Week nineteen: Oh HEYYY summer!

Aaaah freedom! Last week signalled the end of textbooks, library days and essay stresses; this week signalled the start of three whole months of trash literature, beach days and stresses no greater than the choice between a maxibon and a lemon icy pole.

The Aussie weather decided, therefore, to kick off the summer with less of a bang, and more of a damp whimper. The first half of the week was decidedly morose, weather-wise, with a dazzling array of shades of grey. And a fair bit of rain. Oh, the joys!

Actually, I tell a lie. Monday was a beautiful day for the beach, but I'm pretty sure I covered that in last week's late blog post, so I'll skip to Tuesday.

Tuesday was my first proper day at work, and it started off suitably chaotically, with last-minute relocations and cancellations. I was working in Toronto, which - as Kirsty usefully pointed out - is in France. Erm, not. This was Toronto, NSW - not the rather better-known Toronto, Ontario, nor the (presumably fictional) Toronto, France... It was a gorgeous day, but the average age of a Torontan (Tonrontee?) hovered around the seventy-five mark - meaning that four hours passed without a single sign-up. Luckily, the magical power of milkybar cookies and cream gave Anna and I a boost, and we both managed to find some last minute sign-ups before the day ended. Unfortunately, this silver lining came with a cloud in the form of the demise of my favourite Vietnamese Ray Bans. Heartbreak. Kirsty catered for my inevitable comfort eating (I really, really liked those sunglasses!) with a harbourside BBQ, before we succumbed to our obese destinies and headed to Coco Monde for hazelnut hot chocolates, mmm!

Wednesday was a day off, and the weather was suitably crappy. Roseanna came round and we spent most of the day watching Frozen Planet and Wonders of the Solar System, discussing the acceptability of crushes on keyboard-playing lancastrian astrophysicists, and eating GO-LO frosting. Oh maaaaan we're classy. In the evening we continued the week nineteen theme of Eating Everything That Stands Still Long Enough with a Thanksgiving Dinner at 62 Church St. The food was incredible and plentiful - honey-roast carrots, numerous salads, nutmeg mash, home-made bread, stuffing, apple sauce, sweet potato souffle... Yum. The puddings were perhaps even better - pumpkin pie, spiced apple oatmeal cake, berries and yoghurt, mars bar rice crispy cakes... It has been brought to my attention that most of my posts (and photos) revolve around food. To this boy (whom shall remain nameless), I have one thing to say: SHUSH YOU (you would do the exact same thing if your friends suddenly revealed their Jamie Oliver-esque culinary talents!)

Honey-roast carrots, which were AMAZING.

Home-made bread.

Spiced Apple-Oatmeal cake.

The inevitable bacon strips & bacon strips & bacon strips...

Thursday was another ridiculously disorganised work day, which involved last minute relocations to Lake Haven, a good 90 minutes away. Eurgh. It was quite fun though, and we were posted outside a pet shop with the cutest puppies EVER EVER EVER. I got back quite late and had a quick shower and change at Liz's before going out for dinner with the girls and Lawrence on his last night in Newy. We went to Sticky Rice Thai and the food was so good! Afterwards, it was party tiiiiime at Church Street, in typically ridiculous fashion. Whilst I had been at work, the girls had nipped to Dan Murphys and procured a bag of goon and a bottle of blue curacao and vodka... It made for a repulsively coloured - but not quite so horrifically tasting - drink, and the night got pretty messy. It culminated in a 2am swim in the ocean, which was so warm and so fun! Some of the boys - who shall, to their relief I'm sure, remain nameless - decided to go skinny dipping haha! We eventually all crashed out in Josh's room, and somehow he got the short straw and ended up on the floor, whilst the five other inhabitants managed to procure sleeping space. Sorry Josh!

On the way to dinner :)

Drunken Church St lovin'

Ohhhh dear!

HIDEOUS coloured drink.

Friday morning carried with it a twist of fate. I had a 9am meeting for work, followed by a day of sign-ups. The office is only a 5 minute walk from Church St so I rolled out of bed at 8.45am and headed down. In a strange coincidence, my boss' housemate surfs with some of the boys, meaning that my boss had turned up at the party. The morning after, he was clearly suffering worse than I, and allowed us most of the day off with full pay! Win. I spent the rest of the day in my PJs back at Church St watching Aladdin :)

In the evening, we all carpooled to Joey's parents' house out in the country. It was such a pretty area, and he had an Alpaca farm! We collected up some firewood and spent the evening making smores and sitting around the bonfire. It was a nice, chilled evening :)

So pretty!

Look! I'm being useful! (Not pictured: me breaking the axe...)

:)

Sunset over the Alpaca farm!

Bonfire skillz.

Saturday morning was weirdly foggy, so I went for a run and then spent until lunchtime lazing around. When it cleared, it was gorgeous, and I headed to the beach with Kirst for an afternoon of sunbathing. In the evening, we walked slowly along to Glenrock again, via Bar Beach and Merewether, for a night of sleeping under the stars.

We watched the sun rise at 5.45am, had another quick doze, then went our separate ways. The mountaineers went, well - mountaineering, whilst Kirst and I headed off for a beautiful breakfast of muesli, yoghurt and berry compote; overlooking the early morniung mist over Merewether Beach. Afterwards, we slowly walked back to Newy, via King Edwards Park, and spent the morning lazing on the beach and trying to avoid the mini swarm of bugs which were continuously homing in on us. Apparently Poms taste particularly yummy. When the heat got too much, we went to the Ocean Baths for a swim and an ice lolly, before heading home for a chilled out evening.

Merewether Ocean Baths by night.

BEAUTIFUL sunrise!

Mmmm best breakfast!

Misty Mereweather.

Newy in the fog.

Lone morning trumpeter on the beach!

This week has been so chilled and relaxing, the perfect way to kick off the summer! Next week will be a little more full-on, with more shifts at work, moving house and saying goodbye to some really close friends; but it will also be amazing, as we're going to Melbourne! Ahhh I love my life right now!

Week eighteen: BLEUUUURGHHHH.

When I signed up for a year abroad, I knew this week would come. Right from the beginning, it has been sitting there on the horizon, close enough for me to see but far enough to ignore. As it has approached, I've rapidly adjusted the blinkers, keeping it out of my line of sight. Last week I was forced to acknowledge it. This week I've had to live it.

EXAM WEEK.

'Study abroad'... The clue's in the name, right? Yet somehow I have managed to pass this semester having the most incredible time of my life, with - despite my many library rants - minimal work and maximum beach time. This week I was forced to make up for that. The white sands and turquoise waters of the south pacific were replaced with the fluorescent lights and overenthusiastic air-con of the library.

Bleurgh.

Monday was, perhaps rather unhelpfully, spent away from the library. I recently got a job as a Greenpeace frontliner: I harass people on the street to give us money to save the whales. There was a lot of paperwork to get through, but it went okay and got me well on my way to earning some much-needed dollar. Afterwards, I headed back to campus and spent the evening snuggled up with my notes and sheltering from the Day After Tomorrow-esque storm outside.

Lightning lit up the whole sky!

Tuesday was E-day. I went for a quick run before gathering up my notes and heading to my first exam of the day: Aboriginal Studies. It went okay, it definitely won't get me a HD but hopefully I passed :)

For everyone at home,the grading system here is weird. 50% is a pass - rather than 40% - but the marking is easier. 50-59% is a pass (P), 60-69% is a credit (C), 70-79% is a distinction (D), and 80% upwards is a high distinction (HD). I got really confused on my first few weeks when people seemed happy to get Ds...

In the afternoon, I hit the books again in preparation for my second exam: Organisms to Ecosystems. It's a bizarre module: an introduction to the whole of biology. From the name and course outline, I presumed the main focus was on ecology, hence why I took it. I was wrong. The course covers - in surprising detail - plant biology, plant chemistry, cell biology, physiology, animal biology, ecology, evolution, human sex biology.... EVERYTHING. So, so much to learn. The exam itself could have been worse, I struggled with some questions but hopefully it went okay. Fingers crossed!

Once E-day was over, I still had a take-home exam to complete for The Sustainable Society. I put that off til Thursday, as I had more training at work on Wednesday, followed by a nice swim in the Ocean Baths with Liz. I spent Thursday and Friday working on my paper, which is unbelievably dull. 

On Friday night we decided ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH. Despite our looming deadlines and mini-breakdowns, it was time to have some fun! We got dressed up, I learnt how truly atrocious I was at '63', and we all got embarrassingly drunk. We went to Finnegans and I decided it would be hilarious to pull the gremlin face a la Lou in every photo... Yeah. Regret that now. It was SUCH a fun night though, despite the embarrassing glut of photos still to come...

Saturday meant library time again, and I was determined to finish my exam. I sped through the questions and submitted it, meaning that I was DONE. Finished. Finito. Fin. No more. Nada. YAAAAY!

The end of exams meant the end of my first semester in Australia! I cannot believe how quickly the time has passed! I am four months in, and I now have three long months of summer stretching ahead of me. I'm so happy!

Saturday night was Lawrence's early 21st birthday party. Despite our tired and hungover states, we went along and had a good night, watching his steady descent into inebriation, accompanied by numerous "I love you guys sooo much"-style speeches! Hahaha.

Sunday was BEACH TIME! I headed along with Kirsty, who was working at the National Beach Volleyball Championships on Nobbys Beach. We watched a couple of matches with Anna and Josh, and got a little burnt...  

New South Wales vs Queensland

Anna had a go!

In the evening, we got showered and headed to the Brewery for the Sunday Sessions. It was so fun! We sat on the jetty, had a couple of glasses of vino and had a little boogie. Despite the relatively little amount of alcohol consumed, vino + dehydration - dinner = drunky. We ended up on a food search at 8pm (I know, that's what you get for starting early!), and found a pie van (classyyyyyy!) which served the most INCREDIBLE pies! Veggie pie topped with mash, mushy peas and gravy, and ACTUAL HP SAUCE!! It was so good!

Sunday sessions :)

Champers by the harbour :)

Pielove.

 Afterwards we headed to Anna's for a sleepover on her balcony. We watched Love Actually, ate lots of GO-LO crap and had a laugh, before having a surprisingly good nights sleep, considering the numerous bats and cockatoos squawking at us.

Balcony slumber party!

This morning I had to sort out some paperwork at Greenpeace, before heading to Newcastle Beach with Kirsty to relaaaaax in the 35 degree heat. It was such a beautiful day, and so hot! The waves weren't huge, so we climbed the rocks and jumped off into the sea. which seems to be getting clearer and more turquoise by the hour. At one point whilst standing atop a rock, surrounded on three sides by crystal-clear ocean, I said aloud 'I want to live here!' before realising I do! 

:)

I live in Australia, in a gorgeous city with three incredible white-sand beaches right in the city centre. I wake up to the sound of cockatoos and parrots. The skies are bright blue, the breeze is warm and the sea is gorgeous. I have finished exams and don't start Uni again for three months. I'm living the dream! I have so much to look forwards to in the next few months! A week and a half until Melbourne, then two and a half weeks back in Newy before Hugo comes over for a month. Afterwards, I'm going to New Zealand with the girls, and in between are countless day of lazing on the beach, swimming in the sea and soaking up the sun. I literally cannot put into words how lucky I am to be living this life right now. 

mmmm fake-mini milk!

Beachlove.

I cut my leg on the rocks :(

PS. I just lost an epic staring contest to a cockatoo on my windowsill.

My nemesis.

Week seventeen: Hallowe'en and library crazies.

This week has been the polar opposite of last week. It started off with a bang in the form of a Hallowe'en party at the house on the hill. Being hosted by Americans, the theme was general fancy dress, rather than exclusively scary outfits. Liz, Kirst, Roseanna and I went as the four seasons (not the hotel chain) - we were Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, respectively. The costumes were fun: as Spring, Liz wore a floral dress, with a giant, fluorescent green butterfly on her back and flowers in her hair; Kirsty went as a Summer strawberry; Roseanna stuck homemade autumnal leaves in her hair, and wore a dress patterned with leaves. I drew snowflakes onto a white top with glitter glue, and wore a white broderie anglais skirt. I covered myself in white glitter and turned a silver tree decoration into a headband... It worked fairly well, though a week later, I am still finding glitter everywhere... There were some pretty impressive themes at the party. The full cast of the Incredibles turned out; they were joined by a Rainbow fish, a discoball, a censored nudist, Robin Hood, a Zombie prostitute.... I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter

She's purdy.

Rainbow fish! Such a good costume!

Strawberry eating a pear...

Human disco ball and a Robin Hood Mummy

Oh golly gosh.

Snow White, you're so pretty!

Tuesday began the trend for the week to come. Far removed from the antics of the night before, the day was spent trying to work in quiet despair.In the afternoon, a group of us escaped campus for Church Street, where Dom cooked some amazing Leek soup, we sweet-talked our way into a free box of german cookies from the soon-to-open restaurant down the street, and Anna, James and Nathan sang at the Great Northern open mic night. It was a pretty nice, chilled way to end a stressful day.

Wednesday was - quelle surprise - a library day.
Thursday was - can you guess? - a library day.
Friday was... well, you get the gist of it.

Friday evening was the date of the Beach Party, which we had planned in a fit of coursework-induced library rage several weeks prior. Though the initials invitations extended to some 40 people, word spread and by the evening, over 100 people had clicked 'attending' on the facebook event - with another 50 or so yet to commit. 7pm came and went, and there less than 10 people there. It seemed to be doomed to fail. However, at some point the crowds descended and by midnight there must have been close to 100 people sat on Newcastle Beach. It wasn't particularly rowdy, it was just a really nice way to chill after the hellishly repetitive library days preceding.

Happy beachy times!

Saturday was spent, once again, in the library. One thing I have noticed about Newcastle is the lack of library users during exam season. When coursework deadlines were looming, the libraries - whilst not as full as UEA library gets - were packed with a reasonable amount of people. Any UEA-ers reading this will, I'm sure, have experienced the frantic hunt for a spare desk/computer/carrel/patch of floor which ensues if you arrive at the library during revision time, after about 9am. The libraries here are deserted. On Saturday, Liz and I were each able to take up an entire booth, and the desks were all but empty. It was a ghost town.

In the evening, Nathan cooked fried rice, and Liz and I walked to MarketTown to buy chocolate and cider (ever the classy girls) for our camping trip. Ten of us piled into cars and headed for Glenrock state conservation reserve. There, we found a clifftop with panoramic views over a deserted beach. It was gorgeous! We lit up a bonfire and some incense, baked some potatoes and Nathan played the guitar. It was fun! We all snuggled down in sleeping bags under the stars, and slept surprisingly well, considering we were on a slope... In the morning, Liz poked me awake as the sun rose. It was so pretty! We all looked a little dazed, but the sky was every shade of pink and orange and blue. At 7am, Liz and I walked the 6km back to Church Street, as she had work and I had revision. Siiiigh.

Hahaha oh Lizzie...

6am sunrise over the South Pacific :)

So pretty!

Wakey wakey

Today has been, yet again, a library day. I am currently counting down the days - something I hate doing, but it is the only way to keep myself in the library, reading up on platyhelminthes and lophotrochozoa, when the mercury is hitting 32 degrees and the sky is a cloudless blue... 3 days until I finish exams. One week til I hand in my last paper. Three weeks til Melbourne.

The summer is so close I can almost taste it. Three days-One week-Three weeks-43 days.

Week sixteen: Scary hairy lairy Mary canary - Kirsty's 21st birthday weekend

This has been a week of contrasts. Library/nightclub. Newcastle/Sydney. 5km runs/krispy kremes. I know which part of the week I preferred... Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were library days. I hate the library, seagrass reports are boring, no-one told me I would have to do work on a year abroad... Etcetera. You get the drift.

Wednesday was Dom's birthday, so we left the library early to head to Woolies and buy some ingredients for the Epic Cake of Dreams. Devils food cake, with flake bites mixed in, sandwiched with chocolate fudge frosting and covered in caramel buttons and flake bites. Om nom nom. We headed to Church Street, where Lars was cooking, and surprised Dom with his cake, before heading over to the Great Northern for a quick drink.

MONSTER CAKE.

Thursday was Kirsty's 21st birthday. It began, as ever, in the library, feverishly finishing my report into the effects of jetty construction upon seagrass meadows in Myall Lakes National Park... Yawn. Once that was finished and submitted - my final piece of coursework for the semester(!) - we headed into town for a meal at Coco Monde, the chocolateria from heaven. We bought Kirst a birthday hazelnut hot chocolate as she was yet to experience its magic; and we bought chocolate fondue plates between us. They were AMAZING. You got a whole bowl of melted chocolate (we went for milk chocolate), and a plate of brownies, shortbread, fruit (including BANANAS!!!) and honeycomb. Mmmm. They even threw in a free plate of extra dipping bits when we ran out. We just about managed to stumble back to Anna's through our sugar haze, where we spent the evening collapsed on the sofa, watching Beauty and the Geek. Classy.

Birthday fondue!

GO-LO presents are the best presents.

On Friday morning I got up and headed to my lecture, before realising that it was actually just recapping everything I learned in Behavioural Ecology at UEA last year; so I skipped out, bumped into Nathan and headed to NUSA with him for a free cuppa and  PB&J on toast. Yum.

I packed up my stuff over lunchtime and headed with the girls to the station. It was time for the proper 21st birthday celebrations to begin! We got to Sydney at 6ish and went to check into the hostel - where the cheapest available room had been a 32-bed dorm. It would be an adventure, right?! In actual fact, Nomads managed to lose our booking, so we ended up getting a free upgrade to a three-person private room with private bathroom. Despite having 4 of us in a 3-bed room, it was definitely a better deal. Win.

We dumped our bags and got showered and dressed up, before starting on the vino. In bottles, not bags. Impressive, I know. At 8pm-ish, a voice coming out of ceiling instructed us to go down to the 1st floor for free wine and cheese (read: goon and cheddar). After a brief moment of terror ("Is that you, god?!") we located the mystery loud speaker on the ceiling and headed down to the bar. We had some drinks and caught a glimpse of a boxing kangaroo tattoo on an Irish boys bum, then headed out to Darling Harbour for some cocktails. We couldn't find the fabled Friday Night Happy Hour bar, so ended up in an extortionately overpriced joint selling cocktails for $17. Ouch. Once the other girls had their fill (I'm from Yorkshire. It is physically impossible for me to spend that amount on a cocktail, I'm just too tight with money), we went on to Scary Canary for the Red Cup Party, where we met up with some of Kirst's friends from Weeee-als.. We got very excited at the sight of proper American red solo cups - and even more excited at the prospect of a free drink, and $4 drinks thereafter. Spirits! Affordable spirits! We stayed at Scary Canary for the rest of the night, until our feet were bruised and our eyelids were heavy with vodka.

Suited and Booted.

TWENTY-FIVE LITRES OF GOON. Say what.

Liz was very excited about the red cups.

...As was Kirsty.

Screw it, we were all pretty excited.

Messy girl.

We awoke on Saturday morning feeling a little worse for wear, and so we showered and dressed and crawled across the road to Kafe Kaz (a misleadingly tacky name for a fairly nice place), where we gorged upon eggs and mushrooms on toast, and smoothies. Mmmm. Afterwards, we headed over to Paddy's Markets to find some Hallowe'en costume inspiration for Anna's party on Monday. Inspiration was thin on the ground, but I did manage to get into a heated discussion with a stall holder. What a lovely woman. Naat.

Anna got the morning train to Sydney and joined us at the markets, before we strolled off in the direction of Westfield. Liz and I slipped away from the rest, and went to buy Kirst's birthday present - a silver bracelet from Thomas Sabo - under the pretence of buying my Dad a book. Sorry to break it to you Dad, there is no book.

In the afternoon, we perused the Sydney Food and Wine Festival in Hyde Park, and found a disappointing lack of freebies. We did, however, find a large gathering of the undead, due to the Hallowe'en Zombie Walk taking place. It was a fairly impressive sight - watching the zombies gather, natter amongst themselves and nibble on McFlurries - hardly an authentically zombie food source, but it was hot so I presume brains didn't appeal.

We spent a while sitting in Hyde Park, watching the performers, erm, perform, and splashing in the fountain to cool down. Afterwards, we headed back to Darling Harbour for a dinner of Greek salads and roast veggie turkish toasties. Mmm.

My bargain $1 charity bracelets.

Splish splash.

Darling Harbour baby!

The boys were scheduled to get in from Fiji, where they've spent the past week, at 7pm ish; so after our early dinner we headed back to the hostel to get showered and changed. The boys got to the hostel at half 7ish, where we had some wine and fijian rum (bleurghhhh) and a catch up. We also gave Kirsty her present, which she loved. Yay :) There were fireworks at Darling Harbour on Saturday night, so we went along to watch them. They were gorgeous, if a little short-lived.

Darling Harbour by night.

Once the last whizzes and bangs had died away, we chanced upon a cocktail bar with a 2-for-1 happy hour on. The drinks were gorgeous - raspberry mojitos were my favourite - and pretty potent. After a few hours our purses and our heads were much lighter...

Strawberry daiquiri!

Mmmmm raspberry mojito! <3

After an unsuccessful quest to find Scary Canary again, we stumbled upon a Cuban salsa bar. It had such a good atmosphere - the live band was amazing, and the lead singer gave us salsa lessons when our own attempts failed. The walls were all covered in quotes and messages, such as "Life may not always be the party you expected, but while we're here we may as well dance!" It was so much fun, and as Kirsty told me, "It sounds like Nandos! You can't dance here, you're vegetarian."

...Quite.

Our new cuban friend.

Shake yo' maracas Anna!

Once I finished my appalling attempts at Spanish, and Kirst gave up on teaching the uninterested barman Welsh, we headed on to the Three Wise Monkeys, where we were treated to more free drinks thanks to a Bundy rum promotion. Oh dear. Things got messier from there, as Roseanna fell in a fountain and we lost Liz and Anna. We all ended up back at the hostel, exhausted and drunk and in fits of apparently meaningless laughter.

Sunday morning called for another trip to Kafe Kaz, where I stuck my face into a large pile of blueberry pancakes. The rest of the guys did similar things to nutella croissants/beans on toast/bacon sandwiches etc. Mmmmm.

Mmmmm perfection.

After breakfast, Josh headed back up to Newy to finish off his Seagrasses report, whilst the rest of us had a girls day in Sydney. We didn't really do much.... We sunbathed by the opera house. We browsed a market and stole as many free nibbles as we could. We grabbed lunch by Circular Quay. Kirsty had a face-off with a hungry ibis in the Botanical Gardens (the ibis won). We had a nap in the Botanical Gardens. I finally had the Krispy Kreme I had been lusting after all weekend.... It was a fun, chilled way to end a fairly hectic and amazing weekend.

The girls :)

<3

I have now officially handed in all work for this semester. I have one pre-exam lecture left. Where has all the time gone?! I'm almost a third of the way through my year abroad. WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, SLOW DOWN! I'm not ready to leave quite yet. There is so much left to see.