Happy Cinco de Mayo! And PS-I took your avocado.

Hola, Mi Amigos!

So I know this is super short turn-around, but I’ve had a pretty great week, so I figured I’d get back on schedule with another great week.

Monday was spent trying to finish schoolwork for the most part. Monday was ANOTHER public holiday for Australia (Labor Day), so there weren’t a lot of other options. I also caught up on sleep from my 5AM wakeup call on Sunday (read “The (Wo)Man from Snowy River” to understand why).

Tuesday I had classes and worked on a lot of projects. I really can’t wait for the project part of the semester to be over. This is ridiculous. Fortunately, my Tuesday groups are pretty good, so that wasn’t too bad.

Wednesday I also had group meetings and classes. Wednesday made me a lot less stressed about school, though, because I spoke with my professor about my concern of working with my group mates and about ending up doing the entire assignment on my own. She told me that I could do just my 1/3 and get graded alone for it. YES! That makes life so much better for me. I basically have the paper written already, so my stress level dropped hugely.

After class, I was talking with my friends Kayla, Anna, and Michelle about our plans for the next few days. I couldn’t hold my excitement for two of my favorite holidays that almost don’t count (well, one doesn’t at all) that happen back-to-back. The first being Intergalactic Star Wars Day (May the 4^th Be With You!) followed by Cinco de Mayo. I forget that Spanish is not a common language here and that Cinco de Mayo is about as foreign to them as The Queen’s Birthday is to me (Fact: Her birthday celebration is not actually on her birthday). After I explained it, Kayla (one of the only ‘real’ Aussies I see a lot of) was very excited about this and changed the theme of her “Tourism BBQ” to a Cinco de Mayo Fiesta! I’m very proud to say that I led this influence. I do find it necessary to share the text she sent everyone to invite them. It went: “Ok, hunkabunks. It’s Mexican Independence Day and as you can guess from my beautiful olive complexion and sexy Latin tongue, I would like to celebrate my heritage with mi amigos. Ask your druglords for a couple bucks to bring for Mexicano food and drinks. Hasta manyana!” I should also tell you that Kayla is very white. Somewhere between lily white and flesh crayon color is about accurate. So this is possibly one of the best texts I’ve received in my life.

Michelle and I then walked to the bus stop to get on the bus that would take us home. We saw our bus and ran to get on it and made it, fortunately. However, shortly after the bus started moving, we realized we were going the wrong direction. The bus number hand been changed once it reached the school! We got off at the first stop and assessed our options. The first choice was to cross the street and wait for a bus heading the opposite direction. The second choice was to go into Baskin Robbins and buy ice cream for dinner. So of course, we went and waited for the bus. NOT! We decided that ice cream sounded like a far better option and chose that for dinner. After that, we decided that, if we were already eating ice cream for dinner, we might as well have potato chips for dessert. Healthy, right? So we went to IGA (supermarket brand here) and bought chips. At that point, we realized that we had missed the bus back in our direction anyways and figured we might as well walk. Michelle’s house is much closer to where we were than mine is, so we stopped there started talking and having a great conversation and I ended up staying for the night. We really had a great time for taking the wrong bus. Accidental adventures are the best.  Bonus was that Michelle (she’s Canadian, btw) had found a store that sold bagels. BAGELS! This may not seem that exciting, but bagels are next to impossible to find here. So I really enjoyed breakfast in the morning.

Thursday is a day that I don’t usually don’t go to the Uni, but, surprise, surprise, I had another group assignment. That afternoon, I went to the store and found another food that is next to impossible to find in Australia: tortilla chips. I mean, seriously, go into the chip aisle at your local City Market or Publix and you find about 100 varieties of tortilla chip. Not so in Australia. I searched the store and was having no luck when an employee asked if he could help. I told him it was entirely possible that they didn’t carry them, but that I wanted tortilla chips. Turns out, they’re with the Mexican food. Would anyone care to guess how many varieties of tortilla chips there were? There were 2. One “Original” and one “Extreme Cheese.” And there were only two bags of “Original” left. I cleaned them out. I figured that even if we didn’t eat them at the party that night, I could buy some salsa later and enjoy some good old chips and salsa American style. I also bought the makings for guacamole. Yum. I made it back to my house to take my laundry off the line and to leave Merle a note that I would be staying at Kayla’s house that night. My favorite part of the note was my P.S. “PS-I took your avocado.” I’m not totally sure still why I told her that. She doesn’t like avocados, but I felt that it was necessary to tell her. Go figure.

Eventually, I made it to Kayla’s house. Her house is about 200 meters from the beach. It’s amazing. And it’s a super cute house. Michelle was all about cooking that night and I was banned from the kitchen (I was kind of in the way), but I made an awesome guacamole and had fun discussing the limited Spanish that Kayla and I both know.

Anna, my German friend

Sonny gets to pin the tail on the donkey. And he wore a poncho. 

Around 7, everyone arrived. We had an awesome chicken taco bar and Coronas and chips with guacamole and salsa. Plus, Murf, Kayla’s friend, had a surprisingly large collection of Spanish music to give a great atmosphere. It was fantastic. We also played “Pin-The-Tail on the Donkey,” like the mature university students we all are. I won and was given a lime for my outstanding efforts. It was so much fun. I was also taught how to make a “kangaroo tail,” which is just a fancy way of folding your towel to be able to whip it at your friends and cause welts. Nice to see that friend abuse is thriving in every culture. We also realized that we had people from 6 different countries at our fiesta, and none of them were Mexican or from a Spanish-speaking country. Lol. But we had a German, an American, a Canadian, two Japanese, a Korean, and 5 Aussies. It was a great little party.

Kayla tries to confuse Michelle

My turn. I actually did pretty well after I hit the window frame. And I make that sombrero look good.  

After the party wound down, I just hung out with Kayla and Michelle for a while, playing “Name that State/Provence” from each other’s country. Between the two of them, they were able to name all 50 states, although there were a few cities that they thought were states and vice versa. I was able to do Australia and Australian capital cities, but Canada was hopeless. I feel like I should probably know more about my neighboring country, but I just don’t think it was ever something covered in school. Kayla, however, knew all of the Canadian provinces and most of their capital cities. Basically, she showed me! Haha. Kayla also had a lot of questions about American history and politics, which I did my best to answer, though I’m not sure I did a great job. I should brush up on my history to be able to answer her questions if she asks more!

Friday was not terribly interesting. I caught up on emails and such and walked over to the outlet mall to get a new waiter’s friend (corkscrew/bottle opener combo tool). Of all the things that I’ve accidentally taken through security, I never thought a bottle opener would be the thing that got me stopped. And they took it! What am I going to do, bottle open the pilot to death? Oh well. It was only $2, so not a big loss. Plus, it was easy to replace. After I walked over there, I had a strange feeling to go to the Nike Outlet store. So, having plenty of time before the stores closed and I needed to be heading home so I wasn’t walking in the dark, I went. I’ve had a short list of souvenirs that I wanted to buy for myself since I’ve arrived. On that list is been a stuffed koala, an opal, some Aboriginal artwork, and an Aussie soccer jersey. But, as is everything in this country, jerseys are expensive. Really expensive. Part of me was beginning to doubt that the jersey would happen—it just cost a lot. But, while in the Nike store, a bright gold jersey caught my eye. I went over and HOT DOG, I found an Australian Women’s soccer jersey for $25. $25!!! That’s nothing in Australia. Really, that’s nothing for a jersey, but especially in Australia. I was so excited. I couldn’t believe my luck! Yay for good feelings about going to a store.

That night I did my RSA or Responsible Service of Alcohol. I have to do it to work at my job, even though I’m only working about 4 more weekends. Which is weird to say. So little time. Anyway, RSA may be the most boring thing I’ve ever done. 3 hours of online classwork. Ugh. I will argue that it was more monotonous than drivers ed or any other online class you’ll ever have to do. But, I do now know a lot of laws about Australian drinking laws, which I guess is the point.

Saturday was work and training. What a crazy day. It was the Prime Minister’s Cup, so it was a FULL day at the restaurant. Plus, our refrigerators went out. That was not exciting news. Basically, we stole every bucket, milk crate, and container we could find in the club and filled them with ice to put all of our products in to keep them cold. But, even with all of that, we still had a pretty good day. And I didn’t spill anything! One of my co-workers, Venessa, was joking around and started to call me “Miss USA,” which caught on with a lot of the staff, so I’m a bit concerned that next week, that’s what everyone will call me. I told her that just because I’m an American doesn’t mean she can make fun of me. She argues that it does mean exactly that since I am in Australia. Fairly certain that means she gets the point in this round. I think it’s pretty funny, though. I told her if she’s going to call me “Miss USA,” I would need her to provide me with a tiara and a sash. We’ll see if she delivers. Hehe.

Sunday was Mother’s Day! HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY MOM! While I was a bit sad to not be able to spend Mother’s Day with my own amazing mom or really even be able to call her (international phone rates are killer), I did still have a pretty great day. There’s a woman at church named Elsa, a friend of Merle’s, who has been trying to get me to meet her daughter and grandchildren for a few weeks now, but timing just hasn’t worked out. Sunday, however, Merle was going out to lunch with some other moms who’s kids were out of town and so Elsa invited me to go up to her daughter Leanne’s for a Mother’s Day BBQ. I was happy to not be left to procrastinate on my assignment at the house and went along with her. Firstly, though, we had to stop by her house. She lives in an adorable log cabin in the middle of town. It’s a super cute little house. Then we headed out to Nerang, a new suburban area of the Gold Coast. Elsa has three daughters and all three were present at the BBQ with their husbands. Leanne and her French husband, Elian, are so nice and great hosts. I enjoyed talking with them and had a great afternoon hanging out on their back porch. They live in an absolutely beautiful house right on the edge of the forest and it didn’t hurt that the day was clear and beautiful. It was also really fun to just get to hang out with a real Aussie family and have a great BBQ with them. The family is definitely one of those families that doesn’t just love each other because they have to, but they all LIKE being around each other, too. All of the sisters and their husbands and the kids and the grandma just like being together and it’s so obvious. It made me miss my family! But they were really great and have invited me to come back for a weekend stay before I go. I’m also trying to convince Leanne that she should be the camp nurse for a summer. Hehe. We’ll see if that ever works out. She’d be great, though.

That evening, I got to have a fantastic Skype date with Kaleb. I love talking to my friends and hearing about Kaleb’s Italian adventures makes me so keen to visit Italy some day. I can’t wait to see all my friends, though, and to have my cell phone and be able to call without making a huge plan around it! Plus, we discovered that on May 11^th, we will have been friends for 1 year. Weird to know the exact day, eh? But it’s our friend-versary! Yay!

Monday was fairly bland. It rained pretty much all day, which is never on my list of great ways to start the day, but that did mean that I got a lot of homework done. I’m feeling a lot better about my assignments now than I was last week, but I do still miss Rosen and knowing exactly what is expected of me (and getting fast feedback!). I am very much ready to be done with school. I think my brain doesn't like being in class still in May...it just finds this to be fundamentally wrong. Plus, as my friend Lizzy says, "Studying Abroad gets in the way of Studying Abroad." Haha. But, while I'm ready to be done with classes for a bit, I definitely have a new appreciation for my professors here. I have had some bad luck with group member assignments for projects and they have been super understanding and helpful in making the best of the situation for me so that my grades don't fall apart and my stress level has gone way down because of their help. I've had two professors who especially helped me out and I cannot say think you enough to them. I also Skyped with my Mom. It was so good to talk to her and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. They also enjoyed laughing at me when I used my Aussie vocabulary without even realizing it. I used about 5 Aussie-isms in one sentence and they thought it was pretty funny. We’ll see how long it takes me to lose my Aussie vocab when I get back. Probably a while.

I also leave for New Zealand in 7 weeks. Holy buckets, that’s soon! I’m getting very excited, but also a bit overwhelmed. I have a lot to do. Wow. I’m also sad because it means the end of my semester is quick approaching. Yikes! So much I still want to do! I think the next few weeks will be pretty busy for me!

So, that’s all for now. Sorry for so few photos—I just didn’t carry my camera around this week. That’ll teach me! Sorry also for the back-to-back updates, but I just wanted to get back on schedule (not that my plan actually worked...Blogger was angry with me and didn't let me post yesterday, so you get updated on Tuesday). I hope you all have a fantastic day! If you forgot, call your mom and tell her you love her! I’d love to hear from you guys and know what’s up in your life.

Cheers!

Leah.