Time, where did you go?

I can't believe I really only have a week left in this gorgeous country. This is the second time in the past few days I've cried thinking about what limited time I have left here. Thinking back to all the memories with my amazing friends, well, I guess we have become more like a family.

It made me think about the last time I cried. With the exception of Steph's anniversary, I honestly can't think of the last time I cried here.

I realized this is because for the past 4 months I have been truly happy.

I don't want this journey to be over.

Jess visits & Passover!

Jess came to Australia! I think she's actually on her way home as I type this...I'm so excited she was able to make her way out here. I wish everyone could! We spent last weekend together. Unfortunately, the weather has been a little gross since we are in between seasons so we've been getting some rain and wind...but of course the sunshine came out a little bit. Our plans ended up changing from the original plan, but we still did alot and had a great time! The original plan was to go to one of the national parks on Friday and go to the Australia Zoo on Saturday. The rain was too heavy Friday and we couldn't figure out how to get to the national parks so we ended up just walking around Surfer's Paradise, going up to the observation deck on the Q1 tower (highest residential building in the world, 20th highest building in the world), and having dinner at a cute little Italian restaurant. Saturday we went to Brisbane since the Australia Zoo was too far and Jess was flying to Cairns that night. We went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where I had taken Mom & Maxine in February. I am still so in love with koalas and kangaroos. And apparently Taylor Swift was there the week after I was there with Mom & Maxine!

I wasn't planning on doing anything for Passover this year. No seder, still debating whether I was going to even keep Passover.

BUT Rachel went to go find matzah and ended up getting us invited to someone's seder! Their apartment had a gorgeous view of the city and the beach. The family was so nice and fun! There were 15 of us total and there were kids, parents, grandparents, an Israeli girl they were hosting, and us. It was much different than the seders I am used to, and it all worked out really well. We felt like family by the end of the night! Apparently the Jewish population where I am isn't too high, but there are plenty of Jews in Melbourne!

Speaking of Melbourne, I decided to book one last trip and I'm going to Melbourne April 25-27!!! I can't wait! and then I leave April 28th so its gonna be a little crazy but I'm excited.

I can't believe I have less than 3 weeks left!

I decided I'm excited to go home but I don't want to leave Australia. It's going to be bittersweet.

Be inspired.

Strength. Weakness. Hope. Fear. Life. Death.

Go ahead, Be inspired.

(I can't get the Embed codes to work so just follow the links)

Anna's Story

http://www.fox19.com/global/Category.asp?C=151146&clipId=&topVideoCatNo=15048&topVideoCatNoB=109491&topVideoCatNoC=104760&topVideoCatNoD=141804&topVideoCatNoE=142722&autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=3603765

Young People Who Rock - Andrew McMahon

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2009/03/27/dcl.lapin.mcmahon.cnn

Byron Bay

This past weekend we took a girl's weekend trip to Byron Bay. We had been to Byron in passing for a total of just a few hours after our surfing and skydiving trips, but hadn't really spent time there. It's only about an hour away so it wasn't too far, but it was still a new place to explore. It was finally a trip we could take that was just us girls, no tour guides, to do everything at our own leisure. We had considered going surfing over the weekend at Byron, but we found out that the weather wasn't supposed to be great. Fortunately, it really only rained on and off a little bit. However, it still wasn't good surfing conditions.

We got to Byron Bay on Friday morning and basically just spent the day at the beach. It was good to be able to go to a beach different than the ones we went to all the time and to be in a new town. We went out for a little while that night but our lack of sleep from the previous night slapped us in the face. The hostel we stayed at was really nice, too. (Oxymoron?) For real though, it was less than a month though and it even had a space theme. Pretty cool. Oh, and even the beds were comfortable. And we had a balcony. And there were 8 of us so we didn't have to stay with any randoms haha

Saturday was another beach day, of course. We ate lunch at a sushi restaurant, since all the girls are pretty much obsessed with sushi, and its starting to grow on me. I was never too fond of it, since I had never eaten much of it. But I'm slowly beginning to experiment, and I'm enjoying. The girls' sushi obsession is rubbing off on me. After the sushi restaurant we took a hike up to the lighthouse. It was a little hustle and a little bustle but we made it. It was gorgeous and all the views on the walk and at the top were amazing! We spent the night at Cheeky Monkey's, crazy little bar.

On Sunday morning, some of the girls went skydiving! The rest of us had already been or weren't interested in going so we got to sleep in. The skydiving trio left, went skydiving, and were back before we had even done our 10am checkout. We went out to a delicious breakfast and I had pancakes I had been craving. The rest of the day was spent shopping at lots of cute stores, more sushi, some ice cream, and a little beach.

All in all, it was just the kind of weekend I needed.

I can't believe its already April. I'm not sure where these 3 months have gone and I'm hoping I'm prepared for this one. I have lots of final projects and exams and I'm still trying to squeeze in last minute trips. 4 weeks left, here we go.