06 March 2008

I'm back!

Well, I don't know about you guys but I never expected myself to be able to blog during my 2 months in South America. I was hardly able to let my parents know I was alive with enough frequency. But hopefully I haven't lost everyone who reads this blog! A giant update is due, but I'll do this in bullet points.

  • South America was incredible, we spent one month in Ecuador and one month in Peru. Both countries are different but both are amazing. There is just so much to do and see, and even though they're only little countries we didn't see the half of it in 2 months. Travelling as a group was interesting as well, mainly because more people means more people getting into crazy situations or doing something hilarious. The stories are plentiful... lets just say you probably wouldn't want to go out to dinner with the five of us because we'd be going on and on the whole time about "remember when... god that was hilarious"
  • When I got back to Perth, my parents came to visit. They met Rob's family for the first time (and got along like a house on fire), saw Margaret River down to Denmark, then Sydney, and then spent time in Melbourne with Rob and me while we were apartment-hunting. I had such a great time with them, and they had a great time here too. Now I just need to convince them to move over : )
  • Now I've moved to Melbourne. Rob and I found an apartment in Fitzroy, which is exactly what we wanted, where we wanted, at the price we wanted (woohoo!). And it only took us 1 1/2 painful weeks of submitting applications and 6 rejections. Now I've started classes at RMIT and am getting all those annoying things related to moving cities done. We move in on the 19th of March, and then we can let the settling in begin! So far I love this city, and I can see that I'm going to be quite happy here.
That's the 10-min version. I'll do my best to keep updating over the year and make up for being so slack over the last three months. Thanks for sticking around guys! xoxo

02 December 2007

Birthday Festival: Part One

Tonight I celebrated my birthday with my family. It's still 12 days away, but since I'm leaving on Tues to go to Tampa, this was the only time to celebrate. Hey, I don't mind a two-week-long birthday festival! Birthday two will be in Tampa with Kate, Lauryn, and Casey. Birthday three is in Ecuador with Rob, Tim, and Pip. For 8 years prior to last year, my birthday fell during exams and I ended up having small, stressed out birthday dinners. So this year I don't really feel bad about celebrating more than once.

My parents cooked lobster and filet mignon, which are my second and third favorite foods (eggs benedict is first on the list), and considering the only seafood I ever cook myself is canned tuna, it was quite a treat.

I also have a new baby for my Apple family, an amazing little green beauty of an ipod nano. I'm in love! This little guy replaces my secondhand Ebay iPod mini circa 2003 that I've had for the last three years. I loved that mini, but the battery has decided to quit on me.

Robbie gave me Stephen Colbert's book I am America (and so can you!). What I've read so far is hilarious, and I'm pretty excited to make it my coffee table book in Melbourne and share Stephen Colbert with the aussies.

24 November 2007

Happy Black Friday!

I survived the longest airplane journey of my life and have finally made it home! The total travel took 53 hours and I sat in airports in:

Perth
Kuala Lumpur
Taipei
Los Angeles
Las Vegas
Atlanta
Richmond

Ugh. I am never again booking the cheapest flights I can find... next time I'll splurge to go more direct, it was miserable! But all over now and I made it to Richmond Va. thanksgiving morning at 8:30am. It's really great to hang out with my family again, we have so much to talk about- my family are serious talkers, we can do it for hours, so much to catch up on, and it's just nice to see my house again.

Plus, right now Richmond is cold but the leaves all changed late so it's absolutely gorgeous here. The leaves are bright colors and falling to the ground, everything is bright orange and red and yellow. These is a photo of my house and one from the backyard.






Thanksgiving day itself was a bit of a blur, and I was sleeping by 7pm. But that meant that I was chipper at 6am this morning to hit black friday shopping. Black friday is the biggest shopping day of the year in the US, the day after thanksgiving everything goes on massive discount in every store but only between 6am and noon... so it means getting up at the crack of dawn! Some people even show up earlier and wait outside the door. Such warriors. I met up with Carlee, bought a bridesmaid dress for E's wedding, and some stuff from H&M, my mecca.

Oh, and I've been here just over 24 hours and have been to Starbucks twice. Ahh America.

15 November 2007

Going Home

So here we are, after 10 months of expat life, and in five days I’m going home. It’s something that anyone who lives far away from home deals with, and it’s not as simple as it sounds.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited. VERY excited. But also nervous. I haven’t been in the US for a long time, much less at home. What if I don’t fit in anymore? What if nobody is excited to see me? Or what if it’s a letdown, and I feel like I have no home anymore? What if everyone forgot about me or moved on in their own lives?

Certainly I’ve changed. These past 10 months have been the hardest, most stressful and most challenging of my life, and that says a lot since I’ve thrown myself into some pretty out-of-comfort-zone situations in the past. But I’ve learned a lot and probably changed in a few ways too. Even something as insignificant as my accent has changed. I have adapted to Aussie culture. My sense of sarcasm has been heightened and my sense of blatant enthusiastic excitement has been toned down. I’ve had to redefine myself as a student again after well over a year out of college, redefine myself as half of a serious couple, and find out what it means to define myself as a foreigner and American (and all the mental stereotypes that come with that) outside of my home country.

Moving here shook me to my core, and forced me to look at the way I identify myself in a completely new light. Who am I really? What is my identity? Everything I was at home (daughter, best friend, PR professional, independent single girl, highschool friend, college roommate) had no meaning here. My identity in their eyes was Rob's girlfriend, international student, American, stranger.

Going home will be a re-evaluation of the last 10 months and all of my successes and failures in trying to make the biggest changes of my life. It’s going to force me to look back and see what I could have done differently, and hopefully what I’ve managed to do OK at.

It’s so much more than a quick trip home.

14 November 2007

summa dayze

Summer is finally here in Perth. Everyone else calls them 'stinking hot days' but I love the intense heat and I think that deep down everyone else does too. We've had a couple of days over 100 F and it's still only the end of springtime. But Perth is great in the summer, everyone chills out (it's too hot to stress), goes outdoors to parks and pools and just relaxes. Every weekend there are barbecue parties to go to with kiddie pools and cold drinks. And the beaches are the best places to get a break from the heat. And outdoor drinking at night to round it all off.

That and music festival season is making me wish I wasn't going to be travelling for the entire summer, but then the crisp Virginia fall/winter and Ecuadorian/Peruvian jungle saunas are pretty enticing too. I just want to have it all!

06 November 2007

Go Howard, Eskimo Queen, and especially Matt Corby

I just want to say that I’m going to miss Australian Idol. They’re down to three contestants can’t believe I won’t be here when they choose a winner (never mind that I won’t be here when they choose a Prime Minister on Nov 24th) and I’ve somehow managed to get attached to the show. Ok, what I really mean is that I’ll miss Matt. I know he’s 16. But the boy can SING!

Whatever, it’s a cultural experience. And #22 Eskimo Queen let me down miserably today in the Melbourne Cup, I need someone to throw my support behind, someone that doesn’t go for nylon track suit-ed power-walks every morning.

03 November 2007

Red Bull Air Race

This weekend the Red Bull Air Race Final is in Perth. This means that a bunch of little airplanes compete to fly around an obstacle course through rings and between posts sticking out of the river. It happens all over the world, but the Finals are taking place in Perth.

This also means that tomorrow, all of Perth will go down to the grassy parks at the edge of the Swan River and barbecue, picnic, drink beer, and maybe watch a plane or two. It's great because since most of Perth is there, it's like a giant social event.

My house is in a primo spot for watching the race- in fact right now i'm sitting in my front yard in the sun (in my bathing suit) and I can see the planes flying above my house.

Tomorrow we're throwing a barbecue at my house, complete with kiddie pool and sprinkler (despite water restrictions that make sprinkler use illegal between 9am and 6pm... I'll play 'dumb foreigner' if the cops show up).

If you can catch it on TV, look for me!!