I'm back (to blogging)!

Hello Everyone! Sorry I've taken such a long break from the blogging world. I have officially survived my mid semester exams (hopefully I passed them all too) and now I'm enjoying my second Spring Break of 2014!

Even though I spent a lot of the past few weeks studying, I still got out for a little adventuring. A couple weekends ago I went down to Bondi Beach to enjoy the sun and check out the Festival of the Winds.

Festival of the winds is basically a festival devoted to kite flying.  So the sky was filled with kites.  It was really cool to look down the entire beach and see the sky dotted with specs of color.  And some of the bigger kites that were anchored on the beach were beautiful. There was also an airplane writing messages in the sky.  I happened to look up in time to see the message "real men cook."  It was a beautiful day and it is definitely now warm enough to jump in the ocean without a wetsuit!

So many kites!

My favorite adventure over the past few weeks was my discovery of a bagel shop in Surry Hills.  Bagels aren't something you get at a cafe here and only rarely can you buy a package of them at the grocery store.  Cream cheese is easily found though so I'm always wondering how its so popular without bagels.

A taste of home!

Bagels have always been one of my favourite foods and for me 2 months is a long time to go without a bagel.  Also you silly Americans post too much about the Bagel Market and the Bagelry. (You post way too much about pumpkin spice too, another thing Australia doesn't have. So if you could so kindly stop reminding me that I'm missing the season of pumpkin spice lattes that would be great!) Apparently I was a little too excited when I ordered my everything bagel with jalapeno cream cheese because the barista actually asked me why I was I was smiling so much.  I think they were also wondering why I walked all the way to their great cafe for just the bagel and didn't even bother ordering one of their amazing coffees.  All in all my $5 bagel was well worth it and I'm sorry that you just had to read a paragraph devoted to a bagel.

It tasted like heaven!

Besides the kites and bagel most of my days were spent in the library studying away.  Exams turned out to be an adventure of their own though.  Most mid semester exams are worth 20% to 40% of your total grade so they're a pretty big deal. And because they're a big deal they're taken very seriously.  My exams weren't even held on campus.  I had to walk 15 minutes to Wentworth Park (a greyhound racing stadium).  UTS clears out the building and fills it with desks, about 1000 on each of the two floors.

What a beautiful place to take exams...

 To get into the building you are required to know your specific seat number and your ID has to be out at all times.  Once you're at your desk you have to fill out and sign an attendance sheet that is collected when one of the 20 proctors confirms your ID.  Cellphones had to be off because if they ring during an exam you get an automatic zero and can be excluded from UTS (aka expelled) for exam misconduct. Watches had to be taken off but could be left on the desk.  Calculator covers had to be left on the floor.  No hats and only bottled water was permitted.  Any bag bigger than a backpack (think gym bag) had to be left at the front of the room. My exams were each 2 hours and 10 minutes long.  You weren't permitted to leave your seat during the first 90 minutes of the exam and you weren't allowed to leave during the last 15 minutes of the exam either. Basically the whole process was intense.  One of my exams was open notes and I spent more time worrying that I would be kicked out of the exam for having too many notes than actually preparing for the exam. Thankfully I wasn't kicked out. But exams are done! Since midsemester break isn't really in the middle of the semester I only have 4 more weeks of classes before I get to do it all again!

Okay, I'll stop boring you now.  This morning, on my first day of vacation, I got up with the sun and picked two of my favourite people up at the airport! My Big and Double Big have made it to Australia! I got to spend all day with them and it still doesn't feel real! They got to walk across the Harbour Bridge, go to Luna Park, the Opera House, the Royal Botanic Gardens, and see a Footy game all after traveling for over 24 hours. I'm pretty sure they were about to fall asleep standing up by the time we got home from the game.  We have some awesome adventures planned for their time here and I promise you that you'll hear about all of it! 

At the footy game!

Adventures and some Australian Pop Culture

Hello Everyone! Midsem exams are rapidly approaching, which means more of my time is being spent studying and less exploring.  Although I'm usually one to put off my studying until a day or two before the exam, knowing that each exam is a couple of questions and worth around 30-40% of my grade has scared me into starting my studying a bit earlier.  I hope it works!

This past weekend I was super excited to go get out of the city again and head into the Blue Mountains for some exploring. I got up early Saturday morning, got ready and headed to the train station with what I thought was plenty of time.  Well I was wrong because I couldn't find the platform the train was leaving from, so after 15 minutes of running like a mad woman through Central Station I finally found the correct platform and got to watch the train pull away as I arrived.  So I moped back to my apartment through the pouring rain wondering what to do with my day.

Thankfully I had a backup plan, which was to go to the Art Gallery.  Right before I was about to head out though I was invited to another AFL game because my flatmate had an extra ticket.  So my plans changed again and off I went to see Sydney play the Freemantle Dockers (aka Freo). We had awesome seats and since it was the first round of the finals it was a much better game than the first game I saw.  Since the teams were pretty equal the game moved faster and I left more confused about the rules than when I arrived. I really got to experience the true AFL atmosphere with drunk fans screaming profanities all around me.

The view from our Seats.  There were 36,000 people there and ANZ Stadium still looked pretty empty

On Sunday I decided that since I've now become an expert chef (I made something besides pasta for 3 days in a row. 2 of those things were paleo.  I'm on a roll!) that it was safe enough to try my hand at baking.  I decided to make ANZAC biscuits which are a traditional Australian cookie. These biscuits were first made by wives of men in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who sent them to their husbands serving overseas during WWI.  They're super easy and super yum!

Sooooo Good

If you want to try making them yourself then click here for the recipe I used! 

Wednesday it finally stopped raining so I decided to adventure across the harbour to Manly for a little time on the beach.  On my way to the ferry dock I picked up  Strictly Confidential for a little beach reading.

 The book takes place in Sydney so I feel really cool when I know where something is happening in the book.  It reminds me of The Devil Wears Prada so it was a perfect beach read. The author's daughter is probably the cutest thing on instagram currently (Check it out!)

Manly was absolutely beautiful.  It was a perfect day to lay in the sand and I got to test out my new sun hat from Sportsgirl (one of my new favourite Australian stores).  I was jealous of all the surfers out, but the water is still a little cold to go in without a wetsuit. I have gotten to wear shorts twice this week though, so the warmer weather is on its way!

Manly Beach

Selfie with my new hat

Today for a little break from studying I wandered down to the Pitt Street Mall with my flatmates and we made our own Magnum ice cream bars. Magnum has a pop up shop there as a part of their 25th birthday celebration. Watch out Ben and Jerry, these masterpieces may give you a run for your money!

My masterpiece

Thats all for now! I'll try to post regulary during exam week but if I don't then I promise I'll make up for it with exciting posts from my Spring Break (which happens to be the week of my 21st Birthday)! Cheers!

(Also, if anyone wants to send me mail while I'm here just facebook message me for my address! I've sent a few letters to people in the US pretty easily and I love getting mail!)

1504 Stairs and Surf Camp

Time to get you all caught up on my most recent adventures in Sydney!

Last weekend my flatmates and I decided that taking the elevator to the top of the tallest tower in Sydney was just too easy.  So we opted to take the stairs! We climbed 1504 stairs in just over 20 minutes (not that fast but we weren't really racing).  The fastest climbers did it in just under 10 minutes.  The elite runners were officially finished before we started but at least 2 of them did it multiple times because they passed us in the stairwell.  The most inspirational climbers were definitely the firefighters who climbed the whole way in their full uniform and with full oxygen tanks. Photo credit goes to Sarah and Maddie because I decided I didn't need to bring my camera with me. And since we were in the fancy dress division we decided to channel our inner army girl strength for the climb.

The Before Picture

Climbing! 

We did it!

The view from the top was amazing!

After the climb I was feeling like a champion so I decided to take the train to the suburb Olympic Park for some exploring.  This is where all the stadiums from the Sydney 2000 Olympics are.  It was a beautiful day so I wondered around the monuments just enjoyed my time in the sun.

The cauldron that held the Olympic Torch in Sydney

Hey Honors 2016, look at this pretty fish ladder I found!

If you're going to buy a coffee from an American company, you might as well get the most Australian flavor available

Wednesday night was the UTS world fiesta which was basically just a chance for all the international students to dress up as their culture, eat some delicious cultural food, and do some fantastic cultural dancing.
I'm still not sure how to dress up as an American, so I just went crazy with the face paint.  My friend Julia is from Germany and she rocked the drindl for the fiesta.

German Julia's drindl 

'Murica!

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for...My surf camp experience! I bet when I said that I was going to surf camp you pictured a blue sky, palm trees, white sand beaches, turquoise blue waters, and me surfing in my bikini. Well, I wish.  A more accurate picture would be a rainy September day on a beach in Maine.  It was raining.  We were shivering in our steamers (3mm wetsuits). The waves were big, but the water was dark and foamy. When we weren't surfing we were walking around in as much warm clothing as possible. But hey, not everyday can be a surfer's paradise.  And my 6 hours of surf lessons was spent mostly with me being tossed around by the waves.  Maybe 2 minutes out of 6 hours were spent with me actually standing on a surfboard (There is no photographic proof that I stood on a surfboard but I swear it happened!). As I sit here writing this my entire body hurts. Parts of my hand and feet are rubbed raw from the surf board and the sand. I definitely have a whole new level of respect for surfers.  I spent a lot of time thinking about how surfing compares to snowboarding.  Riding a wave for 10 seconds is like riding down the mountain.  Getting back out to catch the next wave is like walking all the way up the mountain to go for another run.

That was Saturday though.  Sunday was warm enough to walk around in shorts, the sun was shining, and we went down to the beach to take photos after our last lesson!

Our surf camp cabins

Seven Mile Beach where we had our surf lessons!

Selfies on the beach because why not

Missing my sisters and thinking of them as they start recruitment!

That my friends is a jumping pillow aka the best trampoline you will ever bounce on

 That sums up my last days of winter in Australia! Today was the first day of Spring and I'm ready for the temperature to start rising! I have lots of Uni work to do this week but I'm still hoping to go on some awesome adventures this coming weekend!