BUCKEYES!!

In honor of the first Ohio State game of the season, Regina and I decided to be adventurous and true Ohioans and make our own buckeyes! Of course, no one knew what we were talking about. But we did. And as soon as we said that we were making balls of chocolate and peanut butter (which was ironic because for our last all hall dinner -the day before- the hall in charge of desserts had made peanut butter, oreo, and chocolate chocolate covered balls so everyone thought at first that we were making those. We had to explain that we were making something better. Like Reese's? Yes, but again, better.
So we went shopping for our ingredients - peanut butter, butter, a LOT of powdered sugar, vanilla, and chocolate. Which, I don't know if I've mentioned, we usually go to Coles for grocery shopping and I'm now so used to it that I don't think Kohls, instead of Coles. But we did find a cheaper grocery store this past week, it is just further away. Anyway, back to the point. We got all the way back to the P&O and reread the directions and realised that we needed toothpicks and didn't have any. So Regina biked to Coles this time while I slowly started making the peanut butter mix.
We soon discovered that it is ineffective to try and mix a cup and a half of peanut butter with 6 cups of powdered sugar (which they call icing flour here or something like that). So Regina put on the latex gloves usually reserved for raw meat and mixed it by hand.

Next it was time to make the peanut butter/sugar mix into balls and put tooth picks in them so that we could dip them in chocolate after they had chilled for awhile. 

These are 2/3 of the balls made haha we ended up making almost 80 buckeyes!

MELTING CHOCOLATE! Fun fact - there was a lot of melted chocolate left over so we went at it with spoons and ate more than we probably should have.

Speed dipping the peanut butter balls in the chocolate with Tasha our excellent photographer!

Regina and I each took a plate of 20 and donated the rest to the community shelf in the fridge and I took some to the movie night in Anna's suite (our Hall Supervisor) for the Tangled movie night! Everyone LOVED them!! 

-we know this because they were all gone before the next day-

GO BUCKS!!

Fremantle Dockers Footy Game!

The Saturday after Cottesloe (as in, the next day) we went to our first footy game! This is Australian rules football, I think. I'm pretty sure that they are the same but to be honest I could be completely confused. It is one of the 3 sports that I don't really know what is going on but they are on in our common room all the time. Guess that is what happens when you live with a bunch of Europeans and only get Australian channels. Yes, this means that unless we pay online we cannot see the American Football games. *deep-sigh that is only partially sarcastic...

Anyway, this is roughly how the game is played. There are two teams. Four goal posts at each side (so there are three field goal looking things on each side). The one in the middle is worth 6 points if the footy ball goes through it and the two on either side of it are worth only one point each. In order to get the points they have to kick the ball - like a field goal but it is just during play, no special set up, they can kick from anywhere. The ball can be passed (it kind of looks like they are punching it to a teammate) or kicked to get down the GIGANTIC oval field to the side that they want it on. If your teammate catches one that was kicked to him there is a time limit (like 3sec) before the other team can basically attack/block him - it's like a bonus 'yay you caught it' kind of thing. They don't wear any padding and it is VIOLENT. It is speedy like soccer, tackling kind of like football, and the checking of hockey...there was a fist fight like 3min in. But they fights aren't encouraged because you can lose playing privileges in some cases. All of the players are in really good shape. It's crazy. Fremantle's team is really good and they won that night. Oh, and they are purple and white so it reminded me of DHS football games haha it was even a white out that night! And I actually got to wear white instead of a band uniform :)

 This is the pre-game show thing like they have at baseball games.

 This is Hakan (the one making the face at me) and Julian and their reactions to my questions about how the game is played. Now that I think about it Hakan gives me that look a lot...

 From L to R. Jen, Rachel, Regina (FROM OHIO) and Tasha. We attempted to figure out the game together, got hot crisps, and cheered together.

It's hard to see but these are the players - I only had my ipod for pictures so I couldn't zoom - they look farther away from us than they actually were. The blue head on the right side is a guy from Notre Dame in Indiana. They got really into it. Even though it was the wrong color...

Going to the game was organised by the Study Abroad office so we had really good seats (so it was good when they were on our side of the field but we literally couldn't see what was happening on the other side - good thing they have the big TV things). We (Cleo's, Port Lodge, and P&O) were the first 5 rows closest to the field behind one of the goals. It was really fun learning about the game and getting into the spirit of it but the take away message (that's what my Health Psych prof tells us is on each slide in the presentation) was that the hot crisps (french fries) were ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. So so so so delicious. Best part of the game was that we (the Study Abroad) section started the wave that lasted 6x around the WHOLE SOLD-OUT STADIUM!!!! It was so cool!

Johanna's Birthday and Cottesloe Beach

Almost 3 weeks ago now...was Johanna's surprise birthday party and the first time we went to a REAL (as in we couldn't walk to it) beach. 

Larry and Johanna are our program directors for the trip. We found out that Johanna's birthday was coming up soon and we decided that we should make her cheese cake for her birthday and Larry said he would make sure that she was at their flat when we needed her to be and that he wouldn't ruin the surprise. We decided to do it after our Australian History class on Friday - we'd go and pick up the cheesecake after our walking tour (probably the 3rd one of Freo but it was in class and we weren't going to complain that we got to leave the class room) and then head to their flat from there.

On the Wednesday beforehand a group collected money from all the CSBSJU students and went shopping for ingredients. Then on Thursday Juhaan (only person who had made cheesecake before) and a few of us actually made the cakes. I made the crusts for both and I must say, I make an excellent chocolate cheesecake crust. One of the cakes was white chocolate and one was chocolate. 

These are the delicious things that we carried over to the flat. :)

So all 13 of us trooped over to their flat and then realised that we didn't have a plan for what to say if it was Johanna that buzzed us in...We made Maddie push the buzzer and when Johanna answered we all whispered things to say and she ended up saying something like "Hi, I was just in the area and thought I'd come by and say hi...". Johanna tried to buzz her in but it didn't work so she (thank goodness) sent Larry to come down and let us in. We all went up the 6 flights of stairs and as we walked into their place we started singing Happy Birthday! This was her reaction: 

She teared up a little, just like Larry said she would. Oh and the paper she is holding is the card that Rachel had made that we all signed. Then we took some group pictures before cutting into the cake. 

This is almost all of us in the best picture that I have of it. 

Needless to say it was a complete success! She loved the cakes and we loved them too! We left there to head to Cottesloe beach!!

The beach was about a 10min train ride away and then a five-10min walk from the train station to the actual beach. It was beautiful!!! The water was cold but once you were in you kind of went numb and it didn't matter anymore haha. We played frisbee, keep the ball out of the water while standing in the water and getting hit by waves that are almost as tall as we are, snacked, and just relaxed on THE BEACH! 

 Don't worry Mom, I know that their UV is much stronger than ours and I put sunscreen on like four times and only got a little bit pink!

 This is Brooke also - this is time number 6 trying to get a picture where she is looking, not drinking water, and not choking on said water.

 The view as we left in the evening. (This was supposed to come after the next picture but I couldn't get it to switch with it. So the after picture is coming before the before picture...)

This is right after we set up before the waves picked up. :)

27/8/2013

I have a lot to catch you guys up on!

First! I haven't done the whole - this is where I live and who I live with!

People!
I may have touched on this earlier but there are people here from all over! My closest friends are a few from CSBSJU, and also from Ireland and Germany! I've decided that when I have money and am touring Europe then I am going to visit them as well as my friends from England! FREE HOUSING!! :) There are a few cultural differences between Americans and Europeans that I will now highlight.

• They say funny things. And now I'm starting to say them too...ugh. Time is one that I've picked up. Instead of saying eight thirty they say half-eight. Another funny thing is pants. For them pants =underwear, and what we think are pants are trousers or jeans. What's the craic? (Apparently that's Irish spelling - said like crack) That means like  What's up? We high five more than they do; they think it's kind of weird. Instead of saying How are you? they'll say howiya?
• Their accents were really obvious at first but now I'm used to hearing Australian, German, etc and it's just as normal as hearing American voices. 
• Biggest difference between American guys and guys from not America. They call all the girls love, sweetheart, gorgeous, darling, etc. just on a regular basis in regular conversation. Talk about an ego boost or a way to make you feel better about life/yourself. They also totally ok with hugs and don't need an explanation if you just say you want a hug. 

Place!

I live in the P&O! It is possibly haunted. It's a great place to live. I think it is the best of the 3 housing options. There is also Port Lodge and Cleo's (The Cleopatra Hotel). The people from Notre Dame (America) live in Port Lodge...we aren't there biggest fans...they are uhm exclusive. One of the girls from there even said 'If I wasn't a part of this group then I wouldn't like us'. The people in Cleo's are mostly girls (only 3 boys in the whole building). They are from University of Portland. They're pretty nice :) We mostly get along with them. By we I mean the people who live in the P&O. Here are a few pics of my living arrangements! 

 Balcony outside my room!

 Cleo's directly across the street.

 Balcony in the other direction!

This is our common room :) We have movie nights here probably 4 times a week :)

I've decided I'm going to stop apologizing about forgetting to/being too busy to update this and just say it once more here and then just let you know that any other time that I don't update I'm sorry. "I'm sorry I didn't update the blog". Okay. Moving on now.

Today was Juhaan's birthday! We had cake and made cards and it was really fun!

I went to King's Park like a week and a half ago and didn't tell you guys about it! It was BEAUTIFUL. It is similar to the Conservatory in Columbus but it's bigger and in Australia..and has several memorials as well as Aboriginal significance in parts. Fun fact - Just 2 years after they established government here they decided that they needed to set up a place in the city to preserve the wildlife! King's park is about the size of St. Joe's (in MN) township lines. Here are some pictures: (I had some trouble uploading so they aren't in order that they were taken)

 On the free ferry back from Perth to Freo. It was free because the train was not running for the week. It's about a half an hour ferry ride. Margaret, Sarah and I were given Duncan's number on the way back. He was a funny, awkward, ginger Aussie with a huge beard. But he gave us discounts on our muffins and lattes!

 Going into Perth in the morning!

 Love Locks! Started in China. There were tons!

 We went to London Court which is basically Diagon Alley...It's old english street that has shops and stuff!

 Sarah and I at the entrance to London Court.

 Pretty flowers in Kings Park! There were so many beautiful ones!

 The Africa tree in Australia! For a reference on how tall it is - the green bush thing in front of it is taller than I am. And it isn't a bush, it's a little tree.

 A lot of their trees have like super smooth bark - I don't know if I would even call it bark actually.

 Jacob's ladder. So many stairs and it's super steep. People use it to work out on. We went all the way down and back up again and were sweaty and panting by the time we got to the top again.

 Giant tree at the bottom of Jacob's ladder.

 Perth!

 More flowers!

 One of the memorials at Kings Park, it was beautiful and very powerful.

It is so windy in Perth/Freo that trees often grow sideways so that they don't have to fight the wind. The tree I'm standing on grew that way, it wasn't knocked down or anything.

07/08/2013

I forgot to blog yesterday. Oops! Sorry!

Fun fact of the day is that they write the dates here dayday/monthmonth/yearyearyearyear. I think I may like it better actually.

So far classes are going well - I think. It is harder to tell here and I'm still not used to the teaching style. It is much less direct instruction so lectures (while interesting) are not as organised (that's Aussie spelling, I didn't spell it wrong thank you) feeling, they just seem to hop from one subject to another and the flow just is different than what I'm used to.

I ran all the way to South Beach and back yesterday! Yes people that is a full 30 min of running! Then I did pilates but to a girl who has a channel on the Youtube and it was REALLY hard. Her channel is blogilates. I think she's great haha and I've been sore all the times after I've done her workouts. I found out about her from my friend Joy (she's from Taiwan!).

Mostly I did homework all day because it rained a lot.

05/08/2013

I tried out a new class today - Theater 101. We basically will be making set designs and doing the lighting for AN ACTUAL SHOW! Woo! We had a field trip to UWA (University of Western Australia) to see all 8 of their theater spaces! It was pretty cool and the campus was BEAUTIFUL! It was odd though not being in a theater and working. It made me miss being in the box office and even miss wearing the (dripping in sarcasm here) stunning red shirts.

Our dorm has a soccer team and they had their first games tonight! I was able to go to the second one but not the first because I was in Theology learning about Luther and Calvin. It was a good class; I've never taken notes so fast for so long before though. The professor is really funny and half teasing and half real reassures the americans that we can do it and not to panic. :) Anyway, our team is really good - everyone on it has played at some point in their lives so it was pretty impressive to watch. They won their first game and then tied their second one!