epic fail.

Helloooo all! :)

Backtracking a bit, the ABC party was absolutely insane.

Some may say it was too insane, seeing as how it resulted in the loss of camera #2 and my leather jacket. Boo.

And possibly because there were people running around in bath mats, bubble wrap, entire showers + curtains (yes, it really happened), and other countless household supplies.

Woke up with a pounding headache that lasted for most of Friday.

Pretty much a fail of a day besides heading to Pinewood with Sam and Daisy to consume footlong Subways, and in my case, an entire litre of milk with one extra-doughy M&M cookie.

Next it was off to try to watch Jersey Shore which turned into a 3 hour ordeal due to internet issues in Daisy's room.

Skipped out on dance because Tom had studying to do, but had a nice steak dinner (more food) with Alex and hung around with Kevin, Miguel and Nikhil for a few hours and continued to eat approximately 4 slices of pizza.

Seriously, such a whale in Australia.

Saturday was an even bigger failure than Friday.

Attempted to set an alarm for 10 am to head into the city for the day, but apparently I forgot to turn it on and ended up sleeping until noon.

Good work, Amanda.

The only noteable part of the day was Daisy making me and Sam English mac&cheese. Yummm.

We were incredibly excited to go out in the city for a night of proper clubbing, but after drinking goon while singing in my room with Jackie for a good hour and heading to the Deakin projector room for a relentless game of Arrogance where I was forced to down a glass of goon, Jameson and coke mix, and mysterious punch, I was pretty much down for the count.

[GOON = boxed wine; the only thing we can afford to drink in Oz]

Quite literally down actually. Daisy found Sam and I snuggling on the pavement outside Deakin around 10 pm, and we were both cuddling in her bed by 10:30.

So much for making it to the city at all on Saturday.

At least the early bed time got me to wake up around 7 am wondering why on earth I was in Sam's bed.

This put me on a fast track to having a productive day.

After failing miserably all weekend, I forced myself to get ready and head downtown Melbourne.

As I was not the only failure of the weekend, we had a few minor setbacks to take care of before we could go to the city.

If it was possible, Sam also had more of an epic fail of a weekend than I did. Leaving her passport, credit cards and keys on the bus the day before, Sam took me an Mary on an exciting adventure to the bus depot. The CLOSED bus depot, I may add. (Ammendment: The bus depot was not actually closed; we just went to the wrong door. FAIL).

Of course the bus depot was in the middle of nowhere, so we took a while to figure out where we were going, but got on our way and made it to Flinder's Street!

Got some Hungry Jacks and Sam realized her pump was broken. Sorry Sam, it just really wasn't your weekend.

[HUNGRY JACKS = Australia's version of Burger King]

We ran around to nearly every pharmacy on the blocks between Swanston, Little Collins and

Collins to find that not one of them sold syringes.

Apparently people are not diabetic in Australia.

We decided to just head down to Queen Victoria Market, where we had originally planned to go before all the chaos of Sam's life or death situation came about, and found a pharmacy that sold syringes.

Thankfully, no death for Samantha Efrusy on Sunday, August 22nd. The Queen Victoria Market is a huge trade market that sells everything from food to clothes to art to wigs. (I really need to get one of these wigs). We only had about an hour there before closing time, so we will absolutely be returning.

Next, it was off to the discount camera shop to pick up lucky camera #3. I got a lovely Nikon Coolpix touch-screen camera + memory card for about $150 US dollars which made me incredibly happy, but I am still going to protect this baby with my life.

After searching for a French workbook at a few book stores (I am still currently looking for an interactive French workbook that will help me to relearn French...if you have any suggestions, please send them my way), we stopped off for "the best juice in the world."

While this South American treat was quite delectable, it was not the best juice in the world.

As a spur of the moment decision, we attempted to get my face pierced, Sam's nose re-pierced (for about the 50th time) and Mary's tragus, but unfortunately everywhere was closed.

All I wanted was to come home with a camera, a French workbook and my face pierced.

1 out of 3. Rough odds.

Got some cute clothes and shoes though, and had a WONDERFUL time wandering around taking ridiculous touristy photos all about Melbourne. We even found the Melbourne version of the bean!

Aimless wandering through the Greek precinct and Chinatown eventually lead us to our final destination--the Eureka Skydeck Tower.

The Eureka Skydeck is the tallest residential building in the world, and the 5th tallest building in the world in general.
Melbourne is such a gorgeous city and seeing it all lit up at night was incredible. The lights sparkled on forever, expanding further out than my vision could even stretch.

Exhausted and hungry, we decided to eat at this Greek restaurant called Kouzina.

We filled our bellies with delicious souvlakis and bougasta and had some bonding time.

It felt like we were sitting there for hours sharing funny stories, life lessons and crazy experiences.

Perfect end to a lovely day.

And it made the whole feeling of failure wash away.

Although I would've felt much better with two little studs next to my eyeball and a French workbook in hand.

Tata for now, xx.

great ocean road.

I realize I haven't written much about what I've actually been doing here.
Too busy being a big emo baby and writing about socks. :/
Haha, but I am done with the sadness--told you it was just a phase!

This past weekend, Monash Abroad took all of us DePaul kids, Loyola kids and any other internationals who wanted to out on a drive along the Great Ocean Road.
[GREAT OCEAN ROAD = A 243-kilometre (151 mi) stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Warrnambool. The road was built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932, and is the world's largest war memorial; dedicated to casualties of World War I. (Thank you Miguel's Facebook).]

Well anyways, this past weekend was one of the best yet.
The trek started early in the morning on Campbell's tour bus of fun.
Seriously, best tour guide ever.
Drove for a while until we reached the largest surf museum in the world! (AKA, Surf World Museum) in Torquay (which is also the home of Quiksilver!)
We watched a documentary about these two Australian boys who decided to surf the 50 states.
It was hilarious and nice to see home! They represented Minnesota really well too, so that made me smile :)
You can get a glimpse of the video at-->SURFING 50 STATES.
Sooo funny.

Next it was off to surf lessons of our own!

Besides the fact that it was absolutely FREEZING, surfing was, for the second time, AWESOME.
I'm really disappointed that I didn't grow up in a place that surfing was the norm.
I absolutely love it.
And for only going twice in my life and having absolutely no upper-body strength, I'd say I'm pretty good.
Stood up once and rode in on my knees quite a few times.
The conditions were horrendous though and the wind kept knocking us around. Nevertheless, it was a super good time.

Made a few more stops along the way to where we were staying for the night and saw some wild koalas and crazy birds.
I absolutely love the wildlife in Australia. So different than anywhere else in the world.
Even if some of the animals are scary as hell and make strange noises.

That night my tour group stayed in an actual home rather than a hostel in Apollo Bay.
It was just like being at summer camp all over again with bunk beds and all the girls in one room!
We had our own little kitchen and living room, plus a room with a pool table where we got our drink and dance on.
After everyone pitched in to make ourselves a delicious little meal, we started the party.
<---Wannabe. Of course busting out the oldies tunes like SPICE GIRLS and Sarah played me a little Grease 2 Cool Rider. Went to the local pub and hung out with everyone and went back to the house for a little dancing on the pool table. Typical. Woke up sideways on my bunk bed around 7 am, just enough time to get a decent hour of sleep before heading off to the rain forest. Rocked out my zubaz for the entire day, despite mocking and comments from everyone and their mom. Got the comment, "Either you were really lazy or super hung over to be wearing those all day." I'd say it was a good combination of both, but really it was for the absolute high fashion and style that those babies exude. Whatever, they made for some great photos anyway.

On the way home, we made stops at Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge. We also stopped at this absolutely gorgeous beach and actually got some sun while we were there. The helicopter tour of the 12 Apostles was one of my favorite parts of the day. I'd never been in a helicopter before and we got a great view of the formations caused by thousands of years of erosion. Doesn't sound very lovely, but it was actually incredibly beautiful.

The three hour drive home wasn't too bad since I passed out for most of it, but we also had some good sing-alongs and chats to pass the time.
The trip really showed me how much I love and care about these people already. We had so much fun together and it really just felt like a little family.
It also gave me a huge bite from the travel bug!

I've been in Australia for nearly 2 months now, which means only a little over 2 months left!
I know that sounds like a lot, but these 2 months have flown by so quickly and I'm sure the next 2 don't plan on slowing down at all.
All I want to do is travel and see as much of Australia and the surrounding areas as I possibly can.
Who knows when I'll be down here again and I just want to make the most of it while I can.

Next weekend I'm heading up to Darwin, which is in the Northern Territory of Australia. I thought I was going to be braving it alone because I'm flying out Wednesday and everyone else is flying out Friday night, BUT Miguel literally called me seconds ago and told me he was able to make it with me. Very exciting news!
I'm sure I would've been fine to go on my own, but it'll be nice to have someone else to explore the new area and make the most of our time there.
Finally going somewhere warm! It's supposed to be in the 90's, so I can't wait to get my sun on.

The following week we are going on a trip to Broken Hill with our Australian Idol class.
This is meant to be like a trip to the outback and I'll even get to ride on a camel!
We get back the day before my birthday, so I basically have 3 weeks of events to look forward to!

Tonight is the ABC Party in the city, so that should be awesome!
[ABC = Anything but Clothes] I think I'm using these cheap-y little bags that Monash gave us at the beginning of the semester to construct some sort of dress/outfit. We'll see how it goes.
Then tomorrow I'm going to hit up Chapel Street for dance class.
My friend Tom introduced me to this wonderful little dance studio called The Space and I've taken a couple of hip-hop classes there. They have huge mirrors and I've gone a bit early or stayed after to work on turns and mess around there. I refuse to lose my dance skill while I'm away for the year!
Haven't actually gone out on Chapel Street so I'm pumped to do that after class tomorrow with my friend Alex. :)

This weekend is already shaping out to be a great one and I think we are going to top it off by doing some sight-seeing in Melbourne on Saturday.
So really I just have months and weeks ahead of me to look forward to!

I do miss you all terribly though! Don't get me wrong.
Just skyped with Mom and the little ones for a bit, but they don't have a camera yet so only got to hear their voices.
I'm pretty positive that I'm going to come home around the 10th of December.
Probably head straight to the Chi and spend a week or so there and then head home through Christmas and New Years until I'm off again on the 7th of January!
Of course, that all depends on my travel plans here and cost and everything, but tentatively that sounds pretty good to me.

I'm off to try to construct my ABC outfit...
Love you all, xx.