Alrighty, to save confusion, I just wanted to give you all a quick low-down on people and places that I'm sure will feature heavily over the next 13 weeks!

Cool people…

First of all there's the Aussie crew. We are loud and crazy and seem to have been magnetically drawn together within the first week haha

Leah - 19, from Sydney, goes to Macquarie, is now living in McTaggart Cowen, we met on Contiki, crazy and loud and specialises in a dance entitled the "praying mantis" (I'll do my best to get video footage)

Brad, Rosie, & Bianca are the other remaining Contiki crew - Brad's an engineer from Perth who's been living like a bum in a hostel for a while now haha but is headed way up North to do three weeks on three weeks off soon, Rosie's technically a Kiwi (though she has been known to get confused and tell people she's Aussie after spending so much time with us awesome people =P) and she's on exchange at UBC, Bianca's a Perth girl who's now living down town near Science World and will be working here til the end of the year

Mia - from Adelaide, also living McTaggart, really lovely and sweet

Anthea - also from Macquarie in Sydney, almost homeless, only found out she got into Rez a couple of days ago (McTaggart) so is super stoked not to be living on the streets right now

Jacqui & Emma - the ANU gals from Canberra who live down in Townhouse 91, both Psych majors like me

Then there's the international crew…

Veronique - teeny tiny and SO sweet, from Holland, studying Psych, living in Shell House

Helle - even teeny tinier than Veronique and from Norweigh, very blonde, very big blue eyes, totally gorgeous and totally Norweigan!

And a few very awesome Canadians thrown in for good message…

Jesse - our token male when we go out haha, lives down in 91, crazy mad skier, enjoys pretty much any kind of activity that has a high risk factor (ie. Thinks base jumping would be the coolest thing to do ever…like I said, totally crazy! Lol)

Jess - another Psych student who lives just across the road from me in Louis Riel family housing with her boyfriend, we're gonna be yoga buddies this semester on Monday night and work on becoming totally zen whilst I work on selling the idea to her that going on exchange is totally the best thing ever and she should definitely DEFINITELY come to Aus!

Erica - a Canadian Psych student who lives about 10 minutes from campus and is a great source of info about the city from a local's point of view ie. Which places are actually worth going to as opposed to be touristy and overrated!

Cool places…

Townhouse 91 - right down the bottom of the town houses hill next to the "magical forest" hehe definite party potential and the site of most of our pre-drinks plus Monday night cook-offs (this week curry, next week pad thai…I'm thinking I'm gonna have to bust out my roast vege salad seeing as the only condition of the meal is you have to get the cost down to $2.50 a head, and it must include vegetables! See what responsible young people we are? Hehe)

Cornerstone - my new favourite spot for coffee, kinda like a mini village of shops right up the end of campus with some really nice little restaurants and shops and an organic market that sells coffee for 30c when you bring your own cup! Went up there for coffee this morning with Jess & Erica and picked up cheap lunch using one of the many vouchers I got during O week (haha I have them all nicely cut up and inside my wallet so I remember to use them, Jo you would tell me I'm being such a Jewish mother! =P)

The Shadow - the pub down the bottom of Burnaby Mountain that apparently goes off on a Wednesday night…I wouldn't know. We got there at 8:00pm last night and there was a MASSIVE line that we waited in for a good hour or so before deciding it was probably a no deal and heading home (this kinda sucks because you have to get there really quite early…but I have a 3 hour lecture on a Wednesday arvo til 6:30…thank goodness for i-lecture =D lol)

The AQ (Academic Quadrangle) - which is where I'm sitting right now! Oo wait, I'll take a photo - check it out, pretty amazing huh? I'm coming up here as much as possible at the moment cause it has the best view of the mountains but pretty soon this will all be covered in cloud so I'm making the most of the fine weather…it's a really nice, quiet place to sit and study or read or just look…OK it's getting kinda chilly now so I might head it (yes, it's chilly and it's only September!!)

OK so that's the update for now! It's a been a super fun first week and all us international students have a boat cruise round Vancouver Harbour tomorrow night, which will no doubt be full of fun shenanigans! I'll most likely spend the night at Jan Louise's and then may head up to Whistler on Saturday after checking out the festivities down in Granville Island in the morning…*sigh* it's a tough life! Haha

Love you all =)

LIVxo