my arm today without crying.

last night we went to the afl finals series. the sydney swans played the fremantle dockers. it was unbelievable. we left unilodge at around 7 to get to the game at 8. corey and i walked down to the atm and all of the other boys were standing outside. they were all just hanging out and talking, and they all had their faces painted. this man walked up to them and asked "is that an american accent i hear" and as jake replies, "yes" the man (with his little boy) starts getting up in cassidy's face and screaming at him. he said, "get out of our f***ing country you nazi cunt." (i apologize for the bad language). this was the first encounter we had with someone who really didn't like us. i guess he then got more and more in jake's face and so he had to defend himself. the little boy was standing a few feet away covering his ears, as if his father does this a lot.

it was interesting because we were a bunch of liberal, american students, studying and learning about their culture, dressed in their sporting gear, going to support their team, and this man just came up to the boys and attacked them. it was a little creepy.

the game was ridiculous. we were ten rows away from the goal post. the field is two times longer than an american football field. the men wear no pads at all and it is a mixed sport of soccer, football and hand work of volleyball. there are four quarters of 30 minutes and they have this cheer that they play at the end of the game. it goes:



Cheer, Cheer the Red and the White
Honour the name by day and by night
Lift that noble banner high
Shake down the thunder from the sky
Whether the odds be great or small
Swans will go in and win over all
While her loyal sons are marching
Onwards to victory.



after the game, everyone was talking to us and thought that it was cool that we dressed up and went to the game. overall is was a great adventure.

also as a side note, i caught my first real wave thursday morning. it was about 6 feet high and i dropped into the wave. justin and i both caught it and it was amazing. i can't wait to get better.

melbourne tomorrow (actually in 10 hours).

xo.

madness at the market.

so this weekend was insane. it was so much fun. starting out with thursday....justin and i took our new boards to manly. we take the ferry from quay over to this little surfing town and its amazing and beautiful and perfect. we caught a few waves and got slices up on our board. but they are amazing.

the next day we woke up and did it all over again...we booked out spring break, which we are all incredibly stoked about. and then we booked it out to manly. the whole crew was there and it was a riot. bondi was beautiful and fun. minus the immature 5th grade action that went on with our boys...but they are 21 year old boys. what do you expect. we surfed there but the shore was really weird. the sand was like a wall, so when you surfed in...you just crashed into the wall. no fun. later that night justin, sami, alyssa and i went to go see boris belkin play tchaikovsky in the opera house. there was a movement by beethoven and a piece by mozart as well. it was beautiful and amazing. after we went to wooloomoo bay and ate a divine dinner at china doll. not knowing what to do next or where to go, we headed to kings cross (of course) and went to world bar (of course) and had another tea kettle (of course).


and again....lizzy lyss and i woke up and took the ferry out to manly again. the waves were perfect. we went shopping at this store called surfection and stopped at supre on the way back. we got decked out and went to cargo bar. it was the most beautiful bar i have ever been to in my entire life and i loved it. lizzy and i stayed and danced the night away.

today we went to the george street market and shopped. i got gifts for lots of people and post cards that i am going to send out so be sure to IM me your address if you want one! (they are really cool by the way). alex and I rented shaun of the dead to watch tonight. pretty exciting. we also rented a couple of australian films to watch.

meat pie madness starts this week. stay tuned.

time is tissue.

i just got in from seeing snakes on a plane with alex and it really opened up some doors for me. haha. just kidding. it was a riot though. as long as you dont have problems with graphic violence and snake cam, youll like it. youll at least enjoy it for its french special fx and sound track consisting of gym class heroes.


i really have nothing interesting or cool to say. i miss a lot of things. i miss my girls, match. i miss anne marie keeping me in line, haha. i miss waitressing, weird i know. i miss the boylston crawl every night after work. i miss assholes and mean people sometimes, they keep me in check. i miss him, i miss laying there with him. i miss my gay-lover. sexually. i miss my scorpion pincher, haha. i miss the T...weird i know. but it is soooo simple compared to here.

there are new things here, they are beautiful and amazing but i am ready to travel more, i can't wait to see what the rest of the world is like. this is a very good adjustment from america to begin my explorations, but i feel that i have a long way to go before i become anything close to as cultured as i want to be. it keeps me going, my heart racing and my soul alive.

this is how the next couple of days look: surfing tomorrow morning, class, scu bar. hollar. surfing friday morning, quadA production meeting for meat pie paradise, classy ass dinner, opera house and classy ass bar. saturday, not gonna lie, prolly surfing again, dance class at the sydney dance company. ya know? sunday: markets...george street, hitting up the rocks baby.

xo, a.

p.s. if you want anything specific from here let me know...otherwise, im getting your ass something random.

seven mile beach

so we had surf camp this weekend. imagine hammocks and cabins and barbies and beaches and cute surf instructors. got it? nice. now think of rain, 20* weather, hail and sleet while on the water and winds up to 50 mph. yes that was what we endured this weekend. honestly, now we can handle anything.

we spend 48 hours cooped up in blankets, towels, steam from hot showers, anything to keep us warm. getting our wetties on was a psychological challenge that we all had to overcome. i was proud of all of us.

on the way back j. and i bought boards. were super stoked, we are going to surf off of circular quay (i know it looks like QUAY, but it is actually pronounced KEY--weird, right?)

besides surf camp, i am getting really excited for my internship. i think that my advisor wants to set me up with spectrum which is within fox studios. so as long as i dont mess up, ill be good to go. i am bored as all hell in class. we are taking a video production class and learning about composition, angles, structuring ideas and how to make storyboard. this is all old news for the four of us but really really informative for everyone else. it is starting to get exciting now because we are going to be workingon our film. alex, alyssa, liz and i are going to do to a 20/20/christopher guest/mock-documentary style film on a girl obsessed with mean pies. genious, i know. thanks alex.

i just got back from the notorioius 2078. we were watching the beginning of the second season to LOST which is bad news. that is all that will be going on for the next 4-5 days. just a forwarning.

we are thinking about wine tasting this weekend, possibly a show, definitely dance and surfing. the uni gym is pretty key. went today, lots of aussie boys for liz and dee to scope out. lots.

still sore from camp, also have a rash burn on my neck from the wettie. yea, we were real, bad-ass surfers this weekend.

xo,
a.

sydney

so everything had been insane. honestly. from when we left bondi and came here it has been all about class, school. orientation and going out. not that it hasn't been incredible, its just been a little chaotic.

first day we got here we discovered how ripped off my room mate and i were in our room. honestly, i mean it is better than rich floor three, but it is pretty freakin small. the place we are staying is called unilodge and it is pretty much like a hotel. they give you everything you need...except they forgot to give us a couch so we just stole one from the common room. the first weekend was full of boat cruises, surf lessons, free food and drinks with the professors and advisors and pregamming with our floors mates.

we pretty much have a team of friends that rock. we all pregame everynight by playing kings in joeys room on the deck, drinking a bottle of sparkling wine named "pink" between lizzy and i, and knocking each other about our pasts, presents and futures. we all know each other too well already that we are making fun of each other and calling one another out.



weve gone out to a plethora of places. first night we went to a grungy bar because no one wanted to pay a cover at abercrombie hotel. then we went to abercrombie hotel the next night and rocked our asses off. lizzy and i clicked way too much and integrated the running man into australian culture. we jumped on the dance floor with some guy dancing alone and a lesbian couple and started the dance party that ended with a lost purse and sore feet.

the next day lizzy and i explored the sydney dance company. we signed up for classes and learned an amazing dance to sexy back. it was amazing and fun. on our way home we went to china town where they were having a spanish fiesta with a mix of australian and latin culture. we had sushi for the second time that day and went home to listen to music and chill.

the beginning of the week was insane. we started classes, which for us film students are 5 and a half hours long. we had two guest speakers this week, one of which was peter faiman (director of croc dundee) which was pretty cool considering i grew up on that film and it was one of the reasons i wanted to come to australia in the first place. the video production class is hard to sit through though, at least for alex, alyssa, jake and i. this is about our 5th time learning about composition, exposure, story boards and types of shots.

the other class we are taking is about australian culture and society. this week we learned about aboriginals and how they each kangaroo pizza.

the other night i went out with the boys to the star city casino. it was a riot. i played craps and blackjack and won a good amount of money at the slots. it was good to be out with the boys, even though it doesn't even compare to my boys at home.

we are off at 6 today to travel north for a three day surf camp. it should be amazing. it is kinda chilly here right now but it is a little closer to the equator so we are keeping our heads high. we get surfboards and wetsuits and everything, so it should be fun no matter what.

all in all, it has been amazing and crazy and hectic. it is fun here and i just had a meeting with my advisor who is thinking that he wants to send me out to be a PA for my internship. that is exactly what i wanted to do and it makes me really really excited that he had faith in me that i can do that and that he is willing to send me out as a representative from boston university for a position like that. it is going to start getting academically insane when we get back from the surf camp, so who knows what is going to go on.

ill keep you all posted. sorry i have been a loser with postings. heres some pictures :)

grunge and gaelic

the past two days have been remarkably unbelievable.

so our hostel kinda smells...but its all good. the four of us are sharing a room with a kiwi (new zealander) and a brit from the uk. they are both cool, but it is hard to move around the room because of the large amount of luggage the four of us brought. lousy americans.

last night was our first night in the city center. we took the 380 bus from bondi to oxford st. it was around 430 when we got into the town and the good restaurants weren't open yet, so we grabbed a drink at a bar across the way. it was a little pub with arcade casino games and two juke boxes which consisted of "80s hits" and three david bowie albums. however, for some reason they kept playing "milkshake" by kelis or whatever the hell her name is.

we went over to clove when it opened. it was an indian restaurant and we were the only people in there. the owner helped us pick out wine (grenache shiraz) and our meals. cassidy and lyss got korma which came out bright yellow with so much flavor and zing it was unbelievable and i had veggie tikki masala that they specially made for me. the four of us sat at the table having another one of our philosophical talks about life, sex, drugs and whatnot. we waved at the chef and thanked everyone for a great time.

we walked down the road towards the gaelic club and stopped at the "shakespeare hotel." one thing that i feel necessary to not is the style here. everyone here is me. no joke: cons, vans, funky shades, weird hair, mix-matched outfit, piercings, tattoos, music savvy. its weird to look around and constantly be checking everyone out. everyone has a grungy edge which is beautiful and i love it.

went to we are scientists last night and made friends with a bunch of oz girls. they said they "loved my accent" which i think is hilarious. the bar was packed and fun and crazy. after the show we made friends with the bar manager and watched 10 or so oz boys play cricket inside the theater and all hung out with free coronas. we hung out with them all the way back to their apartment where they lived in a condo style beautiful amazing complex with a multi-colored changing elevator. no lies.

and we all looking totally rockstar (that's for my boy).

the coolest thing so far is the fact that they dont like americans here, however, whenever we meet people, we have been able to completely change the way they view americans. they have preconcevied notions about americans and how stuck up, rushed, snobby, rude and stupid we are. but everyone that we have talked to, we have been able to change their minds. its the best feeling in the world knowing that we have made them realize that we all aren't like that and they are accepting of us.

also, i was talking with alex as we were sitting on bedrock over looking the ocean at the beach this morning, we were talking about my personality and who i am. i am a very unique person who has two different sides. i have my laid-back, free spirited, tranquil personality and then i have my intense, motivated and determined side. the thing that i like about being here is it makes me a better person. the environment is condusive to helping me be calm and love life and relax as opposed to most places i have lived in the states which make me stressed and unhappy.

btw: aussie music-damn arms, cut copy, dappled city flies, kisschassy, shaky hands. american music that they actually respect here unlike in the states: the strokes, dandy warhols, hot chip, chromeo, imogen, amazingness.

bondi beauty

words cannot explain the immacuate beauty present at bondi beach. unbelievable.

the flight wasn't too bad. the first couple of hours we played with our personalized televisions with music, cinema, television, games and more as we were served penne pasta with a mushroom sauce. coconut macroons as a desert.

the next nine ours we passed out thanks to two glasses of wirra wirra shiraz (free) and a valum. watching movies such as traffic and american beauty and the office (british or american) the flight flew by--no pun intended.

when we woke up, we had breakfast ready for us with delightful oz flight attendants at our hand and foot. it was pretty much glorious...even in coach.

when we arrived we piled into a caravan taxi where alex, jake and i sat backwards watching alyssa and the back of the window where cars where flying by on the opposite side of the road. our luggage is insane. we arrived at backpacker's paradise at "nomad's" hostel where there is a bar and restaurant and pool and darts and cafe and tv room.

we dropped off our bags and decided to explore bondi. we walked down the shoreline looking for places to go and discovering the beautiful city mixed between san diego sidewalks, san franciso style houses, hawaii ocean, british shops and cafes and the friendliest people in the world.

at our first meal was at this cafe trio. brilliant. we all tried vegimite. i think that i was the only one who kinda enjoyed the bitter taste of it. we have to go check into the hostel now. its kinda nice because we aren't tired at all because since what we pretty much did was travel around the world, we just missed a day entirely.

the day of the 27th never existed to us.