almost done with school!

Hello! I am getting worse and worse at updating this so I finally told myself I needed to sit down and write some things out (especially because that is so much more interesting than writing an 8 page paper!) A few things have happened since I last blogged. Last weekend was international food fair on campus! Campus East itself has students from 43 different countries which is amazing in itself. So for one day they shut down the kitchen and teams of different countries prepare food from their home country and all students come out and go around to each stall to try some different food out. I was on team Italy (yes, I am quite aware that I am not from Italy it's just team U.S.A. was headed by another group of people and my roommate was the head of Italy so she kind of recruited me to help out) We made a dessert and a pasta dish - the dessert was so good! A dense chocolate cake with a middle filling nutella and marscapone and then the pasta was just fresh tomatoes, olive oil, garlic and italian spices. Our food stall was the first to run out of food so I deemed that meaning Italy won haha but every country put forth such amazing dishes that I had never tasted before. I was so full for the rest of the day but it was a great event that I'm so glad campus puts on for us.

Another night my friends here and I decided to do was a Wine and Cheese night. I was in charge of getting all the cheese and everyone would bring a couple dollars and a bottle of wine. I went a little overboard with the varieties of cheese but hey, if it looked good, I got it! and it was delicious! Here is the spread:


From Right all the way around clockwise is homemade guacamole, then a plate with laughing cow variety pack cheeses. The next plate had four different types - Danish blue cheese, gouda, a swiss cheese, and a sundried tomato cheese that was SO GOOD! Then a plate of hard salami with different types of crackers. The next plate had a cream cheese spread that was flavored with sweet thai chili sauce - another fan favorite. A tin of feta cheese and semi-sundried tomatoes in seasoned oil. A chunk of Norwegian cheese - jarlsberg and cambert. A dish of green olives with those fun tooth picks with the tassles. Cut up Dipping bread with Extra Virgin Olive Oil I got in the hunter valley and this balsamic glaze that goes down the bottom and makes a delicious dip. And then a whole plate of cheddar cheese slices with apples and crackers. The finishing plate was a three creamed brie and a salt-washed rind cheese that is like brie but a little more punch to it - mmmm...Altogether it was delectable!


Then comes the wine part!! Above is Matt, Amanda and Myself with our delicious wines and below is the whole spread of the different wines we all brought and shared! I also broke out my little bottle of chili schnapps which we all took shots of at the end of the night to top it off. I actually passed mine to someone else because I tried it on my wine tour (I also didn't want to have my mouth be on fire for the rest of the evening). It was a great night just to get away from tests and assignments and attempt to be sophisticated together.


So I've figured out I only have one more week on Monday left in school which is so bittersweet. I got to talk with Jean Marie yesterday and it made me miss home quite a bit but at the same time I really do not want to leave lovely Australia! Also talking to Jean Marie I've realized there are some avid readers of my blog - thanks for reading!! I do have a shout out for one particular reader - Joy Agule! Joy, I have to give you props because Jean Marie informs me not "Brenna, I was reading your blog" but instead "Joy was telling me that you have in your blog that you did...." haha so Thank you for updating my mom because she wouldn't know half the things if it weren't for you :) also I hope you're doing well and I can't wait to see you when I get back!!

Also about five minutes ago I was a little bored and realized that my sort of bangs were quite long. Nikolai my roommate was just floating around in my room and I told him I think I should cut my hair. My friend Taylor did my bangs one random night and they came out really good so I decided I could do it too. My being the idiot I am just cut them SO SHORT - haha I look like a little boy who was attacked by his mother with a bowl to get his bangs trimmed up. Nikolai also photographed the whole event because he knew I would mess it up somehow - well pat yourself on the back Nikolai, I messed up. Whatever, hair grows back but now there's this big clump on my desk and it makes me a bit depressed that I just did that haha. So word of advice, if you're a little nervous to cut your own hair don't do it ha.

my, my, my

HOLY SMOKES! it was been far too long since I have updated my blog...my sincere apologies!! The end of school is winding down so the work is increasingly piling up. Last weekend, our campus had a harbor cruise right in Sydney Harbor! It was supposed to be an open bar and fancy dress so I was quite excited! It ended up being a good time but the people manning the boat were big mean faces. As soon as I walked on I saw they were serving coronas and I thought to myself, wow, this is a nicer beer than I thought they would give us. Turns out, they were from 2006 and way overdated. I didn't drink any, but all the boys were complaining how they tasted a little "off". They also didn't explain to us you couldn't double fist (have two drinks at once) and one of the random staff members would pace around just ripping drinks from peoples' hands. He wouldn't even give them warning, just walk around grabbing them. I found it hilarious to watch peoples' faces because he was crazy! They also yelled at random people for no reason (well, I'm sure there was a reason but n the story, there was no reason). The boat also docked early so no one was pleased about that.

But before the harbor cruise started, I went into Sydney with a whole big group of Norwegians from campus for Norwegian day! It's like their 4th of July, so there was a big parade through the city and ice cream and rolls at the end. So many little kids and adults were dressed in traditional clothes which I happily stalked with my camera and took stalker pictures. There was one boy who was just going to town on his ice cream getting it eeeeverywhere, so he was a must kodak moment!

I also called home to have big dave transfer money from my accounts because I have three weeks off and who knew that travelling cost quite a bit of money! So I guess I asked for a bit more than he was expecting and was like "Brenna!! This is your money so I want to ask you a question - when are you going to pay yourself back for this!!" Um, eat ramon noodles for the rest of my life?? He also wanted to know my plans for the three weeks and where I would be going. I went through the places (Melbourne, Fraser Island, Whitsundays and Fiji) and when I got to Fiji he goes "FIJI! What! You're going to Fiji!! Jean, did you know she was going to FIJI!....fiji!" I kind of wish I had recorded it. But after talking with him, I did realize how much money I was actually going to spend so my travel buddies and myself went through some things so we could cut some corners on money. For example, in Melbourne we were going to do a tour of the great ocean road that looked pretty reasonable. Instead we decided to get a camper van so we could travel and sleep (that way we wouldn't have to worry about hostels) and it turns out that renting the van for the whole time there between the three people going will be half as much as just that one tour. The van also comes with a stove which is good because that way we can get cup-o-noodle (for like $.50 each) and eat that the whole time instead of spending huge amounts of money on food.

I did however splurge on one thing that I am SO EXCITED ABOUT!! So I saw Cirque Du Soilel in Florida when I was like 15 and it was so good! Well, turns out it is touring in Melbourne! So I checked out tickets and turns out the two I'm going with wanted the nose bleed section but the ones one section up where only $20 more. But I figured out in one section there was a front row single seat open!! SNAG!! I got so excited! I will be seeing Cirque Du Soilel front row! I've never seen anything front row...freaaaaking out!! so excitied! I do however need to get through a ridiculous amount of school work before all of these adventures start :(
Hopefully everyone is enjoying there beginning of summer...soak it in for me because it's starting to get cold here :( But I'll be home almost a month - that is ridiculous.

007 Ball

This past weekend, University of Wollongong had a ball that was titled the Casino Royal Ball - themed James Bond style. A bunch of my friends and I decided to buy tickets and go! I didn't have a nice gown so I decided to do some Op shopping (thrift stores) and I found this great brown long dress for only $12! I was pumped about this but when I tried it on, it really looked like a pregnant woman wore it before me. Everything was fit fine until it got to my rib line and then it just bubbled out. So I decided to buy some ribbon and pray that I could salvage the dress. It ended up looking fine so I just was like - hey, it didn't cost that much so if it looks semi-decent it was worth it. It was so much fun and we got three drink vouchers when entering the function hall. There were also dressed up people coming around with appetizers - holy smokes were they fantastic! It was like gourmet appetizers. I kept on yelling to Rolf that we needed to find the people with the appetizers. After stalking down several of them and getting a ridiculous amount of food, our group decided to go find our table after getting our drinks. When we got to our table, there provided for us were a bottle of white and red wine, a pitcher of beer as well as two juice pitchers. It was fabulous! Dinner came soon after and honestly, I would have paid to just eat the dinner - marinated salmon in this amazing vegetable sauce with asparagus or the most tender, rarest steak with pureed potatoes and a gravy sauce. Rolf and I both had half of our dishes and then switched so we got the best of both worlds. Then to top that off the desserts were uh- so good. I got the berry one that was a blend of all different berries with a whipped cream on top - I was in heaven. The then had all different kinds of gambling games set up but I forgot my money voucher at home so I just watched everyone else play the games happy just to sip my wine and enjoy! It was such a fun evening just to get all fancy and feel like you're going someplace more adventurous than your unit room. Here are some pictures from the evening:

my date Rolf and I before we left

The girls all dressed up (r-l) Yvonne, me, Sophie and Amanda (I have no idea why this is underlined in blue...I tried to get rid of it, beats me!)

All the boys - I don't if they were going for a James Bond pose or what but they are wearing nice clothes so that's all that matters - Braidon(Amanda's date), Jesse, Nikolai, Rolf and Rob.


My berry dessert! mmm....sooooo good

Myself, Edwin (Rolf's roommate first semester) and Rolf - this is personally one of my favorite shots of the evening. As you can see, it was quite a fun time.

Jumping out of a plane is highly advised

So I went skydiving. It was awesome.

I always wanted to skydive here in Australia and I finally just grabbed a couple people and booked it. It's with a company called Skydive the Beach Sydney and it drops you at 14,000 feet which is the highest a person can skydive. Jeff Crimmin who was a good friend from my high school was studying abroad in Scotland and decided during his reading week for finals to make a stop over in Australia - random but great! So he got in touch with me to say he wanted to visit Sydney and see if we could get together. I asked if he wanted to go skydiving while here, he said yes - perfect opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams. I only booked it one day in advance so the only time slot they had open was 6:30 am but I was too excited to turn it down. We woke up groggy and took a taxi (turns out the place was a lot closer than we thought). I decided to upgrade my dive to include photos and DVD and t-shirt (a lot of money extra but SO worth it). I met my guy Dan who I was going to be jumping tandem with. He had a video camera attached to his wrist so he could film the whole experience. He pulled me aside so could do the intro to the video which was pretty cheesy and he also asked me questions that I didn't know the answer to!? He was like "Brenna, what are we doing today?" and I said "doing what my Dad says - jumping out of a perfectly good airplane" and he said "oh you must be crazy girl"...all I could answer back laughing was "um......no not really" It's so awkward on the video and it makes me laugh everytime cause I was just like speechless and he was all up in my face with the camera. I forget what else he said that was awkward...oh I remember now. I was like "sorry Jean Marie and Big Dave, you don't know I'm doing this so my apologies" and he was like "don't apologize, you're gonna love it!"....It just was awkward...I think you need to see the video...but besides that I was pretty calm getting my harness on and boarding the bus to the airport. We boarded the airplane and my nerves surprisingly weren't an issue. I think I was too busy laughing at Jeff. He got assigned to jump with "the veteran" - this old man who had been working for the company for 36 years. Jeff also didn't purchase a video but the guy decided he was going to film him anyways so throughout the whole process the guy was up in Jeff's face, filming him and asking all these questions. Jeff's face was priceless because there was no reason why this guy was filming him, but for some reason he kept on doing it. (Jeff ended up buying the video at the end so, I guess it worked out in his favor). When Dan started strapping us together and the green light that said "1 mile to go" flicked on, that's when I got nervous. I was the third one to jump out so I got to see the door open up, and two people jump out. I think that was the sacriest thing - knowing that I was going to be doing the exact same thing that they did. So scary. But finally we jumped out and it was such a speechless moment - literally. As soon as my mouth was open, air filled in and the whole thing was dry. But free-falling didn't even feel like you were free falling, it just felt like you were above the ground soaring because the earth didn't look like it was rushing towards you. When you pulled the chute, that was really cool too. Dan let me steer the parachute and he pointed out all the little places. I also didn't tell my parents about this little adventure because like the good daughter I am, I didn't want to worry them. But I uploaded pictures and I changed my facebook picture so through the grapevine they found out sooner then I could tell them - whoops! But hey, Jean Marie, I'm alive - no worries!

Dan and I on the plane getting ready to take off!

Worst moment right here, knowing that you have to jump out of that plane.

Self - explanatory

Being able to steer the parachute, so cool.

All done and back on solid ground. So so so so cool. Two thumbs up.

These are also some randoms from Tasmania. I forgot I never posted photos and those are so much more interesting than my words so here are a few.

This was the group that went a couple days early so we took a drive down to the Southern most tip - this is the first stop we took for scenic pictures. Nikolai, myself, Amanda, Adam and Matt.

The view at Fisher's Point.

We were late enough to see the sunset as well.

The whole group at Cadbury Chocolate Factory. We had just picked Mali up from the airport so now the whole gang is together!

This was our first view on the hike so I thought this was Cradle Mountain, but that was a mistake because Cradle Mountain is so much cooler.

We finally found it! Cradle Mountain - yeaaaa

This is what we hiked. You can see the path on the right hand side, it looks like somebody just traced a tan pen on the mountain. If you see that bump on the right, the heighest peak - that would be the summit. It took a long time to get there but it was probably the best hike that I've done.