For any of you that have checked the date, and know that I just recently wrote this first blog.. you know I'm only about ohhhh.... 3 and a half months behind. Typical on my part for being late.. but better late than never, right?

So on February 3 2008, I jumped on a plane, skipped a day out of my life, (that's right - skipped, by crossing the international date line I will never exist of February 4, 2008) and ended up in Fiji. Although I had always wanted to study abroad, actually throwing it all together was very last minute and spontaneous. I didn't have any of my girl friends going with me and only one of my good guy friends I knew was going to Newcastle as well. We had planned on flying together.. I say planned, because he never showed up for our connecting flights. Just my luck... I didn't bring my U.S. cell phone with me so I didn't have his or any of our friends' phone numbers to call and see what the deal was while I was still in range in the states. So I just went with it and enjoyed my time in Fiji.. a few people from Europe, who I met at the hostel, and I ended up getting in a fight with a sketchy cab driver on the way into town and got left on the side of the road. To sum up my time Fiji, I had my first hostel and sketchy Fijian local experience. Unfortunately, we never made it off the main island but still made the most out of our time there.

On to Australia.... attempting to adjust to the time change aka living in the future, was hard enough to do considering the ridiculous sleep schedule I'd been following for the last couple years. I finally reach my home in Newcastle.. where it was pouring down rain. And that didn't let up for the next week or two. The locals claim it was the worst weather they had in years - just my luck again. I meet up with my landlords - one of many awkward encouters to come with them. We all went to eat and at this point, I began to realize how ridiculously expensive everything is here - not to mention how much worse it is now because our exchange rate is terrible. Nine of the eleven of the "Church Street" roommates (most from the south) flew in this day so we got several bottles of wine, played drinking games, and all passed out pretty early since we weren't yet adjusted to the time change. Probably one of the weeks in my life anyone will see me in bed before midnight or voluntarily getting up before 9am. The next day we headed down to Newcastle Beach... just five minutes from our house. Not two minutes after we lay our towels out I look over and Phil - the guy I was originally supposed to fly here with - is walking onto the same beach at the same time as us. Talk about ironic.. and a huge relief.

That night (Thursday) a bunch of the international kids from the states met at our house to go out together.. to the Kent.. where we've come to find is the only bar open in Newy other than on Wed, Fri, Sat, and Sun nights. I met my first Aussie friends that night from Brisbane, learned that accepting a drink from a guy=they follow you around for the remainder of the night and that you can't get noticeably drunk at the bar or you'll get thrown out. Communicating with Australians is much harder than I imagined considering they speak English. Lots of times they can't understand me and vice versa due to our accents and slang but somehow it all works out. We also learned that it was going to be a long semester with boxed wine, because anything else here is at least three times of the price it is in the states. Nevertheless, that night still stands as one of the best pre-gaming nights in Australia.

The next night I ended up at Fanny's (not only one of the best clubs in Newy but also the Australian term for 'vagina'.. you figure that one out).. I got separated from all of my roommates without a cell phone yet and then it started pouring out, and when it pours here.. it pours like you've never seen in the states. Being me.. I wasn't about to walk home in that. I finally met a really pretty Australian girl in the bathroom that I hung out with for a while... and then later turned out to be a lesbian and tried hitting on me. I ditched that scene and wandered around until I found people I knew. To top things off, one of my shoes broke and and when I finally found my guy friends, we were all out of cash for a taxi.. and had one hell of a time getting a cab to take us anywhere. Finally we grab one in the rain, and they let us charge the fare. After losing my purse at a apartment complex after this and the cabs we call from there not showing up for us... we eventually walk back to the hostel.. where they've forgotten the code to get in after hours and have to break in through one of the hostel bedroom windows. I don't know about you, but I would freak out if I ever woke up to some guy breaking into my sketchy hostel room window at 4am. Might I also add, they nearly busted their ass doing this... which after the night I had, I managed to get a good laugh out of.

The next day my roommates and I go to Stockton Beach (a breeding ground for sharks) - needless to say, I didn't get near the water, and we met up with our Aussie bloke friends who were in town from Brisbane for a surfboat competition. We watched that and ended up getting stuck in the rain again, because it started storming. :( We all went out to The Brewery that night... and found out how much Aussie guys LOVE to dance here.. more than American girls do in the states. One.. HUGE problem for most of us is that.. by dancing here, like you do in America.. you are immediately labeled as easy trashy etc.. you get the picture. And if you ever saw how Australians dance, you'd hold off on the dancing for a while as well. In a nutshell... we dance "down".. they dance "up". That night, another one of my roommates was followed into a bathroom stall by a lesbian and another one approached on the dance floor by a 6 foot lesbian woman with french braid pig tails - I am not quite sure what the deal with that is here.

Around this time was when I began getting pretty sick.. and have somehow managed to remain sick until now. Maybe it's the excessive drinking.. maybe it's the lack of sleep.. or maybe it's that we live like beggars here... or maybe it's a combination of all three... who knows. We decided early on that we live like poor people here and hit up free things at ANY possible chance we get - which has somewhat turned into a very competitive contest. One upside to higher prices is that there is no tipping in Australia.

We also went through a couple 21st Birthdays. It's too bad that they don't celebrate 21st birthdays in Australia like they do in the states - obviously because the drinking age is 18 here, but we all made the most of it for them. Shannon, one of my roommates, and I both woke up with an eye infection after a crazy night in the techno room at Fannys, a place that's notoriously a little dodgy/dirty but way too much fun - but we were both pissed because we concluded we were going blind from Fannys. We were also 'rejected' from our first bar here after one of our guy friends yelled at the bouncers and they saw Shannon get stuck in one of the street gutters by herself for a while. We ended up home later that night 'drunk skyping' our friends/family... or.. at least, I did. Shannon was sitting next to me talking nonsense for a while until I realized she had been repeatedly test calling skype out of boredom/drunkeness until 6am.. which I still don't let her live down.

We went out for dinner for Samantha's 21st birthday, another one of my roommates, where I had my first bowl of wedges - one of the most amazing foods here in Australia. Shannon and I also scored a couple points and stole forks for our house because we are poor and our house was running low. We get back that evening and are all sitting around on our laptops.. when Kal starts screaming... after we all almost break our laptops by hurling them off of us to jump onto the couches we find out that she had seen a mouse/rat run into our fireplace. WONDERFUL!!! Now that joke about us being poor almost needs to stop because our roommate claims "we have rats now.. we actually are poor. And mice are one thing.. but rats are street hood." We all pile into and share beds next door because of this event - which is still a problem to this day... because some rats here are the size of.. opossums!

The first couple weeks in Newcastle was really just a big blur - especially now. Classes didn't start at "Uni" for us until mid-late February and I lucked out with class only three days a week - one of which I actually have to attend. Good thing for me because campus is nearly an hour away once all the travel time is added up. We learned how much more envirnoment friendly it is here. No heating or air conditioning, no dishwasher, and line drying our clothes. Not exactly your idea of a 1.5 million dollar house, right? Yep, we lucked out with a 1.5 mil dollar house on the beach with a 3rd floor balcony overlooking the city.. talk about amazing. Everything is much more laid back and everyonneeeee I've met here is overly friendly and helpful. By far some of the nicest people I've ever met.

I know this is over due... and long... sooo I'll cut it here. This really only covers about the first month I was here, and no traveling as of yet so I'll save much - much - much more for later... aka.... when I have a huge project due the following day in a class and need to procrastinate. Cherry-O!

Top Aussie Songs: Potbelleez - Don't Hold Back, and Alex Gaudino feat Crystal Waters - Destination Unknown

Most notorious Aussie terms I learned by this time: mate (close friend), full on (intense), hook in (kiss), bloke (boy), rage (party), Uni (college), Sunnies (sunglasses), Pluggers (flip flops), Boardies (swimming suit), Trolleys (grocery cart), brelly (umbrella), brekky (breakfast), dodgy (sketchy), chips (french fries), massive, heaps (these 2 are self-explanatory)