Life's a Beach

Literally.

The weather has been so beautiful lately that we can't help but go to the beach everyday. [If you were us, you would too.]

[Beach aerobics.]

While the beach is sweet as [my attempt at Aussie slang], we did get something important done: registration.

We applied for all of our classes from home last fall but found out the timetable during registration. I also wanted to change a course so that is where it happened. So far I have class from 8am-4pm on Mon and 12pm-2pm on Tues. [I'm still waiting to hear about one course, it will hopefully be on Tues.] Chris has kind of a junky schedule with class everyday. He might try to change some things around so that we'll have more time to travel on the weekends.

Tomorrow there is a barbie put on by our landlord. All the houses she owns [about 30] are supposed to be there. That will be a good time to meet anyone that didn't come along to Lorne.

I suppose we'll see what's next.

LORNE!

I really meant to update before our trip to Lorne.
I didn't though.

Sorry 'bout that.

I'll fill you in on what we did before Lorne sometime in the future. It'll be a little rewind session.

Mmmmkay. Let's get to Lorne.

Part of our semester includes a beach orientation to Lorne. [you may remember my mention of this quaint little town in a previous post] The trip is organized by Deakin and includes all of the study abroad students from each of the 3 campuses. We got to meet tons of people from all over the world, most of whom will attend our campus in Burwood. It was pretty sweet to say the least.

It was a three day trip. [not a three hour tour.]

Day one included getting there of course.

[This is how we roll. Literally. Hahaha. I'm so funny.]

We walked to the Uni and then took a 2 hour bus ride [almost a three hour tour] to Lorne. When we arrived there was a little bit of a welcome that mostly included rules and all of that yada yada. The rest of the day was for us to do whatever. We roamed around town and then went to bed early. [Lame? Yes.]

Day two was the wicked busy day.

Breakfast at 7.

Surfing at 8. [I skipped. Ya know how water and I don't get along?]

Sea Kayaking at 10. [That still involves water.]

Lunch at 12.

Hiking at 1. [Chris was too tuckered out and I was too lame to go alone.]

Break at 3.

Dinner at 6.

While Chris partook in surfing and kayaking I wandered the town. Drank coffee. Read books. Bought a scarf. All of those important things.

I guess when I say it was a busy day I mean it could have been a busy day.

We spent the evening relaxing and enjoying our vacation from a vacation.

Day three was today. Loooong day. Mostly just because we were in a bus for most of it.

We woke up early again [that's not supposed to happen on vacation] and hopped on the bus.

In all honesty, it didn't suck that much. We stopped and got out a lot and saw some pretty amazing places. [The Twelve Apostles = pretty amazing.]

Now we're home. Ahhh.

We have registration/orientation on Friday. Hopefully we get all the classes we want and all of that jazz. I'll let you know.

Pictures are more fun than words. Here you go.

[I forgot to mention that my camera has miraculously decided to work. Apparently little blue had some juice left in him. I'm amazed.]

Cottage

[It says cottages but it's also a Backpacker Hostel.

We climbed a ladder to get to our room.]

[On the way to our shack.

That hill is 20x steeper than it looks.]

Beach

[That's the South Pacific ocean.]

[Some of the only seashells.

They were almost all alive, too.]

Surf

[Bodacious.]

Birds

Listen to this.

These birds are insane.

We were surrounded by them all night.

[They're everywhere.]

Koalas

Look how they walk!

The Twelve Apostles

[Sandstone pillars that are gradually eroding away because of the ocean's waves.

There are only 8 now.]

Us

Shop 'til You Drop. [or something]

Today I set out to shop. I went all by myself. It was liberating [and a bit boring. Maybe I'm just not meant to be alone.]

I spent $30 and got 6 things. Overall it was kind of a bust. [One of those 6 things was a smoothie. My tram ticket was included too.]

I bought some sweet shoes for $5. They are gold peep-toe flats. I got them at Cotton On and I think that will become my favorite store in the area. [Especially since there is no H&M.]

I also got a pair of sunglasses for $2. You can never have enough sunnies.

I found a tank top for $10. [Boring but necessary.]

Finally, I bought a coin purse that looks like an elephant. $2 and $1 are coinage here. A coin purse was definitely a must. It was only $5 too.

Tomorrow Chris and I are going to head out to get some shorts for our big beach trip on Monday.

I'm still pretty bummed about my camera, especially since we are going to Lorne soon. I guess Chris' camera will become mine. [Don't tell him that though.]

Cheers.

The Horrible Horrible Day

Something happened yesterday.

It's pretty awful so brace yourself.

I dropped my camera into the ocean.

Extreme, right?

It kind of makes me want to cry.

The camera turns on, but the zoom doesn't work and neither do any of the other functions. It can still take a picture. Without zooming and a flash it won't take very many pictures. And it's stuck in macro mode.

I bought my beautiful blue camera in March of 2007. So that was almost 4 years ago.

I'm kind of surprised it has lasted that long.

My camera was the perfect size for my purse or pocket. [pocket = falling into the ocean.]

Nevertheless, we're a little bit screwed now.

Be sad with me.

R.I.P. my beautiful blue camera.

St. Valentine

We haven't done much lately. And that is a-okay.

Valentine's day was fantastic. I already mentioned this, but we had a fun spaghetti feed. Dinner table conversations are a lot more interesting with 10 people, that's for sure.

Before they were cooked.

Ensalada.

Table set.

Sad that these are blurry. That just means you get more than one.

Unfortunately we didn't get a group shot.
There will be more opportunities.

Like six more months worth.

Today was a really nice day. We haven't had many of those lately so it was fun to see the sun again. Because of the pretty weather, today was supposed to be beach day. A nice beach day, with sun, unlike the other times we've been to the beach.

However, I got a job today. Only for the day, or maybe the week. [at least I hope] The lady hired Chris too. We made $290 today. Tomorrow I'm going shopping. I guess it was worth missing beach day.

But only a little bit worth it.

Festivities

Most of our house mates are moved in. YES. Literally though, within 20 min three different people showed up. It was fantastic. We only have two more rooms to fill, or two more people to meet. Whatever.

Tomorrow we are taking a journey to the St. Kilda Music Festival. I can't wait. It will be beautiful. On Valentine's Day we're going to have a spaghetti dinner with meatballs [think Lady and the Tramp]. On Tuesday we better get a job. We're running out of money pretty dang quickly. Guess money and time both fly when you're having a good time.

And we are definitely having a good time.

Housey House

I love our housey house.

I will expand eventually.

For now, I love it.

12 a.m.

Well, it’s been a while huh?

I have been waiting for 12 a.m. to roll around for a while now. Australia has some funky rules about internet usage and it's better to upload and download things between 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. In the morning I usually don't feel like blogging. So here I am waiting for midnight.

We’re much more happy with our surroundings now, if you were wondering.

The last few days have been a little lazy. We hung around the house, filed our taxes, went grocery shopping, re-filed our taxes, laid in the sun, played ping pong, and did a lot of nothing. It was nice.

Then we got bored.

We heard about this amazing shopping center nearby, It’s called Chadstone. Apparently this place is the largest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere. Pretty cool, right? We ventured there yesterday. This trip warranted our first use of the bus system. It’s just as cool as, if not cooler than, the tram.
Chadstone was definitely huge [and I’ve seen quite a few malls in my day.] The crazy part is that it wasn’t just a whole bunch of stores, it was a whole bunch of high end stores. Like really high end. [More Chanel, Hugo Boss, Tiffany’s, and tons of other places out of my price range.] I felt too poor to even walk in to most of these stores. In actuality, we only went in to a handful of stores but still managed to spend the entire day there. I'll say it one more time, it’s HUGE.

Because Chris was less than thrilled about our day at Chadstone, today he got to pick where we went. He chose Brighton Beach. It’s well known for it’s colorful bath houses [says our Frommer’s guide]. They were pretty cool.

To get to the beach we rode the tram downtown [we were both excited about this because it’s been probably a week since we were in the city], and then caught a train, another first. The good news: trains are by far the easiest form of transportation in this city. They’re also kind of fun.

Brighton was fun.
It’s a sweet beach, but there isn’t much beyond that. The road along the beach is lined with pricey homes and nothing else.

After our trek along the beach we returned to wander the city. Our first stop was Starbucks. [Don’t be disappointed, we just wanted to see if it was any different. It’s not. Now we know.] At Starbucks Chris decided it would be a good time to visit the Queen Victoria Market [he’s been talking about this place forever, so yes it was a good time].

On the way to the market we stopped at MagNation. They have at least a thousand different magazines. It was a short visit, but still worth it.

Usually the market runs Thursday through Sunday, but during the summer there is a night market on Wednesday, which it just so happens to be. There was tons of food and lots of little retail tents. [but no fruits or veggies like we were planning on. =(]

I bought some sweet headbands at a Thai inspired retailer. Chris sampled some true Aussie food. Kangaroo, Emu, and Crocodile. [I had a shredded beef taco from a Mexican place.] After the market we hiked back to the tram depot. A few blocks from the market we found an amazing book store. This place had tons of books for $3 and $5. Seriously, amazing. I was in heaven. Chris said, “you already have a book, you can come back when that one is finished”. Boo. [but I did just buy a book two days ago.]

On the way to the tram something glorious happened.

On the corner where we meet our tram [and have walked along more than once] we saw the one thing that we were convinced Australia did not have. We came across an entire cooler of…

Dr. Pepper

Our lives became complete at that moment. Chris bought four bottles right then.



Wonder how much we paid for those four 16.9 fl. oz. bottles?

$15.80 Ridiculous? Uh-huh. Worth it? Absolutely. A beautiful taste of home to end a pretty fantastic day.

I suppose tomorrow we’ll begin the job hunt. Or maybe we’ll just go back to the beach. [I mean really, we did our taxes. That should mean something, right?]