MELBOURNE SPRING BREAK DAY 3: WEDNESDAY

Well today ended up being pretty chill as well. we started off heading down to Victoria market which is famous for little shops and booths with a farmers market section as well. we walked around there a little looking for gifts and such for you know, the fam and friends. Afterwards we headed home for a little and looked up movie times for 17 Again.. you guys know, the movie that my husband is in (zac efron of course) and ended our activities of the day with an amazing end!!!!! 17 Again was an amazing movie and i will buy it!! haha. anyways tomorrow will be a day full of sightseeing. we have a bunch of churches and cool buildings to go see tomorrow... sorry I dont have too many things to say today.

MELBOURNE SPRING BREAK DAY 2: TUESDAY

Well today was another chill day, although i am pretty stoked to say that I really have been learning my way around melbourne already. I can get to most needed places by memory and it is only the second day. i actually told allison that she and I need to come back since we have  already memorized the city.  

First off we set off to go to china town. it was actually quite uneventful actually and found ourself done a lot earlier walking through it than planned. then we walked up maybe a couple miles or so to the melbourne museum. We knew that we may or may not get in for free depending on if they will let us in as "students" or not (its dumb the way they do student prices here, they call it concession and it is technically only for Aussie born or exchange students, not study abroad..lame). we ended up getting in  for free.. which is always awesome and definitely needed for us poor study abroad college students. in the museum they had many many exhibits. some were about the aboriginals and the "stolen generation" which is aboriginal children that were taken away form their families by the government of australia when they first started colonizing australia. there are many reason why they may have taken the children and i and actually writing a paper on that soon, so by may 1st (when my paper is due) i will have a reason for you as to why they stole the children from their families... anyways... besides the aboriginal exhibits they had a mind and body exhibit which i found quite interesting. the body section of the exhibit was a little redundant to me for i had seen it all many times from the body world exhibit at the science center in LA and also from anatomy class, but the mind section was super interesting... in tis section it showed about the toll different disorders or diseases have on your bosy whch was especially interesting for me to see being a psychology major and all. it was interesting and fun for me to read up on my schooling... haha. after that there was a small exhibit for dinosaurs which was pretty fun to go through and look at. they actually had a 3d little short movie set up for people to come in and watch. i think... that my father will be very happy when i say.... going to this museum made me really appreciate all the times as a kid we went to history and just any other kind of museums. it made re appreciate how much i was encouraged as a child to learn more about the world around me. it felt good to go around this interactive museum and learn more and more about all these things that i have mentioned. i really loved the feeling of discovering any new thing the museum had to offer to me. it made me excited to WANT to go around and look at the different things at the museum. that is all. i am a nerd. i take after the family... hahahaha.

one of my favorite exhibits though was the exhibit for the Melbourne Cup horse winner PHAR LAP. this horse help save the sanity of Australia during the great depression. while the world was having a difficult time dealing the economic crisis, this horse helped the Australians keep up their spirits. this horse won 37 out of his 51 races in just a few years time. the whole time i kept thinking of my sister Brett and how much i really wanted her to be there and see that exhibit. she would have loved it so much... they even had a really old Breyer horse of Phar Lap on display and i just wish i could have gotten it for her...

after the  museum found a popular street called Brunswick street and walked down it a little. unfortunately we went after 5 which is apparently the popular time to close up shop out in Australia so most things were closed which actually was better for us, so we were not as tempted to buy stuff.... afterwards we walked home... the short way since we are now pro at learning streets in melbourne.... now we are just back at the apartment that we are staying at. we watched a movie called Picture Perfect and have been working on booking our NZ trip...... i think ill be able to blog tomorrow... as for the day tomorrow we have just  bunch of sight seeing stuff planned..... talk to you soon... miss you all...

love,

Neille

MELBOURNE SPRING BREAK DAY 1: MONDAY

So the way the Melbourne situation worked out...... Jeff, the guy from APU had a friend come up to visit him from University of Melbourne (she is also on study abroad) and she was actually heading out of the city as we were heading down so she gave us her room key and we are crashing at her apartment for spring break.... free accommodation is amazing... we spent the first night resting since we flew in last last night. today we walked around the city a little walking down some fun little streets and around some little farmer's market trinkety shopping places..... we have some fun things in store for the week soon tho. next sunday we are going to an AFL game which is basically a more brutal style of rugby. we are also going on the ocean riad tour which will be basically  lot of beautiful sights including the 12 apostles rock formations. i cannot wait! thats about it for the day. we have just been chilling out learning the city. tomorrow will be another long day of walking. cant wait..... haha no but really i am excited!

miss you all though. hope all is well at home guys.... i will be home sooner than you know it.

love you guys.....

Newcastle Knights win!!!!!

well. I went to a rugby game sunday...... We took the train a few stops over to the stadium. We went to see the Newcastle Knights and of course we won! -because we are awesome!!!! allison and I got these pretty cool but cheat jersey type things that were only 20 bucks! afterwards we walked over to get some food and drinks at a bar nearby and just hung out there. after wards we took taxis to our friends house and just hung out there for the rest of the night. its always nice to have just a chilled out day.
here are the pics for it>
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113267&id=1067220169&l=1c6aa10d84

o and btw... allison and I are traveling down to melbourne for break. we leave in 4 days and will be there for like 7 or 8 days. we may or may not also try to make it to adelaide and kangaroo island. we will see........ more on all that later!

Nelson Bay...amazing

well this weekend we actually ended up randomly heading up to Nelson Bay. Nelson bay is about an hour and a half bus ride north of Newcasle. We left pretty early and we were all pretty exhausted and i slept on the bus there. We arrived at our hostel around 11 30 or so. First we headed to the bay and went on a Dolphin Cruise. the bummer is that it was raining pretty much all weekend so the dolphin cruise was quite a different experience than i could have been. we saw a lot of dolphins which was awesome. we even went into the side net that they have off the side of the boat that you can sit in and you can be in the water next to the dolphins. too bad it was pouring rain when we went into the net. with the rain, wind and water all being pretty cold we were shivering but enjoying every second of it. (I have pictures of this on my album in the link below.)
afterwards we headed to a bar and tried some really fruity cocktails which were bomb. we then went home and got pizza watched a little AFL football on the TV, played pool, met a british guy who hung out with us that night all in the "shack" which is like a rec room. We then headed outside and played a bunch or cards and met some girls from Switzerland and some guys from Denmark. that night we slept at the hostel and in the morning we woke up and headed home. thats all... here my pictures for that...

Nelson Bay pics> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113124&id=1067220169&l=304bf09f82

The Socceroo game!!!!

sorry it has been such a long time since i have last blogged. a lot has been happening.

one of the biggest things that happened lately was the Socceroo game i went to Wednesday the 1st of April. The socceroos are the Australia's national Soccer team. We left around 3 or so and headed down. The train ride was i think 9 dollars and about 2-3 hours long. I actually talked to my each member of my family on the way there. used up sooo much of my minutes.. haha.... i have to now be way careful or ill have to buy a new cap early... anyways.. on the train Allison and I met these guys who were also going to the game and the proceeded to tell us that the color jackets that we were wearing (blue) was the color of the opposing team's jersey. we had to find jerseys soon.... Allison and i actually went down to central station in Sydney and called our friends Betsy and Emma to see where we would meet them cause they were coming down a little later and meeting us at the stadium. Emma then informed us that with our ticket for the game we would have been able to get to the game and back home for free cause they had some deal with the train stations.... so that kinda sucked cause we found out 9 dollars later... but at least we saved the money on our way home.we got to the stadium and outside of it we found jerseys and scarves and stuff for the team so of course we bought them. Once we got into the stadium we proceeded to find out seats and realized what amazing placed seats we got. the view was perfect. It was just high enough to see the whole field but not too high. the game of course was super excting. the first half there were no points but enough attempts. the crowd would errupted at attempts and everyone stood to watch the kick. in the second half we scored twice and beat the Uzbekistans 2-0. amazing! the entire day it was raining but we our seats were under a roof so we were proteced from the rain. We werent too lucky after the game. basically were were soaked by the time we go to the train. the train home was pretty fun. we sat by these guys that had just came from the game. we foiund out they live close to us in Newcastle. We got home around 2 or so. basically it was amazing! look at my pics!!!!

socceroo game:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113049&id=1067220169&l=1d952dd1a5

hey guys!!!!

as you all can see i am not 100% amazing at this blogging business but if there is ever anything you would like to know about school please do not hesitate to email me at nfenderson@hotmail.com. i will write about anything you guys want to know about. just let me know!!!!

right now i am sitting in the hub half doing hwk/ half checking up on other people's lives sine i am missing them. i am missing my old HS play that i wish i could see right now. i am missing friend's spring break meaning they are home wanting to hang with me and i cant see them. i am missing my family that is working so hard at home without me and i miss them. i miss everyone at home! what i wish is that everyone i love could come to Australia and live by me and we could hang out all the time!!!!!!! i think that is a great plan. what say you? haha.
anyways.... besides all that. nothing too exciting. going to my soccer game on thursday and then that sunday, we are going to a rugby game. i am stoked! i still dont know what exactly we are doing for spring break (i mean mid-semester break). its kinda up in the air for exacts..... we are just gonna stay out in australia. do the southern australia thing..... welp. miss you all. please email me anytime for anything. i love to hear from you all. remember its nfenderson@hotmail.com.