Last night at The Tav 11/20

Everything we are doing now is the "last". It is so sad. I cannot believe we are actually getting ready to leave Townsville.

Well on Thursday, there was a big beer pong tournament at The Tav for the Uni students and a bunch of us decided to go and hang out there. It was such a good night. My friend Sanders needed a pong partner, so I was his partner. Although we did not win, our friends John and David did win, and they won $500 cash!! How exciting!

Sanders and I

                                                                                                  Lachy and I

                           Jimmie and I                                                       Anna, Me and Jimmie

                       Sam and I                                                                      Leighton and I

Sarah and I

It was such a nice night at The Tav. It was Hawaiian theme so we all wore our Hawaiian shirts and just made some more memories. I also had to say goodbye to some people this night, and that was so sad. I have met so many great people here in Australia. I just really hope that I will get to see them all again.

The Strand!

How is this possible? How am I going to The Strand for the last time ever? I cannot believe this day is here. I have dreaded this day for so long. I am not prepared to leave The Strand. We have had so many great memories made here, and so many good times spent here.

Andrew, Sara and I spent our last day at The Strand together and it was incredible. It was such a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky. We laid out for a bit, and then took some pictures, and then went swimming. The water was perfect temperature, it was just so nice. The Strand is beautiful.

I loved spending my last day at The Strand with these two!!

Relaxing after finals!

I started my relaxing week by playing some tennis with Leighton. He still had a few more finals, so when he was ready to take a study break, we went outside to play some tennis for a bit. Studying so much gets boring and can make your head spin, so doing something athletic was a great way for him to relax. Well, I wasn't on my A game that day, so he ended up beating me. But I am sure I will beat him another day!!

On Saturday, since some people finished their finals on that morning, we all decided to go out to celebrate! We had a great night.

Since we all needed another day to relax, a few of us decided to go to the river and tan! Andrew, Becca and I walked down a bit further to the rope swing. We have never done it before, so we figured we needed to do it at least once before we left. After climbing up the tree and trying to get the rope for almost 15 minutes, we finally were ready to rope swing! Andrew went first, then me, and then Becca! It was amazing!! We all loved it and kept going a few more times. It was so much fun. Andrew and I also found this sturdy branch, and decided to do a back flip off of it. It was his idea, and once I realised that he could do it, I decided that I wanted to also. It was awesome. Such a fun day with friends!

Andrew rope swinging

Me rope swinging

Becca rope swinging

Me backflipping off the branch!

Andrew back flipping!!

The next party night of this week was Tuesday, November 18th, which was also our friend Natalie's 21st birthday! So we had to celebrate. We all started by hanging out in Siena's room for a while, and then moved to the SCR with everyone else. Because some people still had finals, quiet hours were still on, so this was the only room we could be in and make noise. A bunch of us were in their so it was really fun.

                       

                Becca and I                                                             Carla and I

                                          Alex and I                                                               Anna and I

              Amity and I                                                           Natalie and I

A few of us decided to head into town and hike Castle Hill again. Matt also came with us because he has never hiked it before! It was so a hot and humid day. We all were exhausted and felt so out of shape hiking the mountain. But we did make it to the top and enjoyed the gorgeous view.

Last but not least, my quadmates and I finally took a quad picture. After living next to and across from each other for a whole semester, we finally took a picture! I am so thankful to have had such a great quad. Kim, Caroline and Pat are incredible people, and were such great friends. I loved living in their quad. We were the best quad because Me, Kim and Caroline were all American :)

                                   Back: Kim, Pat

                              Front: Caroline, Me

Finals: Week of 11/10

How is it already time for finals?!?! This semester has absolutely flown by, but every second was so amazing. I had 3 finals and one final paper. I have previously submitted the final paper, and my one final was the week that I left for Fiji, so now I only had two more finals to go, which wasn't bad at all.

I originally was supposed to have a final on Saturday the 8th, but I was too busy skydiving and going to the bar! It usually is a difficult time having finals changed, but Sara and I talked to our professor, and she was able to change the final for just us to the Tuesday when we got back, since we were traveling when we were supposed to have it. We were so thankful that she did that for us.

So my first final of finals week was for my Sports and Exercise Nutrition class on Tuesday. This final wasn't too bad at all. Although we did not prepare nearly enough for it, all we had to do was pass, and I felt like I could do that. And I did!!

My last final of fall semester of my junior year was the following day, Wednesday. This was for Health and Health Care in Australia. I was a bit more worried for this class since we had to memorise statistics, such as about 70% of Australia's population lives in metropolitan areas, and the fertility rate is 1.87, but the replacement fertility rate is 2.1 and so on! So I definitely was not prepared for this final as much as I wanted to be, but again, all I had to do was pass. And I did it! I passed all of my classes in Australia for the semester, and actually did better than I thought I would!

For the rest of the week, I just hung out around campus with the wallabies! Just joking, but not really! One day when we were finished lunch, we saw a bunch of wallabies outside and decided to go hang out with them and take some pictures of them. We also tried to see how close we could get to them without them hopping away, but we couldn't get too close!

The Hangover Bar Crawl 11/8/14

What better way to end the most amazing day of my life then go to a bar crawl?!?! While we were walking throughout town, a few people came up to us and asked if we were interested in going to a bar crawl. Since we did not go out any other nights in Gold Coast, we decided to join this bar crawl. Tickets were originally $100, but he told us that he would give it to us for $80. This included pizza and snacks at the first bar, 4 bars and 4 drinks. We did want to go, but $80 but higher than what we wanted to spend. So we kept bargaining with them and we eventually got it down to $40, and we decided to pay that much.

The first place we went was called Strikers, which was a bowling alley. When we first walked in, they gave us either a red sticker or a green sticker. Red was for those who were in a relationship; red means stop (so others knew not to try to approach you), and green was for those who were single. This was a cool idea. They were supposed to have pizza and some snacks, but when we showed up, all of the food was gone, so we decided to order a pizza for ourselves which was very delicious. We then had our free drink and just hung out until it was time to go to the next bar.

The next bar we stopped at was called Cocktails Nightclub. The people running the bar crawl held different games at this club. Mostly funny/inappropriate things, including lap dances. Although none of us were involved in the games, it was still very funny to watch.

Our next stop was Sin City. This club was really nice. After getting our drink, we went to the dance floor. They played such good music and we had a really good time here. A lot of the music that they were playing was throw backs, so it was great. 

Our last and final stop was Vanity. This bar left me speechless. Oh my goodness. It was gorgeous. We were told that this club just redid the girls bathroom and spent $2 million, so once we got finished our drinks, we ran to go see the bathrooms. It was breathtaking. I cannot even begin to explain how shocked I was to see a club's bathroom this gorgeous. There also are hair dressers and makeup artists there to do your hair and makeup for free.

Once the bar crawl finished, we went back to the apartment that we were staying at and just hung out with the boys for a while. We were having a blast. I was the DJ for a bit and I put on songs from Mulan and everyone was loving it. It was such a good night. I am so thankful that Matt talked to his friends and they allowed us to stay with them while we were there. They were so friendly and we just had such a good time with them. It was an amazing trip!

Will, Sara, Becca, Jack, Me, Ian, Siena