mardi gras weekend!

So today i decided to get some coffee since i have been going through some serious withdrawal of caffenine. i headed over to this little coffee place right by where we live and since it was a hot day, i asked for iced coffee. to my suprise... the guy whips out the ice cream, puts a scoop in with a shot of coffee. apparently "iced coffee" here means coffee flavored ice cream. it was odd, delicious, but odd.

since bumming around sydeny there are other australian habits that are a bit odd. here are some more words we have learned since being here... "heaps, mate, ducking up (which means heading over), jumper (as opposed to a hoodie), and oy! (to get someone's attention). it is definitely different but a lot of fun to try to incorporate into everyday talk.

okay now for updates from the week!
class this week was good. i had my first china in world history class and i am the only american! after my teacher found this out, he felt compelled to call on me more... which got a little old... it was also pretty interesting and i think going to be a good class. i also found out that ian thorpe (who apparently is the Australian michael phelps) is in my drugs across cultures class! so i think tomorrow i am going to try to sit by him. some of my new aussie friends say they are going to come to my class just to get a glimpse of him. haha.
thursday, marie, kaitlin, and i sat down and put together our first trip! we are going to melbourne in less than two weeks! it is, i believe, australia's second biggest city and according to lots of australians, a ton of fun. we are only going to go for two nights to save our money and such but i think it will be quite the adventure. can't wait!
friday, we went back to manly beach. it is honestly gorgeous there. i tried my first phalafel kebab because i was not eating meat because of friday, and it was sooo gross. i couldn't even get any of the boys to eat it. the kebabs here are delicious too, so it was a huge let down. we also did a little shopping around the area and marie and jill both got new posters! friday night, we all went over to beth's apartment for a party. everyone had partners and dressed as a theme- kaitlin and i did spanish theme, marie and erin were surfer girls, beth and kim were a tree and a tree hugger... etc. it was hilarious and a good time!
saturday was our main event!! mardi gras in the city!! the mardi gras parade here is the gay pride theme and quite the sights. they estimated about half a million people there and they were not messing around. the parade didn't start until 7:45 at night but because of the big crowd, we left around 3:30 to get down there. even then we still had trouble seeing the parade and tried to climb a tree but failed ... so instead, thanks to marie's pushing, we got up front enough to be able to see when the parade finally started. and thank god we did! all the floats and the people were nothing like the parades in the US... there was no shame. people were dancing and all in all we had a blast! we went with our new australian friends, nicola and morgan, who were also going to the parade for the first time. we all had so much fun dancing and singing along in the crowd that by the time it was over it was definitely time for bed.

all in all it was a solid week. i can't believe on tuesday we will have been here for a whole month!! the time is honestly FLYING by and we are lovin every minute of it. i am hoping as school picks up it will start to slow down a little but for the time being, we are just soaking it all in!

this week= we are doing bondi beach on friday (no worries, we will avoid the sharks) and maybe the blue mountains!

Cheers!