Weekend Adventure

The past week has been heaps busy in school. It is mid-semester and of course we have plenty of assignments due.

Cameron, Caitlin, and I left early Thursday morning to fly up to Brisbane. We arrived in Brisbane and drove to the Gold Coast to visit Ned and Caleb for the weekend on our way to their hostel we stopped at Surfers Paradise. It was great to see them and where they’re living. We cooked out hamburgers that night and caught up on life. To save a little money, we slept in their station-wagon, it was a tight squeeze but so fun J The next day we spent the day in Coolangatta and surfed. We also made a stop at the Billabong and Quicksilver outlets. We slept on the beach that night and gazed at the stars. The next day we snuck into a resort and after searching 15 floors we finally found the pool and hot tubs J That night Caleb, Caitlin, and I went to a movie while Cameron helped Ned work at the hostel. Caleb took us to a place called Point Danger and we climbed around the rocks overlooking the ocean. We sat on a rock enjoying the night and catching up on our lives. The next day we went to Byron Bay, a hippie beach town. We hiked up to a lighthouse and enjoyed the Gold Coast. We drove back to Brisbane that night and slept in the airport for an early flight back to Newcastle the next day. It was a beautiful weekend and we missed the other girls. We are all reunited back at our home and planning our next weekend in Sydney J

Holiday in New Zealand

6 friends: Cameron, Caitlin, Devin, Trenton, Chris, and Me

10 days

1 camper van

South Island, New Zealand

Our trip started off by waking up at 3 am to catch a flight from Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand. When I arrived in New Zealand I found the hostel and explored Christchurch a little bit. I crashed early that night and woke up the next morning to find the girls running up to the hostel after they had just pushed the broken campervan down the street. Once we got a new camper van, we started our adventure around the south island. Our first stop was Lake Tekapo where we found a nice spot off the side of the road for our first night of sleep. Surprisingly, a few snowflakes had fallen that morning and we were all unprepared for the chilly weather. We began to realize that nature pee’s and no showers would be common this trip J

Waking up at Lake Tekapo was beautiful; we explored around the lake and found a tiny beautiful church that overlooked the lake. The water was incredibly blue from the glaciers and as we traveled that day we were amazed by the breathtaking views so of course we stopped off along scenic points whenever we got a chance. On our drive to Wanaka, we came across a “free food” sign and pulled over to check it out. New Zealand is starting a “driver reviver” program to keep their drivers’ safe and alert. We got free lattes, apples, bbq, candy, etc. It was amazing and much needed J

We made it to Wanaka and gazed at the stars that night. We pulled off the side of the road to sleep that night and apparently it is illegal. We were woken up at 4:45 am to a loud knock from the council of security. They made us move or the cops were coming to fine us. Chris frantically yet half asleep quickly drove away to another location.

The boys went skydiving and the girls enjoyed a beautiful day at the hot pools. We met up with the boys and heard about their thrilling adventure and finished the night by eating dinner by the lake and enjoying the sunset. We headed to Queenstown that night. Once we arrived we walked along the quaint little town and ran into Mike and Sean (friends from Clemson). We got to catch up a little and they decided to crash along our trip for a few days with us. We sat and listened to live music.

BUNGY JUMPING NEVIS!!! We woke up with nerves, knowing we would be jumping 143 meters from a pod. We made it and all jumped. It was an incredible peaceful experience and we all made it alive (although I got a hemorrhage in my left eyeball from the negative force) but no worries, I have another eyeball J It was definitely worth the thrilling experience. We went hiking afterwards and at the top of the mountain there was a luge. It was hilarious and so fun as we all luged back down the mountain. That night we headed for Milford Sound. On our way to Milford Sound we found a fallen avalanche that had formed into an igloo.

Milford Sound was beautiful but once we got there we decided to explore around. We found a gate that we climbed over and trekked through to arrive upon a giant waterfall and to get better views of this place. It was incredible.

On our way to Mt. Cook, we stopped off at Chasm. We hiked and got lost in a jungle where the boys found a cliff that led into the glaciered water. After we strategically climbed down to capture photos of the boys jumping off the cliff we headed back through Queenstown to grab dinner before we arrived at our next stop, Mt. Cook.

On our way to Mt. Cook, we all had to entertain ourselves and stay awake by singing and dancing to requested songs. And each night we had the lovely opportunities of hearing stories about gnomes that Trenton would creatively make up and share with the van-winches. As we drive all through New Zealand we have realized that more sheep inhabit the land than humans. Thousands of sheep, farm-raised deer, elk, cows, and lamas populate New Zealand.

Once we got to Mt. Cook, we hiked up Tazman glacier lake and blue pools. It was beautiful and on our last night we stopped in a town called, Geraldine. It was the creepiest town but we needed to charge up our vehicle at a trailer park J

We arrived back at the camper van place to turn it in and in hopes that they wouldn’t see the crack that we put in the side and a few other damages along the way. The boys flew out that night and we stayed another night at a backpackers in Christchurch. The next morning I went to the airport, yet couldn’t fly out because the flights were too full for standby. I was stuck in the airport and slept on the floor that night. I was able to fly out the next morning and make it back home to Newcastle.

New Zealand is an incredibly beautiful place.

Easter in Sydney

Happy Easter!

To kick off our fall break aka spring break aka Easter holidays, we woke up at the crack of dawn (5:30) to catch a train to Sydney. I think we looked pretty good, considering the hour...

Three hours later, we hopped off at Central station and lugged all of our bags to the Sydney Entertainment Centre for Hillsong’s Good Friday morning service. It was wonderful, of course, and then we made the fifteen minute trek to the X Base Hostel, where we were split up into two rooms. Just in case we forgot anything, there were (literally) 8 outdoor stores up and down the street of X Base. Lindsey, Cameron, and I got lucky enough to share a room with an almost naked 70 year old German man and two 23 year old English guys. We stayed up pretty late talking about where we were traveling, where we have been, and different cultures. It was my first hostel experience and I really liked it! Lindsey had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to catch her plane to New Zealand and German man had to wake up at 5:00 to catch his flight home, so there wasn’t much sleeping in our room.

That night we all went to see a movie and on our way back, Elyse and I happened to run into our friends Rob and Lauren busking on the street. Confused? That means that they were playing music on the streets. It was so random that we ran into them and along with about fifty other people, we stood around and watched them play all of our favorites: Coldplay, Tom Petty, Oasis... you name it, they played it. What a little fun surprise that was...
We spent Saturday walking around Sydney and going to the Opera House. I could not believe how massive it was! We didn’t get to go in though because they have it all locked up unless you want to pay lots of money. Shocking. Fortunately, we were too preoccupied with the spectacular views of the Harbour Bridge and sweet trees surrounding it to notice too much. But good news, everybody! We got to touch it :) Here are our super excited faces!

Then we hurried back so that Devin, Caitlin, and Cameron could catch the shuttle to the airport for their flight. They are spending all week in New Zealand with Trenton and Chris driving a campervan around and exploring. I’m sure Lindsey will update you when she gets back. In the meantime, Brandi came up to Sydney to hang out with Elyse and I for the rest of the weekend. She and I even got to share a little twin mattress on the top of a bunkbed due to overcrowding at the inn...I mean hostel.

Saturday night, Rob took us to The Shark Hotel for a buffet dinner, which was really awesome. It was followed by the most interesting dessert restaurant I have ever experienced. Imagine an Asian hole-in-the-wall that is up two flights of dark stairs. You sit down, order a game off of a menu (we chose Jenga) and order some sort of ice cream or pie. For entertainment, Asian music videos are playing on tv screens around the place. To anybody who wants to open a business, I recommend doing that. I wish so badly that we had somewhere like that in Clemson! Oh, the hours of endless fun I could have...

For Easter Sunday, we went to Hillsong in the morning. The service was so much different than anything I have ever seen. On a big screen, we saw short little sermons from pastors across the four campuses. It is always good to be with a body of believers and in the Lord’s house. I love how you can travel across the world and still feel at home.We spent the afternoon walking around Sydney some more, and then headed back to Hillsong for the Film and Arts Festival. The art here was captivating…I found myself wandering off and just getting drawn in to different pieces of art that were all in some way related to our faith.

After this, Brandi, Elyse, and I made it back to the train to make our way back home. Several question games, never have I evers, and songs later, we made it back to our home where we crashed pretty fast. What a weekend! Sydney is so much fun. It’s kind of like New York except cleaner and there is less worthless junk sitting around. It easily makes one of my top five favorite cities to visit. Here is our "happy to be in Sydney" faces. Not really, but I had to come up with some excuse for my ridiculously happy face.On the schedule for this week: Blackbutt Reserve for koala and kangaroo sighting/petting/holding. Yay!

Girls in the Tent...SHUT UP!!!

We have so much to catch everybody up on, it's not even remotely funny. Get ready for an annoyingly long blog. I promise to make it less bumpy than our ride in Pedr's truck on the sand dunes. :)

Speaking of Pedr, his family invited all of us over to their house for dinner last week. It was so delightful! Mrs. Rooney made us a chicken and chick pea curry dinner that was probably one of the best things I have had since I've been here. Don't worry people, I made sure to get the recipe! We offered to bring dessert so from the bottom of our NUSA Veggie Crates, we made yet another delectable apple crisp. We spent the evening chatting with his family, laughing about random things, and getting to know some of their other friends from the church who also came.

On another one of our weekdays of no school, (I think this was Friday) we roadtripped up to Nelson Bay to see the beach there. We had heard that it was pretty, and we definitely were not disappointed. The weather was perfect, we sang our lungs out in the car, and enjoyed snorkeling with lots of fish.

And now onto my favorite happening of the trip so far: camping out on Stockton Beach's sand dunes! Pedr, Dan, their friend Jamie, Trenton, Chris, Brian, and all of us girls drove out to Stockton Beach, about an hour away, to hit the sand dunes for a camp out on Saturday night. As we are all practically native Australians now, (ha) we picked up sausages to bbq on the way and also seized the opportunity to introduce s'mores to the real Australians. They had never even heard of them. Or graham crackers. After scouring the grocery store, we came up with the most similar ingredients possible and began another awesome drive.

It's not even really fair to try to describe the sand dunes with words, but I guess we all understand the limitations of language. The thing is: I have never seen such an open, beautiful mass of sand anywhere, not even in pictures. We set up camp in the middle of the sand and settled in for the evening. I got lucky enough to cook the sausages, Brian whipped out his guitar and we had a pretty poor sing-a-long, and then we hit the s'mores. They caught on pretty fast and we were happy to have reversed the roles of culture introductions, if only for a few minutes. At about 9 PM, we all got tired and went to bed. Just kidding. Although we would have if we hadn't felt so lame about going to bed so early. We managed to squeak out a few more hours and then we passed out on the sand. Lindsey, Cam, and Caitlin snuggled themselves into a two man tent. Needless to say, Caitlin was out of there in about twenty minutes.

There is something rejuvenating about sleeping outside next to a smoky bonfire in the middle of nowhere, even if you do wake up to a dewey face and sleeping bag. Before we headed home, we trekked to the top of a dune and had a nice session of sand boarding....

For those of you who have never heard of it, picture sledding on sand. The boys took to sand surfing, I preferred the run-and-slide-on-your-stomach method, and Lindsey and Cameron dominated the two man sit. Bug Lindsey to let you see the video. It will make you laugh, I guarantee it.

As if you couldn't tell, we had a blast on that trip and look forward to doing it as soon as our backs recover from the hard sand. As for everyday life, we spend our time at the hub doing homework, at the beach soaking it up, playing Bananagrams as often as possible, and figuring out other shenanigans to get ourselves into.

On a more personal side note, I feel compelled to share with EVERYONE that God worked two miracles in my life over the past week. I made my first two speeches in 4 years!! To everyone who prayed for me, thank you so much. Jesus has been revealing Himself in so many ways and His faithfulness is consuming me. He has taught me how to trust and I am learning more and more everyday.

Whew! What an amazing life we have. It is going even faster than we thought that it would. We are already about to enter April, which absolutely blows my mind. The girls and Trenton and Chris are planning their Easter break trip to New Zealand, and Elyse and I are working on our June trip to NZ. She and I will be exploring Australia on our own for Easter break. This weekend we all are going to be up in Sydney for the Good Friday service at Hillsong. After that, all of them fly out for the week. Elyse and I will get to go to Hillsong for Easter, and then we are planning on heading over to Ulla Dulla for some exploring, and maybe going up to the lake with some friends.

Well, I think that about does it for today! Time to go pack our eskys for uni in the arvo. (pack our lunches for school in the afternoon) Let's be honest, I just said that so I could sound native :)

Fairy Bread and 4BYN

Its another beautiful week in Australia and we were able to get through this week of school as Laura worked diligently on papers, Cam and Caitlin intricately designed their projects, and I sculpted a masterpiece :)

Our tickets are finalized for our Easter Break. We get to see exciting New Zealand while renting a six man camper-van to drive around/sleep in as we explore pieces of Gods creation. Trenton, Chris, Cameron, Caitlin, Devin, and I will be partaking in this adventure. Laura and Elyse have made plans to explore Australia in depth and will get to see New Zealand in June. We are ready for a break and will hopefully get to spend Easter at Hillsong Church in Sydney :)

St. Patrick's Day is not huge here we have realized. I think we were one of a few sporting green that night but nonetheless we went out to one of our favorite places, the brewery, and sat along the waterfront overlooking the beautiful harbour.

Thursday we retrieved two more crates full of fruits and veggies from our school. We cooked a delicious meal and Pedr brought over sausages, mmmm. After dinner, Pedr took us Lawn Bowling. Its a game similar to Bocce Ball except it has its own court and is a little more classier. After an exciting game of lawn bowling, Pedr and Dan made us FAIRY BREAD. It is white bread, butter, and sprinkles, mmmm. Surprisingly it was good and we were happy to finally have a taste of this magical dessert.

Friday we went snorkeling and saw exotic fishes along with a giant STING RAY! It was exciting exploring in the vast sea :) We spent the rest of the day soaking up the sun and relaxing on the beach.

Today we went 4-byn (off-roading) with our friends in the Bush. It was exciting and adventurous until we had to pull our mate out of the deep pool of mud :)

We love you all,

Lindsey, Laura, Cameron, Caitlin

Consider Us Coloured...

No, I didn't misspell that. They spell things differently here...but anyways!!!!!!!

Wow, so much to catch you guys up on. Things have been hectic with school kicking off and being suddenly pounded with thousands of assignments. We are just starting to feel like we can actually find our classes on campus without getting lost. The campus is really large, looks like a jungle or rainforest, is literally filled with mosquitoes (mossies), and they don't space your classes out, so you have to run from one to the next. Hopefully you aren't a little dumb like me and have 4 classes back to back on opposite sides of campus. I guess it's a good workout, leaving 5 minutes early from class and arriving 10 minutes late to the next one simply because you just can't run fast enough. That and the fact that sometimes trains get delayed for 40 minutes while you are sitting on them is about all the cool stuff I can think about when it comes to classes.

So, on to the fun/important/interesting stuff! (I just knew that moms love hearing about school, so YES, we do actually go.) We just got back from Sydney and Hillsong's Colour Conference. For all you out there who are interested in seeing what it was kind of like, you can check out the website here. It's not really fair to try to describe it in a short post, but I'll see what my limited vocabulary can do...

Day 1: Lindsey, Caitlin, Cameron, and I pack up the car and set off for an adventurous drive to Sydney. I'm driving, Caitlin is navigating, and all is well with the world. It is 2:30 PM and we are driving to the house we are staying at, all timed to arrive around 4:45. Our first session is at 6:00, so we think we have plenty of time...

OK, let's be realistic. With me driving? Of course we would get lost...so, 6 or 7 u-turns, many frustrated stops for directions, and 4 hungry stomachs later, we just decide to park the car and get some food. Hopefully we will make it to tomorrow's session, since we give up on today's. Jesus wanted us at that session though, so it just happened that we had parked across the street from the Sydney Entertainment Centre (where the conference was being held) and we had the time wrong and it actually started at 7:30. Amazing. The rest of the night went well, if you call "well" getting lost again and not getting to the house until midnight, declaring our idea of hell to be driving in Sydney, and switching drivers as each one got more and more discouraged. But hey, we made it, had a place to stay, and were so thankful just to have made it.

Day 2: 3 sessions throughout the day, and it started with a bang! Priscilla Shirer was our first speaker of the day, and man did she bring it! I have never been so engrossed with what a speaker had to say. She was passionate, fiery, inspiring, anointed, and the Lord just had things to share through her. I think I learned more in that first session than I ever have in my life. I mean, I came looking for God, but He didn't just meet us there...He overwhelmed us there.

Elyse and I got to meet Bobbie Houston, which was a special treat. She hosted the conference and is the wife of Brian, head pastor of Hillsong.

We had a few breaks throughout the day where we got the chance to explore Sydney. There is a mall called Market City where it feels like you have been dropped directly into Asia. It's great unless you want anything to eat besides Asian. No joke, the entire food court was Asian. That's all I have to say about that.

Day 3: I'm getting my days confused, but I'm going to pretend like I'm not and just keep talking like this is 100% accurate. We had more sessions today, which were still indescribably tailored to me. :) Just kidding, everybody felt like that. But seriously, God wanted us there. He told us some pretty awesome stuff. After the sessions, we headed to Darling Harbour for dinner and just to chill. We were enthralled with some unexpected fireworks, dazzled by the lights across the harbour, entertained by the interesting clothes some people were wearing, sustained by some yummy food :), and rejuvenated by just getting to be with each other.

P.S. Elyse did come the day after us on the train due to her class schedule, so she was with us this entire time.

Day 4: We went to Hillsong for church, which was a continuation of our wonderful conference, since Priscilla spoke again. I could still listen to her all day...

Caitlin and Cameron learned from some Finland girls that Kelly Slater was to be at Bondi Beach that day, so we hastily rearranged our schedule so they could get a little glimpse of him. I'm glad we made it though, because it was such an experience. Bondi was packed, the surfers were out, and it was a beautiful day. We spent a few hours there, we all got to see the Kelly Slater, and we drove home happy. This time, I didn't get us lost and we played games the whole way home. You should ask to hear our awesome Australian accents that we perfected int he car. Guaranteed to confuse even the most native Australian of our actual origin. Exhausted but refueled, we are excited about this week, although it's a busy one.

If you want to read another really funny account of the weekend, click here to check out Elyse's blog. She's pretty funny, you might just laugh the whole time. Plus, she likes to make fun of me, which is always entertaining :)

To wrap it up, all I can say is that the Lord revealed Himself to us this weekend. We are so thankful for the opportunities we have had, we still like each other, and we have many more memories of Australia to add to our already-bursting brains.

Thanks for the prayers, we love them and we are praying for our friends and family back at home too! Praising Jesus for another fine day in Newcastle...

Love,

The Sheilas

Market Market Market aka Monkey Monkey Monkey

It's Sunday afternoon here, and after a beautiful service at Church180, the girls of The Hill went to lunch at Monkey Monkey Monkey for some bbq prawns (shrimp), stuffed mushrooms, and glorious dipping sauces with ciabatta and other stuff...The title of this blog deserves a little explanation, as Lindsey had excitedly told me about her coffee experience at "Market Market Market" and how we all needed to go back. I then went to a local and suggested that we meet up at this place, only to receive a confused look and a "I think you mean Monkey Monkey Monkey..." Needless to say, I didn't impress him with my knowledge of the area.

Typically we would be outside at the beach around this time, but we are currently banned due to a tsunami watch. Apparently they take tsunamis very seriously. Go figure. :)

We are all gearing up for school to start tomorrow, although not with very much enthusiasm. We rather enjoy our life as it is, but I guess we did come here to "study." With the little extra time that we do have, we have been scheming and plotting our wild spring break in New Zealand. It already is looking like quite the adventure. To sum it up, think of Elyse and I switching off driving a 6-person sleeper bus for 25 hours down the coast of New Zealand, with plenty of stops along the way to see the sights from Lord of the Rings, go skydiving, take the ferry from the North to the South Islands, go bungee jumping (or bungy, as they spell it), check out the amazing beaches, and whatever else falls into our laps. More details to come...

Sun poisoning is still our biggest enemy here..Elyse has been hit with it, and I still have it all over my hands and heels. Persistant itchiness is our current state of being.

We continue to meet new people everyday from all sorts of places. Most of them being Arkansas and Iowa, but hey...at least they are new faces! We also have some local friends at the church who invite us to fun church functions at their houses. It's always a good time...

We still love living together and have indulged in many roommate dinners where we splurge on spaghetti and ice cream.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement, we are learning so many lessons about life, love, independence, trust, and faith. Feel free to ask for more details on those :) The Lord has been so faithful to provide everything that we need. I start seriously working this week (as scary as that is) and covet any sort of pleas to God for a miraculous barista to be born within me. Who knows, crazier things have happened! We love and miss you all....

Funny Lindsey Quote of the Week:
(looking at me in my room...) "Your bed looks like a hospital bed! I meant to tell you that when I woke up this morning and saw it.."

To Prosperity!

"To Prosperity" our cheers at every wine tasting.

Saturday we went to Hunter Valley for wine tasting. It included five different vineyards and we also did cheese and chocolate tastings :)

After about the third vineyard, we were feeling good.

Lets just say the bars over here dont serve "nuts and chicken!!!!" like I claim they do at home.

On Sunday, we all went to Church180 where we met lots of really great people who are very welcoming. We went over to the worship leaders house after church for dominos pizza (their large is our small). It was great to talk to locals and dance to parlez vous franceis.

O WEEK is finally here. Its the week before classes begin and we get to talk to many organizations and get free things such as two sausage sizzle lunches (aka bbq), snow cones, red bull, smirnoff tank tops :) Campus is a pretty far and a hot walk to the train but you can cool off and relax with the bars on campus. We left exhausted but feeling officially like students.
Once we got back to our house, we needed to cool off so we met up with the guys at Bogey Hole. A nice climb around the ledge at sunset led us into a fun blow hole cave of water. We all enjoyed jumping into and being thrown upon the rocks.

Laura had her first driving experience on the left side of the road. As her co-pilot, I could hear her mumbling "keep left" just to make sure we didnt head into on coming traffic. She did a fantastic job. We borrowed the boys car to grab some groceries for the week. As we returned home, we all made quesadillas and the boys grilled out. It was a beautiful and sunshiny day :)

Also, Laura just found out today that she got a job at Bali Corner. Her first day of work is tomorrow as well were not really sure possibly a barista or a waitress. God is answering prayers and supplying us of our needs.

Funny Quote of the Day: from me to Laura..."you look like a salted pretzel!" hmmm ok.

Keep praying.

It's Registration Wednesday!

Lame, I know. We are all at the student hub registering as fast as our little phalanges and browsers can. We have specific time slots that we have to sign up for our classes and it is a bit of a race to get the tutorials that you want. (Those are like labs.)
Man, we have so much to catch you up on! These past few days have absolutely flown by and we have had so many interesting experiences. On Sunday, our roommates all woke up and went to the 8:00 Eucharist service at the neighboring Christ Church Cathedral. It is an Anglican church that is literally five steps out our door. It is such a beautiful building and the people there are extremely friendly. I think we heard four or five times how nice it was to have "young people" at the church. Apparently they don't see many people under the age of 50 very often. At the very last minute on Sunday night, I decided to go to Church 180, a more contemporary church, with the guys. It was a little bit more what I am used to and I got to talk to the pastor for a while after the service. I think I'm really going to like it there. Afterwards, they had a Switch party, which is for 18-30 year olds. It was pretty much a Valentine's Day dance party. We had a blast, laughing at the funny way that Australians dance and introducing them to some of our sweet moves :)
We learned that the Anglican church was having a pancake night on Tuesday (last night) so we all decided to attend, including five of the boys. We showed up, payed $5, and had the best night we have had yet. It started with a glass of wine and ended with a cup of coffee. (The only way I made it up past 11 last night.) The bishop got up before we ate and said he was going to "embarrass our American friends and thank them for coming." We felt a little overappreciated but it was heaps of fun. (Like my Australian slang?)
So we got a little information before eating about what they exactly mean when they say pancakes, since they announced which meats were being offered. We started with dinner pancakes, which are filled with your choice of a veggie, chicken, beef, or tuna filling. It was different but very good. We were just glad to have real food. Then they had a little dinner entertainment. A man played the piano while this woman named Kim sang and it was probably one of the best short performances I have seen. They were amazing. The food wrapped up with "dessert pancakes," which just means maple syrup, cream, strawberry jam, lemon, and sugar toppings. We obviously liked those a lot. After being legitimately stuffed, we helped them break down the tables and Lindsey mustered up the courage to ask what they were doing with the leftovers. Needless to say, we now have an entire fridge full of pancakes, beef filling, and syrup. We are so spoiled.

Something we have noticed is that everyone's favorite question is "what part of the States are you from?" When we answer, it almost always leads to a conversation about how they like or have been to California and New York. I think they always walk away disappointed that we are from Beverly Hills or something. In fact, a boy that I met on the beach the other day was from Melbourne and after we had that conversation, I mentioned how everyone wished we were from California and he was like "yeah, pretty much." He wasn't my favorite person in the world.

Anyways, this was a little more of an information post than a fun post but we have continued to meet a lot of people. All of our neighbors have moved in and seem really fun. I'm sure we will talk more about them later. I also met two Germans who are studying here and got to play some beach volleyball with them. Hopefully we will settle in with more locals soon. There is a sweet family from Church 180 that may take us surfing on Saturday. Trust me, you will want to read the blog after that :) I'm sure there will be plenty of laughs :) Brandi's face is continuing to heal from her sunburn. We regularly have a laugh about her still limited facial expressions.

We also made it to the Farmer's Market, which was an experience we will have to repeat. We got stuffed off of samples and found some fun local people. As a Valentine's Day date, us roommates went to see the movie Valentine's Day. We learned that students can go to movies on Mondays for $8. That's exciting, since everything else around here costs at least that much.

Yesterday, when I was talking on the phone to the gas and power company, she couldn't understand me because of my "strong accent." Look who's talking, I can hardly understand anybody around here. She guessed that I was Canadian. Not bad, I guess.

Well, that's pretty much everything that you could have possibly wanted to know! The weather is still hot, although they say that it has been unseasonably humid and it should calm down a little bit soon. I hope so, we sweat our little hearts out. We miss everyone at home but are so happy here. Talk to you all soon!

February 13th

Helloooooo Australia,

It has been a great first few days in Newcastle.

Welcome home Cameron and Caitlin!

We have had amazing weather of about 80 degrees and have been spending most of our time at Newcastle Beach. We have been able to meet up with the guys and it has been really great to see familiar faces :)

We are starting to plan out our classes and for most of us we only have classes Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday, which is so great so that we can take trips on the long weekends!

Our house is really awesome and is in a great location, were set up on a hill with a beautiful view from our loft/balcony. We havent posted any pictures yet but you can see a few on our roommates blog www.theozlanders.blogspot.com ... The house is about 3 stories and is right near the beach!

The sun is definately harsher here, our roommate (brandi) has experienced it not so well, her trip to the doctor to get pain killers can explain the damage it can do.

Cam, Cait, Ned, and I are going to Sydney tonight to hang out before they take thier australearn trip up to Cairns.

The food is a lot more expensive than we were expecting but a little healthier and their coffee is way different too! It looks like i will be quitting my addiction :(

We will keep posting soon! Thank you for reading!

The girls!

two other blogs with pictures:

www.nedreynolds.blogspot.com
www.theozlanders.blogspot.com