Beach day!!!!

first of all I finally have a phone which is really nice. I have been using everyone else's the whole time and i felt like i was bothering them. Its a cute white and pink one too. O and if i can figure out how to unlock it from vodaphone, ill have a back up in the states for when mine dies. which will be awesome because i will be using a Australian hone in the states..... pretty cool. Yesterday was a beach day. let me just tell you..... the view here at the beach is incredible. i mean we ahve been to the beach one time before, but for some reason that day i took it for granted. I am so glad i got to o again and really pprecite the sun and the waves crashing down. I put in owl city on my mini i pod and just sat there... looking at the ocean. we also went on a little walk Allison Jeff and I, and explored the beach. We found this place that is a little enclosed area surrounded by rocks on three sides. There were no people there, just us. We just sat there and watched the waves crash up against the rocks. i was in awe. we were out at the beach for a few hours.O and i did remeber for the most part to Slap the sunscreen on except for one part on my leg... so now i am burned pretty badly on the back part of my leg, but hey, i learned my lesson. I wish i had picstures.. i will charge my camera soon and will be taking more pictures...

just a blog full of updates/info.

hey everyone sorry it has been a little while since i have last wrote anything. I have officially moved into my apartment--got my keys today after having to be without them for awhile so now i am an official resident of 77a Bruce Street. I have been in Newcastle (a city in the New South Wales state) for over 5 days and i have to tell you all-- I am officially head over heels in love with the country of Australia. I love the people here I love the little shops and cafes and buildings. I love this city -- so very much. We live in a little house, but i believe it may be more like a condo or something.It a little old fashioned but it is even more than we ever hoped it would be. We are a little out of the way from where more of the off campus people from Australearn are living, but there are some boys that live just up the street a little ways from us. My roomates and I have become such good friends with these boys (one of the boys is acutally from APU with me so that has been so fun chatting about APU with him) and all of these boys have told us that they will never let us girls walk home alone. They will always walk us to our house no matter the hour.(i am sure it makes a few of you parenty types feel better about walking all around town a lot since we have no cars.) We had our orientation on monday and these next few days have just been pretty chill. We have been learning where the grocery stores (excuse me-- markets)are and where the bus stops go and where our new banks are located and figuring out our prepaid phones.... just in time for schoolto start.

I got my schedule for school finished yesterday. I am absolutely in love with my schedule. Wish America had this system. Basically every class meets once a week in a huge lecture hall for the lecture where we are just talked at anywhere from 1-3 hours (this always depends on the class and how much lecture time it demands). Then other than that the same class has then usually has a tutorial meeting time which has less students (probably 20 people or so.. im unsure) that lasts only an hour. I actually have made it so my tutorials and lectures for each class are on the same day so i have four classes, one on each day (including the lecture and the tutorial) it will be nice because i will get to focus on just one class a day. O and i dont have class on Monday so that is nice aswell. I will be taking a class with my friend Allison one day and on another day I have class with Jeff (the guy from APU) so i guess in my other two classes I will be making some friends.... haha. O yes and for those who do not know, I have already said i am only taking 4 classes, but do not worry that is normal here. yes that means i will only be able to transfer four classes to APU but fortunately each class here is 4 units so i will get to still transfer 16 units back to school so it will still be a full semester of units.

other than school we have been just chilling out like i said.We have been shopping for food and household stuff (luckily for the most part the house was furnished with things down to linens and silverware). The beach is quite nearby which is quite lovely for walks. I am trying to find a job asof now, but it is quite difficult. But the rate per hour here is get this.... 17.50 and hour.pretty awesome.i am determined to get a job here.... haha. As some of you may know,I have no internet access at my place. There is a coffee shop I go sometimes to get someinternetbut the internet is slow. I can also get wifi at my University (the University of Newcastle). I am currently at a student hub which is an extension of my university just a few blocks away from my house and it is open till late on weeknights for homework purposes. Here there are computers and wireless opportunities for UON students. Just a side note--our University is about 20-30 minutes away by bus ride so going to the university to just run a few errands is not something wewill be doing on a whim. This farness thing may get annoying....

Specifically today Allison and I walked all the way to the real estate office to sign our lease cause we came on our own flight we were not taken to the office beforehand. I got my keys finally cause me and Allison had to share keys until we signed the lease. This office is located by the harbor about maybe 20 minutes or so walking distance from our place. It wasnt too bad to walk. I love the walking cause it gets us more acquainted with the area and helps us to learn new streets we can use so we can find shortcuts to get places. its quite nice. sidestory..... I brought my Pushing Daisies season one dvds with me and now my new three roomates (allison, Carly and Caitlin) are pretty obsessed with the show. In the show, the main charater is a pie maker and shots are constantly shot with him in his pie shop and everytime we watch the show we always have the urge to eat some pie but we have never seen a pie place yet. Well when Allison and I were walking to the Real estate place we happened to stumble by a place that sold pies!!!!!!! we were so stoked let me tellya. we immediately told Carly and we will be going to the Pie Shop shortly. Lets just hope it is not called Miss Lovettes......(Sweeny Todd any one?) so yea thats been our day so far. It has been pretty nice chill day. Nothing we need to run off to. love those take it easy days.... well i am heading out soon. Hope this update has been enjoyable to read. i will blog soon.

RAINFORESTATION DAY!!!!

Today (well not actually today but the day I am blogging about) was an unexpected amazing day! being the day after an amazing Great Barrier Reef day we were unsure whether or not the rainforestation stood a chance as being as much fun as the GBR. The festivities fop the day started off with a 45 minute bus ride to to the rainforest place and we got off the bus to a ultra hot and sticky area where we proceeded to put as much bug spray and sunscreen as we could (I bet mom and Dad will be pleased to hear about the sunscreen business...) at that point our group was divided into three groups. these groups would be our traveling groups for the day. Our groups first activity was to take a tour among the zoo type area of the park. Here we saw koalas and fed kangaroos.. we got some great pictures in this section.... The next place we went to was a Aboriginal dance show. here we were shown some dances that really helped us develop an understanding for the culture. This day was also filled with a demonstration of how to throw a spear, how to throw a boomerang (and we even got to try it) and also how to play a didgerido. This bit of information is for the family. He showed us the different interpretations of animals and one was an interpretation of the Dingo and I thought of shiloh! next, was lunch and after lunch in the cafe there we got to take a picture with a koala. (Mommy i know you would love the see that picture!!) next, the coolest part, was the rain forest tour which took us in Army Ducks. The Army Ducks are WWII army tank type things (i have pictures) that took us through the forest and then drive right into the water and act as a boat as well.... i remember whispering to Allison "now this is a legit jungle cruise." All in all it was an amazing day and the night was filled with yet again a fun night out to dinner and such on the town.

The next day we traveled to Newcastle. Newcastle is an amazing city and I am so stoked to be living here for 4 months. Today (Monday the 23rd) is our orientation day and it has been filled with lots of overwhelming information but we are struggling through it all. Soon enough we will be experts. I will describe more of the town later. love you all. miss you. hope home is fun! love!

o yea. here is a link to my pictures....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110451&id=1067220169&l=fd3fd

GREAT BARRIER REEF DAY!

Great Barrier Reef Day was incredible and full of new things.... bright and early at 6:15 we wake up ready for our amazing day of snorkeling and scuba diving. The entire day was full of lots and lots of sunscreen, laying around, and then of course some finally a few opportunities for snorkeling and scuba diving. I tried a little scuba diving. it was pretty sic. Words cannot describe how amazing the view was. The water is so blue and clear and just breathtaking. I wish everyone could at some point in their life, go see the great barrier reef. Never have i ever been snorkeling or scuba diving. I absolutely love it. It was amazing sharing an ocean space with such amazing animals just chilling our in their ocean. It was crazy swimming with the bigger animals and at times found myself a little afraid to swim so close to the animals, and I was out of the water when someone spotted a tiny shark. But all in all it was an absolutely amazing day. Also, the group accompanying me was all people i was either living with, would be living with, or just people also attending my school. This was the day i met a bunch of friends that I have been hanging out with everyday. i think i may have found some amazing people that i get to spend my next 4 to 5 months with. That night we went to the Lagoon which was a huge pool on the beach because apparently the beach in cairns is crappy. But the lagoon was really nice to jump in after the great barrier reef when were were sweating like crazy and al gross from the ocean. That night we went out on the town in Cairns and just really experienced Cairns for the first time. such a amazing start to our Cairns orientation.

here is my link to my Great barrier reef pictures....http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110415&id=1067220169&l=38aba

WE HAVE ARRIVED!!!!

Allison and I arrived finally in Cairns, Australia to begin our first leg of our trip.... We first finally departed from LAX at 11:00 pm for our long flight... we then got into Sydney and after going through customs and exchanging our money and finding our baggage, we sat in the airport for 5 hours waiting for our next flight. Next we arrived in Carins to find not a rainy colder weather like Sydney was, but a hot and humid temperature... kinda really gross..... We finally figured out how to get a taxi and got to our hostel with much fumbling and droping over of our bags.... we met a frisn that is going to the University of Queensland and is here for the Australearn orientation as well. He is actually staying with us in our hostel room. it is really nice to have another friend with us to keep us less lost than if it was just allison and I. It is currently 6:02 and we are now just walking around the area a little before we will probably head back to the hostel, take showers and get to bed early cause we are so dang tired... tomorrow we will figure out a way, somehow, to locate the rest of the Australearn group and begin our planned out adventures in Cairns. Hopefully these activities will involve air conditioned rooms or pools.... i will try to blog soon... unfortunately in Cairns here, we do not have wireless internet at least in the hostel..... bye for now!
~Neille

adding to this post.... some pictures of our traveling and the first day in Cairns.
link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110308&id=1067220169&l=e96ee

Things I have been doing before I leave for Australia

Before i leave i wanted to show you guys some pictures of thing i have been doing before i leave. I have been at Azusa working from 7-8 hours a day and at night i have been hanging with my friends. I have a few albums of pictures of me hanging with them. You guys are welcome to check them out. these are the people i am leaving behind... so sad.

This is a bunch of us hanging out at Victoria Gardens a few weeks ago...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107899&l=057d0&id=1067220169

This one is an album of us hanging out at Venice Beach last weekend
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=108937&l=35332&id=1067220169

This one is an album of just random pictures of my friends from school I have been taking before I leave.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107469&l=ec9de&id=1067220169

feel free to look around at these pictures. this is the way i will be showing you guys my pictures in Australia as well. Enjoy =)