Wow.... this place is GORGEOUS!

Good evening everyone! Tonight is a late night entry... it is 1:00 am! Boy am I tired... especially after the crazy day I had today!

It was pretty crazy because the plan I had in my head definitely did not turn out to be the plan that went into action! I had planned to wake up, go get my friend Kim, go to campus and then go to the mall. Well I woke up, realized I STILL didn't have any food to eat, and that Kim didn't have a phone. So I decided to just walk over to Kim's house and boy is this town hilly! Holy cow! People seem to compare it to San Francisco. Well I live on one hill (and hill just doesn't do it justice lol) and Kim lives on another so I had to walk down mine, and then up hers and hers is steep!!! So I get to her house to find one of her roommates and she informed me that Kim was gone for the day (ugh!) and there was no way to get a hold of her. So I ended up at another friends house with which we decided to go over to the mall and get everything we needed. So I finally got sheets, hand soap, and other necessities. Oh, and side note for those of you who ever plan to attend an Australian mall, you can't sit on the ground, and you can't stand in front of stores and wait for people. You have to be out of the way of the door... strange. We had our first adventure on public transportation here... not too bad actually. The buses work a lot like the ones do in the States. We then realized that we weren't going to make it to the International office by the time it closed so I went on to plan B. I got back, put my stuff away from the mall and just hung out a bit on my patio. It was a beautiful 60 degree sunny day so I figured I should enjoy it while I could! I then decided to go for a run (again this place is CRAZY hilly!) and that was interesting. It was nice to do a bit of exploring around my apartment and I also ran down to the beach and got to enjoy that. It is BEAUTIFUL! I still can't believe that I live literally 4 blocks from the beach! :D LOVE IT! I then FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY found the grocery store and stocked up on some food for my fridge! It was a good feeling after not really knowing when/where my next meal was for awhile there. Spent the evening with all my American buddies and it was nice to have everyone together again. I can't wait to start really getting to interact with the locals though! Just a few more days before school starts!!!!

So the shopping at the grocery store was a little bit different than normal. First of all, things tend to be more expensive than they are in the states. That is how most things are around here. Also, it's strange to see different brands on everything. I did as much bargain shopping as I could. If you are going to be in Australia anytime soon I HIGHLY recommend trying Tim Tams. They are a type of chocolaty cookie and they are delicious! Also, nobody really uses plastic bags around here. Everyone uses the environmentally friendly re-usable bags for most things they need to carry.

Oh and one more thing... I'm still waiting on the girl that is supposed to be living in my bedroom with me. I'm not sure when she is going to be here but I hope soon! I don't really see the other two girls often... it has probably been a total of about a half an hour since I got here! It will be interesting to see if that changes once school starts. I actually am VERY excited to start school... which I NEVER thought I would say haha!

Slowly starting to figure out that traffic is coming from the other direction when crossing the street,

Val :)