Here are some Pictures for you...

Just a little preview until I get my photo album set up. I have my friend's Erin (b-day girl with the blonde hair) and Luika with her b-day cake! The city from the Yarra River at Moomba Waterfest. A firework picture with the festival going on in the background. Me and my friend, Jack, enjoying the Jello! A picture of Bell's Beach.

Finally an Update for You!

Wow, so I just realized that the last time I wrote on this thing I said I would tell how my first day of school went... Now I am into my 4th week of classes (1/3 of the way through the semester), Crazy isn't it!? Sorry for not updating, I get so busy and I don't have time to write on this. Ok let me try and catch you up...
First week of classes went pretty well, of course I did not want to be there after my 3 month vacation. I realize that there are a lot of outside readings that professors expect you to do on your own for the classes because there are only 2 assessments for each class in the semester. This is good in a way, because you don't have to do BS busy work assignments. But then again, it scares me a little because if I do not have deadlines, I tend to procrastinate. Also, they only have those 2 things that determine your final grade. So if you mess up one essay, you are doomed. Well, can't change the system. I found all of my classes just fine, I didn't look too stupid pulling out the map because I saw many other students looking at their Uni maps as well. I actually went out more than expected the first week. Students were all excited about the start of Uni so everyone wanted to go out to the pubs at night and celebrate.
That weekend was our friend Erin's 21st birthday! We went out to dinner and bought her champagne and baked her a cake. It was very cute. She enjoyed everything. That night, we tried to go out to meet up with a friend of a friend who lives in Melbourne, and he took us to the "Spice Market". It was a nice place, very upscale. But when I saw that the people waiting in line behind me were 30/40 year olds who just got done with a rough day at work and just needed a cocktail, I knew this wasn't going to be the right place for a 21st birthday celebration. We ditched that place and ended up calling it a night. Instead we went back to our friends' apartment who also live in the Village and had a PJ party! We cooked pasta, listened to music, ate the rest of the cake, and hung around in our pajamas! Finally, the security at the Village broke up our party and knocked on the doors about 5 times telling us to keep it down. Party poopers.
We decided that Sundays would be a great day for getting coffee and pastries with a few of the girls to catch up. That Sunday we went down to Lygon St. (Little Italy) and went to a cute little outdoor cafe. It was nice to just relax over an espresso before getting ready for another week at school. Also, that weekend, there was the Moomba Waterfest, which is held in Melbourne along the Yarra River at the end of the Summer. It was basically the Luzerne County Fair but soo much better. There was a ferris wheel and other carnival rides, lots of food to eat (cotton candy = fairy floss, hehe), bands playing on the stage. They have a birdman competition and people dress up in bird costumes and jump off a platform and see how far they could "fly". At night, they have fireworks! We stayed to watch the fireworks and it was a really good show. We sat on the bank of the Yarra with our hot chips (french fries) and enjoyed the pretty fireshow!
Week 2: More intense than week 1 because we actually got into all of the material and did more than just review the syllabus. I am taking 4 classes: Australia Now which is a history course of Australia, we have been talking about the colonization of the country up until present day. It's very interesting because I know little about Oz. It is very strange because as a culture, I feel that Australians have a broad sense of the world and its history while us Americans are consumed in our own country and know little about the rest of the world. Yes, I feel ignorant sometimes and I'm glad that I am trying to overcome it. I'm also taking Microbiology and Immunology, enough said. The class is pretty boring, I like the Immunology part, but on the whole it's pretty dull. Minds and Madness is another course, which has a catchy title and sounds like a great course. Ehh, not so much... It's more history than I thought it would be, I was hoping for more Neuropsychology but that's not the case. I have tried to be open-minded about the class and it's going ok. We are studying the birth of the asylum and it is very interesting, just not what I expected. And last, I am taking the History of Sexualities. I would say this is my favorite course that I am taking. It's quite interesting to learn about the different views of sexuality, how homosexuality emerged, sex-ed taught in different countries, etc. Also, my professor is real neat, she is actually preggers with twins currently! She looks so cute, I feel like she gets bigger every week. I wonder if she's going to make it till the end of the semester.
That week, we were saving ourselves for Saturday, which was Sound Relief, the bushfire benefit concert. It was great!! We woke up early to be there for noon when it started. It was a pretty crappy day, rained off and on, but we braved the weather and had a great time. I got to see Jack Johnson!!!! (my man), Jet, Kings of Leon, etc. etc. All the bands were amazing, I have a new favorite Australian Hip-Hop band: Bliss N' Eso. Youtube them! I have decided that I would loove to see Jack Johnson alone in concert now, because since there were so many acts, each artist only played about 6 songs, which was not enough for me. So if anyone hears of Jack coming to anywhere near PA let me know! That night although we were very tired from the day long concert, it was our friend Jeff's 21st birthday and we decided that we had to help him celebrate. We went to a club called Bimbo's and it's kinda sketchy because it has dolls in leather and S&M gear hanging from the walls and babydolls hanging upside down. Real weird stuff. But it's got a neat roof top where you can sit out and there are all these lights hanging overhead. Haha.
So that Sunday it was Wicked Sunday for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. The month of March from the 7-23rd was the Food and Wine Festival. It had a bunch of different activities like "Longest Lunch" where they set up a lunch table all along the Yarra River and it seats about 1,200 people and you have a 3 course lunch with wine and dessert and everything (I didn't go, but you could have for a steep price). Also, they had a deal that you can schedule lunch at a select few places and for $35 you can have 2 courses, a glass of wine, and a coffee/tea. We tried to get some people together to set up a lunch but it's so hard to coordinate everyone's schedule and we never ended up doing it. But we did get to go to Wicked Sunday, which was a Festival in Federation Square (a square right next to the Yarra River where they set up booths and everything) dedicated to Chocolates, Sweets, Coffees, and Cheeses! Yummm! We walked around there for a while, I got a delicious coffee and a chocolate crepe! I also got to sample some choc covered espresso beans, delish!, and some tasty biscuits (cookies). That festival was right up my alley! I love sweets, so I really enjoyed myself there.
Week 3: Busy week! Monday night, we had our first Ormond Welcome Reunion with all the people from the Melbourne Welcome that I went to. It was nice to see everyone, although I already hang out with a lot of them on a daily basis. The people are all so nice! I was talking to the coordinator of the Welcome and she said she was talking to someone higher up and the lady said that it's rare to have a group that got along as well as the Ormond group did! We all like each other and we are all pretty friendly, it's nice to know that many people in a strange country!
The next day was St. Patrick's Day!! I bought green food coloring to dye our beer/wine green and lime Jello! We really went all out, I know, haha! It was a fun day, we went to O'Connell's pub and they were having basically a block party sort of thing. There was a U2 cover band playing on the stage, it was packed! The lead singer of this band looked exactly like Bono, wannabe! Haha, they sounded pretty good too though, I was having a great time! Me and my friend, Q, pushed right up to the front row and were singing our little hearts out! Yeah Yeah Yeah, all I could think of when I would look at this Fake-Bono was the South Park episode with Bono in it, haha! You should see it, it was a good one! Anywhoo... After O'Connell's, I went to another pub and met a real Irishman, he was wearing a green dress. Unfortunately, I did not get to see any kilts!
The next night, we had a boat cruise for a group I am in at Uni, MUSEX (stands for some kind of Melbourne Student Exchange Club, whatever). The theme for the booze cruise was "Dream Jobs and Failed Slobs" and people had some clever costumes. I didn't have anything good to wear so I just wore a nautical dress and claimed I was a sailor's wife. I am not too creative apparently. There was a playboy bunny, Hugh Heffner, pirates, footy players, You name it. That was a fun night, we got to cruise around the Melbourne Harbor. The skyline at night is soo pretty, I would show you but people tried to take pictures and none of them could do it justice/turned out right. It was another fun night, but I was starting to get worn out.
Thursday we had to go to bed early because we were going on a 3-day camping trip of the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians the next day. We woke up bright and early to be there for pick-up at 7am on Friday. It was a full day of driving in our minibus and sightseeing. We went to a lighthouse and Bell's Beach (pictured in some movie but I forget which one, haha), hung out with some koalas, went on a rainforest walk, watched the sunset at the top of a hill right next to our campsite. That night, we slept amongst the koalas. I woke up in the middle of the night to some strange grunting noises, I think the koalas were mating. Hahah, they were really loud too! The next day we had to wake up real early again for another packed day! We traveled along the Great Ocean Road and saw the 12 Apostles (Limestone rock formations - Just Beautiful), Loch Ard's Gorge (the most beautiful place I have ever swam, put the Jersey beaches to shame!), London Bridge (which obviously fell down), got up close and personal with emus, which may be the scariest animals on the planet! They have red eyes for crying out loud!! I thought they were going to peck out my eyesss! Then we traveled on to the Grampians (mountain ranges, national park) for the night to sleep amongst the kangaroos! I finally got to see roos in their natural habitat. It was so neat. The next day, we went to the Grampians and scaled a mountain and had the most beautiful view from the top, it was definately worth it! Also, we saw Aboriginal hand paintings on the rocks that were preserved from many, many years ago! We got to see a waterfall and go to an Aboriginal Culture Centre. That day, we were all soo tired from an action-packed 3 day adventure but we stayed awake long enough to see each of the sites. It was home-sweet-home after that. And I was suprised to find out that I couldn't wait to get back to my small little apartment, in desperate need of a shower and a comfortable bed! It was a great weekend, I feel like I really saw parts of Australia that I needed to see.
It was a tiring weekend though, and I am trying to catch up on this week ahead of me. As I go through the 4th week of school, I cannot believe that I am a third of the way done with class! To be honest, I am thrilled because classes seem to get in the way of my travels, hah! I have a good 2 weeks at the end of June where I do not have any exams and I get to do some traveling before I am shipped back to the US.
It's getting to the point where I am still loving Australia, but I am missing my friends and family from home a real lot! I am very excited to see my parents in a month!!! Also, I am thrilled to go on Easter Break! Please go on Skype if you are reading this, because I want to talk to you so that I could catch up and not miss you so much!!!
This weekend is our friend Luika's 21st Birthday (wow, I feel like there are soo many 21sts here) and we are planning on barbequeing for her birthday and going out! It should be a lot of fun! Also, this weekend I hear back from a woman at PSU about a Peer Interventionist position that I applied for and hope to get for next semester!! I am also trying to watch a little bit of March Madness here but I still haven't figured it out yet. Hopefully I can watch some of the Sweet 16, the only problem is that it's at about 9/10 am for me... I don't usually get up that early but I can see what I can do. Let's go 'Cuse!! Who would have thought that I'm in another country and I'm still concerned about college basketball tourneys! Gotta love the Madness!
Alright well I should stop procrastinating on doing work and maybe get some pictures posted up too... I'm trying to set up an online photo album and when I get it figured out I will post or e-mail you with the link to the photo albums so you can see all of my great pictures!!
I love you all and wish you were here! Just to let you know, I looove mail if you were interested in sending me something... Address is: 5-17 Flemington Road, North Melbourne, VIC 3051. I'll be checking the mailbox. And if you were interested in receiving a post-card I could do that, just send me your address!
Till next time....

Here are some classy pictures from the Rubicks Cube Night! haha We were dressed like a bunch of fools! This was just the beginning of the night.

So it's been a fun and tiring week. This week was O-week for RMIT village, the apartment complex where I live. It's basically an orientation in order to meet more people who live in the village. Also, Univ of Melbourne had orientation as well. So Monday I got to meet with an advisor and pick out some courses: I'm taking Australia Now (a history course), the history of sexualities, and intro. to microbiology. The fourth class I'm still figuring out, which has been a very frustrating process. At the village, they held a comedy night for us. The comedians were not funny in the least bit. Ironic.
Tuesday, we had a Rubicks Cube themed Pub Crawl. It wasn't much of a pub crawl, we only went to 3 pubs and 1 I didn't even get in because it was so packed. But it was funny to see about 100+ people dressed in crazy colorful outfits walking down the streets of Melbourne. There were chants being yelled as we walked along, people were quite rowdy. By the end of the night, I ended up in all orange clothing, I did well.
Wednesday nights is open for the night market at the Victoria Outdoor Market. This past Wednesday was actually the last night, which is sad because it's so much fun. It only runs in the summer though. We got a group of friends to head to the market and we got some very tasty mexican food and enjoyed some YellowTail. There was a woman teaching people how to salsa dance so we went up and did some Latin dancing, shaking our money makers. She was wild.
Thursday afternoon we decided to go to Uni in order to look at the Clubs and Societies on campus. It was an interesting involvement fair. They had everything you could imagine, except a health/wellness club which I wanted to join. But they had a food appreciation club, a men's club (which the guy was pretty convincing, I was thinking of joining), pirate club, magicians club (the guy did a magic trick and made my card stick up on a tree, it was impressive), asian clubs of all sort! haha there were so many choices, I only joined one. Musex, It's an exchange student club. Exciting, I know! At night, there was a cover band coming to the courtyard for our courtyard party. The theme was 90s. I didn't have any 90s gear to wear so instead I just threw on my Regis Class of 99 shirt haha, it was the only thing I had from the 90s. Two suitcases do not allow you to pack for theme parties as well. People had some really good denim outfits going on though. The band was really good, apparently they are popular. We rocked out to some classic 90s jams and danced around like a bunch of idiots.
Friday was the beach day! I've been waiting all week. It was sooo relaxing just chilling out on the beach all day without a care in the world. The beach was St. Kilda's it's about 20 minutes away from where I live. I thought the beach was nice, but apparently it's pretty touristy and not that popular among the locals. There is an amusement park, Luna Park, on one of the corners. There is absolutely no waves going on. The water was kind of chilly but it felt good because the sun was brutal. It was like a wading pool basically. Afterwards, we walked around St. Kilda's, they have a ton of outdoor cafes all along the streets. We ate at a cute little pizzeria. I had a pizza with pumpkin, pine nuts, gorgonzola, and rocket on it. Weird combo but the pizza was delicious! After the beach day, we were wiped out so we just took it easy for the night. It was a nice change of pace because so much has been going on lately. It is great that I can just do whatever I want with no responsibilites.
Today we had to get our acts together and do some shopping, I was running out of food. And we have to plan ahead for our first week of school. Uni starts on Monday. It's bittersweet because I am looking forward to seeing how Australian classes are taught and learning something new. Also, I am glad to have some sort of routine to my days. But I have been enjoying my vacation, no plans or agenda. It's been nice but I guess it has to come to an end at some point. I'm excited to actually be able to plan some trips finally because it has been hard to plan because we don't know what our schedules are gonna be like. I finally booked my spring break trip: One Fish, Two Fish. It's a tour along the eastern coast of Australia, basically. It starts in Brisbane and goes up the coast to Cairns. During the 10 days, we will go skydiving, bungeejumping, white water rafting, snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, sailing on the Whitsunday Islands, etc... It sounds amazing! I am exciting that I finally got that planned.
Ok well I'll let you know how my first day of school goes, hopefully I don't walk into the wrong classroom. It's a big school, about 45,000 like PSU so I guess I will never see some of the people again if I end up making a fool of myself.

"The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful"

So I finally arrived in beautiful Melbourne!! I've been here for a week and it just feels like a dream so far. It's more of a vacation that anything else right about now. I have been really busy and without internet for a little so sorry for not e-mailing. Ok, so here's the scoop:
The plane ride was awful! I got to see Nashville and LA from the airports (not so impressive). I got minimal sleep and my butt has never felt so uncomfortable from sitting for so long. But it was completely worth it.
The first day Katherine and I were suprised about how good we felt and claimed not to be jetlagged. We later found out that we were completely wrong! Upon arriving in the apartment, we realized that we did not even have a roll of toilet paper so we had to do some shopping. We traveled downtown which is only about a 15 minute walk into the Melbourne Central Business District (basically NYC) and wandered around trying to find our way, which on the first day we did not find much. The next day we realized that we didn't even go deep enough into the city to reach all of the stores. Afterwards, we came home and decided to take just an hour long nap or so and then wake up refreshed for the evening. An hour long nap turned into 6 hours, we layed down at 3:30 and didn't wake up until 10:30, oops! I woke up and realized that I was not going to get anything done, so instead I unpacked my bags and showered so that I could just go back to sleep again. So the first day was pretty uneventful!
The next day we realized that we really needed to purchase some goods, so we wandered back into the business district and actually found a ton of stores! We bought phones (my number is 0416633088 if you are interested in calling me, but I think you would have to dial +61 and do not dial the first 0) Feel free to text me!! Katherine and I definately looked like quite the tourists because we were not afraid to pull out of maps because we had no idea where we were going. After a shopping trip, we had to carry wayyy too many bags back to our apartment about 20 minutes (stupid idea, we are still figuring out how to ride the trams). We had a nice dinner and went to bed pretty early again. That plane ride really messes with your body.
On Saturday we started the Melbourne Welcome, which is where I have been for the past 5 days. It was a blast! The week was packed with activities, it almost felt like an overnight summer camp because they herded around so many of us. We stayed at the residential college, which is basically Hogwarts! It was so beautiful. The welcome included laser tag, which was really fun since I have not played since Play Plaza in 5th grade. We also learned an organized dance that one of the moves is "Do the emu" haha, I'll have to show you the dance when I get back, if I still remember.
The next day we went to the beach and had surfing lessons! I am not that good but I stood up on a couple waves so I was pretty proud of myself. The sun down under is powerful! There is a hole in the ozone and stupid me did not properly apply sun cream so I ended up with a pretty goofy/painful burn.
We also went to the Melbourne Museum which was really interesting and the Melbourne Zoo where I found some really silly looking monkeys and even some roos! They had a butterfly room, where butterflies just flew all around there must have been a million, so pretty. That night we had an Australian themed party (these Aussies are really into costume parties apparently) so I bought an apron, some tongs, and a spatula and just went around saying "Throw anotha shrimp on tha barbie" all night. It was alot of fun.
On Tuesday we were supposed to go see a cricket match, but I ended up sleeping through it and did not wake up until noon, oopsies, typical Katie. That day we had a barbie out on the lawn and later on that night we had a formal dinner. It was cocktail attire and a catered 3 course meal, it was a nice change from the "interesting" dining hall food we ate all week. After the dinner we went out to the pub and met up with the other Melbourne Welcome students staying at another residential college (they were not as fun as my group though). After that, we went to a karoake bar and made fools of ourselves, I sang Mambo No. 5! We had a really fun night which ended with one of the welcome leaders, an aussie, making me run through the entire campus because she had to pee so bad, this was after she was yelling at the cab driver to run red lights because no one else was on the roads. She was a funny one!
This morning we packed up our stuff and left the residential college. It's nice to be back to my apartment so that I have internet and less responsibilities. Today, we had no obligations except to go food shopping. So we went to the grocery store and took it easy. I finally got to use skype today. My name on there is Kathryn Jiunta (not Katie) so if you have skype find me and talk to me! For dinner we decided to go to the Queen Victoria Market (a local farmers market during the day) because on Wednesdays they have live music, vendors and food, like a fair. It was great. I am glad we discovered it, but next week is the last week which stinks because it was so much fun, but it's only open for summer. We are pretty exhausted though from a busy welcome week. So tonight we are just hanging out, getting a good night sleep finally.
Overall, I have decided that I LOVE AUSTRALIA! I am having such a great time. I am still adjusting, but it's not too hard. Come visit me! You won't regret it, haha! Wishful thinking, I know. On Friday, I finally have orientation for the Uni and I will schedule some classes, etc. I'll keep you all posted on how I am doing. Also, I would love to hear from you! Leave me messages, facebook, e-mails, whatever.

Just playing around, figuring out how this thing works.