Monday: I spent most of the day in the library studying and trying to get ahead with school stuff. I cooked a lot of food in the evening for the week, and watched some TV. Tuesday: I swam in the morning which was pretty refreshing. Exercise is always a nice way to start the day. Then, I ate lunch at the apartment and walked to the library to study. I had my sustainability class which was interesting. Then, I studied some more before heading back to the apartment to eat and change for ultimate Frisbee practice at 6:30. It was really fun. We did some drills and then played a little. It reminded me of how much I miss it, and even though I don’t choose running as my form of exercise, when I’m playing Frisbee, it’s just fine with me. After practice, we all went to a famous pizza place for some free dessert pizza. It was a pretty good time. Wednesday: I had my nutrition lecture in the morning and my sustainable communities tutorial in the afternoon. Nutrition was hard because she moved pretty quickly through the material, and I have a quiz this week. Sustainable communities was good. I learned some new things about how realistic and affordable changing all of our energy to renewable sources would be. I studied in the library for a while after classes, and then I got to walk home in the rain. Yay! I snuggled up in warm clothes and worked on some school stuff, did laundry, and cooked. Thursday: I woke up at 5:30am to go to a fitness class at the gym. I was surprised that I actually got out of bed, but I did! The sun wasn’t up yet on our walk to the gym, so it was pretty chilly. It was nice to get a good workout in so that I could start off my day sooner. After stopping by the apartment to shower and do some laundry, I headed to the library to study and take an online quiz. I spent most of the day doing that and working to catch up in another class. Then, I walked back to the apartment to drop off my stuff before we left for the free cooking class. It was so great. Our group got the herbs, lemon grass, and garlic ready. The teacher/famous chef guy cooked everything together. We had Chicken Larb (not lard) with mint leaves, spring onions, lime juice, and much more. The other dish was Fish with a coconut milk base that had fish sauce, lemon grass, garlic, and more. We all sat down to eat, and they told us to eat it all together with the rice they made. I wasn’t sure about that, but it was delicious. It was a lovely free dinner. We learned something while we were at it too. After dinner, they offered everyone coffee, and then we left for the cold walk home. We caught the last half of The Bachelor on TV (I don’t like this show and how it works, but it’s entertaining, so what can you do?). Kiley and I just put on a bunch of clothes to warm up and then took it easy for the night. Friday: We woke up and worked out at the gym and then ate some food. We went back to the gym to use wifi for some school stuff to get done before Kiley’s parents got in. They arrived at their hotel not long after we started, so we finished a few things and met them at there. They stayed at a hotel just 5 minutes from our apartment which was nice. We had a great reunion with several hugs and catching up to do. Then, we showed them our apartment. From there, we left to get some ice cream at the mall and then walk around the lake. The walk was super nice, but Kiley’s parents were pretty tired since they hadn’t slept in so long. I think it was good we kept them moving though! We ate dinner at a café in the mall (I had a delicious risotto with chicken) and then told them goodnight as we headed back to our apartment to meet Nicola for her birthday. She invited some people over to have chocolate fruit. There were apples, grapes, kiwis, bananas, and blueberries. It looked very tasty, but we were pretty full from our delicious dinner. We had lots of fun even though it was pretty crowded with around 12 people. After we hung out for a while, most of us left for the city to go to “Beyonce night” at a club called “Mr. Wolf.” We took a bus there, and it was a lot of fun. We spent most of the night dancing and singing with our big group of friends. The dance floor got pretty crowded as the night went on, but it was awesome. Obviously, it was our favorite when they played Beyonce songs so we could sing the words super loud. At the end of the night, we tried to get an Uber back to our apartment. However, it was quite a journey…it took about an hour of waiting outside in the cold. They kept cancelling our request as they got close or drove around near us, but we finally got one. We were so happy to get in our warm beds at the end of the night! Saturday: We got up around 9:15 after going to bed pretty late. We met Kiley’s parents at 10 to walk/hike to the Telstra Tower. Telstra is a phone carrier here, so they have a big tower where you can go up to the top and see a great view. It took us a while to get there because it got pretty steep at the end, and the trails weren’t marked very well. We went up to the top where we could walk all the way around the tower. The view of Canberra was pretty great. We could see where we live, the many lakes, and the city that went to the night before. Then, we found our way down the mountain and into the city to go to Patissez. It’s a restaurant where they serve the famous “Freak Shakes.” They are super elaborate milk shakes with crazy flavors and combinations. Kiley and I both got the Pretzella. It had Nutella with milk in the mason jar topped with vanilla mousse. There was also Nutella on the outside of the jar where there were pretzels stuck to it and in the vanilla mousse. Man, that was a delicious mess of a milk shake. It was so tasty and the perfect combination of sweet and salty. After we finished our shakes, we went to an opal store. The jewelry was pretty expensive, but we found a store right next to it where Kiley’s parents got her a cross necklace with an opal in the middle for her birthday since it’s her birth stone. We were pretty tired and cold afterwards, so we walked around to find a bus or taxi. We found a taxi and took it back to our apartment to get some warmer clothes since the sun had gone down. Then, we walked down by the lake to find a place to eat dinner. We ate at a Thai restaurant that was absolutely delicious. Every dish that I smelled going by made me even hungrier as we waited for our food. I got Paat Thai with chicken, and we got brown rice to share. It was so good! We were all so hungry that we finished everything besides some of the rice that we took back with us. At this point, we were all exhausted and cold after walking/hiking over 11 miles. We left for our apartment and then just watched some TV before heading to bed. Sunday: We woke up and went to church at 10 with Kiley’s parents. Then, we got brunch at a café in the mall. I got pancakes with mixed berries and ice cream, and it was quite tasty. We got groceries and took everything back to our apartment. We were pretty tired from a mixture of lots of walking and exercise, jet lag (for Kiley’s parents), and a lack of good sleep. After hanging out for a bit, we walked to campus to show them where we spend a lot of our time studying and in class each day. Campus is pretty small, so there wasn’t a lot to show them once we got there, but it’s a pretty central campus with some grass and trees around. We sat at a picnic table for a little bit to enjoy the sun. Then, we walked to the lake to see it again and take advantage of the weather. We saw some cool birds and sat at a bench for a little while. The sun made us warm and tired, so we leaned on each other and soaked up the sunlight. The view of the lake was awesome. We got a little chilly as the wind picked up, so we headed back to the apartment. We sat around and talked for a while about life and the future. It was nice to catch up and just relax after so much activity the day before. Her parents left around 7, so Kiley and I made some dinner and watched TV for a while. We were pretty exhausted, so we weren’t very productive. However, that’s the way we like it. Sundays are usually our lazy days where we spend most of the day at our apartment doing chores and relaxing before the start of another week.
1 Comment
Stacey
8/29/2016 02:33:22 pm
The shake-thing looks so amazing! But definitely a mess!
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December 2016
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