Finally the last day of classes.

Never thought I would make it. I wish that I didn't have a two week break and just had finals next week. The wait will be unbearable. I am not looking forward to them at all. I have four of them and they will all be 2 hours and 10 minutes and they will all be in the form of an essay exam. I am not good at essay exams, not good at all. Sometimes these finals are up to 50% of our grade, not good at all. So basically I am not looking forward to ANY of them. Everyone is leaving today and tomorrow for some great adventures. A few girls went to Phuket and Signapore, while some others are off to Bali, and others to Tasmania. I chose to stay here, lame I know, but I need this time to study. I have to kick my butt into high gear and study hard. We have 22 days till we all leave. In those 22 days I will try to explore the city around me as much as I can, study has hard as a I can, and enjoy my time left here as much as I can. It is going to be weird to wrap things up down under, but I am more than ready for home.

I will talk to you all soon! Love you

it is the one month mark.

so here it is. we have hit the one month till home mark. 31 days.
i cannot believe it. i have had so much fun and i have learned to love this new and fabulous place, but home sounds SO sweet right now. since my last post there has not been much to talk about. the last big hurrah was surfing and we all know how that went.
since then i have had my last two papers and presentation due. my first paper took me awhile but i finished it and my presentation went smoothly and here i am once again procrastinating writing this last paper.

so in the next month we have approximately 1.5 weeks of school, a week off for study break, and two weeks of finals. but my finals aren't till the last week, sooo TWO weeks off for study break. during study break people are headed off to phuket, signapore, bali, and tasmania. i decided not to go anywhere and explore the city of perth and fremantle more than i have. i felt as if i didn't want to spend the money and miss out on the time to explore the city i have lived in the past few months. it will give me a good opportunity to see the city and see the great things about it. as of now some plans are in the makes of heading up to the ningaloo reef during that second week off, so i hope that works out.

but other than that, nothing is new on this girl's home front. there is so much i do miss though! the phone situation has definitely been getting worse the longer I am here though. i can't just pick up my phone and call my mom, or my friends. it's weird. i can't just shoot a text to my friend whenever i need some quick advice or wanna meet for lunch. don't get my wrong the not being able to get a hold of HAS BEEN NICE but i do miss my phone.

i miss my family so so much. i just feel like i have so much waiting for me at home since i haven't been there in so long! i have a new baby cousin to come home to and friends to see and vacations to go on. it will just be very exciting to come home. but i will miss this place, it has been great to me. i hope i have been just as good to it!

but enough of that talk now. there is still 31 days left and it is going to fly by so i am going to enjoy every chance i have left.
i love you all and miss you tons more!
see you soon xoxo

kayley

from a laptop overseas......

it's sunday night here in cleo's once again and i haven't updated in a while and so i thought i would say hello. i haven't been quite as busy as my last update, but here it goes!

the week we got back from broome was a whirlwind there was so much going on and so much homework that had to be done. the sunday we got back from broome we went on an archaeological dig with out history professor/archeologist. it was an amazing time and i learned so much from the trip! that same day was ANZAC day which stands for australian and new zealand army corp. and it is huge in australia to celebrate the day! its like memorial day but on a much larger scale. we woke up that sunday at 4:30 in the morning and headed off to monument hill to join in the sunrise dawn services. it was amazing to see how many people were there to recognize this amazing event and day. but we got back around 7 and slept and for an hour before we had to meet out professor for the dig. it was quite a long day. but the dig was amazing and i enjoyed every minute of it.

the following was much the same as every week has been. busy and it flew by! the weeks go by so FAST!! it amazes me to wake up on monday morning and before i know it, its friday night. and so it was another friday night and the next morning we woke up for surf camp. we got up walked to the train station got on the bus and 2 and a half hours later we were surfing in the indian ocean. it was amazing. i think i was successfully the only one who didn't stand up but thats okay, because i had so much fun and loved every second of it! we were so exhausted and it was only lunch time! another 2.5 hours of surfing left! it was such a great day but by the end of it i was ready to pass out. we got home and made dinner and went to san churro had the best churros EVER, came home and passed out. it was a great day.

today was sunday and it was a very relaxing one. woke up cleaned my room we got mexican food and hot chocolate and then came home and caught up on some tv. and so the week begins again....48 days till home. its going by so quickly.
talk to you all soon! miss you!

it's been a long two weeks

this is from the camel ride in Broome!!
i know its hard to see but i am the 6th camel from the front!

this is lacey and i where the oceans meet!

this is the whole cleo's group in front of a very cool and very big tree!

this is our whole group at the leeuwin winery after the tasting!

i apologize for not updating this blog in that last two weeks, but they were quite the whirlwind. the thursday after easter we embarked on a 4 days road trip down south. our stops were the leeuwin estates winery in margaret river, pemberton where we stayed and explored for a while, and augusta which is the farthest south west we could go and that is where the indian ocean meets the southern ocean. we had quite the adventures down there and got to experience some wonderful things! i wouldn't even know where to begin! the winery did free shipping to certain states so i was lucky enough to be able to send a bottle home to my family, hope the enjoy it tomorrow night when they get to drink it! after the winery being able to go and see where two oceans meet was also pretty amazing. im so use to just the pacific ocean that seeing not only the indian ocean but the southern ocean was pretty sweet. we got to go to the valley of the giants which is a huge tree top walk where we got to walk as high as the trees on this suspended bridge type thing and that was cool! we also got to go to this really cool cave called the jewel cave and it was amazing in there! it was 250 steps down and 250 back up so it was a lot of walking but the sites inside were amazing!!

the down south trip was amazing and to tell you the rest would take me way to long so you are going to have to trust me that it was amazing! i loved every second of it! but when we got back we had one day to catch up on some homework and then it was off to Broome.

Broome and the Kimberley were amazing! when we got to Broome that night we were lucky enough to go on a one hour sunset camel ride, and it was amazing! it was so much fun to ride an animal like that. i never thought i would be able to. the next day we embarked on our 4 hour journey to where we would be camping for four nights. we got to drive on a REALLY bumpy and RED dirt road for about 1.5 hours of the trip and that was quite fun! we made many stops at some amazing and life changing aboriginal communities and we got to learn SO much about their culture. they are amazing people and to be given the opportunity we were given was so amazing. i could not have asked for anything better! we actually had some very interesting weather because 3 of the 4 nights we had cyclones! it was crazy! we were all in tents and with the crazy wind and the insane amounts of rain we were roughing it to the extreme, it was so intense! but to be given this amazing opportunity was so lucky. not everyone can go and camp with an amazing aboriginal family and learn all about their culture and see what it is like to live relying on the resources of the land! it was so cool! i do not have many pictures from that trip as we were only allowed to take certain pictures of places so i left my camera behind a lot to preserve the sacredness of the land.

the last two weeks have just been a whirlwind! it is amazing how fast the months of march and april have gone. i am really starting to miss home though and miss my family a lot. with univ. of portland getting out of school next week it is making me think a lot about if i hadn't come to Australia i would be getting to go home next week, but then i think about it again and i realize HOW LUCKY i am to be given this chance and i really wouldn't want to change it for anything. this opportunity is so special to me and i hope i can live out the next 58 days superbly. it will be an amazing 58 days. well friends i will talk to you soon! not much going on the next couple of weeks, just surf camp, and then school. it should be interesting! talk to you all soon!
love you!

An Aussie Easter ♥

on the top is a beautiful tree when you first walk into the park and on the bottom is the beautiful view from the park of the city of Perth. it was such a gorgeous day!

this is a really cool bridge as high as the trees where there were beautiful views of the ocean and city as well!

this is almost all of cleos. we had such a good time going with nic, our house mum, who showed us around!

So it was an Aussie Easter at its best this weekend. It all started with a great Good Friday off. We headed over to Kings Park and it was gorgeous! This is a park nestled high above the good city of Perth and it was beautiful! The trees were gorgeous and the beautiful national holiday of Good Friday brought everyone out to the park for some good old fashion fun. We walked around and finally managed to find a spot in the shade to sit and people watch and play some frisbee. This was such a gorgeous day!


Easter Sunday was pretty amazing as well. I was a little nervous has it approached because I knew that I was going to miss my family. But it went really well. We woke up to some heavy rain and by the time we showered and ready for 8 o clock mass the rain had stopped and we were able to walk to mass without a problem. The day also started with a nice little Easter Egg/Basket hunt that our house mum Nic put together for us. We had to find our chocolate egg which led us to our basket. My egg was upstairs on the balcony and the clue read 'Fall Down Stairs Much? Need A Band-aid?' and so I immediately ran to the first aid kit finding my basket and some band-aids. It was a lot of fun and a good way to start the morning!

After mass it was a busy busy day. I got back and was ready to bake! I was put in charge of desserts with Lacey, Jenny, and Jessi. It was so much fun! Lacey and I the day before went to the market and shopped galore! That night Lacey and I made strawberry shortcakes and the next morning we made a delicious Australian dessert called, Pavlova. It was SOO GOOD! and we were so proud of ourselves because all of our Australian guests thought it was so good! So after we baked away Sunday morning we were ready for the meal and all our guests! We had our 21 from Cleos and 11 guests who were family and friends that joined us, so 32 all together. For appetizers we had deviled eggs, cheese and crackers, fruit, 7 layer bean dip, and other goodies. For our main dish and side dishes we had lemon pepper chicken, ham, quiche, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, a green salad, and more fruit! For dessert we ended up having strawberry shortcake, Pavlova, Keylime Pie (which more was like lime pie because they don't have keylime juice in Australia) and a cake shaped like a bunny. IT WAS SO GOOD.
We ate enough for a small army, but it was delicious! Best meal ever, well at least up there on the list. After wards we were all ready for bed. It was only 6:30 and I was already falling asleep. It was a long and busy day! But it ended up being a really great Easter and although I missed my family and Easter with them, I had a good time with my Cleo's family.

Easter Sunday with my Cleo's girls.

Heather, Lacey and Me.

This was a beautiful Easter table setting.
The tables are in an 'E'

This is Lacey and I with our really good Australian Dessert, Pavlova!!

This is our Bunny Cake!

I am having so much fun here! Thursday we leave for a great road trip adventure down south and come home Sunday and then the following Tuesday we leave for Broome (the outback) for our week long home-stay experience with an Aboriginal community. So many adventures that are coming our way, I am so excited! We are almost half way through our semester here in Freo, and the end is approaching quickly! I am excited to go home but I am going to miss Freo and Australia so much. But I am still here for awhile longer, so no need to be thinking about it now!
Till next time! I love you all!

since the last time we talked....

this is penguin island. there were no penguins but that's okay

it was beautiful.

here is the majority of cleo's.
the other ones were off galavanting before we had to leave!

this is my favorite penguin. it was the best :)

well after the unexpected rainstorm ended it was a pretty normal week. but the weekend brought some great adventure. saturday we went sea kayaking. it was intense. we got picked up at 8 by the company and they took us for a nice drive to where we were going. we got there unloaded all pumped for our day. leah, my kayaking partner, and i were ready for this great adventure. we got on the water and oo boy was it an adventure. we were so lucky that it was a windy and cloudy day...NOT. we started out good but as we were getting further from where we started and not really any closer to where we were going, we started to worry. the waves were getting bigger, well okay i shouldn't exxagerate that much, the white caps were starting to pick up. it was getting scarier. we finally made it to the first of three islands, but of course we weren't allowed to get out of the boats, that wasn't till the third island. LAME.
after that nice little break it was time to go again. we just kayaked by the second one and had to go between these two big rock land forms to the third one. those waves were no joke between those two rocks. we actually had to get roped to the instructors boat to get guided and pulled in, it was hard and scary!! i did not like it haha but we finally arrived at penguin island and we were successful. it was beautiful there, although all the penguins were in the water fishing it was still pretty cool. we got to see a habitat of them and we got to see them eat so it was fun!
we are our lunch and we were ready to head back, it was cold and starting to rain. i wont go into detail but we made our way back, it was difficult, but lets just say leah and i ended up half way down the beach to where we started and had to pull the kayake to where we were suppose to meet. no big deal. we made it back safely.

moving on.....
the week that followed was good. sunday and monday were days full of writing a paper and trying to get through the first couple days of the week because today, wednesday, was our fremantle prison tour!! i just got back and man it was scary. i dont think im much of a scary place, haunted place type person. i did not like it. i was scared the whole time and i just dont think im cut out for things like that. whatever. i got through it and it was fine.
the only thing good about today is that i am officially and finally on spring break, or as they call it 'essay preparation week'. wooohooo im looking forward to that. tomorrow thursday we are going to see alice in wonderland finally! im excited for that. and friday is a national holiday, good friday. who knew? but we are looking forward to our easter weekend and the week ahead.

saturday hopefully we make it to king's park, a huge place in Perth that is beautiful and amazing! i am excited. and sunday for easter we are having a huge lunch dinner thing we around 32 people! some families are here and a lecturer is coming and some of our house mum's friends! we are looknig forward to it. then off on our down south road trip, where SO MUCH ADVENTURE AWAITS US!!!

so you are all probaly thinking 'my life is rough' haha well i am very lucky to be here, but as it approaches the easter holiday i miss home more and more and its hitting me that it will be my first holiday away from home. but if it all goes well, i am sure it will be a good way to spend my first holiday away from home. but till we speak again...i miss you all lots! talk to you soon!

xoxo

freo thunderstorms are ♥

Most of us girls at the first stop!Heather, Leah, Lacey, and myself.
♥

Lancaster Vineyard

The chocolate factory!!

us Portlanders embracing the rain!
let me tell you the picture does NO justice.

so its monday and what a monday it was, but i'll start with the weekend.

saturday morning we got up early and headed out to the swan valley for our long day of wine, cheese, chocolate, coffee, and beer tastings. it was a long day indeed. our first stop was at the sandalford vineyard. the lady put out a whole row of wines in front of us, starting with a light white and ending with a dark "port" red and basically said go. we went for it. i can honestly say i tried all of them and liked none of them. lets just say im not much of a wine person, i don't think i have that acquired taste bud. we went off to the next one called lancaster vineyard. this place was beautiful. although the first one was a gorgeous building and grounds, at lancaster we were out in the open vineyard and really felt like we were with the grapes. it was beautiful! that winery was a bit more organized and poured the wine for us and helped us think about the tastest more, but i didn't like that anymore than the last. at this point we were all pretty tired of the wine and we were ready to move on. the next stop. CHOCOLATE

the chocolate factory was beautiful and delicious! we tried all three of their chocolates in chip form and then went on from there. i sampled there caramel chocolate and also their cookies and cream chocolate. the caramel was DELICIOUS!! so exciting! and we got ice cream too! it was so good, but by the time that was over i was so tired and full! so full of chocolate and cheese (from the wine stops) that i was ready to move one. next stop coffee!

the coffee stop and beer stop get their own paragaph because i was basically dead through those two. im not a coffee drinker so during this stop i rested my head and sat outside with some others and enjoyed the sun. at the beer place as they were trying the beers, i was drinking a lot of water and enjoying the live singer. he was great! but at last it was time to go home! we finally made it after a real long and hot bus ride back.

sunday was the best beach day BY FAR. perfect. no waves, so we jsut floated so nicely, and no wind, so we didn't get pelted by sand. it was BRILLIANT! but then we saw a jellyfish right next to us and that was our cue to leave. it was still a blast!

AND MONDAY!! today was amazing! it started out pretty warm and me with a headache. doesn't really surprise me. i went to the post office and sent off a package to family and was ready for class. after class i skyped with some friends and it was time to start cooking....or so we thought. the thunderstorm came in and it was amazing! some of us went out to the roundhouse to watch the lightening and thunder and got caught in the rain. on our way back we see some fellow portlanders running to meet us! we got our jackets and stood in a DOWNPOUR and rain and lightening and thunder for a good 15-20 minutes. it was EPIC. but the whole storm went on for about an hour. the sky was lighting up every other second with some epic thunder to follow. it was amazing. megan, kurt, lacey, and i all cooked dinner tonight also and we made a wondeful feast and some GREAT dips, hamburgers, french fries, fruit salad, and an american themed cake for dessert. MONDAY WAS SUCCESFUL!!!!

but. i do miss the cherry blossoms at school. good thing i brought a picture of them from last spring. i think ill get over it. talk to you all soon!!!