Live in the moment

One month left.

I cannot believe how quickly time has gone by. I cannot believe school is done in a week. 1 week until I go to the Whitsundays. 2 weeks until finals. 3 weeks until Mom and Jen get here. 4 weeks until I'm home in the States. It's crazy. I wish time could just slow down a little bit. Ahh.

"Trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be."

I'm living in the moment for the next 4 weeks!
With love.

Sydney Pictures

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1. Sydney Opera House. So pretty. I've dreamed about seeing this FOREVER. Someone was getting married inside when Pat and I went in. So cool.

2. Sydney Harbour Bridge. When Pat and I were walking around we could see people climbing on top of the bridge. I want to come back to Sydney one day and climb it!

3. Me and Pat. We spent the day in downtown Sydney. So much fun!

4. The girls. Jess, Liz and I. Love them.

5. Me gazing at the Sydney Harbour Bridge at sunset. Beautiful.

6. Funny sign I found while wandering Pat's campus. haha.

7. Darling Harbour (Where the Real World Sydney was filmed!) Cute little place.

8. Coogee Beach. 2 minutes from Pat's apartment. We could see it from his balcony. Great view!

Love you all. <3

Sydney and other things...

Yo.

Sorry it's taken me soooooooo long to update my blog. I had a pretty rough week with schoolwork. I had a HUGE paper due in my history class and my final for my marine environment class. If you couldn't already guess, I spent a GREAT DEAL of time in the library this week. While you may think this was boring of course us kids here in Brizzy made the most of it. I haven't laughed so much in so long. Kim, Sean, Mel and I have been spending EVERY SECOND together and it's been all fun and good times. We can make eachother laugh at ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. I was laughing so hard in the library the other day that it made my stomach hurt. Don't worry though. I got my work done. About two weeks ago (I know it seems like FOREVER ago) I went to visit my friend Pat O'Reily in Sydney!! I've never flown by myself on a plane so that was a first! I actually got around the airport and terminals quite easily (haha unlike on family vacas when at least one person gets stopped in the security check). Pat is a friend from U of I. I was soo excited to see him. I haven't been around many friends from home in awhile and it was nice to see and be surrounded by a familiar face. Pat lived on my floor freshman year in the dorms and he is also a part of the fraternity my sorority spends a lot of time with. If you couldn't already guess...We had a good time! We went bowling, had bbqs, spent time on the beach and I met all of his awesome friends!! He doesn't live quite in the city of Sydney but a few miles off in a town called Coogee Bay. It's such a cute little town! I really enjoyed myself. His friends were all super nice as well...very welcoming and fun to hangout with. We all had some good nights and memories together. Crazy thing is that one girl who I became super close with named Jess actually is from Chicago. She went to grammar school with one of my really close guy friends from U of I...in saying that...we plan to hangout A LOT when we get back home. I'm super excited to get back together with everyone I've met. Reunions will be so awesome. Pat's other friends went to University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin so we plan on making trips up there as well. :) The best part about the trip to Sydney was the day Pat and I spent downtown. He took me to Darling Harbour (where Real World Sydney was filmed), the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House! It was BEAUTIFUL! I've always dreamed of visitng these places, so it made the day that much more special. We had a good day together...taking pics, being dorks and eating some good food. It was great! Pat also took me to see his campus one day. He goes to the University of New South Wales. It's a very nice campus...very retro...and very different from my campus. I'm not gonna lie..I like my campus better hehe. After the weekend in Coogee, I'm so very happy I made the choice to study in Brisbane. I just feel like I fit so much more in the Brizzy atmosphere than the up-paced Sydney lifestyle. Good job amanda! haha. The coolest part about Pat's location though was how close he was to the beach. You could LITERALLY see the Coogee Beach from his balcony...it was 2 minutes from his place. We walked there everyday. Beautiful sites! After a great weekend in Sydney, I was very excited to come home to Brisbane, my house and my friends!
This past weekend I spent with my Brizzy friends. We went to the movies to see "Angels and Demons" which was ok (the book was SO much better). Saturday we spent the day on the Gold Coast. We went to a little town called Burleigh Heads. It was gorgeous there! The beach was so awesome and we had a great day laying out, playing soccer and volleyball and goofing around with the waves. We also did this nature hike into the National Park of Burleigh Heads. Beautiful sights. Just spent the day being goofballs. I love my friends.
Today, May 21st I got to watch my sister graduate from high school. My mom informed me that D230 had put a live feed camera at graduation and that I could watch it via the internet! I was SOO excited about this and that it actually worked!! I was getting sad early this month that I was starting to miss all the important things going on in my family's life and this just made it so much better. It was like I was actually at the graduation (I probably had a better seat than most people haha). I went to the library on campus to watch the graduation and it was quite funny because at different points I actually got pretty emotional. The people sitting around me had to be wondering why I was crying while staring at my computer. When the choir sang "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts I broke down (haha I'm the mushy type). The boy sitting next to me started to laugh at me. Haha. It was sooo incredibly cool to see my cousin Michelle and sister Jen cross that stage and accept their diplomas. It honestly made my day. So that was cool.
I got a card from my best friend Kerry the other day in the mail (which made my day). The quote said "Live in the moment and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering." I loved this quote and plan on living the rest of trip based on this quote! That is all for now!

Love you all.

P.S.--> Gramma just so you know I'm going to start fighting you and Mom for the seafood at family get togethers. I love it!! Haha.

G. Coast Pictures

Alright. So I kinda messed up and added the pics in the wrong order but just stick with me on this one. If you have to go backwards up the pics it may help haha.

#1-At the end of our zorb. Soaking wet and laughin till our stomaches hurt! We also got the biggest wedgies of our lives!

#2-Us rolling, flipping, sliding and twisting all over eachother!

#3-The Zorb in action.

#4-At the top of the hill about to be pushed down!

#5-Finally. We found the zorb park! (If you can't tell we are really excited!) hehe.

#6-Surfers Paradise. The beach was 5 minutes away from Matt's apartment. Can you say heaven?

#7-Matt and me.

#8-Kim, Me and Jason. Best friends.

#9- Surfers Beach. So pretty.

#10-Dr. Pepper is back in my life. Thank goodnes!!

Love you all.

Gold Coast

So two weekends ago (May 2nd-4th) Kim and I decided to go visit our friends in the Gold Coast. I met Matt (Canadian) the weekend we were in Byron Bay and we've been really close friends ever since. He's a great kid and I'm almost positive we will remain friends even when when we return to N. America. Matt and his friend Will are just backpacking throughout Australia for awhile and have decided to settle in the Gold Coast for a few months to make some money working jobs. They've come up here a few times to visit us in Brisbane, so we decided to make a little trip one weekend and go visit them. It was so much fun. It only takes us like 45 minutes by train to get down there and only costs $5!! How awesome is that. So we had a long weekend because of Labour Day in Australia and we decided it would be the best time to go! We got there and headed straight for the beach. What I love about Queensland is it is still hot enough to lay out on the beach and get a nice tan, so that's exactly what we did! Matt's apartment is literally 5 minutes from the main beach on Surfers Paradise. Surfers is a lot different from Brisbane because it is a much more commercialized place. When people want to take a holiday this is usually the place to come. There are beaches everywhere, a huge night life and tons of theme parks including Dreamworld (just like Six Flags), Movieland (just like Universal) and Wet-n-Wild (waterparks). There seems to be something for everyone in the Gold Coast. That night we met up with the boys and went out for a great night on the town. Sunday we woke up super early and headed out to the beach again. I'm not even kidding but I think we landed ourselves right in the middle of a huge sand storm. When we left the beach later that day my bag was overflowing with sand, I honestly could have made a man made beach of my own with all the sand I had in my bag haha. We did a little shopping, grabbed some food and then went to meet up with Theresa who was coming down for the day. Guess what we did???!! We went ZORBING!While I'm not sure how many of you know what that is but it's probably the coolest thing in the entire world. However, it wasn't the easiest activity for us to get to. It took us a very long time, riding several different buses to finally find this place, but in the end it was all worth it. And guess what we saw while driving to the Zorb Park...WILD KANGAROOS!! Soo cool!! I couldn't stop smiling as they all jumped around the side of the road (come on how many people get to say they saw wild kangaroos!) The gold coast is the only place in all of Australia where a person can zorb and yes, I did it! Basically what it consists of is going into this gigantic blown up ball and getting pushed down a hill where you are flipping, spinning and turning chaotically again and again! You have to start off by getting a running start and jumping/flinging your body through this little opening in the ball in order to get in (now picture three girls in swimsuits trying to do that). I honestly have laughed so hard in my life. The coolest part about it is that we (Kim, Theresa and I) all went in the same ball! Can you even imagine three people flopping all over the place...yah it was pretty crazy!! (I'll add some pics for you!) So that was tons of fun. Later that night we were pretty worn out from all our fun activities throughout the day that we just took a chillaxed night and ate some YUMMY chicken parmasean (which Kim and I cooked) and watched movies at Matt's apartment. Monday was Labour Day (so no Uni woot woot) and we enjoyed another fun filled day at the beach before heading home to Brisbane. Ohhh another fun thing that went on this weekend. I've been CRAVING Dr. Pepper so bad. They don't have it here...anywhere! So I've been making a list of everything I have to have as soon as I get back to the states as far as food goes and Dr. Pepper is on the top of the list. As Kim and I were leaving the train station I see this sign that reads, American and Canadian snacks and goodies store. We stop in and guess what they have right there in the refrigerator....DR PEPPER BABAY!! I was so excited and enjoyed a very nice soda beverage. Haha. All in all, a great weekend with great friends in a beautiful ocean town...what more could a girl ask for!! Love you all.