Hello! So it is extremely hard for me to fathom, but i have been here for almost 2 months!! I am to the point now where all my dreams pertain to aussie or I'll dream about people from home but we will be here, so strange! I am also to the point where I can not even imagine being anywhere else. I now consider myself a local and am no longer a tourist, except of course when I travel. My classes are all relatively easy, and I have already had a a mid-term and several quizzes. Technically I am done with university at the end of october; so I really only have 6 more weeks of class because we have a week of for spring break the last week in september. It's been so long since I last wrote so I'll just do some summarizing with a few details about what i have been doing in my life here. I have been to two rugby games, one in the Gold Coast and one in Brissy. It is unbelievable that the players don't wear any padding or helmets, they just use their muscles! As seen from my photos, my friends at the Goldie got a VW van, so we decided to drive it down to Byron Bay for the weekend and just camp and surf. Byron Bay is about a 45 minute drive away from the gold coast, and it is by far my favorite place in Australia! I would describe it as being very lush and green. This was one of the best weekends. We camped in our friends' backyard in the van and woke up early every morning to go discover new places to surf. My favorite beach happened to be a nude beach(no worries, i was not a part of that). It was very secluded and we had to take about a km long path through the jungle to get there. It was called Broken Heads Beach, and I have already decided I am living there when I retire, which is hopefully very soon hah! I am hoping to make it back down to Byron at least two more times, and it will be even more amazing since it will be summer and not winter when I return. Moving on...there is this huge fair in Brisbane called Ekka that is held here every year. I don't really understand it, but I guess people from all over aussie bring their livestock animals and show them at Ekka. Besides that, there is a massive carnival, a horce racing track, a wood chopping arena(don't ask), tons of booths set up with samples of food and drink products, and a petting zoo. It is a week long fair, and on one of the days, the whole city of Brisbane gets the day off to go enjoy it. Yes, you read right, I got a day off uni to go ride carnival rides, such a tough life. About the weather: we had a week long streak of rain, so that got a little depressing. I started thinking the sun was not going to shine again, but soon enough it did. The rain was actually a blessing for Queensland because they are experiencing the worst drought in history right now. The rain gave them a chance to fill all the water bins, so while I was not happy for the sole reason of just wanting to play in the sun, the whole state of Queensland was ultimately benefitting. There is an outdoor climbing wall that is lit up 24/7 right by my apartment so I have had the joy of climbing quite a bit, and also running on the boardwalk is my new favorite hobby. Julia is coming here in 2 weeks, and I am counting down the days! We are going to the whitsunday islands for my spring break, which is going to be unbelievable. We rented a van that has a bed in it, and we are going to road trip up there. It is about a 14 hour drive from Brisbane, but we are going to break it up by stopping at Fraser Island and other national parks along the way. My heart goes out to everyone coping with the fires in Sun Valley, and hopefully they will get them undercontrol soon! Love you all, cheers@!