i love the brisvegas.

well, maybe. i haven't been there yet but i have high expectations. although i realized that if i was going to die during any spring break trip it'd be this one: hostels, sharks, lack of any sort of plan.. oh, and the jellyfish. i am so excited but also nervous. i feel really adult, also, doing this: booking everything ourselves, finding out directions and transportation and who knows what else. let's just hope the weather is nice and sunny!

peace out cub scout! i'll see you in a week!

let's get naked!

other potential titles for this blog:

"we put the ho in hobart"
"tasmaniamania"
"they're disconnected from the mainland for a reason"
"i'll port your arthur"
"who put the devil in you?"

at the end of the day, though, nakedness always wins out. we were born naked. thus, this blog's title.

so i reckon i never even informed most of the blog readers (the masses of you!) that i was going to tasmania. but currently it's spring break (mid-semester break for the aussies) which means 2 weeks of pure fun & sun & puns. except for me, who conviniently has a 2500 word essay due in 2 days, which for all of you keeping track, is the monday right smack in the middle of the break. but i digress. and plan to procrastinate some more.

so IES organized a trip to tasmania for the first week of break. i had never even thought of visiting tasmania while I was here so i am really glad they did this for us. it's one of those places that you go to and it's beautiful and nice and pretty and then on the plane ride out you realize that no, you'll never be back. but i'm clearly jumping way ahead of myself here and lucky for me I have the trip itinerary in front of me, because otherwise I would have no idea what we did when. ready? let's get started!

so saturday started very early - 645 am early - which was a fantastic way to begin the night after our PFA. backtracking, let's go back, pfa = "pleasant friday afternoon" at college which also translates to "drink early, drink lots, and dress like a pirate!" arrr, matey, it was shipwreck. i ended up getting only an hour of sleep which seemed to be the theme for the rest of the crew - louis showed up on the airport bus still drunk (and smelling fabulous!) the flight was only an hour, which was good, because they also have a ferry that takes you from the mainland to hobart, and that's a painful 12 hours. we got to hobart in time to experience the salamanca ("salmonella") market, where we stalked a potential australian celebrity (apparently some guy on the soap show 'home and away'). the market was nice and all but compared to the queen vic it was not as impressive; hobart however is only a population of 250k as opposed to melbourne's 4 mil. then we hit cole's bay, about 2:30 north of hobart along the coast.. coastal highways in aussie (and tassie) are NOTHING like highways back home. if you're thinking of 4 lane, median seperated, exits and overpasses and highway patrol highways, you have it all wrong. highways here are 2 lane, right along the cliffs, drive through towns and villages and speed limits are about 100km/hr and slow down once you drive through towns. highway police are few if any at all, so i guess that makes the speed limit optional.

dinner at cole's bay was a drawn out process, but tasty none the less, and then afterwards we watched a bit of the footy at the bar attached. this restuaurant/bar duo happened to be the town's only resutrautant/bar, so it was packed with the locals, who all seemed like intelligent, tactful human beings. lucky for us we met some sydneysiders who thought we were from perth - apparently all the people at the bar saw the group of us come in and were wondering where we were from. perth? really?

so after talking to the sydney kids we walked down to the beach for a look at the stars and BAM! there was a bonfire lit on the beach..and no one around? it seemed like something out of a horror flick - met some randoms at a strange bogan town in nowhereville, tasmania, let's go down to the beach, oh how convenient, a bon fire with no one around, SLASH STAB KILL BLOOD! common sense would say turn around, but remember those intelligent locals i mentioned earlier? they must've rubbed off on us and for good reason, too, we ended up having a good time - and free beer!

we spent the night in a caravan = trailer park = mobile home type thingy. it was fine, bunk bed accomodations, but there was a fridge and a coffee maker so i was alright. time out! i'm going to make some tea right now. annnd i'm back. not that you even noticed i was gone. thanks.

oh, funny story: monica lit her dunna (comforter) on fire. she was sleeping a bit close to the space heater and BAM! legit flames. i didn't see it for myself but i could only imagine the hilarity that ensued. good ole monica. good thing i'm going to brisbane with her in a few days, she'll be the spark the trip needs. oh, me.

the next day we checked right out of that caravan place and headed to wineglass bay. now wineglass bay is completely unaccessible by car. the only way to get there is via a 4 hour boatride or a bushwalk! the adventure seekers that ies is put us on the bushwalk, which was actually quite hard.. no more timtams for me. it took about an hour to get to the actual beach but it was well worth it.. a pristine piece of land that was virtually free of people.. if you see a picture of it you'd assume it'd got its name from the wineglass shape of the beach but no! the story is much more interesting - apparently whales used to come up to this area and whalers named it "wineglass bay" because of the colour of the water (red) when they were killed for whatever whales are killed for.

after our hike we rode back 2 hours to port arthur but along the way our driver decided to take a "shortcut" through a gravel road forest path.. no cell reception, no road signs, no other cars on the road in either direction..sharp turns, hills, if we had gotten stuck or lost or KILLED by the bus driver who could've been a mass murderer for all we knew.. but, we didn't, and he ended up taking us to this nice place for oysters! mmmm oysters. tassie is apparently known for them and for good reason, they were delicious. in other news they are also known for 3 foot long lobsters. sadly i did not get to experience that.

so port arthur used to be a prison settlement in the 1800s, and has now been regarded as a tourist destination. it's also haunted. so after a surprisingly good dinner at the hotel restaurant (i got pavlova..mmmmm!) we went on a ghost tour around the prison grounds. it was scary, really. i took lots and lots and lots of pictures for george to anaylze, and a video as well. i didn't see any ghosts but siobhan farted while we were in a claustrophobic cellar, that was pretty brutal and made things a bit hazy. otherwise it was really interesting. our guide was apparently a screenwriter which meant he was pretty good at story telling, and it was raining..made for a freakydeaky night!

oh! so afterwards we went back to our HOTEL (yes, that says HOTEL - not HOSTEL) and enjoyed our fancy accomodation by playing taboo. me and roomz shared a room and we got lucky and it had a joining door with the other part of the 4. very nice. also, who would've ever thought that i'd be saying how fancyschmancy a comfort inn would be. george, it was no kalahari presidential suite, i could tell you that much. but on this trip it might as well been!

so by now it's monday and we were all legitimately exhausted. or at least i was. we started the day with an "isle of the dead" tour of port arthur, which made us realize that it was not as scary by day. good thing we had not seen port arthur at all during the day prior to our ghost tour, because i reckon it would've taken away from the scarey factor. after the tour we stopped at a tasmanian devil conservation park and it was pretty wild - they are NOTHING like taz at all, so put away your predispositions.. they are short and black and kind of look like sinatra. they are also midly retarded (like deano!) so if you combined all of amanda's dogs they'd make a tassie devil. after this we headed back to hobart and checked into our accomodations for the next couple of nights.. unfortunately this was no longer comfort inn standards. this was no heater, ghetto tv, singing hanging lightbulb with 2 bunk beds standards. lucky us!

tuesday morning we got up for white water rafting and let me tell you.. it was early, i was cold, and after a night in less than pristine accomodations, the last thing i wanted to do was white water raft down a freezing cold river.

IT. WAS. AWESOME.

we split up into 3 different groups and my group was DA BOMBZ, and our leader "woody" was pretty b.a. himself. we ended up stealing lots of the other groups oars as well as throwing some people in.. all in all everyone ended up in the 50 degree water (warm for this time of year!) and in a race we beat the other two rafts. it was so much fun, hard to describe, but one of the highlights of the trip. i think the best part was that i expected so little and it returned with so much. we were on the water a good 2 1/2 hours though, so that last 1/2 hour was pretty painful.. by then everyone was freezing and hungry and just wanted to get off.

after our river expedition we went to the tahune airwalk, where a delicious and filling barbeque lunch was waiting for us.. oh my gosh it was so good. we had some crazy sausages and this meatloaf hamburger patty and salad and fruit and cheese and wine and beer and coffee and mmmmmm. i ate so much that the actual airwalk afterwards was a must-do for my belly. the airwalk was pretty cool, although not what i thought it'd be. i was thinking like rope climbing and ziplines and creaky wood plank bridges in the sky, but it was a metal setup and very stable. anyone with a fear of heights would've been distinctly freaked out but otherwise it was pretty tame.

wednesday was our free day and the girls decided to hit up a local spa we had seen the night before.. they had this sweet deal for using all their spas and pools and saunas and everything so we decided to do it, and walked over there around noonish. now i guess no one really thought it through but we all kind of figured we'd just go at it naked... thinking of spas back home where it's no big deal. we got into our robes with just our birthday suits underneath and were about to head out into the spa when we read a sign saying "appropriate bathers required!" um, oops.. so kristen lovingly ran back to the hostel and picked up everyone's bathers. luckily it was not too far and we got changed pretty quick and went on to enjoy our spa day. crisis averted, but it made for a pretty good story, no? maybe not blog title worthy now that i look back, but good nonetheless.

so after moseying around the rest of the day we went out at night to this place called the telegraph, which apparently all of hobart's going out population was at. oh, another thing, hobart shuts down at night. like, 6pm hits, bam. doors locked. lights off. EVERYWHERE. near the salmonella market there are some restuarnts and stuff that stay open but otherwise you are hardpressed to find a happening place. the boys found out about the tele which had 5$ jugs at 5pm, 6$jugs at 6pm, etc, and they had really good beer on tap, so we stayed there for the night, and realized that buying jugs early to save a dollar does not mean you have to finish it within ten minutes. we ended up at a 24 hour bakehouse eating ridiculous amounts of bread. probably for the best.

the next day everyone woke up bright and chipper and not hung over at all for our descent down mt. wellington, tasmania's tallest mountain. again i had no expectations ( not in a bad way, but just having no idea what to expect) and it was SO. COOL. basically you did not need to pedal at all and you're racing down along the same roads that cars are driving up, going to fast that the wind is wooooshing past your helment and you're trying hard not to stare out at the amazing views because if you do you could accidently move your tires in that direction and BAM! you're falling down the side of mt. wellington. so what i learned to do was start at the back of the group, zoooom down so i got to the front, then sloo-ooo-oow the pace so that i got to enjoy the view and ended up at the back again, only to zooooom back down to the front. it worked out quite well until we got to the little 'off-roading' section that was freaky and scary and hard. i managed to get down with only a slight skirmish where i hit my hoo-haa against the bike pole, luckily for me i am a girl. it started raining halfway down the descent but other than the occasional rain pellet hitting you it was totally fine. we biked down the mountain and through hobart's suburbia before making it all the way down and realizing that whoa! we just biked down that mountain. really cool.

finally, that afternoon, the activity i had been holding my breath figuratively for: the cadbury chocolate tour. we got there and were immediately given all the carmello koalas, freddo frogs, and dairy milk we could stuff down our throats (or in our bags). then we had to take off all our jewelery and stuff away any form of phone or camera and were sent off on our tour. our tour guide was less than impressive and i thought we'd see a lot cooler parts of the factory, but we stuck to packaging areas and it was okay. it smelled like chocolate to the whole time though, mmmm. it was much better than hershey's tour because this was actually REAL, not some automatronic ride crap. after the tour we of course went to the factory store where i spent the rest of my meal allowance on chocolate, probably too much. ahh, well, like i said, i probably'll never be back to tassie so i might as well buy up what i can.

that night was our last night in tassie so we went all out at an indian restrurant. i had never had indian food before and it was good, spicy buy otherwise i'd go again. afterwards we went for our last final walk around hobart, had some good conversation, and slept the night away. our flight was in the morning and we said bye bye tasmania, see you...sometime. maybe on the travel channel.

it was a really, really, really, really, really awesome trip. it met every expectation and so much more, and i'm so glad we did it. now i am even more excited for brisbane because it will be WARM! the only thing standing in my way is a little 2500 word essay for south africa. oh, by the way, this entry took me waaaay too long to write. why can't i write about south africa this easily? gosh, that makes me SO ANGRY. <3

cheers!

aussie aussie aussie!!!

oi oi oi!!

let's be honest, faithful readers..i have been waiting to use that blog title for quite some time. and now's the perfect time to use it, i reckon, after coming home from the australia v argentina football game. unfortunately the soccaroos lost to the locos argentinos, 0-1. it was still a great game in front a sold out (cough 70k cough) MCG crowd. soccer fans are CRAZY, louder than footy fans but i dont know if they're more intense. apparently this was more of a 'friendly' match so maybe the noise levels were toned down a bit. either way, good times. and just being in the G made me excited for finishing the marathon - you do your final lap inside the MCG - how awesome is that?? for one thing, i'll be fall on my face dead by then, but it'll be cool to see how much footy players actually do have to run. and, more motivation to finish, right?

so less than a month till the marathon. BUT less than 5 days till tasmania! and 12 days till brisbane/goldcoast/reef/sunshine coast!! also, alycia, less than 3 days till your 2500 word as-of-yet-nothing-written essay is due. get on that, aright? then we can celebrate spring break.

but less back track out of the future, shall we? heck, less bypass the present too. let's talk a journey back to a little place i like to call saturday morning...

so this past weekend was the great ocean road trip with isop. 23 people ended up going on the trip - 11 of them were us. so right of the getgo, good odds for having a good time. the great ocean road was one of my australia must-dos. i don't know if most of you know what it is (helllloooo wikipedia!) but i'm sure you've seen pictures of the twelve apostles and such. so i've been excited about this for a while now, and this weekend had much expectation for it.

so we left saturday morning, 8am style, and hit the road through geelong and into torquay where we stopped for SURFING! i've never surfed before in my life, i can barely handle a boogie board. so i had no idea what to expect. i thought coming into australia that i'd never surf, not because it looked hard in itself, but because i was terrified of the water; i won't even swim in oceans back home because of sharks and stuff that'll eat me. and australia is known for having 205802852 of the world's deadliest animals, and about 3/4 of those are species of jellyfish. but yeah, that barely crossed my mind at the time, if at all. someone in the group asked about sharks and the guides told us it was a rare occasion, if any at all. so we climbed into our wetsuits (complete with booties!) and grabbed a board, then were given a 5 minute lesson on how to surf. a basic runthrough:
- see the wave in the distance
- get on your board facing the beach
- start paddling
- when the wave hits your feet, paddle 4 big strokes
- surf!
the first time we did it we just caught the wave, then kind of just leaned back and let it take us as we were still lying on the boards. we did that for about 10 minutes, then hit the beach for a lesson on how to stand, then hit the waves again. standing was kind of tricky, i got to my knees a lot, and was able to stand once or twice. the waves kept getting bigger as the lesson went on, and the water was FREEZING.. so by the time i was finally getting the hang of it, my toes were numb, and i had to pack it in. imagine what it would've been like without the wetsuit, because the wetsuit defintely was clutch. the problem was, near the end i was like "okay. freezing. one more wave, then i'm riding it in." so, the wave would come, and i would ride it in. then: "okay. freezing. one more wave, then i'm riding it in." this happened 3 or 4 times, then finally the guides were like "ride this last one in!" so of course i listened to them and hopped out. i can easily see how people turn into surfies. it's so addicting, and so much fun. such an adrenaline rush. you just want to keep catching the next wave, especially if they look good. and as long as the water temp is alright and your wetsuit doesn't have a jellyfish inside of it, i'd say you're golden to stay out on the waves as long as you'll let yourself. i'm so glad we did that during the GOR trip because now i know what i am spending my time during the brisbane trip doing. and the water will be warm there. niiiice.

so after surfing we stopped at lorne for lunch by the beach, which team ies divided up as a picnic kinda thang and it was delish, or as delish as pb&j sandwiches get. after lorne we headed to...uh...what did we do after lorne? oh, we saw a waterfall, pretty cool, 307 steps or something like that to walk back up. then we did teddy's lookout.

let me tell you about teddy's lookout. it's right off of the road, just a built out stand overlooking the ocean. it. was. amazing. i've never seen anything that awe-inspiring or astonishing ever. the ocean was so blue, so endless, and the cliffs were rugged and intense and i don't know how to put into words how it made me feel. just happy. sickeningly, lovingly happy. like i could've wrote a million hallmark cards about that scene. anyways i could go on and on about it but i'm not going to, you'll never know what i mean until you are there for yourself. so put that on your australia must-do list, aright?

we got to hike down teddy's lookout mountain, which was cool, it consisted of team singalongs, always a good time. then some people ended up getting lost so our guide had to take the bus and try to find them, which was fine, it meant time for us on the beach to frolic and play like the sound of music characters that we are.

after teddy's lookout i reckon we got pretty tired, we went to some koalas in the wild place and saw koalas in the wild. koalas are pretty cool animals, and i'm sure i'll miss them once i'm gone, but golly gee wilikers, are they boring. all they do is sleep and canoodle with the trees. i sleep, too, and no one watches me. i'm a good canoodler, too, where's my paparazzi? still, one of the koalas had its baby on its back, which was cute, AND there was a wooden koala put-your-head-in-the-hole picture kind of thing, which warranted heaps and heaps of laughter. obviously.

so then we finally made it to apollo bay for the night, settled into our hostel accomodations (top notch) and our bed (4 to a bed and the little one said roll over..roll over). it was reminiscent of the shepparton days of long past. in order to conserve water, the 6 of us popped on our bathers and hit up the shower (it was very savannah07-esque, little snuggle bear, anyone?). then we hit up some take away joint for food and then got ice cream, then stopped at a local bar which apparently was townie boy night. we ended up back at the hostel by 10pm but it felt much later. we would've went to bed then but we ended up taking a midnight excursion to the beach.. or what we hoped would be the beach. (SIDE NOTE: I THINK MY ROOMATE JUST took her adderall...she'll be up for another 24 hours now) so apparently we have no idea how to get to the beach, and it being pitch black outside, the odds weren't in our favour. after narrowly avoiding death (and i mean it...we came to a point and used kristen's cellphone flashlight to read a sign that said "DANGEROUS DROPOFF AHEAD") we finally found a path down to the bay. the sky was pretty, very shiny and twinkly outside the lights of the city. it was so calm and serene and the best part was the stars reflected into the bay waters. i've never seen anything like it before. so in conclusion, the near death experience was well worth the risk of that view.

the next morning we packed it up, then left for the 12 apostles! we stopped at some forest walk place on the way there and siobhan warned us about killer leeches hiding in the trees. so the twelve apostles have now been turned into the seven apostles (or 8? maybe?) after one of them collapsed in 2005. really cool. i'd put up pictures here but i don't know how, the pictures speak better than i could describe it. it was just cool knowing that i was seeing something that people years from now won't be able to experience, because the waves keep hitting them and they keep eroding slowly but surely. after the apostles we stopped at loch ard gorge which was easily the best stop of the whole trip. saw some great views, then went down into the gorge and saw stalactites and huge rocks and did jumping picture! madi would be proud. after that we stopped for lunch at port campbell, then hit the road for the trek back to melbn.

all in all....great trip. made me realize just how lucky i am to be here right now, experiencing the things i am experiencing. i could be like my roommate and be taking adderall in order to stay up to do nothing but homework..and never leaving my room because i'm doing homework..but no. that's just not me. well, it will be the next few days as i need to write 2 2500 word essays. but that's only 3 days. i can dedicate 3 days to uni. i think.

in other news, guess who got the most AMAZING package the other day from the most AMAZING sister in the world! it was huge and contained all the classics, notably the butterscotch fiber haystacks (gone already) and banana reeses, and butterscotch chips and pudding and candies (YAY for amanda knowing that butterscotch does not exist here!) and an uncle bub's shirt (smelled like the grill!) and a halloween shirt (they dont celebrate it here!) and gum and lindt chocolate (between lindt and cadbury i think i know where those extra kgs are coming from) and yeah. just awesome. hint hint hint for those of you out there, feel free to compete with amanda. in fact, i insist it.

alright. it's late, and i'm not even connected to the internet anymore. my politics class is only a tutorial tomorrow, woot! so only one hour. of course that means more paper writing time, but it's probably better that way.

okay cub scout. peace. out.

love,
me

1669

wow. sometimes during the day i'm like "aw i should write in my blog" and then i'm like "nah, i wrote it in the other day, i don't want to seem like an overzealous blogger" and then before i know it it's friday and the last time i heard from myself it was like 1669 days ago. speaking of 1669 (did you like how i did that?) i got my melbourne marathon bib number and race packet in the mail the other day! 1669 just happens to be my race number. funny story, i was going to wake up and go running before uni but decided sleep was much more important. came back for lunch and got my mail only to find the marathon stuff. that made me feel like a lazy arse. 4 weeks to the marathon, folks. four WEEKS. i am getting winded already.

i turned in my first paper this week! a 500 worder, this one was quite the lil bugger because it was for australian political economy. i barely can comprehend us economy, let alone another hemisphere's. so what should have taken me 2 hours to spit out ended up taking me about ten.. also, the fact that i put it off till the day before didn't help. they have an interesting system here though, where as back in the states we'd turn in our papers during class periods, they give you until 5pm on any given day, lecture or tutorial or not. you go to the department, fill out a cover sheet, sign your life away against plagiarism, then time stamp it and send it off down a slot to heaven. it's kind of nervewrecking, at least to me. i'd rather hand it in face to face with the professor.. that way there's no "but i didn't get it, you must not have turned it in" factor. so, yeah. we'll see how that one turns out. my next piece of work is due next friday, a 1500 word monster about migration into australia. also something i know nothing about.. except for "bring in the whites!"

mmm so yep. today we had madfest at college which was basically like a showcase of talented people. i, in turn, felt like an untalented arse. why don't i know how to play the piano or geeeetar? why does my voice sound like shitearse? i blame my parents, personally. i have no talents. what can i do? run on stage? "and next up we have alycia! watch how she jogs in place! tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock..." yep. nope. definitely blame the parents.

gosh, this week went by faasssst. tomorrow morning i am getting up bright and early for a) a run b) a shower and c) GREAT OCEAN ROAD! we are going for the weekend, it should be a GREAT time.. i am most excited for SURFING, my first time ever, if i get stung by a jellyfish, avenge my death. then in ONE WEEK it is SPRING BREAKKKK!! WOOOOO! this semester is going by waaaay too fast. so one week till spring break.. then spring break is 2 weeks..then we come back to school in the beginning of october...go to uni for 3 weeks, then we have swotvac (a week off for studying) and exams start beginning of november. so let me get this straight for you. exams start november 3rd. i have one class that has an exam, but i dont know when it is yet, they havent posted the exam timetable yet. i leave australia (sadface) november 24th. that is a WHOLE MONTH of no uni.

team awesome mating call?

yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

when i say boogie, you say down...

yesterday was one of the greatest days of my LIFE. i have never felt more australian. probably more so than those whinging poms will ever be. when i apply for permanent residence here, i should just make a video montage of yesterday's events and be like, here, mr immigration officer bitch. watch this and tell me i'm not welcome into your bloody country. except i wouldn't say it like that, i'd be much nicer and humbler and innocent. and i might slip him a cadbury chocolate or something.

oh my gosh, my roommate is the loudest food eater in the world. it's worse than madi's snoring. CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP okay mcchomps a lot i get it...

anyways, yesterday we had the girls' footy tournament between all the colleges. first of all, footy is the greatest sport in the world, so i was so excited for this weekend since before i even left for aus. we've been having training sessions for the past two weeks or so, but nothing too formal. or hard. not that girls' footy is a joke, it's pretty hardcore and rough, but the games were only two ten minute halves as opposed to the boys' four fifteen minute quarters. so yeah.

so there's 18 players on a side, and a lot of the cols went home for the weekend because it is father's day, so i figured i had a pretty good shot of playing. we met at 845 for the first match at 10 against newman. can i just say that this day and the day of the 10k were the earliest i've gotten up since i've been in college here.. aka, the only reasons for me waking up early has been for sport. just throwing that out there. so we wake up, eat brekky, grab the boys jumpers and head over to the oval at royal park. it was a beeeeyooootiful day... nice and warm, so playing in shorts & singlets wasn't a big deal at all, plus footy socks go up to your knees. so, first match, newman. i didn't start, which i guess made sense because a) the coaches were ex-cols and didn't know me and b) i'm an american and thus know nothing about footy. since there were only 20 minutes to a game though i went in right away, and played pocketforward which basically means i was on offense. so the first match was GREAT... just going out there and playing and you don't realize how big a field is or how hard it is to kick or handball a football when 6 girls are chasing after you. also, there's no padding and anything goes except for tackles above the shoulders (hint: if you bend forward over the ball, you'll most likely get a whistle in your favor). so first match, newman beat us 7-6. kristen (an AMERICAN, thankyouverymuch) got the only goal for newman. i made sure to mention that to the girls on my team. team america, fuck yeah! newman also had the big butch GD professional netballer on their team; she could kick farther than most guys. overall though i think i played pretty well, it was tons and tons of fun, and i came out with scrapes and bruises and a jammed finger (which sucks to be typing with right now). siobhan, anna, karri, and leah all came to the match too so it was cool to have our own cheer squad (lacking floggers though, but we'll let that slide).

the second match was against international house and this time i started, woo! for an american, not too shabby. we won this match, and i got a good couple of tackles as well as a couple of marks. marking is pretty much my favorite part of the game. too bad i can't kick. oh, and i had a good run until i had to bounce the ball (you can only run 15 meters until you have to bounce it) and no one ever taught me the proper way to bounce a footy so i ended up on the ground tripping over myself. i think i got the ball out to en though. yeah, probably not.

so after this footy match i booked it on the tram to the g for the AFL match st kilda v richmond. i wasn't gonna go but it was a free ticket, and i only stayed till halftime, but since this was the last round before post season i figured i should go because i probably wouldn't get tickets for the next coming weeks. i only stayed till half time but just watching it made you appreciate it so much more after playing it.. you realize that WOW, they are kicking it far, and how do they not get tired running the WHOLE ENTIRE TIME!. it was a close game when i left, 53-54 but i hear st kilda pulled it off in the end.

so then i took the tram right back to royal park for our last footy game against queens. queens team was HUGE... over 50 girls.. i got to start again only this time they put me and fullforward, which is right in front of the goal on offense because "i was the best marker on the team." WOOOOO i was definitely proud of myself for that, which is why i'm writing about it in here. oh humble me. seriously though, it made me feel pretty good. unfortunately we lost this game and thus didn't make it to finals. but overall playing footy was fantastic, i'm definitely hooked for life now, and i'm bringing it back to the states, so don't you worry about a thing. you'll get your go.

so all in all it made for a super exhausting day BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! the lucksmiths (remember the melbourne band?) were having a cd release at a club in richmond and i had told siobhan and karri about it before but i was so tired that i didn't want to go. but then i figured, it was the lucksmiths, i'm in australia, let's do this. so 1030pm we leave for the show. I LOVE THE LUCKSMITHS THEY ARE AWESOME. it was a good show. we got to talk to them after and wished them luck on their american tour coming up (read: americans: do yourself a favor and go see them when they come to chicago, you will not regret it!). getting home was kind of a bust because we took a taxi without any money, but i reckon it worked out okay.

so, yeah. footy, footy, footy, footy, tea, music. i'm too australian for my own good.

today the boys footy played in the grand final but got whomped on. sad story.

alright. i'm so dead tired from this weekend but I WILL DO WORK. i have an essay due thursday, then great ocean road this weekend, then an essay due tuesday = i need to get my head in the game. also, we need to figure out brisbane.

oh! i talked to amanda too - she ran the race, got a 26:03 so good on her! i was so happy that she actually ran it! hopefully this will motivate her to run more. oh, running. oh, marathon in a month.

love, me