Now that all of the birthday celebrations and road trips have finally come to an end, I can update you all on what I have been up to the past few weeks. A little over a week ago, a bunch of my friends and I rented 2 cars and decided to take a road trip up to the Gold Coast which is located in Queensland, Australia. It is about 12 hours north of Sydney and is comparable to Miami, Florida but MUCH nicer. Driving on the wrong side of the road was definitely something you have to get used to. Pretty much forget everything you know about driving and do the exact opposite of everything you think is correct and that is driving in Australia. The steering wheel is on the other side of the car, the blinker is on the other side of the wheel, you drive on the other side of the road, the speedometer is in Kilometers per hour, and the left lane is the slow lane while the right lane is the fast lane. Talk about confusing....I was in a car full of girls which was fine at first but none of them really wanted to drive so I took the wheel for the majority of the ride. We left in the early afternoon and drove straight through the night. It was really nice to drive outside of the city and see what suburban Australia is like. The Pacific Highway took us through a bunch of small towns and stopping for gas gave me the chance to chat with some locals and have some fun. When we finally made it to the Gold Coast, we were all exhausted. We crashed at my friend Tom's place for the night and headed over to Broadbeach in the morning. Broadbeach was where our friends lived so we hangout with them for the weekend. Their building is owned by the same hotel chain as mine here in Sydney so their place was really nice as well. They had a huge wraparound balcony which overlooked the beach, the city, and the strip where everything was happening. We were about a 4 minute walk from the beach and since the weather was so nice, we decided to pull out all of the beds and sleep outside on the balcony every night. Talk about living the life huh? We took a mini road trip up the Brisbane where we went to a zoo and I got to play with a bunch of huge Kangaroo's. It was pretty tempting to steal one but then again, they were about the same size as me so that would be pretty hard to do. After a few days relaxing on the beach, gambling at the casino, and hanging out at the bars, we jumped back in the car and made our long journey home. We stopped in Nimbin (Australian version of Amsterdam) and Byron Bay on the way home and finally made it back into Sydney around 2am. That was the kickoff to the crazy week that awaited us. My birthday fell out on ANZAC Day which is Australia New Zealand Army Core Day. This is one of the biggest and craziest holiday's in Australia. It is basically memorial day, veterans day, the 4th of July, and St. Patricks day combined into one day. Every Australian was up and drinking by 8am so needless to say it was a wild day. We were all a bit tired since we had a big birthday party for me the night before but we all made it to the big ANZAC Day Rugby game which was a blast and then we all hit the pub at night to finish off my night. It was probably one of the best birthday's that I have ever had and my friends did everything in their power to make it as much fun and memorable as possible. Two days after my birthday was both my roommate Drake's birthday and also our good friend Dan's. So naturally, the party continued straight through the week with one night being at a Karaoke bar (Absolutely anarchy at its finest) and the next night we had a 90's themed party back at Coogee Beach. We had a great week but we all needed this weekend to relax and unwind a bit. I thought a great idea would be to take a nice, long, hot bath to relax so I filled up the tub, lit a candle, turned off the lights, and put on some relaxing music for about 2 1/2 hours. When I finally got out, I went out to the sunroom to talk to my roommate and BOOM! A spider the size of a small horse was sitting on the wall. It is called a Huntsman Spider and if you have the guts to look up what it looks like, I definitely recommend it. Of course I screamed like a 5 year old girl and ran inside until someone killed it but the worst part has yet to come...About 20 seconds after we got rid of the first 8 legged super freak in our sunroom, I hear screaming coming from the bathroom in my bedroom. Our other roommate Josh came across and even bigger Huntsman in the very bathroom that I was just soaking in for 2 1/2 hours...Needless to say that I am literally acting like a paranoid freak checking every corner of every surface of every room that I go into from now on. I. Hate. Spiders. Besides that, all is pretty calm in Aussie right now. Planning another road trip up to Melbourne this coming week and yes mother, I am doing all of my school work and trying really really realllllly hard just for you!!!! Been catching up with some friends from back home and its been reallllllllllly great to talk to them :) Hope all is well back in the US of A and stay tuned for the next installment. Cheers!
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