Coming to a close.

Hello all,
I just wanted to start by saying thanks everybody who has followed me on this journey and I am so thankful! I would like to give one that update, because I now have only 9 days ahead of me before I start my journey back home! :) I am so excited!

Birthday in Australia- It was so weird not being with my family for my birthday... but now that I am 20 I feel as if I should get use to the thought of not being with them as I start my life and find myself in new places instead of in lowell every year for my birthday (hopefully). For all who wished me a happy birthday, thank you! If you were wondering about my day, here it is: I woke up at 8am skyped for 2 hours, went back to sleep until 11am.. GOT FLOWERS, skyped another 2 hours, showered, ate lunch, went to classes, came home ate, got ready and met up with my friends at Max Brenners for some chocolate pizza, then went to the library! It was a pretty layed back birthday but I still enjoyed myself none the less. My beautiful flowers were from randy and a package from my wonderful parents.
The real way I celebrated my birthday was really celebrating the last day of being a teenager, so what I do best I did some exploring!
 I woke up at the crack of dawn on the 27th of may and headed out to do a 6 hour coastal walk! I packed a lunch, camera, towel, bathing suit and I was on my way! I absolutely had the best time and loved every second of it! I ended the day with some wine, cheese, and a good friend watching the sunset on the harbour bridge and the opera house. It will be a day I will always remember to say the least!

For my birthday my roommates surprised me and got me an Australian flag that everybody at my birthday party got to sign! I am so in love with it and now I will get to hang it in my room when I get home/ my apartment at school. It will always be an awesome memory! I am so thankful I have such wonderful roommates!

Good news everyone! I looks like I am going to pass all my classes! I am done with 3 out of 4 of my classes & I calculated it and I only have to get an 17% on my final exam for my last class to pass the class! YAY! I was VERY busy finishing up papers, presentations, and debates. To give you some sort of how busy I was: in the last 4 weeks I had 7 papers, 2 presentations, and a debate. It was a CRAZY 4 weeks. Now that, that nonsense is over with I can sit relax and enjoy my last week in AUSTRALIA!

For the ending class for my Aboriginal Australian studies they had aboriginal students come in and do a dance for the class. It was really cool to see people within the school of Macquarie that are aboriginal and are proud of who they are and where they came from. They got to talk for alil bit about where they came from, what tribe, and what kind of dances they do. I have learned alot from this class that I wouldn't have even thought about before & I am so glad I took this interesting class. In the class we went over how the aboriginal lived before the europeans came, and then how they have been treated since they came. It is crazy the amount of mistreatment they still endure today.

Vivid Sydney is DONE- saddly, but the day before I left for Melbourne I got to go see this musical fountain that I got some pretty cool pictures of..

Some travels- I was suppose to do an 11-day travel up the east coast, but plans changed 4 days before we were suppose to leave.. so I decided to travel to the city of Melbourne (pronounced MEL-BIN) not specifically but sounds that way in an Australian accent. I was originally going to travel alone for 5 days, but at the last minute my friend from grand valley joined me! (when I say last minute I mean he booked everything the night before and we left in the morning!)
We stayed in a hostel, which is like a place to stay for cheep you get a bed with fresh sheets and shower facilities. I was in one big room with 16 beds and mixed gender room. It honestly felt like a hospital room. The first night I woke up to someone puking in their bed into a plastic bag... so that was an experience. Other than that it was dirty and I learned people literally live in hostels for months at a time.

What I did in Melbourne: explored the city, saw azac memorial, saw wild penguins, beach houses that costs 200,000 to own, met some nice people from england, met up with a girl that graduated from lowell that has lived in Melbourne for 8 months, shopped, looked at amazing street art, watched a Rugby game at the best british pub in australia, went to victoria markets, took a tour bus around the city, saw a wild koala that i could get 1 ft from, and went on the great ocean road! To say the least I was exhausted by the time I got back. All my days were fun filled and I really enjoyed my time there!

Melboune is the cultural capital of Australia and everyone says Melboune is a place to live while Sydney is a place to visit. I am still in love with Sydney, but I think that is because I love it being surrounded with water. Melboune kinda remind me of Grand Rapids also by its architecture and all around look and feel of the place.

Story- My friend that came with me (Connor) & I on our first day in Melbourne were looking for these famous beach houses. I wanted to go to these so badly because one of my friends that visited Melbourne had pictures of them and they looked so cool! So we went on an adventure one day to find them! At first our plan was to ride bikes to this beach, then we got to a bike shop and they were closed that monday because of the Queens birthday (yes Australians are still part of the commonwealth so they everyone gets that day off of work). So that plan was scratched, then we tried walking in and about an hour into walking we wanted to ask someone how much longer we had.. we had about another 3 hours walk ahead of us if we wanted to walk. So then we took a cab which costs us $20, I just ASSUMED that the cab driver would know where these houses were and he said he did, so he dropped us off on the side of a road and told us the houses were on the otherside of the road and down by the beach. We thanked him and went off. We went down to the beach... no beach houses. We just again assumed that he did not drive us far enough, so again we started walking.. about 20 min into the walk we ran into someone and asked them if we were going the right way. We were not, but then she offered us a ride to the houses. AND OF CORSE we took it because as I have learned you always take rides from strangers in Australia... ha no. She seemed like a very nice lady and had a dog that we got to cuddle and play with.. so i guess that makes me trust people? Guess so because she took us right where we needed to go. FYI I would have never done this in America and would have been alot more cautious. Oh well we got to where we wanted to go! it was and ADVENTURE

List
-I love lamb
-When I get home I have 5 FULL days to enjoy my summer before I start summer school at GRCC :/
- There is free alcohol on my flight home
-I am scared everything is not going to fit in my suit case... we will see
-  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNEeq5qGh8I
-Melbourne has the second largest greek population in the world following Athens.
-Australians drive on the left side (not sure if I have said that before) I also have drove my friends car on the other side... very slowly but I did it!
-Australia has over 7,000 beaches

I am so excited to come home! I am trying to enjoy my last days by hiking, exploring the city as much as possible, spending time with friends and enjoy the drinking age one last time before I go another 11 months without being legal to drink!

Love always,
ALLLLY