November 1st: Foam Party
Today was the foam party at Ubar. Everyone was loving the foam (except for a few exceptions, myself included). I didn't find it at all sanitary and instead I sat with my friends outside and just chatted for hours. I saw Ellen and we got to talking. There was a free photo booth but I didn't make it in time before they took it down. It was nice to just chill and hang with people.
November 2nd: Halloween party
Today I was checking facebook and my friend had posted a photo of an Australian spider that came into his house and I did not like the looks of it. It's called a huntsman and they are HUGE but perfectly fine. If you want to see it check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRV4d9LCawU . EWWWW. Anthony told me that everyone will see a huntsman if they are to stay into the summer months.....NOOOOO!Then Anthony and I decided to do something with the day and we went around to some thrift stores. Here, they don't have a Good Will but have Vinnie's. We went to a few places and I found a cute book for $1 based off Finding Nemo (I thought it was appropriate considering my location). Once home I got ready to go out to the house party of our friend's who was having a Halloween party. We all chilled at the party and at one point Anthony pointed out a "garden spider" which was HUGE! I screamed and it ran away just like I did...... I haven't been cope with my arachnophobia yet to be ok with these spiders infiltrating in all the sudden.....
November 3rd: Date night
Tonight I went to dinner with Anthony on the Rocks at Pancakes. We had a good time and ordered so much food! Pesto bread with pine nuts, salad, eggplant pizza and apricot pancakes and cream cheese crepes for dessert. It was a nice dinner and we had a good time being dressed up and out on the town. We walked around the bottom of the Sydney bridge and watched the Sydney Opera House across the harbour for hours. It was a very nice evening.
November 4th: Sculptures on the Sea
Today Bel and Deniz wanted to go to Bondi Beach and see the "Sculptures on the sea" exhibit. This was one thing I had been wanting to see before I left and didn't know it was the last day of the exhibit. It is a bunch of sculptures that are one the rocks right where the tide breaks by the boardwalk at Bondi. We arrived and stopped at a bar just to chill for a bit. The sun was sweltering and we headed out toward the left of the beach and we walked on the rocks and saw one sculpture. Then a group of guys told us the rest of the sculptures were on the other end of the beach. It was confusing why this one sculpture was on this side, but we were heading back and decided to get some Aussie Fish & Chips. Apparently I have never had fish&chips until I have them in Australia. We got swordfish and calamari. It was really really fresh and good, but deep fried and we all had to sit back and breath for a bit. The sun was going down and we all decided to head back home, laughing at the fact that we only saw one sculpture.
Anthony and I bought a Groupon deal to go to the caves out in the Blue Mountain. It was an amazing deal and I had caves on my list of to-do's while out here along with seeing the Blue Mountains (which are about 100km from Sydney).
November 6th: Melbourne Cup
Today was also the Presidential Election. I was a bit disappointed because I had registered for a voting ballot to be mailed to me in August but it never came. I've never voted before and I thought it would be awesome to vote for the first time in another country for the President, but that sadly did not happen.
November 7th: Psych Study
Today I went to participate in another psych study. This one took 3 hours to complete and I did make some money from it, but not a huge amount. I think it's ok though because after talking to the researcher she's been conducting this study for 2 years and only has had 130 participants and still needs 20 more. I was glad to help her in her research for the love of psychology. Tonight we used the coupon that Danielle had bought in September from Groupon. We paid $25 total for up to 6 people to have an in-home wine tasting. It was me, Anthony, Danielle and Ed and the lady who came to Danielle's showed us 14 different types of wines and gave us a complimentary bottle as the offer had included. We had a good time snacking on our cheese and crackers and learning a lot about German (and other country's) wine.
November 8th: Final Day of Classes
Today was my last day of classes in Australia. Now I must prepare myself for the 4 finals I have next week along with finish my huge report on the whale trip. It would be an easy report to write but I need to run a lot of statistical tests for the results which takes forever because I hate Stats. I registered for courses at home (about 16 hours later than the registration time thanks to my inability to calculate the time difference lately). At the moment of writing this blog I am only registered for 2 courses but know I will be written into another course easily because I have been emailing this professor and the last two courses (will be registered for no problem) are not my top choices but I do need them to graduate so this coming semester will not have any classes that are just fillers. I also found out recently I will be able to complete both my majors with a concentration in each. I will graduate with a Biology major with a concentration in Neuroscience and a Psychology major with a concentration in Brain, Behaviour and Cognition. I'm very excited about this and think it will bring me down the path where I want to be.
