Grace Christian Church

The group I typically attend church with and Pastor Bob

...mid-may BLOG.

May 23: German Katie’s Themed Birthday Party
Had a pretty uneventful week, but anticipated my German friends 23 birthday celebration that would be on Saturday! It had been sometime since I actually just went over to a friends place to hang out. Her theme was to come dressed up representing a country. It ended up being a really neat idea. I tried to wear red, white, and blue to be America…I had no intention of spending money on an outfit. Some people pulled off some really good looks like Spain, Greece, China, etc...along with dressing up people brought drinks and food to go along with the country, so it was really nice to have some actual food with plenty of variety!

The next week consisted of my final tutorial activity in one class where I had to do a viva, in other words, an oral presentation. That ended up going really well which was a relief! In another class I had a group meeting for our final report! In our lectures, we started exam reviews and I have been doing a lot of final exam prep on my own. This week will be our last week of the normal semester schedule, which I can not believe! Thrilled at the same time to get finals over with of course!

May 29: Sunshine Coast Turf Club- Ladies Oaks: Race Day, Caloundra
Friday was an absolutely beautiful day! We used it very effectively as well I must admit! Woke up early, got all fancy, and headed to a friends apartment for a group breakfast. We spent all day at the horse races. There were so many people, many with awesome, classy outfits, hats, and fascinators. Unfortunately, I didn’t win any money, but then again I barely bet!

May 30: Eumundi Markets- Noosa Hinterlands
After the long anticipated waiting period, I finally went to the markets! Weekend after weekend I said I would, but something would come up or the weather would not cooperate! So after buses, trains, buses, and beautiful scenery, we made it to Eumundi and experienced the life of local vendors, original Australian made arts, crafts, clothes, jewelry, and food! We took advantage of all the free samples or course and spent a beautiful day outside browsing the booths.

Time for Brissy!

May 15th

This past week was full of lectures, tutorials, group meetings, presentations, and the finalizing of group projects. With all that done and out of the way, it was time to head to Brisbane for the weekend! Brisbane is just an hour from the Sunny Coast and is an easy outlet to experience some city life.

The public transportation in Australia isn’t that great, but it is still pretty easy to grab a bus and train, then before you know it your already right in the city. Our first mission was to go straight to Beaches travel agency so four of us could book our study week trip to Fraser Island and the Whitsundays. It is claimed that if we left Australia without visiting these places, we would have missed the whole purpose of our stay here! With that said, we knew we had to make it happen! Almost all the international students have already done Fraser so we did not compile a big group tour, but there will be five of us together which is perfect!

Next we dropped our stuff at the hostel, grabbed some coffee and food, and explored the city. We walked around the shops even though NONE of us have spare money to buy stuff. Some of the girls made their souvenir/gift purchases because there is an abundance of cheap tourist shops! It was then time to head back, grab some warm clothes, and trek over to purchase our rugby tickets.

Rugby is huge in Australia and this weekend was our one chance to catch a game! None of us had been before so it was a new, exciting experience for all of us. In Oz there are three types of footy: Rugby Union, Rugby XXX, and AFL. It was cool to see how many people are so passionate about their rugby! On our way back from the game we came across a pub doing karaoke, so we stopped to laugh for a bit, however know we had to do it as well! Since it was so fitting that there were five girls, we rocked Wannabe by Spice Girls for the crowd! Pretty entertaining I am sure.

Saturday was so so beautiful out so we walked around the city all day. We mostly tried to walk along the river and then up and through the botanical gardens. It amazes me that such a beautiful park can be located right in the center of a busy city. We also took a look around a local museum and were lucky enough to go up in the tower for a great sight over the city!

I was able to finish off my weekend spending Sunday at the beach relaxing! We haven’t had heat like we did this weekend for a couple weeks now so it was a really nice change. What I thought would be just me and my friend Jess turned into about 10 of us. The boys mostly all surfed, the girls layed out and listened to tunes, and we all randomly went for walks around Alex or runs down the beach. Makes for a great morning : )

Mooloolaba

Britt and I taking in the view for the night at Mooloolaba

Cinco de Mayo

May 5th: Cinco de Mayo

The long anticipated fifth of May finally came around and we had our excuse to eat tons of Mexican food, or in Pat’s case, to spend money on Corona! Cinco de Mayo is….A lot of others said they would like to celebrate and get together for it, however they didn’t show. It ended up being five of us with WAY too much food! It was really nice just to hang out and enjoy the night even though it was not a party.

The rest of that week, including the entire weekend was left to me and the books! I had several assessments due that upcoming week so my weekend was very uneventful, which is okay every once and a while I suppose! I save money that way : )

Visting Wezzz!

May 1: Trip to Lismore-
Southern Cross University

The weekend finally came and I was able to get away and go visit one of my friends who is studying abroad here in Australia as well! On Friday I started my journey by catching the bus and train to Brisbane, where I would walk around the city and kill sometime until my next bus to Lismore arrived. After a VERY interesting bus ride the boys picked me up at the Lismore train station.

We headed to meet up Wes' roommates and friends at a local restaraunt to celebrate one of their birthdays. It was a nice evening, even though I arrived about an hour later than I was suppose to :/ All of the friends were really fun and outgoing, which was refreshing!

The rest of the night was spent playing ping pong, eating cake, and just hanging out--preparing for the next big day we had ahead of us!


Saturday was the long awaited 'Race Day' that all the Southern Cross Uni students had been very anxious and excited for! The school put on a breakfast for the residents and then shuttled us out on buses to the race track. The weather turned out to be great and the whoel experience was brand new to me! I really enjoyed meeting new people, betting on horses with Wes(even though I didn't win), and hanging around the track for the day. Of course, I can't forget to mention the very last race...which consisted of a crazy Canadian streaking right down the main stretch in front of the entire crowd, ha!
What was a really fun day turned into an even more interesting night...and that is pretty much all I have to say about that! A lot of laughing : )


The next morning Matty drove us to spend the morning and afternoon at Byron Bay. The 45 minute ride their itself was really beautiful. So much green and so many hills! We took a walk up and around the the most easterly point of Australia!! and then on to the lighthouse.

We had a great view with a lot of turquoise water, unending beaches, some turtles, stingrays, and other aquatic animals. We headed back down to have a bbq at the beach, soaked up the sun, and the boys attempted to do some body boarding!


We ended the day walking around Byron and seeing what the town has to offer! I could see myself bumming around this little surf/hippie town for a weekend again some time. Three o'clock was well on its way when I had to jump back on a bus for a long ride home. It was a really great day and the weather was on our side. It started pouring right when my bus pulled away :)

Another Weekend at the Coast

April 23

Thursday-Sunday

Had a wonderful Thursday night out at the apartments and then at our UNI night location, Woombye. My friend Britt was telling everyone it was my birthday, so none-the-less it was a very comical night and I laughed every time she tried to convince randoms to buy me a drink. Since she wasn’t able to be with me on my birthday she apparently thought tonight was a good way of making up for it! It was great.

Later that weekend a large group of us took a bus to climb one of the Glass House Mountains. Just trying to find the mountain was a good portion of the adventure!

The Glass House Mountains are believed to have formed from volcanic activity. They were once plugs of lava which cooled with volcanic cones. Erosion of the surrounding limestone has revealed the existing landscape and unique structure of the mountains. There are 14 mountains in total spread over 600,000 hectares.

We climbed Mt Ngungun which is 253 M. On our walk to there we passed a pineapple field, which I loved of course! I had never seen one before and nothing screams Chelsey more than an endless supply of her favorite fruit! After the climb, we walked around a little town and played at the park while we waited for the next train back.