3 month aussieversary

hard to believe i have been away for three months! i have met so many great people and it feels like i have known them most of my life!

things are pretty much routine around here. just enjoying working and saving up some money for my travels. work is going well, which is good because i have been working a lot. to be honest i have no clue where the time has gone.

megan celebrated her birthday yesterday. i spent the day babysitting then met up with her, fatima, pat and sandi for dinner. we ate at a small italian restaurant then went to the vegie bar for cake. it was some of the best cake i have ever had! it came with two scoops of ice cream, 'really WHO DOES THAT?!?!' http://www.vegiebar.com.au/ afterwards we went to see a girl named megan washington play at a place up the road. she is pretty good live. i am obsessed with her song clementine, however we arrived late and i didnt get to hear her play it. all in all a good laid back night. i just hope megan enjoyed herself.

the other day pat and i went to the alderman for the first time in a long time. i met the owner, lisa, and we had a nice chat about different places in the area. brunswick is a great place to live.

on a different note my parents will be here in less than 48 hours! hard to believe they are actually coming. grandpa is coming as well and we are all going to stay in a serviced apartment. they are ariving on sat (which is also daddio's birthday) and will probably just go to bed early. since it is grand finals next weekend i will have to work since it will be very busy. this means they will be staying here for about three days and then they are driving up to sydney to see michael and christine. they will head back down here after about a week, visit for four more days then it is back to the US. all together they will be here for two weeks then it will be time to head home. it will be good to see them.

spoke with helen the other day and she seems to be enjoying boulder. she has joined a new club and hopes to meet more people. i also received an email from maria and it looks like my nephew is growing at a rapid pace! he is due at the end of october (she is hoping he gets here before halloween so he can wear his chilli pepper costume... SO CUTE!) and is already four pounds.

well that is all the news i have at the moment. expect parental pictures in the next post.

i went to the zoo and turned 23

hello everyone! here we have another long overdue blog post.

so much has been going on since the last post. i have been working full time and have barely had any time to do anything, in fact today is my first day off in over a week. this is good thing and even though i am very tired i am making quite a bit of savings. i am planning on taking a trip to vietnam in feburary and will need to save up quite a bit for the airfare. i am also thinking of making a trip to england at the end of april for the oexmann art show. i have been fortunate enough to have gone to the last three and it is important to me to remain involved. i am not sure what my plans are after april but will keep you posted on here.

since i have been working so much there really isnt too much to update you all on so i will let these pictures do the talking for me! please excuse the order, i am not sure why they are all so messed up...

since the last post i have celebrated my 23rd birthday, it was a pretty great day. my roommate chris cooked a feast of a bbq and almost everyone i know in melbourne attended. i probably drank and ate too much but it still turned out to be a great night. pat and i also took a trip the melbourne zoo. i was expecting a pretty crappy zoo because everyone around here says to go to sydney for the zoo (because the melbourne zoo is crap). however i thought it was a wonderful zoo. i was able to see all kinds of australian animals and spent almost the entire day walking around.

here is a picture of the grill, sooooo much food!


megan and fatima made me a cheesecake. it was delicious!


here we have fatima, danea, pat and eliza cutting the cake. instead of candles the top was filled with sparklers. they burned down before we could get a picture.


olga, fatima, danea and eliza.


here i am eating my cake!


here is chris prepping the skewers.


this is max, he is awesome to the max...


my roommate hannah bought me some traditional australia presents. which included a cork hat and a boomerang. this was the wrapping.


pat is a true australian now as well, please note the footy paint on his face.


wow im an aussie now!


now for the zoo pictures

peacock hanging out near the cafe.


contrary to popular belief these are wallabies not kangaroos...


wombat.


sleeping koala.


some birds having a meeting.


there are some more pictures from the trips and i plan to upload them to a flickr album soon.

thanks for all the book suggestions on the last post! ric i am starting middlesex today.

im off to dinner now, talk to you all soon!