Aussie Rules!

For those of you unfamiliar, Footy is basically like every sport put together! Has tennis “runners”.  Has basketball toss up.  Has volleyball passing.  Has soccer kicking.  Rugby tackling with a hint of wrestling thrown in. Football goal posts.  Hockey oval shaped field.  Quiddich multiple goals (haha).  

I’ve been tto two games at the MCG stadium which holds 100,000 people! Essentially Melbourne is the most sports mad city in quite a sports mad country.  Our first game, we happened to accidentally attend what we were told would be the best atmosphere game of the entire season! It was the first match up between the first and second ranked team (Collingwood and Carlton)! I live in Carlton so I figured I’d go for them, but then they started getting crushed and we were surrounded by Collingwood fans that were quite a lot of fun and just wanted so badly to convert us to Collingwood fans that I couldn’t crush their spirit.  The sweet Collingwood beany my friend Matt gave me didn’t hurt the cause.  SO yes then I found myself rooting for “that team”.  You know the team everyone loves to hate because they are the best.  It only makes sense since I do root for the best team in the NFL as well… Anyway, the second game we got tickets to totally outdid the first.  This was the number one team versus the number two team (being Geelong this time around). Both teams were iundefeated fort the season, and Geelong took down the mighty magpies! It was heartbreaking… I’m invested now, I’ve taken a lot of slack so Collingwood is my team, Im just loyal like that! ; )

So although I’ve pretty much figured out how the game works, what I don’t think I’ll ever grasp is how they don’t end up maimed, crippled, or permanently injured in some way every game. I’m certainly glad they don’t though, I don’t think I could bear anything happening to those precious faces.  So many gorgeous men so little time!! I may have found my one true love, he actually plays Rugby though, which is also really popular here. May I introduce you to William Zillman:

Excuse me Will, can I have my breath back please?

"Despite all my pride and foolish ways 

Caught in Your infinite embrace 

And I find myself here on my knees again 

Caught up in grace like an avalanche 

Nothing compares to this love love love 

Burning in my heart "

-Hillsong

Back to Business.

Alright so here the thing. I mean I’ve never been a bad student per say.  Call me lazy and I just might rip your head off. Generally I like to refer to myself as efficient.  As honoring those that invented less time cost and energy consuming methods of accomplishing the same task. This applies for things such as elevators vs stairs, fast food vs sit down restaurant and the like.   However, I’m not sure what they put in the water over here but I’ve like been doing ALL of my school work. I know, what your thinking, what has happened to Gabby, she rarely buys her books let alone reads them! I feel like I may be condemning myself to those reading this they may have thought “Not Gabby, she is perfect!” You know who you are, and you should get your brain checked but that’s a side note.  I guess what it boils down to is three things 1 I’m paying an astronomical amount to be in these classes 2 I have nothing better to do 3 This is the last month that I will ever sit in a classroom, these classrooms specifically that are asking me to learn interesting subjects that I know nothing about.  So I thought I’d blog about it, since you want to know what I am up to and honestly my life has been slightlyyy boring this week as the semester starts boiling down. Lots of papers to write, chapters to read, material to review, and strings to strum (haha oh guitar you make me laugh).  Just to redeem myself slightly I will be graduating with honors, so I must’ve been doing something right ; )  Oh and lest I forget, I may be doing all of my work and going to… most… of my lectures but I am still a master craftsman at the art of avoiding this.  I have never ran, cooked, or cleaned more in my life! 

Dont worry I still have friends, and hang out with them... Here's some proof:

 Cinco De Mayo Fiesta!

 Gina's 21st!

"I felt the pain of compromise deep inside

I’ve known the tention of a heart divided

I’ve tasted and ive seen your good

And now I am ruined for less than all you have for me"

-A life thats worthy

Queensland- Just passin through.

I’m backkkkkkkk… Who wants to hear (read) a thoroughly detailed recap of every second of my trip? Ok good me either, so lets stick to the high lights…

Day 1: Flight to Brisbane. Off to a rough start as our bags were all overweighted and we ended up having to pay an extra $70 to check on of them. After arriving in the early evening and taking a complimentary shuttle to our hostel where I’ve never been so terrified by the characters that we stopped to pick up, the 5 of us cooked dinner together.  Ofcourse this is when I call it a night, and thankfully convince Mellanie to stay in with me so I didn’t have to spend the evening with the 3 random (smelly) men that we shared a room with that night. 

Day 2: After coming to terms with the fact that our lack of planning of this adventure lead to many of our plans being fully booked (ie 4wheel driving and camping on Fraser Island) we decided to stay in Brisbane another night and explore the city.  Fortunately the weather couldn’t have been any more beautiful.  We went to the museum, the botanical gardens, Parliament, and the south bank. After upgrading to a smaller room (wayyy worth the extra dollar) we had dinner at the hostel and headed out to see the night life.  Nothing really exciting to report here.

Day 3: Bright and early we set off on the first leg of the road trip.  Slightly detoured an extra hour or two north as there were no Hostels available in Rainbow Beach, the town that we needed to be in.  We made it to Hervey bay before sunset though and got to play in the ocean surrounded by hundreds of parrots flying about in the trees which was lovely. Until Isaiah made me get in a fight with the man at the tourist center.  Sometimes I just lack patience for rude people. I was slightly bummed to not have made it to a Good Friday service, but overall good day that legit ended at 9pm. (oh yea we’re party animals!)

Day 4: 5am. Rise and shine! Back on the road. Destination: Fraser Island!!! We ended up doing a day trip tour there.  Again the weather was incredible and Lake Mackenzie was the clearest body of water I’d ever swam in. We got to see a dingo and other wild creatures. And explored the rainforest.

Day 5: I can’t really be sure when day 4 ends and day 5 starts and we decided to drive straight through the night to save money on hostels and avoid traffic.  Maybe we can break the 2 days apart with our one stop for food in GinGin. Good times... 13 hours later in a cramped car with 5 people. There were moments I didn’t think I was gonna make it… Probably the biggest around 3 am when all our calculations pointed to running out of gas before we reached any civilization to fill up.  Anyway, we got in around 6 am and all passed out on the beach (I stay in the car) for hours until we could check into our hostel.  This was definitely my favorite hostel! It was family owned, and we had our own cabin with 2 bedrooms and our own kitchen! We layed out in Arlie Beach Lagoon in the afternoon and cooked up and Easter Feaster for dinner! This consisted of lamb chops, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, garlic bread, champagne, and Tim Tams J

Day 6: Argh Matey! We set sail. This is the last of the sun that I would see for what felt like eternity. But we’ll get to that… Monday’s weather was spectacular. Watching the sun set behind the islands in the vast open ocean. Apparently the term “smooth sailing” is a gross exaggeration… I missed the boat on that one.  Eventually I got to know the ropes and battened down the hatches by avoiding the splash zone. (Okay Pun attack over I think..) Tomorrows weather is what would really take the wind out of my sails (last one!)

Day 7: Made up of lots of fun people, lots of good food, and lots and lots of rain… Fortunately when you’re snorkeling on the great barrier reef its kind of irrelevant. I only hit a low when I was chilled to the bone after taking one for the team being shafted with one raincoat short on the boat, someone had to do it, and I didn’t want to rock the boat (ßsee what I did there!).  Then slicing off a nice chunk of my foot on a barnacle! Fortunately, it is not humanly possible to be in a bad mood when you are sitting on the most beautiful beach in the entire world, White Haven. 

Day 8: One last snorkeling adventure in the reef before we headed back to shore. After a record long shower, record long nap, and overhaul of our hostel to find my lost ring we headed out to spend one last evening with “the boat people”.  I enjoyed our new friends company even more on the comfort of land!  I may or may not have even got up and sang 500 miles with the live music on stage : /

Day 9: “Rain rain go away,  your running the Whitsundays!” Shockingly I awoke before everyone today which just meant more hours laying on the couch watching movies, which is what we did. All. Day.  It was actually nice to have a day to literally do absolutely nothing, worry about nothing, and just relax.  I only wish this could have been achieved whilst getting extremely tan on the beach… Clearly being too much to ask I accepted our fate for this day and looked forward to the INCREDIBLE dinner the 5 of us shared together at one of the best seafood restaurants in Australia. I’m still enjoying it in my mind…

Day 10: All great things must come to an end.  Queensland, you have been good to me. But I am ready to go home! Three buses, one ferry, and one airplane later I finally arrive back at my apartment just in time for a Royal Wedding Soirée at the Lemon Tree House.

It’s been real. It’s been fun. It’s been real fun! Until Next time!

"In this world we are just beginning, do you understand the miracle of living? baby I was afraid before but I'm not afraid anymore! Oo baby do you know what thats worth? Oo Heaven is a place on earth!" -Belinda Carlisle  <-- My friends were forced to listen to me sing this all week... Atleast I think they're still my friends?