wednesday, rappelling

ok so wednesday was a crazy intense day, i went rappelling, eventually down a 90 ft waterfall! read all about it at thewordaustralia.com which is where im interning. and then click on blog, you will see a bunch of blogs. the ones writeen by janna g are clearly me and so far i have written three so check it out. the one called abseiling aka repelling and the one called leap before you look are both about my trip. the pictures will be up on facebook soon but if u cant wait that long or dont have fbook here is the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wordaustralia/show/

enjoy!

Food

OK so they Looveeeee meat pies and what we call chicken pot pie. They put salt and pepper on EVERYTHING including burgers... which brings me to the fact that they put beetroot on their burgers which is what we call beets. They eat a lot of schnitzel and kababs. Sushi and thai food is everywhere. They love their avocados, they put avocado spread on everything. Oh and I did the math and wen I work on Fridays I walk 14 miles a week.

Sunday

Woke up at around 8am, set out to the center of Sydney with linds around 9:30. Went to paddy’s market which is is a great market with clothes, souvenirs, toys, everythinggg…u name it, they got it. I bought some postcards, a really cute dress, and a cheap bag with all the city name of Australia on them. It was fun but overwhelming. And if you want anything let me know and ill get it! At around 2 we headed back and tanned on the rooftop. It was a nice and relazing day. Ive been getting those bad headaches again :( so hopefully ill drink more and keep myself hydrated :)

This past weekend

So Friday was an easy day, the two main bosses were at a conference so it was pretty laid back. That night me and some people went out to oxford street which is a very popular street and notorious for their gay bars. We chose the Gaff and most of the capa students were all together. Me and a bunch of girls experienced our first jager bomb which was fun. We all ended up splitting up and going separate ways. Me linds and lauren had met these two guys from the UK that were nice and decided to go to another bar with them. We ended up at coco cubana which was a café that was also a bar. It had delicious deserts-which we of course tried- and coffees and then alcohol. It had a kind of starbucks setting which was nice and tame. We chatted and then met some nice three other gay guys who were very entertaining. And then ran into some people on the street that were nice too haha, we were just meeting everyone! The next morning I slept in pretty late and then skyped with mom and dad, they finally met linds! By the time we were ready to go it was like 1:30 and there was supposed to be a barbeque and then they had to go to a movie for class sooo me colleen and Lindsey just went to cogee beach and then I came back and fixed up the place and made dinner. Then I went to bed early, around eleven. Stayed in so that we cld get up early in the morning!

This week

Then the week started up and it was the same routine, classes and work all over again. This week was the other interns last week which is really sad because I will have no one to hang out with and eat lunch. I found out a lot about her Finish culture which was really interesting. The one cool thing that happened this week is that work told me that I am going to go abseiling next week with another girl. They are paying for me to document and experience it which is really cool. Abseiling is what we call rappelling, and I will be doing it down a waterfall! Also, my exam for next week got changed to a take home which is always nice.

Last weekend

So last weekend on Saturday afternoon I went with the two laurens and christa to walk around Sydney. Most people were on the surf trip that weekend. As you might have seen in my facebook pictures, we walked down to the opera house and took some touristy pictures. Then we walked around and eventually made our way to the market on the rocks but it was closing and it OF COURSE started raining so we headed back. The stuff there was really nicely crafted jewelry, shoes, and clothes. Oh and all weekend as I had mentioned we had a flood so I was staying in another room that was smaller but had a king sized bed which was nice for me since my roommate was gone for the weekend. But it was very frustrating because I had to go back and forth from the old room to the new room with clothes and food and such. And the old room REAKED. That night the same group of girls and the boys and I went back to that area to go to a place called argyle but they wouldn’t let the boys in so we went to a place by there that was a hotel bar, I remember the name started with an O. we had a lot of fun, we danced upstairs and we met a guy named Graham who lives right by manly beach, a true Australia and he was really nice. Later we left and went to three wise monkeys on George street. Sunday was valentines day. I woke up feeling horrible, and it wasn’t from the night before. I had a skype date with Steve for an hour which was great until I threw up :( the whole day I just felt horrible and hot. Then I officially switched rooms to my new one. Colleen and I like this one better, its bigger and has too floors which both have balconies. We had issues with the place though, our dishwasher broke and the clothes that they cleaned for us came back wet and therefore smelled but everything eventually got cleared up.

Random

So it is very weird to watch the winter Olympics while sweating here in Australia in 80 degree weather haha. I have been cooking a lot more, you should all be proud! Ive made tuna casserole, spaghetti and meat sauce, hamburgers, and much more. And tonight I made my ultimate meal! First I had a salad with lemon and pepper and salt on it and then I had pasta, vegetables, and dim sum which are basically like the Chinese dumplings at home. And I put pepper, garlic, lemon and some butter and milk on it… DELICIOUS! Lol. Ive been eating a crazy amount of watermelon here, I mean u have to when its hot outtt! Ive been having issues with lunch because I don’t like their deli meat here, it tastes weird so ive been eating a ton of peanut butter, mother always says u gotta have protein! Lol. Still the bats freak me out at night, I don’t think I will ever get used to them flying around everywhere cause they are just grossss! Ive had thai food here twice, pad thai both times and it was amazinggggg! The sushi here is also pretty amazing! But no good Mexican food :(

distance

so i just thought i wld let u all know that from my apartment to my work is about 2miles which means that on monday, thursday and friday i walk four miles a day! crazyyyyy!!! o and i have loads of posts to put up but they are on my comp so they will go up on tuesday (tomorrow) so get excited for that!

week to week

Ok, so i do realize that it seems to u guys that all i do is drink because of what I write on my blog but FALSE. i really only go out twice a weekend and dont go out during the week. but during the week i have gotten into a pretty routine agenda. i have class twice a week and work 4 times a week. i get my meal card on tuesday and shop usually on thursdays. Colleen and i usually switch off making dinner but every night we make a legit dinner. i am doing well and being healthy. overall im having a great time and just trying to take in the city. ill write another blog soon about the rest of this weekend, i had a lot of fun and toured a little of sydney! more to come! and im really excited for next week because i think my friends adn i will go to manly beach and meet up with some local aussies and go to paddys markets,...well thats the plan for now anyways, lets hope it doesnt rain! o and im doing three projects and case studies for class and one of them is on israel and the controversy of openning an arbys in israel, so anattyy ill b speakin to u shortly!!

the work place

Noticed people are a lot for laid back at work here than at home. Yesterday one of the guys I work with had a huge problem and a bunch of things weren’t going right so he was screaming FUCK and said fuck about 5 times in each sentence. Then the lady that works next to me got changed in the bathroom before she left work and she was wearing a tube top so she had taken her bra off so she just held it in the wide open and was swinging it around. Its very different to say the least lol

Thursday and Saturday

Ok so lately its just been classes and work and blah blah blah. Its is cool though cause despite all of the difference, sometimes I get so used to it and forget that im halfway across the world and then I go across the bridge and see the opera house twice a week on my way to school and it hits me every time. But anywyas yea, nothing too too exciting until today…well yesterday too
So yesterday was a long day and I bought a cappuccino at lunch and it is soooo strong. I had trouble drinking it at first and they don’t put much sugar in it so I wasn’t used to that either. It made me so wired, I was basically twitching and felt like I ran the 45 mins back to my apartment hahaa. And then at night we all went to sidebar again because one of the kids in my groups works at the hostel connected to it and gets us a deal on Thursdays blah blah blah. So yea it was fun but people were leaving early and stuff or getting kicked out cause apparently colleen and Jeremy got kicked out for being to drunk which apparently the do all the time at bars in Australia. Well anyways so then me cody and linds went to a gay bar on oxford street which was really fun and we only stayed there for a little.
The next morning majorrrr hangover. Went to bed at 3am and woke up around 7am for work. a real trooper.i was sooooo tired but I made it through, NBD. At work I had to call, email, and fax companies about getting more of their brochures to continue circulation which I actually didn’t mind because I got to talk to a bunch of Australians and hear g’day a bunch haha. Actually one person I talked to had a real thick accent and used some words I wasn’t familiar with so I could not understand him for the life of me. And then I worked on the website a bunch. Then went home and chilled for a couple hours. Y roommate and a bunch of other people went on a surf trip for the weekend so I have the apartment to myself which at first I was really excited about. Then I went up to april’s penthouse (I think I mentioned how they had been moved cause of bed bugs) cause she invited me up for a movie. Me, Natasha, Christine, aamar, erin, and april watched a movie which they had neglected to tell me was for their cinema class so it blew haha. Then went down to my room after watchin that and hangin and watchin more tv...
Sat on my couch and then got something to drink and then sat on the couch. I was really tired by this point but I was like oh I feel like my slipper socks are wet... YUP, my whole apartment wasflooded with water. The livin room, the bedroom, it was a big puddle. So I had to call down and talk to someone who gave me another room which I am sleeping in tonite, by myself and its actually nice cause theres a kingso I have plenty of room. And we will c wat happens with it all.

just catching up

so lately ive just been busy and tired. my days are so much longer here. school is good, i dont really mid it much except for the length but i usually end up checking my email for a good part of cllass and then we start working on our projects. i have a project for each class which means three projects in which i have to stand up infont of the class and give a presentation and two of them come with case studies...yea not happy but it shouldnt be tooooo horrible. things have been good tho, i have been cooking a lot at night for me and colleen and then for lunch i pack a lunch of usually a salad, peanut butter on bread, and an apple. o and they call mcdonalds, macas which is just weird lol. yesterday i did some work on the website again and then went out with the distribution buy for a couple hours and he was very interetsting and then went to class for 5 hours...needless to say i was veryy tired. today i am working all day probably on the website and then quick dinner and then off to sidebar again for the same thing as last week with all of the capa program. it should be fun cause i had a lot of fun last time! then this weekend is the surf trip which i decided against but colleen and lindsey are goin on it so im excited for a weekend with cody, lauren, and her roommates the other lauren and christa. hopefully beach! ill let u all know!

RAIN

apparently it’s the rainy season here... that’s wat they said and the first week it barely rained.. but now, it rains pretty much EVERYDAY which sucks because theres really not much to do when it rains. Im hoping the rainy season is short but we will just have to wait and see...ughhh

EXCITING NEWS

Ok so cody found out the other day that the top twenty of so you think you can dance Australia are staying on lindseys floor! And the top people or whatever from australias biggest loser are staying here in two weeks! Apparently it’s the place to be! Maybe they will have tweety bird shirts haha!

hunter valley

So yesterday I went on the Hunter Valley Wine tour trip. It was a lot of fun. James, the tour guide from our blue mountain trip was the tour guide again! The first place it was called the Drayton’s or something like that. We tried about ten different wines. I tried the best wine I have ever tasted in my life. It was called Lilly and it was a white wine. They do something with the process they like stop it early or something. It basically tasted like grape juice with a side of wine. Mom would’ve loved it. Tried a lot of dry things and some red. And some ports…which is wen I decided I don’t like ports. And then some liquors. The setting was alright. It was just a room with wine everywhere and we all just sat in some chairs. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. Then we went to blue tongue which people tried pallets of beers. But I don’t like beer so basically just watched them lol. Then we went to a chocolate factory store and it was alright. Then we went to another wine place and it was called something like mcgorners or something and we liked that place the best. It seemed more authentic. They brought us into a room full of barrels and they had a bar like setting and the person explaining was in the middle in front of all of us. He explained each wine. We had a really sweet sparkling wine and I liked it a lot so I bought a bottle. It was like 15 dollars. We tried red sparkling wine too which was good. And the grossest, driest, red wine I have ever tasted and it was 50 dollars a bottle. Then I asked him to try the Riesling but it wasn’t as good tasting. Then from there we tasted different cheeses. They were really good, there were some brie cheeses, sharp cheddar, and some others and then the last one looked like an herb one so I took a bunch and spread it on my cracker and then took a big daddy like bite and it was HORRIBLE. The girls around me thought the reaction was hilarious but not so much for me. It was blue cheese, the strongest blue cheese I have ever had. It kind of tasted like a really harsh goat cheese! After getting the taste out of my mouth we went inside to try other things. They had jams and oils and stuff and I tried an apple balsamic and it was realllly good. Then we went to the last wine place and it was sooo pretty. There was a gazebo and flowers and hills and hills of grapes everywhere. Definitely a beautiful place to get married. Speaking of which, apparently it’s a really popular thing for a bachelorette party to go to wine tastings and we saw a couple, one was the funniest cause it was 80’s themed and the outfits were outrageous. The place had an okay setting, it kind of just looked like a bar in a souvenir place. We tried a bunch of different stuff, none of which I liked. The last thing we tried is called dragons breathe or something like that. It’s chilli schnapps... its butterscotch schnapps with two red hot chilli peppers in it and we had to take a shot of it and o dearr... it was hotttt! We all ran for water haha. Then we took the two and a half hour bus ride back. I know my blog about this day isn’t that great but the pictures are sooo much better so keep your eyes peeled on facebook! We all took a lot of pictures! And I got to know april, Kristina, and erin a lot better and I really like them! So those are the girls in most of my pictures with me

thursday night

ok so thursday was a really good day at work..i spent all day updating a manual for distributions interns and then i spent about an hour talking to one of the head guys about how the company works and different things that happen within the company to make the company run. i was super tired after work so i watched some tv and ate dinner with colleen adn then linds came to the room and told me to start getting ready cause the thing started at 8:30. got ready real quick and headed out and then it started to rain. it was really fun at the place. its called sidebar adn we got free wine and beer for a couple hours which was good. its a big backpacking place so i met a lot of cool people. me linds, and cody met thre swedish guys and two guys from scotland. we got veryyyy drunk and then cody and i couldnt find lindsey so after calling her we decided to leave. we were both drunk so didnt know how to get home. we started walking and then some man came up to us and told us about some free snadwiches so of courseee we were down for that. we got free sandwiches and then decided to just take a cab home. the driver was chinese with a very thick accent that we could really understand. apparently cody left basically half his free sandwich on the drivers back seat so wen we got out he yelled at us. then we went up to linds' room and hung out there. we met some poeple in the hall...always interesting and yea thats basically the jist of the night! it was a great time!

Australia

Last night, after working from 9-1 then sitting in class from basically 2:15 till past 7, i was exhausteddd. Lindsey has to watch some movies for her australian cinema class so she asked me to join her to watch the movie Australia. It was pretty long but realllyyy good. it was really intense and sad...yea lindsey was crying pretty hard for some of it haha. the only bad thing about it is that some of the history of australia wasnt touched on but i would definately recommend it. I definately need more sleep tho cause every morning it is harder and harder to get up. today at work i looked over the operations mannual and am adding a bunch of changes which is pretty cool and next week i will b working and following the distribution guy so im pretty excited. all things are looking pretty good. tonite one of the kids on my trip pat, has invited us to some bar because of his work and for the first couple of hours the beer and wine are free! pretty exciting. needless to say i dont think im going to work tomorrow haha but  we will see. thats it for now, im sure there will b more to come. 

Rain slash nothing :(

ok so it barely rains here. today it rain for the third time since ive been here. it takes me 45 mins to walk to work adn about 5 mins in it was RAINING and i was like ughh realllyyy ten mins later it stopped raining. by the time i got to work I was not even wet anymore. i know this is a really lame post but i dont ahve much to write about lol. classes are good, work is pretty good... o yea i wrote another blog for them so check that out. and u have questions just ask me and ill blog about ittt!

Monday

Ok so monday i went to my internship and my boss wasnt there so basically i just went on the internet for a few hours and then had class. My teacher was the same canadian guy i have for all my other classes haha. then later i went to the gym cause i have been lacking a little bit cause i have been so tired but dont worry cause i still have the 45 min walk to work, then the ten minute walk to the bus, the the ten minute walk from bus stops. yea, so its not like im sitting on my butt all day lol. i wouldnt have a problem with this but i have come to learn that my shoes arent as comfortable as i thought. i am definately looking forward to the weekend already cause i have been super tired. i watched the grammys last night which was good but i dont think they covered the red carpet here! which is basically the whole point. anywaysss... i dont know wat else to tell u for now, im settling into a routine so my life wont b as interesting for u haha