Lots of Catching Up!

Hi Everyone!



So once again it's been a little too long since my last post...sorry!! But I do have lots to catch you all up on so I'll just get started! A little disclaimer...my internet connection is really bad right now so I'm going to upload all the pictures later!



First off, Since I last wrote, I have finally gotten over all my sicknesses and am almost fully recovered! With that out of the way, here's what I've been up to:



Emily and I made an Aussie friend in our Gender and Human Rights class, Whitney, and she invited us over for dinner at her house last week. She lives in North Sydney which is on the other side of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Her house was absolutely GORGEOUS right on the water and really secluded with a big jungle of trees and wildlife in her backyard! Here's a picture from her back deck:

Her parents are both from the U.S. but met in Australia after they had both moved here years ago. Whitney had done a year at a prep school in Massachusetts which was how she initially struck up conversation with Emily and me in class (she said she recognized the way we dressed!) It was so nice of her to have us over and her family was great!

The next night, Emily, Theresa, Brian and I decided we wanted to have a fancy night out! There are a few bars in Sydney which we have come to know as very high class and swanky and we thought it would be fun to check them all out! The three of us started out at a bar called "The Ivy" which was absolutely amazing inside. Here are a couple pictures of the bar:

At the Ivy we met up with our friend Alex who joined us on our classy adventure. Our next stop was a bar called "The Establishment." This is basically the kind of place where older business men go to show off their money by buying young gold diggers expensive drinks. I opted out of that scene and remained an innocent observer :) After exploring the Establishment for a big, we took an elevator upstairs to a place called "Hemmesphere." (and you all are probably thinking that I am a terrible speller...okay most of the time I am...but that actually is the way they spell it!) The best way to accurately describe this place is by quoting my Lonely Planet Sydney Guide Book where it says, "This mature, private lounge is pure Sydney opulence; a lush gentlemen's-club vibe peppered with Moroccan twists. Melt into a deep, leather chair, order a cigar and mandarin caipiroska and wait for someone famous to show up."

I couldn't have said it better myself! This place was seriously out of our league and honestly none of us even really knew how we got let in at all! But we rolled with it and took a seat at a little round table in the outdoor section of the bar. We tried to order drinks at the bar but they told us to please have a seat as it was table service only! I chose not to get a drink here seeing as we were only pretending to be rich and my bank account was telling a different story...but the guys did order some fancy cocktails which was fun...Alex's actually required the waitress to light the glass on fire...it was quite entertaining! Anyways, we didn't take any pictures of hemmesphere sadly, but hopefully this description can give you an indication of what the night was like.

The rest of the week consisted of studying for my Gender and Human Rights final on Friday and working on my take-home exam for Australia: Land and Nation that was due Tuesday. Luckily, Emily and Becca are both in my Gender class and we were all able to help each other out with the studying. When Friday came around we all felt pretty good and after the exam we all agreed that we definitely passed!! This was certainly means for celebration, so we had a big party in UniLodge to celebrate the end of the semester! (Friday was also the last day of classes.) It was really fun to have everyone hanging out together...and also sad to think that our time together is coming to an end!

After our UniLodge party, we went across the street to a local bar for a little bit before calling it a night. The next couple days were spent working on my take home final for Australia: Land and Nation which I successfully turned in yesterday! After turning in my paper, Emily and I went to the Sydney Aquarium!! It was SO much fun and I took a billion pictures so I will just post a couple favorites:

I should have noted earlier that a group of our friends left on Monday for the Whitsunday Islands and it has been me and Emily holding down the fort in Sydney. Most people did their Student Vacation trips this week, but Emily and I don't leave for Fiji until Friday so we have had some roommate togetherness time!! After the aquarium we went to the gym and then came back, watched a movie and went to bed.

This morning, my friend Brett from the Sydney Uni Ultimate Frisbee team picked me up outside of UniLodge and brought me to a place called The Featherdale Wildlife Park. He had asked me what I hadn't done that I wanted to do before leaving Australia and I told him that I hadn't really been able to pet kangaroos and koalas, so he said he would take me to this place where we could do all of that and more! He packed us a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly which he hadn't ever eaten before but said he was trying to make an American lunch for me!! (Aussies think PB&J is really bizarre...) Anyways, we got to the park and immediately stepped into an open sandy area full of hopping kangaroos!! They were SO adorable and you could just go up and pet them and feed them like it was no big deal. We played with the kangaroos for a while before moving on to the rest of the park where we saw a million different types of birds (Brett knew almost every one it was really impressive!) and a bunch of different marsupials! I even got to pet a koala! :) It was a fantastic day and I really really appreciated him taking the time out to bring me there! Here are some of the highlights:

And now we're about caught up!! After the wildlife park, Emily and I went to the gym to take our weekly spin class, came back and watched another movie and now we're about to get to bed! Tomorrow is our last free day before we leave for Fiji on Friday!! I'm not sure if the place I'll be staying will have an internet cafe so I may not write until I get home next Wednesday. Of course I'll be taking millions of pictures and I'll be sure to update everyone as soon as I return for my LAST week in sydney!!!

Love you and miss you all!

Lauren

Sick in Sydney!

Hey all!

Don't worry, the title of this blog is not sick OF sydney...because that would be entirely false...but rather sick IN sydney...because, yes, big surprise, I've been sick for the past week!


Those of you who know me well know that I can't go a month without getting sick or acquiring some strange injury or disease. Well my time in Australia hasn't been much different. The first couple months weren't bad, just a few minor colds here and there. But this past week has certainly been a doozy! It started out with a cold that got progressively worse to the point where my voice was gone and I was considering turning myself in to the swine flu police! Instead I decided to try and fight it with some sudafed and advil and I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, during this little bout with the potential swine flu, I somehow managed to contract some sort of virus of the armpit (just don't ask...) I had to see a doctor and was prescribed some perscription medication to make it go away. A week went by and everything was clearing up nicely. Then one morning while Emily and I were in pilates class, I lifted my arms over my head to get into one of the positions and to my surprise, I revealed a HUGE nasty rash going from my armpits down to my elbows on both sides of my body!! Mortified, I scuttered out of the pilates class half way through and ran back to my apartment. So back to the doctor I went, only to be told that I am apparently now allergic to pennicilin! I was prescribed more medication this time to clear up the allergic reaction. For the past 3 days I have felt like a little kid with chicken pox...I can't remember the last time I've been this itchy! So needless to say I haven't had much sleep because I wake up every 5 minutes scratching my armpits like a monkey!!


And that is the story of my week being sick in sydney! Sorry for potentially too much detail but I tend to overshare! Anyways, I'm happy to say that today I am finally really feeling on the mend!! I was able to go to the gym (twice to make up for lost time) and got a good night sleep last night! Now, the rest of my week will be spent studying and writing all my final papers! We are in our last week of classes at Uni and then we have a week vacation (called StuVac because they abbreviate EVERYTHING here!) and then finals week after that. I'm working on getting as much work done this week as possible because next week Emily and I are off to FIJI!! We are SO excited to have a little getaway on the beautiful island! Some of our friends had gone to fiji in the first couple weeks that we were here (when we went to Cairns) and we are staying in the same resort that they stayed in which they told us was fantastic. We are leaving next Friday (June 12th) and returning to Sydney on June 16th. When we get back, I have one final exam on the 19th and a final paper due on the 20th, and then school is over and I have a few days to enjoy Sydney before heading back to the states!!


Speaking of enjoying Sydney, a couple weeks ago Emily and I decided to walk around Sydney Uni campus and take some pictures so our friends and families could get a bit of an idea of where we are going to school! Here are some of the pictures I took that day:


First off, here is a shot of the great UniLodge that I'm always referring to. This has been my home for the past 4 months and has treated me very well! Emily and I live in room 2103 and our room looks into the middle of the building which is a big courtyard.


This is the bridge I cross every day to get to class. In order to get on campus, we have to pass through Victoria Park which has lots of trees, flowers, grass, and a little pond with birds, ducks and fish. All of which I will showcase now:












These flowers are everywhere and they remind me of the orange-beaked ducks two pictures ago! I love them :)

And here are just a few that I took of some buildings on campus:

This should give you a bit of an idea of the massive hill that we have to trek up every day to get to class! At the top of the hill is the Great Hall where I have my Arab-Israeli Conflict tutorial class.


Here is a close-up shot of the Great Hall. It is pretty much straight out of Harry Potter!


This is the Sydney Uni Library...but as you can see it's nothing that great, so when I want to get some quiet studying done, I go to the Law Library, shown below:


This building is brand new and the architecture is really cool. I go into the basement to study and I also have my Australia: Land and Nation class in one of the lecture halls.

I don't have any classes in this building but I think it's beautiful so I took a picture!

Okay and that's all I have for now!! Hopefully you can sort of get a better sense of my academic life here in Sydney! Yes, I DO study on top of all the partying and adventuring! :) I can't believe how fast this last month is flying by...I have really started to feel at home here and it will be so sad to leave but of course I have all of you to look forward to seeing when I get back to the states!!


xoxoxoxo,
Lauren


P.S. Just wanted to give a little shout out to the little bro...he came in 6th in the 400 meter run at the all-district track and field meet the other day and broke his personal record by running it in under 52 seconds!! Anyone who has run the 400 before knows that that's a great accomplishment! CONGRATS BUDDY!!