IT'S WARM!

So, today was wonderfully warm at 77. Don't ask me what that is in Celsius, because I don't have a clue. My friend from the U.S. and I put on dresses and when we left our apartments to go to the grocery store, I noticed everyone was still dressing as if it was dead winter. Why do people do that? It's warm, wear warm weather clothes. So we were the happy-go-lucky americans walking down the street in our dresses and sandals, and we loved it.

I haven't really talked about the friend I made from the U.S. Her name is Kathryn and she went to College of Charleston and graduated in May in Marine Biology. She's here with AustraLearn as well but is doing research at the University (AKA Uni) here in Marine Biology. Her and I are really similar and get along great since we both are pretty weird and goofy with our quirks and funky little habits that others might find too strange to handle. Haha. Introducing ourselves as Katy and Kathryn both 22 and recent graduates of South Carolina schools I think causes some people to think we're making it up haha. We've been doubted a couple times on the truth of our stories. We showed one guy our IDs to prove it haha. We also always get the question "Are you guys from Canada?" and we both reply quickly "NO!" Not that there's anything wrong with being Canadian, we just aren't haha. What's even better is we both want to do the touristy things and explore the Adelaide area. We're in the process of planning a trip to Melbourne for the beginning of November and Kathryn has already looked up a TON of information on Melbourne with a long list of neat places and sights to visit for food and beer and anything else our hearts desire. I'm very lucky to travel to the other side of the world and find a girl living next door that's so much like me! I won't lie, we do draw attention to ourselves because we are outgoing and bubbly but it seems Australians haven't minded it. We make friends everywhere, including the line at the grocery store while Kathryn is trying to pay with traveler's checks which proves to be a long process!

This weekend was a really fun weekend. Neither of us work on Fridays so we decided we'd go to the beach. Well, while walking to the mailboxes for Kathryn to mail a postcard, we decided to stop for a beer at this pub right by us, mainly because we noticed the heaps (yup, aussie lingo) of aussie guys around it. Good thing we did, about 2 minutes into being there we befriended a couple guys from a town outside Melbourne here on their Footy Team Trip, which is what Footy teams do after the season is over...just go to another city and have fun! For those who don't know what Footy is, you might want to Google it because my explanation is probably not going to be very accurate. But it's a sport similar to rugby but it's "ozzie rules" and so there is random kicking involved along with different passes and three field goals...and just a lot of confusion and chaos if you ask me. These guys were lots of fun and then shortly another teammate came to the pub and soon our beach plans were forgotten. Whoops. After some time we met up with the rest of their team at this little bar in their hotel that had karaoke. Needless to say, that was very entertaining. After too much off-key singing, we headed out again and had a great night with them all. They were all extremely nice and so much fun. So the next day we woke up and it was yet another nice day. Well, we thought we'd go walking around, maybe grab a beer outside a pub and just enjoy the great weather. Which we did, but then we met another Footy Team Trip. Apparently they're all over Adelaide this weekend. These guys were from Melbourne and were another great group of really nice and fun guys. We even were given two extra jerseys they had made for their Footy Trip with their team name and logo and "Footy Trip Adelaide 2009" on it. Talk about a souvenir! Haha. We had a great night with them as well, guess we should learn some things about footy now.

Today I have just gotten some grocery shopping done along with cleaning up my place. Yes parents, it's actually pretty clean. I think it's because I don't have very much stuff here. I watched the the Netball World Series, which is another sport played here and I know England since that is who Australia was playing. Well, again, if you don't know what Netball is then you might want to Google it. But, from what I could tell it was similar to basketball except that you can't dribble or move with the ball and the basket doesn't have a backboard. The ball is moved down the court by an overhead pass basically. The ball kinda looked like a volleyball too. Also, the ring on the court where people shoot is really small and it seemed like you can't block someone from shooting. That would frustrate me. They also would slap the ball with their hands on defense to keep them from successfully passing it. I think that's what they were doing at least. The quarters were really short and it was weird not seeing a sport as aggressive as what I'm use to watching/playing. So there's another sport I've learned about that I had never even heard of before coming here!

Australia has been great so far. The people are friendly and genuinely want to know why we're here and how we like it. We're complimented on our accents daily (but I feel weird saying thank you, it's not like we chose our accent and we like theirs back! haha) and get made fun of a lot (which in aussie language means they like you, think back to kindergarten...).

And I have tried Veggiemite. Again, Google it if you don't know it, but it's this brown goopy stuff that is really salty and bitter but apparently has heaps of nutrients in it. It was pretty gross, but being cheap with lots of health benefits it apparently was an Australian staple in poorer times.

OH! And something really weird. Last night, the main street of Hindley (which is what I live on) was blocked off because there was a parade of zombies. I kid you not. Heaps of people were walking dressed like zombies, with fake blood and all. I will never understand that, it was too strange.

And yes parents, I know I'm here for my internship. Which I do enjoy, I really like the people I work with and they give me great ideas on where to go for touristy stuff. The work is sometimes fun, and sometimes not. There is a program that has to be made for the games so I'm hoping my boss is going to let me work on that once it's being designed. I already had a couple ideas for it that she really liked, soooo I'm hoping that will lead to me working on it. Really I could probably design the whole thing because it's fairly simple and I've done similar things before, but I'm sure I'd be doing it with someone else.

alright, mates...until further adventures, that is all for now!