March 18

Cheddar cheese isn’t orange and it tastes bad too. My grilled cheese tasted like Styrofoam yesterday.
There’s no such thing as ketchup here- it’s tomato sauce.
I’m seriously missing miracle whip.
But I’m in fruit heaven. There’s a fruit stand on every other block and it is incredibly delicious. (Melissa- this is your dream country. It’s like Whole Foods free tasters times 10)
I find weird things with this country every day. For instance, there is a particular bird that sounds like a choking baby. It’s quite frightening because sometimes I forget and start looking for the choking/wailing baby and then I realize it’s those annoying birds again. Also, the sand at the beaches in this country makes noise when you walk on it. I’ve never seen anything like it but the sand squeaks underneath your feet. It is super cool; I get a kick out of it every time.

What a crazy weekend to update you about! As of last Wednesday night, I am officially a part of the rock climbing club at my school. I went climbing at the indoor wall and was totally sore the next day. But I really liked it so I signed up for a day trip to the mountains in order to do REAL mountain climbing!! So, Sat morning I work up at 6am and was on the mountain by 11. I couldn’t believe they were just going to throw me on the mountain and make me fend for myself. I had no idea what I was doing and they didn’t exactly teach me. It was more of a “figure it out as you go along” kind of thing. Well the end of the story is that I made it!! I climbed my first rock all the way to the top with only minor bleeding on my elbow, haha. During the course of the day I made 5 climbs, 3 of which I made to the top. It was so incredibly hard; I don’t know how I did it. But I’m paying for it now with the amount of scrapes and bruises all over my arms and legs. That night, I went to an Aussie house party. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but there are these 2 Aussie boys who studied abroad at UT my freshman year. A week after I’d been here, I ran into them at the film festival. Since then, they’ve really been taking care of us and showing us around. They are part of the Jewish Aussie bubble and I knew this right away. But as I was walking to the party, I knew I was getting close when someone on the street goes “Sheket b'vakasha, hey!” And sure enough, the next house was where the party was. I thought that was really humorous.

Sunday I spent recuperating… otherwise known as relaxing on the beach. It has been so unbelievably beautiful lately. We’ve had about 8 days straight of cloudless skies. I’m in love. I could really get used to this. Monday, (no school on Mondays, whoahah) I went on a surfing day trip. It was 9 of us crammed into an old van. There were a few Swedes, an English guy, Canadian couple, a Brazilian guy, and then me. I love being surrounded by all these different people. Thankfully, everyone was trying surfing for the first time so I didn’t make that big of a fool of myself. The surf instructor was a beautiful blond Aussie boy so most people paid close attention to his lessons (most people as in just me). We were given 2 classes in the beginning of the day and everyone was able to stand up before we went to lunch! I had my fair share of wipeouts but I also caught a few waves!! I was so proud of myself. Granted, we learned on like one foot waves, but still! At the beaches I go to, the waves are usually around 6 feet so I don’t think I’m ready for that yet, but at least I can consider myself a real surfer chick now. I also was left with a wicked ugly wetsuit tan. And I have officially been stung by a jellyfish. There were these baby jellyfish that look like a blob of clear jelly and I got stung a few times. Thankfully, they aren’t the painful kind- they just feel like someone is pinching you for a second. After all the wipeouts, jellyfish, and climbing scrapes, my skin felt totally raw and the salt water wasn’t helping. I felt like I got beat up this weekend with all my cuts and bruises. But it was worth it!!!
I didn’t get to celebrate the crazy St Patty’s day shenanigans because I was so exhausted by this point. But I am going on my field trip later today to an Aboriginal school -should be very interesting. That’s all for now… I should probably start paying attention to class. Hehehe