It's just about that time my friends, SUMMMMEE...Wait, no, no, it's almost just the end of lectures, I still have a full month until my finals. And it's not summer, it's winter. It's way too damn cold here. My final week of lectures was this past week, meaning that this next week I only have tutorials aka dissertations/discussions. That means that June is our final exam period; lucky for me, mine are grouped together at the very end of June right before I have to leave this lovely place. And this schoolwork is catching up to me FAST!
I haven't blogged about the present recently, so here is a bit of it.
I finally went to Scubar on last Monday night (5/14-the only place to party hard on a Monday night), and learned a hard lesson: Never wear a hat to a club, people will want to wear it, they will literally steal it off your head, and this will become more prevalent as the night goes on. It was a good time though! Courtney, Lauren, Verena, and myself all got our dance moves on the floor.
Courtney and I at Scubar which fyi is pronounced "Scuba" by all the Aussies
That Thursday night was my ball for Shalom; the ticket was fifty bucks, but it was well worth it! We spent the night in the gorgeous Darling Harbor for a night of eating, drinking, and dancing with friends. Here's a few pics from that very special night!
Sukhi, Rachel, Tanya, Kara, Renee and Myself
Being my usual jokester self
The boys showing me some love, Aww!
After my crazy night on Thursday, I needed a down night on Friday to just chill out, and besides I knew I was going to be going out on Saturday night. Saturday night, me and all my girls, Alex, and his cousin, Paul (who knew Maxi from Bondi Rescue!!) went to this house party. Let's just say that this picture sums up the night:
Alex, Verena, and Courtney.. Classic
Verena, Courtney, and Me showing some love
This past week has been a very non-partying week, not because I had a bunch of stuff to do, but because all of my friends did. So, I was ready to get out on the town Friday night to take part in Vivid Sydney. Vivid Sydney is this lights festival in Circular Quay aka the main downtown area of Sydney where they basically do artistic light designs and as many light designs as possible. The city was packed to say the least.
My cider at dinner at Three Wise Monkeys
Having some fun at Vivid Sydney
Getting artsy at the festival
Here is where you had to scream at this thing to get all the flaps to fly up, we did it! It was hilarious to see little kids scream and only see the first row of flaps go up and then these huge guys go up all alone and raise all of the flaps. So funny!
I temporarily forgot how to hopscotch there! Anyways, it was a great night and reminded of how much I love this city.
My trip to the Blue Mountains was the best surprise! Alex messaged me on Friday afternoon, asking if I wanted to take an overnight bag and "go somewhere with him" on Saturday night (I jokingly told my mom and dad if they didn't hear from me in 48 hours to call the popo). I had a feeling he was either planning on taking me to Newcastle or the Hunter Valley, but as we headed to the west of Sydney late Saturday afternoon, I started to get a small inkling that we were heading to the Blue Mountains instead. And I was spot on!
Alex planned to make it to the Three Sisters for sunset, but we hit traffic and missed the sunset. Instead we drove around and checked out the small town of Katoomba. It's a really cute town, it kind of reminded me of a winter-y, mountainous Webster Groves. After grabbing some Italian food (I had the best steak I've ever had in my entire life), we went back to our crack den of a hostel. Side note: apparently our hostel used to be an old nursing home--Sounds promising already, right? Anyways, thank god I had Alex there with me, I had the worst bed in the place, right by the window, and the guy above me would not stop moving!
The next day we grabbed breakfast in Katoomba before we went out to the see the Three Sisters. They were definitely a sight to see... Apparently everyone else thought so too, there were a ton of tourists!
Posing with the Three Sisters in the distance
We walked down to the first sister, which is the only one accessible still
We went back into Katoomba because I just had to buy this hat that I tried on earlier before heading out to Jenolan Caves for the afternoon.
The drive to Jenolan Caves
After an hour or so of driving, some of which was on a one way road through the mountains, we arrived to the home of the Jenolan Caves; we arrived just in the nick of time, and joined the tour of the main cave.
The Broken Column
Home of the fairies
After the extremely informative tour we went out to see the other sights, we went to the huge Devil Wells and the Blue Pond which is not photo-shopped in my pictures. And since we were there at around 5 PM, we were lucky enough to see a platypus in the wild. Apparently this is exceptionally rare; the platypus are expected to die out in fifty years or so since experts can't figure out how to breed them in captivity.
Inside Devil's Well
Jenolan's Blue Pond
The platypus we saw in the wild!
View driving home
It was a great weekend, there's still so many things I haven't done in the Blue Mountains. Hopefully, a second trip is in the near future.
The walk right next to Lake Burley-Griffin near the National Gallery of Australia
Just a quick quote from Bill Bryson, the author of In a Sunburned Country:
"The people are immensely likable— cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted, and unfailingly obliging. Their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water. They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered, and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. Life doesn't get much better than this."
Yep, that sums up Australia. I have yet to find a place here that I can't stand or I hate. Everything is just beautiful. Canberra, for example. I was blessed enough to travel there this past weekend. I absolutely loved it. Here's a video I took summing up how beautiful Canberra is and how much it made me miss Autumn.
We hoped to leave Sydney at 7 am, but Alex, the Aussie I've been dating here, had so much work to do that he was up super late. Instead, we ended up leaving Sydney at 9 am, two hours later than we had planned. The drive to Canberra was uneventful, we just talked and listened to our music (I got Alex hooked on the song "If I Die Young" by the Band Perry). We didn't plan our petrol breaks well because we almost ran out, thankfully we made it the station with 17 km to spare! There, Alex had to put more oil in the car and he was lucky enough to have one of the local guys give him a hand (The guy who helped him had hands just like you, Dad!).
We were about to run out of petrol... Only 17 km until empty!
View inside the Australian War Memorial
We made it to Canberra around one or so, we made the decision to see the Australian War Memorial first, since the tour was 90 minutes and they had one starting at 1:30 pm we could catch. Alex is huge on doing tours, and he's right, this one was incredible. Our tour guide told us all about WWI mainly, and about the ANZACs (the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps). Before I came here, I thought Australia had never been in any wars, turns out they've been in all the same wars as us. Similar to our D-Day, the Australians had ANZAC day on April 25, 1915. By some faulty intelligence or error, the Australians landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula of Turkey, the one place that was guarded by Turkish forces. Some 8,000 Australians were slaughtered, and those that survived the initial attack had to rough it on the mountains of the coast with minimal supplies. It was a huge failure, and it was a turning point in Australia's relationship with Britain.
Alex playing in the "submarine"
View of Parliament House from the Australian War Memorial
The flowers added next to the names of the lost soldiers in WWI
Once we finished up playing around the War Memorial (They had a section for kids that we had to go explore/play in), Alex had to go finish up some work (He had a 2500 word essay due at midnight!). As interesting and entertaining it would be to sit with him while he did his work, I took the alternate route: I wanted to go walk around Canberra.
It was the perfect time, right at sunset. I'm so glad I got to see Canberra in the fall; it was unnerving how much it made me miss Missouri. Yes, I actually missed Missouri! The leaves don't change in most of Australia because most of the trees are eucalyptus, and therefore, don't lose their leaves. But, they had trees just like home in Canberra, and they were all changing color. The best part was all the leaves on the ground... I think that's what made it smell like home. I found a section of trees (the picture from the very top) where I could walk through the leaves, hear them crunching under my Uggs, take in the water, and breathe in the smell of autumn.
Selfie around sunset around Lake Burley-Griffin
Let me just elaborate on just how cool Canberra is. It was built in 1912, after Walter Burley Griffin, an American architect, won a competition with his plan for the city. It's in a hexagonal shape, and it's brilliant; everything just lines up. It's so cute! After my musings near the lake, I called up Alex because I was cold and hungry, and we attempted to head up to Mount Black for sunset. We barely missed it, so instead Alex showed me his uni he attended his 1st and 2nd year, ANU. After a bit of sightseeing, we went downtown for dinner at Gus's; it was soooo good! We ate outside which would have been rough (it was in the single digits at night!), luckily, they had heaters and candlelight to set the mood. Once I was thoroughly stuffed with an unbelievable amount of carbohydrates, we went to get some more at Coco Black; Alex got a super rich hot chocolate and I had some chocolate ice cream to accompany our $2 a piece chocolates.
We got back to the hotel around 9; Alex had work to do,so I just took advantage of the bathtub and went to bed all toasty and warm, we had a bunch of places we had to get to tomorrow.
Hoping to catch the 9:30 am tour of the National Museum of Australia, we checked out bright and early at 9 am. Being the only two people on this tour, we got to ask as many questions as we wanted. Australia has one interesting history. My favorite story of the whole tour was this: apparently, a convict in South Australia escaped from his crew, he came across a grave site where he found spears, that he thought he could use for hunting. When he ran into a clan of Aborigines later, they thought he was a reincarnation of one of their dead, so they welcomed him into their clan. He stayed with them for 30 years, and took part of the negotiations over land in Melbourne with the British. He had been so immersed in their society that he had almost forgotten English, but it all came back when he helped with negotiations. Pretty cool story, huh?
Alex "Tim-Tebowing"-at my request- at the National Museum of Australia
We grabbed some breakfast in the historic, cute part of town, it sort of reminded me of Kirkwood, Mo. I finally tried eggs benedict, and I LOVED it! We made our way to the Parliament House to catch the 1 pm tour.
Looking out over the mountains at the top of Parliament House
We were lucky enough to have an amazing tour guide that knew an insane amount of information on the Australian political system. Here's some things I learned about the ridiculously complicated Australian government:
Parliament is broken into two houses: the House of Representatives with 150 representatives from 150 different areas divided by equal population, and the Senate that has 12 senators for each of the 7 states.
Both houses are equal in terms of power, but the majority in the House of Representatives creates the government, and within the government is the Prime Minister (Julia Gillard), who the people do not directly vote for!
Parliament House has many interpretations in its design. People are suppose to be above government which is why you can go above the Parliament and sit on top of it. The red rock/soil outside of Parliament is suppose to represent the red soil of the outback with the fountain out front to represent a billabong which was a traditional place of gathering for Aboriginals.
The Head of State is the Queen of England, and technically, she can come in and do whatever the hell she wants.
Once we finished our tour of the Parliament House, we checked out the High Court which is the highest court of the land. It was a very interesting building, and we were the only ones there, so Alex asked a million and one questions, and this is what I gained from it:
There are seven justices on the High Court, and two of them serve on the appeal court to deem the case worthy of the High Court's attention
Criminal and constitution issues can appear before them
View overlooking the mountains to the west on Canberra from Mount Ainslie
We caught the last few rays of the day from the lookout on Mount Ainslie. I was once again filled with this feeling I get sometimes over here; it's this feeling almost like fear/sadness mixed together, I realize that I may never see this beautiful place again or be in this same moment ever again. It's the weirdest emotion. It was a perfect weekend and the best time to see Canberra in all its fall glory.
I am not the same person that I was two and half months ago. That, I am sure of.
Sydney feels like home to me. I know where everything is. I know how to get from point A to point B (most of the time). I don't feel lost anymore. I feel like I belong here. It took awhile obviously, two and a half months, but I can see myself living here. I can see myself working here, maybe even living here. Weird, I know! But, I can't go back to my old way of life because that old me doesn't exist. Yes, there are things that I miss like days on the river with my dad, sitting around at dinnertime with everyone watching the Nightly News with Brian Williams, and country music, but I have a life here now, too. I have things here that I will miss just as dearly as I did when I left the US. I used to dream of home, of being back at my house... Sometimes if I see a dad or mom with their little girl, I get a little misty eyed just because I think of how much I miss being around my mom and dad.
Now the thought of going back home, to my old life, scares me. I'll be happy to see my family, but I won't be able to drink, and, after living in such a cool city like Sydney, I don't think I can live in St. Louis. I don't know if I want to stay and work in the Missouri. It'll be great to see my friends from back home, but I will be surrounded by all Americans. I'm so over that, especially going back to Greek life (more so the boys not the girls), I know it'll keep me busy and distracted, but those frat guys are completely 100% the same and boring.
Obviously from this post, you, my audience, can tell that things are a bit different now.
This weekend encompassed everything Australian: surfing, kangaroos, huge spiders, stingrays, hot men, alcohol, stars, and people from all over the world. That basically describes Australia.
But first, I have to talk about my week. Let's just say I did something very, very stupid, and then something kind of cool to compensated for it.
Tuesday night last week, I was sitting on my laptop, per usual, when I saw that the coordinator for my study abroad program, Australearn, posted that he had an extra ticket to the Tim McGraw that he was giving away for free. I was the first one to respond with a very enthusiastic "HELL YA", which is what I should have done, but instead I changed my mind because I thought I had too much homework. As soon as I realized how retarded I was, it was too late.. I gave up a free Tim McGraw concert to do homework. I later found out that apparently I just have to pass my classes... That means I need a 50% on my classes to get credit. Say hello to Surfer Bum Andrea!
Photography by CAY on our way to Manly
To compensate for this moment of pure idiocracy, I felt the need to do something very stupid and impulsive. I skipped all six hours of classes I had on Thursday (Technically, it was only five since one of my lectures was cancelled) to go to Manly for the day. Since it was so spur of the moment I had no one to go with, but I lucked out; Courtney has the similar YOLO(You only live once) philosophy like myself and felt compelled to screw her classes as well. We headed out to Manly around 10:30, and after a gorgeous ride on the ferry there where I was the star of "Photography by Cay", we arrived to the amazing Manly Beach. After some more photos, we grabbed some delicious nachos at this cute Mexican restaurant right on I guess what you would call the boardwalk before we headed back to Sydney. It was an awesome day.
Sydney Opera House!
Manly Beach
After planning my mid semester trip at the last minute on Friday, I had only 30 minutes, maybe even less to pack up for my weekend surf trip. I met Courtney, Verena, and Lauren at the bus stop where we met up, and headed down together to the Australian Surf Tours headquarters. We were lucky our bus ride was only 3.5 hours or so (the Mojo Surf Camp has a six hour long drive to Crescent Head), but it was late when we arrived, so they just had sausages for us for our late dinner. I actually ate a sausage, something I haven't done in YEARS!! I cannot even tell you when the last time was that I actually tried a sausage because I can tell you for a fact that I have never ate one before. We passed out at about 1:30 in the morning after Courtney talked my ear off for about half an hour before bed. Anyways, we feel asleep listening to the waves crash... It was the best sleep I've had in a while considering I was on a cot.
Cay dog's lovely face
I awoke to Courtney's lovely face and breakfast being made at the campsite. We were put into the first group, so instead of surfing, we went down to the bay where we fed these HUGE manta rays... I have never seen them be that big before, and boy, were they heavy! We finished off our big bag of fish, and headed back to camp to get ready for the first surf lesson, but before we did that we got to go play in the rock pools . I stupidly jumped into the pool which would have been fine had I jumped out far enough, but my left knee didn't make it... I SMOKED it on the rock below the surface (it pained me to surf for the rest of the weekend because of this!).
Courtney trying to grab the beach ball I threw to her in the rock pool
Courtney, Verena, Joao (our surf instructor), Lauren, and myself
Most of the day's lessons were introductory, beginner stuff, but we spend the sunset in the water surfing. I can honestly tell you that I could spend the rest of my days doing this... It was the best! I remember this feeling of happiness... It was as if everything was right in the world, and I was just happy and at peace with it.
We went down to the bay to take pictures at sunset... It was so beautiful!
The inlet near the beach we went to... the water was kind of gross and cold.
That night was interesting to say the least... We played the longest game of Never Have I Ever ever!!! And I learned heaps of stuff about people that I would've preferred to remain ignorant of. Overall, it was a fun night of drinking and getting to know ya stuff.
My snapped board
Sunday was our last day of surfing! We spent the morning just waking up, then headed out to the beach where we surfed earlier to lay out before we got our turn with the boards. Conditions were a little different than the other day, it was super windy, which made it impossible to catch decent waves! But, we were promised a better surf experience for that afternoon, and they were right! We went to the opposite side of the bay where were shielded from the wind a bit more, but the waves were ENORMOUS! At least 5 or 6 foot swell! I grabbed a board (more like they had to force the jackass American frat guy to give up his board so I could have my turn), and headed out there. I started out with the white wash which was still pretty powerful! Side note, it was down pouring the whole afternoon, thundering and lightening, the whole ten yards, and Sam, the camp's owner/main coach, wasn't the least bit concerned. After struggling with my board to get past the breakers, I hit one big wave... I made it under, but my board didn't and snapped! I felt so terrible, but it really could've happened to anyone.
Courtney and I finally caught some green waves, before we had to head back in to shower and change for the ride home. It was one of my favorite weekends thus far.
Here's a video from the drive back to Sydney from Bendalong with our crazy Portuguese drivers. I don't know how they drive in Portugal, but you best believe they scared the hell out of me when they were driving (worse tailgating I've ever seen).
Sorry it took me so long to publish this, I've been so busy with life here! More to come soon!
So, Tuesday night, yes, I know I went out on a Tuesday night, to the World Bar with Courtney and her roommates, Jess and Verena. It's located in this special part of downtown Sydney known as Kings Cross, it's kind of like the smaller version of Times Square in the sense that it has this one big lit-up Coca-Cola sign, and it is basically just a pack of bars! World Bar was having a special for all backpackers, so we pretended that we were staying at the YHA in Central and got into the pub for free with $5 vodkas and beers, a free drink, and a free glass of champagne! They had karaoke going on in the back, where we were delighted by these fellows below in my video singing, "Barbie Girl". Being the adventurous girl that I am here, and accompanied by my also fearless friends, we signed up to sing the song "What I Got" by Sublime. Classic! We also say the song, "Just Like a Pill" by P!nk, (the most random, depressing song ever!) thanks to Verena. Her logic was that since she does really well singing it on Guitar Hero (It's a video game, Mom and Dad), that she would rock it karaoke-style. Haha we were terrible! None of us knew the words, not even Verena, and we definitely got booed! But hell, we didn't care, we were having too much fun!
Posing at Kings Cross
World Bar is also known for having these teapots. They're pricey, but you split it between two people and it's a sweet deal. Courtney and I split the Fruit Tingle, and they gave us two shot glasses each since it basically is a mixture of shots all together. It was definitely worth it!
Courtney and I with our teapot!
Wednesday night, Darren, the first Irish I've ever met, took me up to the Centerpoint Tower to see the city. He planned it perfectly, we got up to the tower right when the sun was setting. I could see everything, all the way back to the Blue Mountains! It was two of my college friends' birthdays, so they were going out that same night to Lowenbrau, this German pub in the Rocks. Darren and I headed there until they arrived to have a few drinks and chat. He had some hilarious stories about his "Nan"! Once the whole college gang arrived, I introduced Darren to everyone at Jacksons on George Street. Nothing was really going on at any of the clubs, so we called it an early night at about midnight.
Sydney Aquarium
I had to stay in the rest of the week just about to make up for going away last weekend, and going out Tuesday and Wednesday night, but I had a wonderful, touristy Saturday. We had to go to the Sydney Aquarium in Darling Harbor for our Marine Environment class, Kara, Emily, and I in the morning. It doesn't even compare to the Atlanta Aquarium or the Shedd Aquarium! Surprising, huh?!
We grabbed lunch in Darling Harbor which is a super cool area to be in, it was so lively! We then spent the rest of the day at Bondi Beach where I got beat up catching some waves. It was a great workout though! We came back to a cold dinner at Shalom and a down night to chill out and relax. :)
After being in the city for the past month, I was so keen to get away from all the clubs and the lights. Once I got out of class on Friday, I finished a load of laundry, packed up, and was ready to go around 5.
Alix and I made our way over to the UNSW Languages campus where they kept all of their sporting equipment and store basically everything else for all the clubs at UNSW. Once the cars were all packed up and ready to go, we hopped into Shannon's station wagon (of course, I snagged shotgun!), and were on our way. It was dark most of the drive, but we did make it over the Harbor Bridge in the daylight!
Once we got there everyone was just chilling on the beach, drinking goon, and enjoying the stars. In the Southern Hemsisphere you can actually see the Milky Way, and lucky for me, someone in my group was able to get a picture of it. It was insane, I haven't seen that many stars since I went on my cruise to Mexico. Once we ran out of wine on the beach, we headed back to the second house for a very late dinner of spaghetti. We were able to get back to the beach afterwards and enjoy a bonfire right on the sand... I finally got to do something so very Australian: have a campfire on the beach :)
Here is the picture of what the sky looked like our first night at Hawks Nest; gorgeous isn't it?!
Unfortunately, Weather was not a very happy lady this weekend; she was very cloudy and blue. I was woken up by Ajay early Saturday morning, and with very little prospects of the weather improving, I assumed that this was the best it was going to be, so I better take advantage of it. After grabbing a quick breakfast (They spent $1500 on FOOD for the weekend!), we got out the kayaks and headed out in Port Stephens. Kayaking is actually super hard because it all depends on how you center the boat with your weight, so I got a decent workout doing it. I was completely soaked and freezing after that, and I figured that there was nothing else I'd be doing in the water, so I stupidly took a hot shower to warm up and put on fresh clothes. I realized that no one was in the house, so I headed back down to the beach, but I'm one of those people that can't just sit there on a cloudy day, so I went for a run around Port Stephen instead. I always love runs like that along the beach, they always clear my head and make me appreciate where I am. This is where the stupidity kicks in, first of all it rained a little bit during my run, not too much, but then Ajay offered to take me out sailing, and I thought when am I ever going to get the chance to do this again, so I said sure, why not. I ended up getting completely soaked head to toe, and had to take another hot shower, and put on my last remaining dry clothes.
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All of us together for the weekend hat party!
To kill time we played the longest game of Cranium ever, and then it was time to start drinking. A group of us headed to the back the house where we played the best game of Kings Cup ever. The theme of the party was crazy hats, so luckily for me, I had a one of my college friend's lend me her pirate hat. We closed the night again by drinking by the campfire on the beach.
Sunday, I somehow adapted the sleeping patterns on a koala; pretty sure I just napped all day Sunday on the beach... Oh and I ate a huge lunch since we had a ton of food to finish off. The sun finally came out on our that afternoon, but it was still freezing for me when I was laying out on the beach. We headed back into Sydney late that night.
One of my craziest weekends yet... It was jam packed!
The part of the Argyle we were in
After doing some homework on Friday, it was time to pre-game for the night with all my Shalommies. After I had finished a significant amount of my Coke Zero and Bombora (basically a cheap Australian version of Malibu), we caught the bus to Circular Quay and ran into the highly bar-knowledgeable Daniel. After waiting in Circular Quay for what felt like forever, we headed to Jackson's on George Street where I paid $8.50 for a beer! Once everyone else arrived to George Street, we all headed to the Argyle to meet up. Even though my feet were killing me, I hung in there and survived the cobblestone red carpet. There I met my first Irish bloke, and ended up having a drink with him. Little did I know that all my friends had left, but they realized I was missing and came back for me, thank god!
The Argyle was amazing! It's located in a pretentious part of town known as the Rocks; it's the place where they first settled in Sydney, which is why it's very rustic, the cobblestone is original to the first settlers.
Once we returned to Jackson's on George Street, everyone from my college took over the dance floor! I danced for as long I could, but I had to call it a night. Luckily, Emily was ready to call it a night too, and Jason, being the good guy that he is, went back with us to make sure we were safe :). I finally got to hit the sack at 2 o'clock in the morning!
The next day was the one and only, FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL! We knew that drinks would be crazy expensive in there, so we drank as much as possible before hand, but not in a belligerent way, just enough to numb any crowd anxiety that I had. We had to walk over to Randwick Racecourse which was right by our uni. Once we reached the racecourse, we had to head through this tunnel which reeked of horse manure for obvious reasons, and it was super hot on Saturday too, so the smell was sort of intensified.
At Courtney's apartment before the festival with Verena, Courtney, and myself
Everyone was crazy there! Either they were ridiculously drunk or they were rolling on E; I only bought two drinks there, but they cost $23 dollars! After watching Jessie J and fetching my first drink we headed over to Gym Class Heroes. I was fine at first, but the crowd started pushing hardcore, and I started getting really bad crowd anxiety; I just had to get out of there as soon as possible. I lost Courtney and Verena for a bit, after wandering around aimlessly for about an hour or so, I found them near the food. Verena knew exactly how I felt because she hates crowd too, especially after her experience in Germany's Love Parade.
Okay, so side note, because I had never even heard about this until Verena told me. Back in Summer of 2010, Verena and her boyfriend, Julien, went to the Love Parade which was the biggest techno music festival in the world. People started to go into this tunnel and somehow a mass panic broke out inside the tunnel; it was too many people trying to get through it at once. Verena was one of the people in that tunnel, she said that all you could hear was people screaming from being in so much pain and being crushed to death, and that the police were doing nothing; she tried to get by a police officer, but he wouldn't let her through even though she told him that people were quote, "Dying in there". People were trying to hop police barricades covered with spikes in order to get out of this thing, and many people ended up having to get their arms or legs amputated. I can't believe that I had never heard of it before.
Back to the Future Music Festival! Together the three of us went back into the crowd after grabbing some food, and watched Fatboy Slim and Swedish House Mafia . Here's some videos I took to just show how crazy the event was!
I recorded Courtney when she was on this Brazilian guy's shoulders, she was so terrified because he was literally jumping up and down like "a track star" in her words... That's not Ecstasy that's making her laugh, it's fear lol
My view from when I was on Reese's shoulders
At these festivals, everyone tends to put either girls (or even guys!) on their shoulders, this guy here, Reese, was nice enough to offer me his shoulders ha!
Like most of my weekends, I like to close with a day at the beach. I wanted to go someplace new, so I thought Courtney, Lauren, and I could try Maroubra beach which is about a single twenty minute bus ride away. It was a brilliant idea! Maroubra was amazing; it was a gorgeous day and yet it was SO quiet. It was so relaxing; it's so obvious that it's a local beach (Lauren couldn't even find any postcards!).
Maroubra Beach
That's all I've got for now! Just got to study my butt off this week, then I'm off to Hawk's Nest!
