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I finally finished my 3 sit in finals. I think I did pretty well but the grades will be released soon so only time will tell. I can't believe how time flew by. What an incredible journey it has been and the experiences I've had here have been amazing. I feel that being in a country by yourself and away from home for an extended time really teaches you quite a lot about yourself and about life in general. I have always been naive to many things and not really exposed to a lot. I think being abroad I really had to understand and learn quickly and come out of my shell to make friends. I will always remember and cherish the memories and amazing experiences I've had in Adelaide and the other places I have traveled. I truly recommend to everyone that can take an opportunity to study abroad. It really has been the best decision I could have made for myself.
The day after my last final I welcomed one of my best friends, Ariana, to Adelaide to travel around and show her what Adelaide and Australia are all about. It was so great to meet her at the airport and welcome her to Adelaide the place where I had spent the last 5 months living my life. It was extra special for her to come to Adelaide because since my family was not able to it meant a lot that I could show her what my life has been like living in Adelaide. After greeting her at the airport we traveled to the city and into my apartment so she could drop off her things. Then we traveled into Rundle Mall, around Rundle Street, then on North Terrace, to the Uni, and around the river Torrens. I took her to the places where I went every day. That night we went back to my apartment and we started a nightly ritual of watching the British television show, Geordie Shore, it was a short lived guilty pleasure.
The next day, we met up with two of my friends Jacinta and Fiona from my accounting class for lunch in China town at this Hong Kong restaurant I had been to before with one of my friends from Hong Kong, Stacy. We ate a nice lunch and they had set up for us to go to a Karaoke bar in Chinatown. Karaoke is apparently a really big thing in Korea so this was a Korean Karaoke bar. I'm not super into Karaoke but I thought it would be interesting and fun. And boy was it! We got our own private room for 6$ per person for 1.5 hours. They had probably 30 rooms in this place with some fitting up to 30 people! The room had a huge surround sound system and a long list of artists and songs. And you could probably guess what the first song was… Blank Space by Taylor Swift. We continued to sing our hearts out and enjoy the time together. It was really fun and very enjoyable. I'm so glad they had suggested it as an activity for all of us to do together. Friday night, I took Ariana to San Churro, the Spanish Churro place; we ordered churros and milk chocolate to dip and hot chocolate. YUM! Although, the hot chocolate I got this time was literally like drinking melted thick chocolate so it was insanely rich.
Saturday we went to Monarto Zoo, the largest free range zoo in the world. Getting there really makes you appreciate the great thing of having a car to drive. Monarto is about 1.45 hours outside of Adelaide which makes it inaccessible by Metro bus. We took a Metro bus about an hour outside of the city where we had to catch another bus through a private company. I expected the bus to be about 3$ a person but when we ordered our tickets together and he said 20$ my mouth just about dropped. Monarto was further than I expected it to be so the price made sense if you thought about having to put gas into a car. It was still cheaper than renting a car and gassing it up. But any who, once we got to Monarto it was really cool. It takes you around in a big coach bus to different sections where a variety of species of animals are wandering about from antelopes, to deer, to giraffes, to black and white rhinos, and cheetahs, to emus and wallabies. Each section had an observation deck where you could see the animals from pretty close and the enclosures were very large for all the animals to roam around in. All the zoo keepers had talks where they fed the animals in front of you while talking about the animal to you for a close glimpse. The zoo really was fantastic and a great experience.
On Sunday, we went to Adelaide Gaol (jail, we still don't know how to pronounce that) where it was active between 1841-1988. They didn't do many renovations between that time either so many of the cells were quite tiny and fit up to 8 people in them so they would have bunk beds and hanging cots. I believe they said about 50 people were killed there. They were hung in a tower with the last man hung being in 1960 quite outdated for hangings. The gaol had an inner wall where all the prisoners were kept in cells and an outer wall for security. In between the walls were grave sites for convicts that were hung with about 30 or so in between the walls.
On Monday, we went to Gorge Wildlife Park so Ariana could hold a koala and feed kangaroos. The weather was a bit cold but turned out to be really great for the day. We fed many kangaroos and saw probably record breaking amounts of pregnant or carrying mothers. Several of the kangaroos had joeys in their pouches and a few wallabies did as well. Just so many babies around the park! It wasn't even just the kangaroos and wallabies but birds lots of birds had new born babies as well. It was fun to get to feel and feed the little joeys and see them pop in and out of their moms pouch. Then we hopped in line to hold the koalas. It's pretty quick but still a definite experience! Ariana loved it too! Monday was also the last 6$ pizza night of gourmet fancy pizza with half the things on it no one knows what it even is. These pizzas are typically 18-22$ so 6$ is a steal and they are delicious. Monday night, I also had two of my friends from Hong Kong over, Stacy and Cecilia. Together we put together a fruit cake and man was it good looking and delicious. We made the cream, cut strawberries, shredded chocolate, and made one beautiful cake. It was so fun and creative and did I mention yummy!
Tuesday was our last day in Adelaide and move out day. Which meant a stressful day for me to clean everything to almost perfection so I wouldn't get any extra charges. At the beginning of my move in it's required to put down a bond. My bond is worth almost 1000$ so if they charged me for anything that money would just slowly disappear and no one wants that especially a broke student who just finished studying abroad. I was super paranoid about everything and stressed that I hope it was as clean as possible. It was for sure cleaner than how I got it on the first day. Once all that was done it was off to the airport and onto our next destination… Sydney in New South Wales!
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