Christmas Plans

This week my boyfriend's parents invited us to join them on a trip to Thailand over the Christmas/New Year holidays. I am way too excited for my own good. The message I wanted to share with my fellow international students was that if for whatever reason you can't go home for the holidays, go on vacation!

For me it's about 1300 dollars just for the flights to go home to New Mexico, but its only 400 to go to Bangkok. Plus I wont have to deal with massive time differences! In my excited state I have been doing a lot of research on Thailand and it seems very affordable in terms of travel, accommodation, food and shopping. (yay!) While I was looking at flights I noticed there are also very reasonable flights to Bali along with a few other places. Why go home when you can go somewhere you have never been before?

All of my traveling has been kept to North America, Europe, and Australia so I am looking forward to the opportunity of experiences in a very unique culture.

I hope everyone is either getting their final assignments in order or has their sights set on the end of this term. Only four more weeks so use your time wisely!

Summer Festivals

This week I have been booking my camping on Stradbroke Island for the Island Vibes Festival this year. I can not reccommend attending a music festival during your stay enough. Hands down, no questions asked, Island Vibes was one of the best weekends of my entire life. There are many festivals spread out all over the country, some of the most popular are :

Sound Wave
Big Day Out
Woodford
Meredith

However I know that Yepoon is having a cultural festival in September and lots of towns have similar ones. Island Vibes is the only one that I have attended so far. Its held over the last weekend in October on Stradbroke Island which is an absolutely beautiful spot. We camped right next to the beach and went swimming every morning and spent all night listening to amazing live bands. Most of the music is Reggae/Islander so it makes for a really calm atmosphere and the people that I met were very friendly, i dont recall seeing a single fight. Even if you cant make it to a music festival, John Butler Trio and Blue King Brown are playing in Rockhampton soon as well as Agnes and Julia Stone. Make a night of it and go have some fun!

Over that last few months, I have noticed that every day I find something new that I didn't used to do. I think that I am actually becoming more Australian. Now don't get me wrong, I will definitely not be indulging in a Vegemite sandwich any time soon but slowly the little things are starting to creep up on me.

When I went home to America for the holidays last year, my friends and family were really surprised that my American accent was still intact. I always felt it would be really fake for me to come back after only six months and have picked up an accent, because I am not Australian. However since I have come back here and started working in a restaurant, I have found it easier to just submit to the Australian pronunciations of most words like Basil, Cilantro (Coriander), Bell Peppers (Capsicum), etc. But with those changes more of the Australian language has been added into my vocabulary. Recently, "G'Day" slipped out in conversation without me even realizing it. And yesterday I said "aye". Never did I think I would end up integrating myself in that sense. Not that I am opposed to integration at all, I have accepted everything that Australia has offered me with open arms. However, even though both countries speak English, the language is still different and my language was something I could hold onto from home.

Week 5

Hey readers,

So we are currently in week 5 of term 2 and that means that next week is break! woo-hoo! Personally I will be using this opportunity to catch up on some homework and get some extra hours in at work. However this coming week is the perfect opportunity for you to get out of your current city and get to see a little more of the country.

Last year four other exchange students and myself took a trip to Sydney for a week. I decided to go like two days before we left but we had an absolute blast! Instead of staying in hotels I would recommend staying in backpackers. These are great places to meet people who are also travelling in Australia which means you are going to find a lot of people who have something in common with you! Also, we stayed at the Great Aussie Backpackers and they gave us a booklet full of coupons to spend on everything from food to skydiving. That really helped us so we could save money for more important things...

If you don't have the time or money to go too far away, remember that Yeppoon and Great Keppel Island are only a bus ride away. I recently went camping at Agnes Waters which is also really close. It is one of the only beaches that has surf-able waves and I noticed that you can sign up for lessons.

There are still museums and things to see around Rockhampton as well so there is no reason why anyone should have to spend their break totally bored.

Wishing you all the best,

Mallory