Hey Everyone!
Things are going great down here! I honestly couldn't be happier right now! After a very fun weekend in downtown Brisbane, I went to Orientation Week on Monday and my prayers were answered within the first five minutes of being there. I was standing around waiting for the doors to the auditorium to open and this girl comes up to me (I was unsure at first whether she spoke english or not because you have to be aware of that down here haha!) and she introduced herself and we honestly hit it off right from there. Her name was Melissa and she goes to school in Tampa. She introduced me to her friends and within the first 10 minutes of being on Campus I had seriously made 8 friends! Mel (Melissa) and I are so much in common it's crazy, she's someone I could totally see myself having hungout with back at school. Other people I met and now consider really good friends down here include Jason (who's from Elmhurst and knows some of my friends back at school..small world right), Sean, Becca, Aditi, Theresa and Kim. Another girl I met is Brittany. She's from Minnesota and she's crazy fun. I could totally see her fitting into my sorority and we have a lot of fun together. It's so great to have people to hangout with and talk to everyday! I honestly met them Monday and feel like I've known them forever already. We all get along VERY WELL. Ahh just writing this makes me smile. They invited me over for a BBQ that night where we had burgers, hotdogs, veggies and some boxed wine (yes, we kept it classy haha). It's only Thursday and I've already had numerous sleepovers at their apartments, it honestly feels like they are friends that I've known for years. I LOVE IT! It eases the stress on mom too now that I have friends, haha I know she was worried. Tuesday we all decided to go to Southbank Beach and spent the day tanning in the sun and walking around the shops. We also went to Taco Tuesday later that night at a local pub where they have $2 Tacos, $4 Burritos, $4 Coronas and $4 Margaritas...Mexican night in Australia...pretty ironic but loads of fun. Wednesday we had Market Day, which is where all the clubs on campus have booths and information packets, so we spent the day on the campus and that night headed out to a local dance club for some music and dancing! This weekend we all booked a trip to Noosaville, which is north on the Sunshine Coast. We plan to adventure into the National Park, hit the everglades and relax on the beach. It should be loads of fun. I love them all already and they have really been so welcoming, I couldn't ask for a better group of friends. :) Ohh!! I also met my roommates! Andy and Naman (haha at least that is what I got from it). They are both from China and are super nice as well. We had a house dinner tonight (Thursday) and got to know eachother. It's nice to just know I have other people living in that house with me now. Everything is really settling into place and I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be right now. I love it down here and cannot wait to get some pictures up here within the next week so you all can see what I've been up to. Love you and miss you all!
Love from the Land Down Under
Manda
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
4 days of Fun
Hi Hi!
It's Sunday here now, sorry I haven't written in a few days, I haven't had a chance to get over to the library. Let's see what I've done. Wednesday I went over to my new house and unpacked all my things, got situated and walked the campus. UQ is freaking big! Walking everywhere is a new thing for me since I'm so used to the bus systems at U of I (we are lucky people!) I figured out where all my orientations are going to be for this upcoming Orientation Week, haha I know big nerd and checked out all the sports stadiums and fields. It's so pretty on campus, everything is so outdoorsy. They have all of these outdoor cafes and bistros right on campus! My house is like a 5-10 minute walk from the center of campus which is perfect! That night while I was making dinner in the house (which is not air conditioned) I'll have to get used to that, a gecko just comes walking in the window, I freaked out (haha) but later found out they are harmless and can and will be found everywhere. Thursday I headed back into the city to meet up with Brian. I took what's called the CityCat down here but is really a ferry ride that takes you up and down the Brisbane River, I sat on the top deck and got to take pictures of the city skyline as I came in. It was so cool. Thursday night we went to the movie theater in town and saw The International, which was really good I recommend it and then got some icecream at a little cafe nearby. Friday we headed to the beach which is just down the street (about a 5 minute walk). The beach is right on the river and it was such a fun day just relaxing, getting a tan and hanging out in the water. I finally got a picture of that bird I was talking about!! Haha it came like right up to our lunch table so I snapped a good one (it's called an Ibis). Even with 30+ sunscreen on I got a really bad sunburn but it's now a tan so I'm rocking the Aussie skin already! That night we were all exhausted from the beach that we just stayed in cooked some chicken and rice and watched some tv. Saturday was fun as well, after talking to the madre on skype in the morning we headed to the city to just walk around and sight see. Later last night we headed into the city to a night club which was crazy madness but I had fun! We met up with some of Lester's (Brian's roommates name) friends and hungout with them. They were all from Malasia so they were asking me thousands of questions about movie stars, Chicago and the lifestyle in America. It's crazy how different their lives are on this side of the globe. Today is Sunday so I'm just relaxing and getting ready for stuff to start this week. I realized I don't have any notebooks or anything so I'm going to head to Coles (which is like a Walmart down here) to pick up some necessary things so I can take notes this week. It's pretty sunny out so I may head to the beach for an hour or two and catch some more rays before school starts (ahh I'm geting excited!!) Some interesting facts before I go:
The paper money down here is impossible to rip, I'm not sure what it's made out of but I honestly tried ripping a 50 dollar bill the other day and you can't do it, the type of chemicals they use to laminate the paper doesn't allow for ripping.
Words they use in place of some of ours:
McDonalds= Mackers
Sunglasses= Sunnies
Breakfast= Brekkie
Your Welcome/Thank You= No Worries
Love you all. I'll post later this week about Orientation week and all that fun stuff!
Love you and miss you from the land down under.
-Manda
It's Sunday here now, sorry I haven't written in a few days, I haven't had a chance to get over to the library. Let's see what I've done. Wednesday I went over to my new house and unpacked all my things, got situated and walked the campus. UQ is freaking big! Walking everywhere is a new thing for me since I'm so used to the bus systems at U of I (we are lucky people!) I figured out where all my orientations are going to be for this upcoming Orientation Week, haha I know big nerd and checked out all the sports stadiums and fields. It's so pretty on campus, everything is so outdoorsy. They have all of these outdoor cafes and bistros right on campus! My house is like a 5-10 minute walk from the center of campus which is perfect! That night while I was making dinner in the house (which is not air conditioned) I'll have to get used to that, a gecko just comes walking in the window, I freaked out (haha) but later found out they are harmless and can and will be found everywhere. Thursday I headed back into the city to meet up with Brian. I took what's called the CityCat down here but is really a ferry ride that takes you up and down the Brisbane River, I sat on the top deck and got to take pictures of the city skyline as I came in. It was so cool. Thursday night we went to the movie theater in town and saw The International, which was really good I recommend it and then got some icecream at a little cafe nearby. Friday we headed to the beach which is just down the street (about a 5 minute walk). The beach is right on the river and it was such a fun day just relaxing, getting a tan and hanging out in the water. I finally got a picture of that bird I was talking about!! Haha it came like right up to our lunch table so I snapped a good one (it's called an Ibis). Even with 30+ sunscreen on I got a really bad sunburn but it's now a tan so I'm rocking the Aussie skin already! That night we were all exhausted from the beach that we just stayed in cooked some chicken and rice and watched some tv. Saturday was fun as well, after talking to the madre on skype in the morning we headed to the city to just walk around and sight see. Later last night we headed into the city to a night club which was crazy madness but I had fun! We met up with some of Lester's (Brian's roommates name) friends and hungout with them. They were all from Malasia so they were asking me thousands of questions about movie stars, Chicago and the lifestyle in America. It's crazy how different their lives are on this side of the globe. Today is Sunday so I'm just relaxing and getting ready for stuff to start this week. I realized I don't have any notebooks or anything so I'm going to head to Coles (which is like a Walmart down here) to pick up some necessary things so I can take notes this week. It's pretty sunny out so I may head to the beach for an hour or two and catch some more rays before school starts (ahh I'm geting excited!!) Some interesting facts before I go:
The paper money down here is impossible to rip, I'm not sure what it's made out of but I honestly tried ripping a 50 dollar bill the other day and you can't do it, the type of chemicals they use to laminate the paper doesn't allow for ripping.
Words they use in place of some of ours:
McDonalds= Mackers
Sunglasses= Sunnies
Breakfast= Brekkie
Your Welcome/Thank You= No Worries
Love you all. I'll post later this week about Orientation week and all that fun stuff!
Love you and miss you from the land down under.
-Manda
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Home Sweet Home
Hello Again!
I find a place to live!! Here is the address-
Amanda Dexter
85 Munro Street
St Lucia, Queensland
Australia 4067
I believe I have all of your addresses so be expecting mail soon!
Love you!
Amanda
I find a place to live!! Here is the address-
Amanda Dexter
85 Munro Street
St Lucia, Queensland
Australia 4067
I believe I have all of your addresses so be expecting mail soon!
Love you!
Amanda
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Getting Accustomed
Hey Everyone!
It's me again! I'm at a differnet library today, I finally found the campus!! It's really pretty! A lot of outdoorsy stuff, cafes and shops all in the middle of campus. It took me forever to find the Duhig Library where I'm sitting right now. There are already a ton of people on campus which reminds me a lot of U of I. Haha I felt like a freshman all over again with my map and trying to find different buildings...it should get a lot better when classes actually start though. I moved into my house today! It's great! There are two levels to the house with 3 rooms on the first level and 3 on the second. I'm on the first level. I haven't met any roomies yet but I'll let you know how they are or who they are when I get more news on that (I'm super excited about that!) The only bad about the house is that there is no Air Conditioning....so I basically sweat 24/7. Haha. The house is lifted off the ground and there are like 15 steps to get up to the front door, so I bet you can all only imagine how tired/sweaty I was after hauling my suitcases up that baby this morning! Haha. Definitely need to invest in a fan of some sort. The cool thing about the house is that it is right on campus, literally like a 5-10 minute walk from the union and great court area (which is like the quad to U of Iers). I walked to a mini mart down the road from the house today and picked up some essentials (haha pizza and chicken nuggets). The people are all very nice around here. I plan to head back into the city tomorrow to meet up with Brian, the mall in the city has some shops I need to get to that can help me with buying a fan, towels, alarm clock and hangers for my closet. I really want to get to the beach in these next couple of days and just relax, these past 3 days have been busy busy all day. Oh things I forgot to tell you about in my last blog...I tried Vegimite at a Mackers yesterday (Mackers=McDonalds in Aussie tongue) and it was DISGUSTING! Literally tastes like disgusting jelly with waaaaaaaay too much salt combined into one. The people down here use it to spread on the toast but I honestly don't know how they do it without gagging. I will definitely be bringing some home for everyone to try. Also, their $1 and $2 dollar bills are coins and there $.50 cent piece is MASSIVE sized. It's a lot of change to carry around in one purse lemme tell you! It was rather rainy today with showers on and off throughout the day which made the air really muggy, however I'm LOVING it down here. Still trying to get accustomed to everything but hopefully within the next few days everything will fall into place! Love you all!
It's me again! I'm at a differnet library today, I finally found the campus!! It's really pretty! A lot of outdoorsy stuff, cafes and shops all in the middle of campus. It took me forever to find the Duhig Library where I'm sitting right now. There are already a ton of people on campus which reminds me a lot of U of I. Haha I felt like a freshman all over again with my map and trying to find different buildings...it should get a lot better when classes actually start though. I moved into my house today! It's great! There are two levels to the house with 3 rooms on the first level and 3 on the second. I'm on the first level. I haven't met any roomies yet but I'll let you know how they are or who they are when I get more news on that (I'm super excited about that!) The only bad about the house is that there is no Air Conditioning....so I basically sweat 24/7. Haha. The house is lifted off the ground and there are like 15 steps to get up to the front door, so I bet you can all only imagine how tired/sweaty I was after hauling my suitcases up that baby this morning! Haha. Definitely need to invest in a fan of some sort. The cool thing about the house is that it is right on campus, literally like a 5-10 minute walk from the union and great court area (which is like the quad to U of Iers). I walked to a mini mart down the road from the house today and picked up some essentials (haha pizza and chicken nuggets). The people are all very nice around here. I plan to head back into the city tomorrow to meet up with Brian, the mall in the city has some shops I need to get to that can help me with buying a fan, towels, alarm clock and hangers for my closet. I really want to get to the beach in these next couple of days and just relax, these past 3 days have been busy busy all day. Oh things I forgot to tell you about in my last blog...I tried Vegimite at a Mackers yesterday (Mackers=McDonalds in Aussie tongue) and it was DISGUSTING! Literally tastes like disgusting jelly with waaaaaaaay too much salt combined into one. The people down here use it to spread on the toast but I honestly don't know how they do it without gagging. I will definitely be bringing some home for everyone to try. Also, their $1 and $2 dollar bills are coins and there $.50 cent piece is MASSIVE sized. It's a lot of change to carry around in one purse lemme tell you! It was rather rainy today with showers on and off throughout the day which made the air really muggy, however I'm LOVING it down here. Still trying to get accustomed to everything but hopefully within the next few days everything will fall into place! Love you all!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Brisbane Bound
Hey Mates!
I made it here!! Woot Woot! After an 18 hour flight I finally made it! The flight to LA was ehhh ok ok, I couldn't sleep because I was so excited about everything so I watched a movie and finally read some of my magazines I've been saving for the trip. The plane for the international flight to Brisbane was freaking huuuuuuuuuuuuuggggge!! The biggest plane I've ever seen, there were two levels to this plane...I'm not kidding! It was incredible. I sat next two really great people, one was a woman from LA who was going to visit her sister in Brisbane (freaking hilarious woman, made me laugh the whole time with her comments and jokes) and on the other side there was an Australian teen named Ellie who lives in Canada now with her family but was going back to visit family for a few weeks (she was adorable and gave me tons of tips and hints on different things to do and visit and try). We had a good time chatting it up for the first hour or so and then we all decided to watch a movie. The cool thing about this plane was that each seat had it's on tv and you could choose between like 100 different movies and tv shows what you wanted to watch. I watched Vicky Christina Barcelona (really good recommend it), some Two and a Half Men and part of Nights in Rodanthe over the 14hours I spent onboard. The food on board was sooo good! We were pampered. Drinks and snacks were around the clock. We also got a hot dinner and a hot breakfast! So yummy! Ate a lot (haha Grandma did that for you!) Took a loooooooonnnnng nap and woke up around 4:30AM Brisbane time and we were landing around 7:30AM so it went pretty quickly. When we got off the plane we took a taxi to Brian's apartment, got settled in and then hit the downtown city of Brisbane. It's so pretty. The city is right next to the river so it makes for great pictures! We came upon this outdoor mall which we went through, they have really cute clothes here (might be a problem). We picked up some lunch at Hungry Jacks (which is like Aussies equivalent to Burger King) however the meat is a little different but I liked it! The area and the people are so nice, I honestly probably asked about 100 questions to 100 different people and they were very kind and helpful with everything. I love the Aussies already! Night time is even prettier though because the lights of the downtown area reflect off the water...ohh there is also a Huge Ferris Wheel right by the water (reminded me of a Navy Pier so I took a picture of that!) They have these really big birds (look like Pelicans but with smaller beaks) that literally walk around like humans around here...I was looking in a clothing shop in the outdoor mall yesterday and one came around the corner and I freaking screamed. It's like non-chalant to have a freaking huge bird in their store. Ohhh!! I was sitting on a bench waiting for Brian to get off the phone with his family, enjoying my soda and one of these massive birds just walked over my foot, not even scared of me, I was more scared of it..eww it was so gross! Haha! Oh for everyone that was concerned because I didn't have anywhere to live, no worries, I found a place today. It's a house very close to campus (like a 5 minute walk) so I'm super excited about that, I plan to move in later today. The weather has been super hot, I sweat ALOT. Haha! But I've already got a nice tan going! I haven't quite got the internet situation figured out yet so I'm at the library right now. Hopefully when I get it hooked up in the house I can be on here more religiously! But for now I hope this suits! Love you all and miss you!
No worries. <3
I made it here!! Woot Woot! After an 18 hour flight I finally made it! The flight to LA was ehhh ok ok, I couldn't sleep because I was so excited about everything so I watched a movie and finally read some of my magazines I've been saving for the trip. The plane for the international flight to Brisbane was freaking huuuuuuuuuuuuuggggge!! The biggest plane I've ever seen, there were two levels to this plane...I'm not kidding! It was incredible. I sat next two really great people, one was a woman from LA who was going to visit her sister in Brisbane (freaking hilarious woman, made me laugh the whole time with her comments and jokes) and on the other side there was an Australian teen named Ellie who lives in Canada now with her family but was going back to visit family for a few weeks (she was adorable and gave me tons of tips and hints on different things to do and visit and try). We had a good time chatting it up for the first hour or so and then we all decided to watch a movie. The cool thing about this plane was that each seat had it's on tv and you could choose between like 100 different movies and tv shows what you wanted to watch. I watched Vicky Christina Barcelona (really good recommend it), some Two and a Half Men and part of Nights in Rodanthe over the 14hours I spent onboard. The food on board was sooo good! We were pampered. Drinks and snacks were around the clock. We also got a hot dinner and a hot breakfast! So yummy! Ate a lot (haha Grandma did that for you!) Took a loooooooonnnnng nap and woke up around 4:30AM Brisbane time and we were landing around 7:30AM so it went pretty quickly. When we got off the plane we took a taxi to Brian's apartment, got settled in and then hit the downtown city of Brisbane. It's so pretty. The city is right next to the river so it makes for great pictures! We came upon this outdoor mall which we went through, they have really cute clothes here (might be a problem). We picked up some lunch at Hungry Jacks (which is like Aussies equivalent to Burger King) however the meat is a little different but I liked it! The area and the people are so nice, I honestly probably asked about 100 questions to 100 different people and they were very kind and helpful with everything. I love the Aussies already! Night time is even prettier though because the lights of the downtown area reflect off the water...ohh there is also a Huge Ferris Wheel right by the water (reminded me of a Navy Pier so I took a picture of that!) They have these really big birds (look like Pelicans but with smaller beaks) that literally walk around like humans around here...I was looking in a clothing shop in the outdoor mall yesterday and one came around the corner and I freaking screamed. It's like non-chalant to have a freaking huge bird in their store. Ohhh!! I was sitting on a bench waiting for Brian to get off the phone with his family, enjoying my soda and one of these massive birds just walked over my foot, not even scared of me, I was more scared of it..eww it was so gross! Haha! Oh for everyone that was concerned because I didn't have anywhere to live, no worries, I found a place today. It's a house very close to campus (like a 5 minute walk) so I'm super excited about that, I plan to move in later today. The weather has been super hot, I sweat ALOT. Haha! But I've already got a nice tan going! I haven't quite got the internet situation figured out yet so I'm at the library right now. Hopefully when I get it hooked up in the house I can be on here more religiously! But for now I hope this suits! Love you all and miss you!
No worries. <3
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The time is near...
Less than a week...
Starting picking classes and I signed up for this Marine Environment class..We get to go on the coolest field trips...The course outline talked about all these beaches, reefs and exotic animals we are going to visit and do research on! The cool thing is that the guy I'm flying out there with (Brian) also signed up for the class so we can experience all of this cool stuff together! Each day that passes I get more and more excited! Yah!
Starting picking classes and I signed up for this Marine Environment class..We get to go on the coolest field trips...The course outline talked about all these beaches, reefs and exotic animals we are going to visit and do research on! The cool thing is that the guy I'm flying out there with (Brian) also signed up for the class so we can experience all of this cool stuff together! Each day that passes I get more and more excited! Yah!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
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