So I guess now that I posted the pictures I should tell you about the trip as well, huh? So I had to get up at like 8 this morning (good thing I didn't go to Sydney yesterday, cuz they only came home at like 1:30am) and we went to Echo Point first, which is basically a scenic viewpoint where you can see the Three Sisters and all. After that we took the Scenic Railway (52% descent!!! Steepest railway in the world) down to the valley and the cable car back up (I just stared at the horizon, cuz cablecars belong to the things that involve height that I'm not too fond of). It was freezing. Thank God I was dressed so warmly, so at least it wasn't that bad. Had a little barbecue for lunch (my sausage had kind of a charcoal-y consistence, but well, I won't complain) and then went to Featherdale Wildlife Park where I finally saw koalas and wallabies and kangaroos and bilbys and enchidnas and fruit bats and dingos and tassie devils and all those funny creatures they got here. I even got to hold a baby wallaby, feed some kangaroos and take a picture with a koala (even though in NSW you aren't allowed to hold them AND the keeper wasn't exactly a great photographer). And let me tell you, koalas are one lazy bunch. 19 out of 20 were asleep. Unfortunately we only had an hour at the park so we pretty much had to race through, so I ignored all the birds and reptiles and just took pix of all the "typical" australian stuff (well, except for the tassie devil, cuz those thingies can't stand still for a second. They're constantly running around, which makes it impossible to take a picture of them). Yeah. That about sums my day up. As you can see, no big running commentary today cuz I'm just too lazy to write book today. I'm gonna go watch a dvd now (since it's PS2-time again in the living room which means Grey's Anatomy is out of the question). Cheers!

Lots of pictures up of the Ninja Party, the Blue Mountains and the Featherdale Wildlife Park. So go have a look here!

I'm gonna get fat. And you know why? Cuz I live of candy here. Terrible. I've had a bag of chips, almost a whole package of Tim Tams and a whole package of crawlers today. Bad, bad me. And it was expensive, too, cuz I was too lazy to go to Woolis, so I just went to that Asian store down the road and paid like 18 bucks for a bottle of Coke and some candy. Can anybody say rip-off? Damn. I really need to stop eating that crap.

I was supposed to go to Sydney with the gang today, but I thought they were going in the morning, so I adjusted my alarm clock to 9am - only for noone to show up. Great. So I lay in bed till 12 and then at 12:30 someone actually called letting us know that we'd leave around 2. TWO. Which means they weren't in the city until like 3:30. I usually come back around 4. So I passed cuz I wasn't really feeling like running around the city with 10 people who can't decide on what to do. Weather was great, though, I hope it stays like that for a few more days (weather report says it will at least until Wednesday, but when has the weather report ever been right here?).

I'm in love with our liquid soap in the downstairs bathroom. Yeah. I know that sounds weird. It's this sandalwood-lavender blend and I just can't stop smelling my hands...lol ;o) But it smells so great! Would be a good fragrance on a man, too. Yeah....so guys, now you know how to win my heart: smell like sandalwood and lavender (well, more like sandelwood). ;o)

And it's always the people you least expect it from: Sahori and Catherine - the shy Asians that live around here - honestly went to the SEXPO today. They asked me if I wanted to come, but I passed (wasn't gonna pay 25$ entrance fee). I think Sahori didn't really have a clue what it was about, though, so I'm reeeeally looking forward to asking her how it was when she comes back. ;o)

Dagny-honey, I'm sorry. I DELETED your old picture 4 times from the database and uploaded your new one (and I checked 3 times that it actually WAS the new one) - and still the old one shows up. I don't even know how that's possible since I DELETED it and why the new picture doesn't override the old one. I'm gonna try again, but for the moment you'll have to live with the one that's up.

...I just came back from the Ninja-Party (yes, I'm aware it's only 11pm, but hey, that means I've been there more than 2 hours). Turns out I didn't know half of the people who live here yet (well, at least now I know like...8 more or so) and everybody was very surprised that I drank (good lord, you don't drink once when you go out with those guys and you're an anti-alcoholic virgin). Nohad asked me if wanted to go to Sydney with them tomorrow, which makes me think if Diana said something to her. But well. Doesn't matter.

I uploaded the pictures I talked about, so go have a look! They aren't all that great, but hey, I'm just getting started. Maybe Sahori and Diana will give me some of their party pictures, then maybe I'm gonna upload some of those, cuz Brent looked just hilarious with his baby pink Orgasmo-outfit. ;o)

It's one of those days again. I went to Sydney this morning and met Nohad, Josefin and Ashley (who seems to hate me, no clue why) at the Bus stop. They were going to Parramatta to take the ferry to Sydney. So they all asked me what I was gonna do in the city and I stressed that I had absolutely no clue since I was all by myself and all. You think one of them asked if maybe I wanted to join them? Forget it.

So on the train I had this annoying Arabian family next to me who blarred their stupid music through the whole wagon and had this freaking 3-year-old girl who kicked me every 5 seconds - if she wasn't busy screaming her lungs out. Why do I ALWAYS get to sit next to weirdos like that?

Sydney was okay, though. Bought one of those cute Chinese tops that I love so much (and I'm probably gonna buy 10 more) and an Australia-Sweater (damn those markets, I always feel so guilty when I don't buy anything) and some hair thingies to get my hair into a bun. But I bought the wrong ones, they're too small for the amount of hair that I obviously have (but didn't expect). So I guess I gotta go there again and buy some bigger ones next week (oh, what a coincidence. Maybe the Chinese store has the top I wanted today in my size then! Aaaah, shopping is fun). I took some pictures, too (not a lot, but a few), so I'll probably put some up in the Sydney gallery later. So check out my photo album.

But on a good note, I wanted to demonstrate to Sahori earlier how my frog radio annoys me and now it doesn't do the clicky noises anymore! Yay! So maybe it was just that damned Unit 16 it didn't like. =)

Okay, I guess I gotta go and check out if the others are already gone and forgot me again. Tonight's Ninja-Party-Night here in res, so I guess I'll stop by there for an hour before sneaking out again. I hate this costume crap. I'm dressed all black hoping to pass as an assassin at least, since I sure as hell don't have a ninja costume handy. Who comes up with this stuff anyway???

Some pictures of the Penrith Campuses Kingswood and Werrington added to the gallery. So go have a look!

Pretty much didn�t do anything today except for registering for tutorials and watching TV, so I�m just gonna share some obversations with you that I�ve made in the past week.

Australians are weird. Yeah. That about covers it. Who else calls liqueur stores �bottle shop�, flip flops �thongs� (not to mix up with g-strings) and pretty much answers �no worries� to every question?? (I�m never gonna get used to that, I prefer �you�re welcome�, �don�t worry� and all the other nice expressions the English language actually HAS for all those occasions the Australians just say �no worries�.) And something I really have to get used to: Australians honestly want an answer when they ask you how you are. In the States, it�s just a phrase, nobody expects you to say anything when they say �How are you?�. In fact, everyone would look at you funny if you actually answered, cuz nobody cares. Here, they honest to god expect you to say something like �Not too bad, how are you?� and then they are gonna answer. And after this ritual is over, you can...I dunno, finally pay for your groceries, get an information or whatever. And if you don�t ask the other person how they are, you�re rude. Which means I�ve been rude all week, cuz I�m still in American-idiom-mode and never react. Weird people. Plus, pretty much all the clothes you can get here are either dotted or striped. Honestly. I�ve never seen such annoying advertising on TV anywhere either (speaking of advertising, VW honestly uses its �Aus Liebe zum Automobil�-slogan in their TV-spots here - newsflash: nobody gets it here!!!). Yeah. Weird. Enough about that.

Suhari asked me earlier what a typical German dish is. And I couldn�t really tell her. Does any German ever think about that? I mean, people from abroad always think it�s Sauerkraut (Suhari actually thought it was Wiener W�rstchen) and Beer, but is that it? Gimme your suggestions, cuz they�re expecting me to cook something German soon, and I don�t know what. So sign the guestbook and let me know!

Pretty much all the Residents are going to Embassy again tonight and Ben (who has started calling me �Germania� for whatever reason) tried to persuade me to come, but I passed, even though he was pretty insistent. Got the house to myself tonight, so I think I�m just gonna watch NCIS and hang around on the couch.

So I had kind of a busy day today. Went to Penrith Plaza with Ana (and bought a whole lotta stuff that I actually didn�t need, but it was just so CHEAP - of course half of it was candy again), went back home only to leave again to go back to Penrith Plaza five minutes later. Erica decided we should all go to the movies together (meaning all housemates that are here at the moment: her, me, Diana and Suhari - Erica�s boyfriend Dylan and Ben tagged along), so we watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2, which was actually pretty good. Since Erica and Dylan are occupying the living room now playing ping pong via Eyetoy on their PS2 (which actually looks pretty hilarious) I�m just gonna watch the whole first season of Scrubs, which I just found on DVD in the living room. So cheers!

I moved! I moved! Thank god. It all happened kind of suddenly, that�s why I couldn�t even tell my housemates. I met Antoine, though, before I left. He was like �Oh, you�re the new housemate� and I was like �Well, I�m actually in the middle of moving out�, so it was a little weird, but he didn�t take it personally. I like my new housemates (we�re an all girls unit), we even got cooked for tonight (which actually was the first real meal I�ve had since I�ve been here) and they do a lot of stuff together. They even buy their groceries together and cook every night, so I think I�m gonna be fine here. I even stayed home tonight instead of going over to Ana�s. But today exactly what I knew (and feared) would happen, did anyway: Ana found another girl from Serbia which she spends a lot of time with now, so I probably shouldn�t rely on spending all my time with her anyway.

Had Orientation again today. Hmm. Was a little better than Friday, mainly because they finally told us stuff concerning our campus. Julia again hardly talked to me (I�m giving up now) and I finally got to ask Wendy about the SAF (which didn�t really help since she couldn�t answer the question). And it was only 2 hours, so it wasn�t too bad. Monday we�re getting actually pretty cool starter kits from the Support Office. Seems like I really have to send some packages home with all the stuff I get here, so I might as well buy some more clothes. ;o)

I just came back from the Sydney Sightseeing Tour and now I don�t regret booking it anymore. We had absolutely great weather and Sydney is without a doubt one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I have to go back to all of those places we went, cuz it was just beautiful. We went to The Rocks again, Bondi Beach and saw a lot more where we unfortunately didn�t stop. But you can see some pictures at my Livejournal Photo Album. They even showed us where Russell Crowe lives and let me tell you, that guy has shitty taste. ;o) Met Julia again on the tour and again we didn�t exchange more than 5 sentences.

My housemates are being nice to me. So now I�m starting to feel bad. Jemma invited me to go to Sydney with them tomorrow again, Dick just invited me to another house where they�re cooking so I can meet some more people and I really feel bad saying no all the time and maybe even moving out. Argh. Why does this have to be so hard? =/ Staying over at Ana�s is pretty much over, too, since her housemates came back tonight. I really should try to get to know and hang out with some more people. So I should really find a way to go to a few IRH-meetings to meet some new people.

So we were supposed to leave at 8 this morning and when I came over to Ana's, they weren't even clothed, cuz they went out the night before and only came home at like 3:30am. So we finally left at 10 (that's what I got up at 7 for again) and went to Sydney. Went to Market City first where I bought a nice, warm sweater (which I thought was Billabong, turned out I'm obviously dyslexic) for only AUD15. Aaah, I love shopping here. Everything's a big sale here, you can get great clothes for like 5 to 10 Euros here. I'm so gonna have to send a package home. Or maybe two. Or three. We'll see. And I got this great Souvenir T-Shirt for 5 bucks, which I love already. ;o) Anyway, so we went to the rocks afterwards, and well, from Central Station it's like a 20 to 25 minute walk, so it's what? Like 3km or something? Well, Ana's sister obviously had a problem with that. The Rocks is right where Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are, which I hadn't seen before. But until we got there she was already complaining so much, that we didn't even go to the Opera House anymore. Hmpf. So much for that. So I guess I gotta go again next week. Two only like 2 pictures, too, cuz I didn't really wanna stop on our way back and take photos, Ana's sister seemed pissed as it was. So again, no photos, even though we finally had some sun. I just hope the weather's gonna be a little better next week and I can FINALLY take some. ANd I'm gonna by myself out of...well my parents' house and home with souvenirs here. They have so much great stuff, and I could buy it all. I already got a list of what I wanna get. Which is reeeeeeally long. Yeah, so we were on the train back home at like 3 already. That's what I payed 8 bucks for. Anyway.

My radio's still annoying the crap out of me. Did I mention my radio? I bought this cheap frog-shaped radio, which I thought was really cute. Turns out that it moves its eyes to the beat of the music (well...kinda off-beat, but still), which would be cute, but it makes this clicking noises with it, which are louder than the actual music. And off-beat. So yeah, annoying the hell outta me.

Went to the office yesterday and finally got my handbook and my food package. See, you just gotta complain. =) Ana and I just hung out yesterday. Did some grocery shpooing (again) and just hung around the house afterwards. We wanted to check out the retail shop on campus, but it doesn't open up until classes start.

So we had orientation today. Which sucked. Which I had to get up for at like 7 in the morning. When it was still only like 13 degrees in my room. Yuck. But Ana's sister arrived earlier and she brought me an extra blanket (which is actually their dog's blanket, but I'm not gonna be picky about that - beggars can't be choosers). So, like I said: orientation sucked and it was totally useless, too. They had this woman claiming to be an Aboriginal singing for us ("I'm white, but I'm an aboriginal" - ??????) and from there on, it just went downhill. They didn't tell me anything I didn't already know (the "30 ways to get killed in Australia" were a little disconcerting, though) and I still don't know how to get my SAF back. Hmpf. Well, guess I gotta email Wendy. It was over at like 11:30am, but we had to wait for our bus until 3pm. Yuck. We got a food package again (they're obviously really afraid we're gonna starve here) and tons of paper, but some of that's actually useful.

We're going to the markets on The Rocks in Sydney tomorrow, so I hope the weather will be better this time around. Actually, almost all the Reses are going, but noone really invited me, so I'm just gonna go with Ana and her sister. The others are going to a club afterwards anyway and only coming back with the Nightbus around 2am, so I actually prefer going with Ana and being back by like 6 here. I really need to catch up on some sleep and call some people. I should probably hang out more with the Internationals here, seeing that I still need to find someone to travel with at the end, but well. Next time. I really doubt I'm gonna find someone to travel with here anyway. I met Julia on orientation today and we exchanged like 5 sentences. Guess we're not becoming best friends. Argh. So. Still no real downside to this whole stunt here, but we'll see.

I need a break. Seriously. From the Simpsons (which my housemates are still watching at 1am). From running around all day. From bad weather (It's 15 degrees in here, while my sister needed to point out that they had like 37 today). From everything. And I've only been here 3 days.

So Shannon came over this afternoon to do the campus tour with me (Ana tagged along), Hendrik (another guy from Germany who arrived yesterday) and Paul from Norway. The tour sucked, cuz Shannon didn't know shit either, but at least Paul and Hendrik were nice. Afterwards we all went to Penrith Plaza together to get some stuff. Shannon drove, so at least I didn't have to take the train again, cuz as I found out today, international students don't get travel concessions. Everyone else does, though. Even Hendrik, who's an exchange student and doesn't even pay tuition. It's so not fair. Everyone else obviously got a survival pack on arrival, too, filled with food and other necessities (which reminds me, I still haven't found my laundry detergent. I don't know where the hell I put it, I even checked the fridge). I think I'm gonna go up to the office and complain tomorrow. I didn't get a residential handbook either, which I wouldn't care about, but it has this nice calendar in it.

Shanti, one of my housemates, arrived today. She seemed nice, but then, we had only exchanged like 3 words then, but now she doesn't really anymore. She seems like kind of a cunning kinda girl. That thought was backed up by a few people tonight. But we'll see. I won't judge her before talking to her more. But still, I went to a few of the other units today and all the houses are sooo clean and well-kept. All the other houses have totally different rooms, too. Which actually are nicer, cuz they're formed differently and you have more space in them. I moved my bed to the other end of the room today, but that didn't really help the look any. =P

We went to the library earlier, too. They don't even have fictional books. I mean, I know it's a University library and they're not supposed to have any, but what am I supposed to do? I can't buy a bunch, I have to get them back home then somehow. =P Checked out the gym prices today, too, and they're like AUD125 for 6 months, which is okay, only I'm only here for 4 months, so why should I pay for 6? But I'll get that checked out, maybe I can cut a deal. And I really need to pick up a hobby. At the moment, Ana and I are practially joined by the hip, but she already said that when her boyfriend's coming back from Europe she's not gonna hang around a lot here anymore.

Ana. Another mystery. She and I are actually nothing alike. She's a lot like Juliane was actually. She's really flirty, the guys just dig here while they are hardly talking to me and she's obviously done a lot of things in her life that I don't approve of. But well, let's see how that develops.

About 30 people from Campus were at Embassy, a bar/club in Penrith tonight. It was actually not too bad, although I - of course - got asked like 2354 times again why I didn't drink and dance. Like that was a crime and you couldn't have fun if you did neither. I actually HAD fun, so what's the problem? Good lord. They all were so wasted (or pissed, as they say here) when we left. But actually, that's probably the only way you can bear living here. And I still don't understand a damn thing they're saying. Most of them have to repeat everything twice for me to get it. In the club with the music and all it was even worse. I feel like I've never learned English. =P

Anyway, gotta head to bed and think up a plan how I'm gonna survive the next 4 months in an asylum like my unit.

So Ana and I went to Sydney today and of course the weather stayed crappy. Fortunately it at least stopped raining after an hour, but it was still cloudy and windy and just freaking cold. We went to Darling Harbour, Chinatown and basically just up and down George Street looking at shops. I�m really proud of myself cause I resisted buying 568 koala- and kangaroo-souvenirs�at least for the moment. ;o) They got really cute stuff here, though. Usually most of the souvenirs I buy are useless, but here you can actually use most of the stuff for�something. So I guess I�ll eventually have to send a package home. ;o) Of course, just at the moment we boarded the train back to Kingswood the sun came out. Hmpf. Well, we�re probably gonna try again next week, and I�ll be there Saturday anyway.

My housemate was finally talking to me today. So I guess we�re making progress. The other 2 people are coming this week, too, so let�s see what they�re like.

I can�t sleep. Seems my sleeping rhythm is still a little off. Went over to Ana�s yesterday evening again, since she�s all alone in her Unit at the moment, cuz all her housemates are travelling. Talked a bit, watched some Big Brother (to my defense: SHE wanted to watch it ;o)), she even made me some sandwiches when I said my microwave dinner sucked. =) So I stayed there until like 10:30, until I literally fell asleep on her couch. I wanted to adjust the time on my alarm clock and I fell asleep in between and woke up an hour ago with it still in my hand (showing the wrong time of course)�lol ;o) Seems like it�s been raining all night, so let�s see how that changes our plans to go to Sydney. We�ll see. So, I�m getting sleepy again. Maybe I�ll grab another hour or two until I need to get up.

So where do I start? At the moment, everything pretty much sucks. Don�t get me wrong, everything went fine until I arrived here. I had the nicest seat neighbour on the flight, a guy from Belgium who was like 17 or 18 that I had a nice, long talk with, even the weather was sunny and not too cold when we landed, I got through customs without a problem, my driver was also kinda nice - and then I arrived here. And noone was there. After a while someone spotted me by coincidence and took care of me getting my room-key. My housemates were all asleep, but suddenly my mentor Shannon showed up and whisked me off to the mall, to get me bed-linens and groceries and all that crap. And let me tell you, Shannon�s a real shop-a-holic. Before I knew it, I even got a new SIM-card for my cell phone and had around 200 bucks less in my pocket. So when I came back 2 of my housemates and another guy were there hanging out in front of the tv, watching comics (which they�re still doing) and the house was a mess. The kitchen�s so sticky and yucky, I don�t even wanna go in their with my shoes on, let alone cook in there. When I went to the manager�s office to introduce myself I was told that that is pretty much the usual situation. They have inspections every week cuz the house is always a mess. And the guy that�s living here, Dick - or whatever his name is - didn�t even bring it over him to really say hi to me. So this is gonna be a long, long semester. How am I supposed to get through being here 5 days a week doing nothing when I don�t even wanna be in the same room with my housemates? I can�t even watch tv cuz they�re down there all the time. And to top it of, my adapter doesn�t work. Ironically, my german plug doesn�t fit in its supposed place. Argh. So when this battery is dead that�s it until I can get an adapter that fits. =P

On the up-side, I met Ana today, who�s also a newbie. She�s from Canberra, though, and she lives in a Unit with nice housemates. We went to Penrith Plaza earlier (we have to take the train there! We don�t even live IN Penrith, in the middle of nowhere, NOOOOO, we live in a SUBURB ob Penrith in the middle of nowhere. There�s literally nothing around here) and are planning to go to Sydney tomorrow. She�s really sweet. I really hope all this is getting better when classes start, but at the moment I doubt it. I�ve only been here 12 hours and I already hate it.

That�s what I love about airports. 7 bucks for a crappy sandwich which tasted like shit and didn�t even have any meat on it. Great. And they couldn�t even give me my change in Euros, instead they gave me British Pounds. What the heck am I supposed to do with hose? Argh.

I�m doomed. I don�t even understand the British Airways flight attendant. I just smled and nodded and hoped it would suffice. How am I supposed to understand Australians then? Why can�t they all speak normal English, like the Americans? There are so many Americans around me at the moment and I understand them so perfectly, it�s just not fair�lol ;o) Well�let�s just hope it�ll come to me.

So I�m at Heathrow Airport, which fortunately wasn�t as hard to navigate at I was afraid. Problem is: hardly any seats here and my flight won�t even be on the board for another 3 hours, so�yeah. I�m bored. Not exactly a quiet little place around me where I could read or anything. You could shop till you drop, though, problem is: neither do I have British Pounds, nor space in my carry-ons - as security in Frankfurt already pointed out. ;o)

Security has a thing for me today anyway. They put my backpack through their scanner like 4 times in Frankfurt, commenting on how I obviously had packed rocks. If I wasn�t so afraid that someday someone will find a nail file in my backpack and start screaming �Terrorist!� I�d have laughed at their faces as they were scanning my stuff, though. Seemed like they had a pretty hard time figuring out what was in there. ;o) Then they asked me if I had a virus scanner on my laptop and which one. What the hell does that have to do with anything??? And is it only me or do 4 security checks in 2 hours seem a little excessive to anyone else, too?

And another funny moment: �Due to airport congestion, some BA flights are experiencing some delays�. Ha! That�s a good one. Pretty much every single flight has been delayed here. Let�s see how long I�ll have to wait.

Patricia's mum cooked a little farewell-dinner for me last night. Well, who am I kidding, it wasn't little. We didn't even manage to eat half of it (I think she was a little disappointed by that), because it was just so much. ;o)

I'm pretty much on my way to the airport, so don't expect any updates for the next few days, since I'll be airborne until Monday (good Lord, don't even wanna think about it...18+ hours in economy...=P) and then...let's see when jetlag's wearing off and I can actually find a computer. I'll try to be back asap!

I did it! I'm done packing! And (drumroll please): everything fit! Don't ask me how I did it, but I even got my big, fat fleece shirt and my dictionary (which I didn't even plan on taking) into my pack. I'm so proud of me. =) Aaaand (second drumroll please): I'm within the allowed 23kg. I even got 4 pounds to spare. =) Now that's what I'm talking about. =) I just hope my backpack will survive the flight, it looks kinda...taut in places. Don't wanna have to collect my undies one by one from the luggage belt. ;o)

Ha! I mastered Livejournal! And it was easier than I thought it was. =) I still don't like it that I can*t put up my own layout, but I'll live with that now, since I don't wanna pay for the account. What does that mean? It means, photo updates won't be on Fotopic, but on my Livejournal Album, so I don't have to upload them twice. I'll try to update both sites simultaneously, though, since this is still my primary home (but livejournal is so much easier to handle, even though I said otherwise a few hours ago). BUT in the case that I shouldn't blog here for a longer period of time (which I hope won't happen), just go over to my Livejournal and check if it's because I'm a lazy, lazy person, or maybe because I was actually busy. ;o) But, like I said, this is still my primary home and I'll see to it that you don't miss out on anything when you're just checking up on me here!

So I was a little bored today (yeah, I'm totally aware that I'm leaving in two days, still I was bored), so I did some tests on the internet (haven't done that in ages!), and well....let's just say "oops"...lol ;o)

And to be honest, I only got a hundred percent on the vocabulary because I cheated big time. ;o) I mean honestly, who knows words like obsequious and halcyon? Not anyone with English as their second language that I know! Good thing, though, I gave up applying for a green card, cause...ya know...I kinda would've failed the Citizenship Test (would I have ever planned on taking it)...

You Failed the US Citizenship Test

Oops, you only got 2 out of 10 right!

Well...yeah. Don't wanna live there anymore anyway. Gonna try out Australia now...lol ;o)

So I had my little fairwell party Saturday, which was kinda fun. They all brought presents, which made me think - maybe I should've thrown a farewell party everytime I went to Lingen. Sure liked the gifts...lol ;o) Test-packed my stuff this week, too, and well...let's just call it a disaster and leave it at that. I mean, the positive thing about my backpack is that I can't overpack. The downside is that this is because I have to leave half of my stuff at home. And maybe I'm a little sensitive about that, but I'd actually like to take more than two pairs of pants a 3 t-shirts with me. Especially since it's gonna be fucking cold over there. Tried to roast myself before I have to leave summer behind, too. So I spent the past few afternoons sunbathing (without sunscreen on - aren't I bold? ;o)). Only today I waited too long to go outside, so now it's really cloudy (which is part of the reason why I'm bored).

I was also thinking about moving my blog over to livejournal, cuz it would really make my life easier. I just dont like it that I can only put my own layouts up there to a certain degree on the free and sponsored blogs. But I could put my pictures there, too, and wouldn't have to outsource them again. But knowing me, I probably won't do it (at least not yet), cuz I really don't have the energy to get a grip on livejournal in the next 24 hours. So for now the blog's gonna stay here, and when geocities annoys me again, I'll think about moving it.

So, I decided to revive my humble little abode again for the sake of all the folks I'm leaving behind for the next 6 months (yeah, again, I KNOW, so stop complaining). Not that that's anything new to them, since most of them lost track of where I'm at about 2 or 3 years ago anyway (just ask all the people who try to send me snail mail, it usually starts out with "I wasn't sure where to send this, so I thought I'd send it to your parents - sooner or later you'll probably show up there"). But since this time I'm switching continents (again) I thought my little blog here deserved being resurrected after being abandoned for pretty much two years.

So. Where the heck am I going with this? I'm starting my semester abroad this month and since Australia's kinda on the other side on the globe and having 8 to 10 time zones between myself and home kinda makes communicating by phone a little hard, this is the place where you can check up on me and see what I've been up to. Since Geocities and me don't really agree on my traffic limit here I outsourced all the pictures to Fotopic so you can look at them there without me having to worry about exceeding traffic limits anymore. =) So we all win. ;o) Go over there for Australia-photo-updates, too. (Friends! You know what that means? I won't send you useless photos per snail mail anymore, like I did when I was in the States! Aren't ya happy now? ;o)). I'll try to update regularly here (if I remember, haven't done this in like 2 years) assuming I can get a internet connection established down under. Which, at the moment, is a little doubtful since I seem to be a very, very confused girl lately (Audrey can attest to that, can't ya, hun? Just 2 words: My space...lol ;o)) But I'll try my best, I promise. So watch out for more as I leave summer behind (I knew there was a flaw in the plan - damn southern hemisphere and its reversed seasons) to study in cold, cold Penrith, NSW at the University of Western Sydney. Cheers!