Hello again,

This past week has been pretty low-key, I finally had my last exam last Monday, which was open book and only took me an hour, and since then I've been doing a lot of relaxing and hanging out. The highlight of my week so far has been eating a chicken parm at Eagle Bar and taking pictures of the campus on one of the sunny days. 

On Thursday, we celebrated the last day of finals with some of the people on our floor and things got a little interesting to say the least. While many of the people on the floor were at the dining hall (me included) the fire alarm got pulled in our building and 2 fire trucks came. The fine for having the fire department here is $2000 to the person who, whether by accident or on purpose, made the alarm go off. However, it is apparently a mystery as to who did it. There is a suspect, who of course denies it, but no one actually saw what happened. This means that we now have to wait to hear back from the person in charge of all the dorm buildings to see what is going to happen with the fine.

Other than that drama, nothing special going on, just enjoying my last weekend in Australia. Wow, my LAST weekend.

New pics on shutterfly!!  http://austdownunder.shutterfly.com/

Since the last entry nothing too exciting has happened. Everyone in our dorm has been studying for finals, so I've mostly just been hanging around and lounging. The weather has been very overcast and rainy so it has been hard to do things outside as well. However, the past couple of days have finally been beautiful out and we actually went to the beach 2 days in a row. It definitely wasn't warm enough to swim but it was nice to hang out and enjoy the spring-like weather.

Yesterday I went with a couple people from our from into the city. We started out at the Queen Victoria Market and spent a good chunk of our day there buying souvenirs! Then Bianca, Dan and I decided that we wanted to try and get tickets for the Australian Rugby game that night so we waited an hour until the ticket windows open. We got tickets and then had to kill another 3 hours before the game started, so we bought some more souvenirs and walked around different parts of the city. The game was fun, but it wasn't as crowded in the stadium as I was expecting it to be. There were only 20,000 people in the stadium that holds 60,000. Also, apparently Australia is pretty good at rugby and Italy isn't so the game was a blowout, 34-12. It was a fun experience since I went in not knowing anything about rugby and left having a slight clue to the point of the game :)

Today the weather went back to overcast and rainy so I just finished up studying for my last final tomorrow at 2! Then I'll be completely done with this semester and officially a senior!

Hi everyone! It's completely Sarah's fault that we haven't written in this in awhile. She was supposed to do this post, but of course kept procrastinating and now that she's left I have to write it.

So, since the last time we've written we have gone on a few exciting adventures. On the 29th we went on our last trip with the Down Under Program to Collingwood Children's Farm. We milked a cow, fed some goats, and saw some huge pigs that they just raise until they are big enough to be sold off for food. That same night we went to Sarah's friend's cousin's house for a real shabbat dinner. There was so much amazing home cooked food-chicken wings, salad, roasted potatoes, sweet potato, pumpkin, fresh veggies and fruit and brownies for dessert. It was really nice to get away from the college for a few hours and have a home-cooked meal.

The weekend of the 30th and 31st was pretty uneventful. We worked on our last assignments for our classes and just hung around. It was pretty quiet, but the highlight was our saturday night dinner. We made spinach artichoke dip from scratch with homemade pizza-it was delicious!

That week was also pretty quiet because everyone in our dorm was working on their final assignments and starting to study for finals. On wednesday night we went to Taco Bills-the best mexican food restaurant that Australia has to offer. It was pretty delicious and on tuesdays the meals were half price so that made it even better!

On thursday the 7th we went to our last Eagle Bar (the bar on campus). It was a red party with a live band so that was fun to go and dance with everyone. The last, big party of the semester happens on July 2nd and both of us will have left by then so it was fun to celebrate our last bar night at the college.

This past weekend we went to Rhys' house in the country. His little town only has 50 people and a couple of houses. He literally lives in the middle of nowhere. If you look to one side of his house you won't be able to see another house or anything besides cows and sheep for 50 miles! Friday night we just ate spaghetti bolognese and then went to THE pub by his house. We walked about 2 miles to get to the pub and we only pasted one house in the process-the rest was just flat land with a few trees on it. When we got to the pub we were the only ones there and it was sooo tiny. There wasn't a dance floor or anything, just enough room for a small tv and a pool table.

Saturday we drove into the closest city to his house (about a 20min drive), where about 1,000 people live. We drove up a dormant volcano and we could see the town and all the farm land. We also walked around the volcano and next to another dormant volcano that is one of the only perfectly cone-shaped mountains in the world. Then we drove another 45min to the biggest town near Rhys' house that has about 5,000 residents. We went to the beach and got lunch, but we didn't stay too long because it was raining. That night we had a aussie bbq with beef sausages, and lamp chops and then just hung around the campfire in his backyard. The drive to his house and back was amazing because 2 hours of the 2.5 hour trip there was absolutely nothing out our window but land and cows- so different from home.

Tuesday night we went out to dinner for Sarah's last night out in Australia and Rhys' 21st birthday. We had these delicious $4 pizzas at a pub and then went to a few cheap bars for drinks. The night was a lot of fun and ended on a really good note because one of our friends here requested Backstreet Boys and it was one of the last songs to play in the pub before it closed. The last song to play, I Don't Wan To Miss a Thing by Aerosmith, was really sad though. Sarah and some of the girls started crying and reminiscing about the trip here, and it just became a reality that she had to leave really soon.

Wednesday everyone just hung around and Sarah packed up all of her room. A couple of the girls gave her little going away presents which was really sweet. At night everyone just sat in one room and we talked about all the hilarious things that had happened over the past few months. It was a cute way to end her trip before going to bed. 

This morning the entire building woke up to say bye to Sarah before she left. She had to leave here at 7am so she could get to the airport with enough time and not be too stressed. Some of the girls started crying and Sarah held herself together right up until she had to get into the car. It was really sad to see her go but everyone was like we're coming to america so we'll see you soon! From what I hear the airport was a little stressful and her carry on bag was too heavy so she had to unpack and repack her things into her checked luggage to meet the requirements. She was apparently very embarrassed because she had to open her suitcases in front of the line of passengers also trying to check in.

I can't believe Sarah already left and I only have 3 more weeks here already! Check out shutterfly for more pics!! http://austdownunder.shutterfly.com/