you're invited to a wedding

news flash: i am getting married. to australia. and it will be wonderful. we are going to have a fantastic ceremony but the big fiesta will be the reception.. tim tams and nutrigrain galore, with all different flavors of cadbury dairy milk and kit kats. max brennar is supplying a chocolate fondue fountain and the waiters will be fairy penguins to save money on their uniforms. we're registered at the big w.

but seriously, folks. australia is pretty much the most amazing place in the world, if you haven't guessed that already. sorry, lemont, illinois, you're being bumped to number two.

yesterday we went on a trip to phillip island. to be honest, i had no expectations.. i knew about the fairy penguin parade and i figured we'd see kangaroos but it was more an escape from melbourne to me than anything else. and, if anything, i was upset about missing open day for the uni, and wing parties at college. but that was all made up for by 1030 when we hit up some small town outside of the island and saw lots of pelicans. they were just strutting their stuff all over the beach, walking around like they owned the place. leave it to team ies to be like, no, fools, we will not allow that to happen, and we pretty much chased them around the small pier area. oh! and i saw the sting ray that killed steve irwin! or maybe it was the brother. either way, we went out onto a dock, and looked down in a shallow foot of water only to see this massive, 5-foot-wide stingray floating around waiting to attack his next victim. i didn't even see it at first, i had it confused with a pile of seaweed. let that be a lesson to me when i finally actually go into the water: stay away from seaweed that has a tail.

after the pelicans we went to a phillip island beach that has some of the best views i have ever seen. the water was not hot but not lake michigan cold.. people were surfing (with wetsuits) and the weather was absolutely gorgeous.. we definitely lucked out on that one; other people who have gone have had it rain or be cold.. stefan (our tour guide) told us to bring our rain jackets on our beach trek but it was so warm that we ended up just stripping off layers. so the beach was pristine (yes i just google definitioned that word) and the cliffs were stunning and between the water and the sky i've never seen that many different shades of blue in one setting. the clouds are different here, too. lower. like you can just jump up and grab them out of the sky, and then put them into your hot chocolate like marshmallows. mmm..marshmallows. i really want a smore.

i'd put up pictures right about this point because it's easier to see what a mean from actually seeing what i mean. but hte carder reader has gone defunct and until i find one/buy one my marshmallow analogies are the best you're gonna get. or look on facebook. everyone that went on the trip took over 100 pictures each.. so i'm sure you'll see what i mean by sorting through the thousands of pictures. facebook is probably lucky they have the 60 photo limit per album.

so after the beach we stopped at a koala sanctuary and the koalas were all tripped out on eucalyptus and not moving. but it was nice to look at balls of fur. apparently, these bad boys poop 70-100 pellets a day which led to a humorous conversation... basically, it ended up as the boys going "what, girls don't poop or fart" and kristen shooting back with "um, clearly you haven't spent enough time with alycia and siobhan." listen, people, i can't help my bowels. actually, i was skyping my family today and my dad was like "how are your farts doing?" because clearly that is one of my best characteristics. seriously though. you get into a room with me and my sister after we've eaten dinner (of vegetables) and you will be begging for chinese water torture. ok. now that i've sufficiently destroyed any chances of lasting relationships via blogger...

so after the koalas we had lunch by the beach.. which ended up more as a photo shoot on some semi-volcanic-formed rocks. and we ended up searching for a loo only to find a crazy style automatic one.. as in.. press the button, door opens, press the button, door locks, you have 10 minutes to do your doody, classical music plays, automatic soap water dryer, press the button toliet flushes door unlocks BAM! you've just had a new and improved bathroom experience! i've never had anything like it.

then we headed on over to a wildlife sanctuary (as if anything could beat the loo experience) and we were given a feed bag and told to go wild. so you walk out into this open field with about 100 or so kangaroos. you shake the bag a little bit, hold out your hand, and all of a sudden you have kangaroos from all angles hopping right up to you. and it it doesn't look like they are going to stop - you expect them to just plow you right over. and some of them might've, if i didn't have my awesome cat-like reflexes. so they nuzzle their little noses in your hand and leave traces of saliva that i will cherish forever. some of them were females (obviously?) and had their pouches with little tails and feet sticking out..apparently little joeys like hanging out upside down? and you could shake their feets and pet their tails and then they'd pop their little heads out just to see what was going on. it was the most adorable thing ever. and we fed wallabies too, and some wombats, and EMUS! the emus were frickin CRAZY...these things would snap at your hand and just go crazy when they got food.. apparently they are low on the cordination scale and had no concept of manners.. lets just say up till that point i hadn't feared for my life in australia yet. i think karri got a video of it. hopefully she'll post in on youtube (hint, hint, karri) and you can check out what i mean. seriously. these things did not even compare to tim and jonathan fighting. it was a whole new level of extremisim.

okay, keep going. then we headed to 'the nobbies' and saw the sunset over the bay... spectacular. AND we got a two-for-one deal and were right in the middle of a seagull orgy! seriously..hundreds and hundreds of seagulls just going at it.. i'd insert a picture here to but YOU SICKO WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO SEE THAT? (i'll put one up as soon as that card reader starts working out for me).

then finally it was time for the penguin parade! it's this daily 'event' where hundreds of fairy penguins (less than a foot tall) come up from the ocean and burrow into the vegetation ashore. it happens every night right after sunset, for us, it was around 630pm. a bit underwhelming, i might say, still cool and a good experience but it was dark and cold and yes they were small but. i'd rather feed kangaroos out of my palm. you weren't allowed to take pictures, someone said something about how the flash could burn their retinas, and that's why it was so funny when siobhan took a flash picture and everyone around GLARED so evilly.. i could feel the pitchforks were coming, so we booked it out of there.

and the busride home was great. one of those nights were you just realize how lucky you are to be in australia with an amazing group of friends and having an experience that few people will ever know. and, flickering lights and karaoking aerosmith doesn't hurt.

also - the sky at night in australia? no little dipper, no bigger dipper, i don't know what i'm looking at. but it's gorgeous, and i love it, and i never want to leave.

i skyped my family today, too, well, tim and dad and mom for a little bit. i talked to dad and tim for over an hour; it's been over a week and half since i last had a real conversation with them. loyola threw away a computer or something with my social security ### and info on it..way to be, loyolatown.. identity theft, woo! i seriously hate that school. they are retarded. the study abroad department is pretty much the only redeeming factor...

alrights. i have to go get rsvp'd for my faculy dinner tomorrow (read: free wine). i'm out like a koala on eucalyptus.

love me