Euro Trip Coming Soon :)

Hey All,

Skilz and I will be EU-bound in less than a month! We're doing the whole Italy, Germany, Amsterdam, France, Switzerland thing. We are going to act like we are 20 again and hostel it up. Hostel II was on TV tonight, hope that wasn't a sign of bad things to come in hostel-land.

We have our flights booked, train passes bought, and a few hostels reserved. A bit more planning and we are ready to go. The hardest thing will probably be packing..ha!

Hope to find time to update my blog on our trip.

Peace homies.

Finally!!!!!

I remembered my old password!!! I've desperately tried (with NO help from blogspot) from time to time over the last year or two to remember my password...and it finally hit me tonight (after looking through old hotmail emails searching for any hint of what an old password might be), I wrote my passwords down!!! I know you aren't supposed to do that, but thank the lord I did! I am currently planning a long-awaited trip and will maybe start blogging again once (if) its underway.

Just wanted to tell someone how happy I was to remember my old password!

Peace.

On the road again.

Hey everyone, I'm a terrible person and haven't updated in forever. So much has happened. School is out and finals went pretty good actually...ask me again when I get my grades. It was really hard to leave everyone. Michelle and I both made a bunch of really good friends who we hope to see again. We always have email though. I only have 4 min left so I'll make this quick. So we left and started the oz bus again. It was bought by adventure tours and it alot better now. Smaller groups and more things included, such as we got to go scootering...very cool, lawn bowling...we always wanted to do that, and in the morning we get to go kayaking in the ocean...how cool is that? We are having a great time but will be ready to get home. I will add more later and fill in some of the details. Miss everyone and see y'all soon. Love, hilary

Michelle climbing the glass mountains 

View from Indian Head on Fraser Island...our fav part of Australia!! 

Hilary, Brit, Missy, Sara and Michelle at O'Malleys in Brisbane before the rugby game. 

Hilary and Michelle in Brisbane...right before we accidentally got on the wrong ferry, but luckily we made it back just in time. 

Hilary and the Big Pinnapple 

Michelle IN the big pinnapple 

Update

Hey everyone,
It has been awhile again. There isn't anything too exciting to write about, so I'll see what I can come up with. We are sadly, nearing the end. A little over a month to go, I can't believe it! It seems like we just got here. We travel up north to Cairns before we leave. We are finishing our Oz Experience bus trip. We hope to go scuba diving and sailing. We'll see how much money we have when we get there I guess. We both vowed not to take out any more money until we leave...we'll see how that works out.

On a good note, it has finally stopped raining. Although, on those rainy days Michelle and I had fun making different food items. Michelle likes to just make up recipies and surprisingly enough, most of them have turned out very good. She just tells me what to put in and how much. Some stuff we've made on those rainy days include, brownies, lemon cake, bread, granola, choc-chip cookies (they don't turn out very good if you don't have enough sugar), bran muffins, scones, and today we made pikelets. They are just like little pancakes with more sugar and milk. Nick told us they are a pretty popular Australian breakfast food. You can eat them with ice cream, with jam and whipped cream, or maple syrup or just about anything actually. We can get pretty bored around here sometimes, so we have to keep ourselves busy.

What we should be doing is homework. Both Michelle and I have a lot of it in the next 2 weeks. I think I will get to know the library a little better in a day or two. We have over 20 days to schedule and take our finals and the nice people that they are, schedules 2 of my finals on the same day...ugh. All I can say is I can't wait until it is over with!!

We both will be ready to leave, but of course we will dearly miss Australia and all the people we've met here and on our travels. We've come across people from many different cultures and have learned alot about them and their way of life. This is truely a great experience and we are very grateful for it. Hopefully you've all gotten a little taste of it by reading this blog...

Oh, we saw Kingdom of Heaven for $5.40. It was good.

Home remedy for cold sores: Nail polish remover. Apply with Q-tip. Ask Michelle if it worked!!

Well better go before Michelle sees what I wrote. Love ya and miss ya all!

Hilary and Michelle

Rugby game and Surfers and other stuff

Hey,

Well here I am again, sitting in the library waiting for the rain to stop so I can walk home in mostly dry clothes.

So, last weekend we went to a Rugby game in Brisbane. The kangaroos (Aus) vs the kiwis (NZ). Australia won. The game was fun but we didn't figure it out until the second half and we still didn't know much about it. It was fun though.

That night we stayed in Brisbane with a bunch of girls from the Fargo/Grand Forks area. In the morning, Michelle, Sara, Missy (Sara's roommate) and I took a train to the Gold Coast and eventually to Surfer's Paradise. We got stranded in some little town for like an hour because there was something wrong with the tracks. We finally got to Surfers and checked into our hotel. It was a really nice place, good job Sara for picking out a great place. Sara, Missy and I went into a Ripley Believe It or Not! It was great! We stood next to the tallest man, the fattest woman, Sara almost shit her pants when attempting to touch a jewel that wasn't even real, and got tricked by fake people taking a picture....long story.

We then found a pizza hut and had to go. It mad us feel a little like home. We went into the hottub before going out...actually it was more like a luke-warm tub. So, we went to this popular place called Melba's, which was a lot of fun. I forgot to mention, we went to Surfers for the Uni games. We each knew some people from USC participating in the games. We didn't actually watch much but met up with them later in the night. The next morning, we all had this bright idea to go out for all-you-can-eat pancakes. Boy they sounded good but that early in the morning after a late night didn't set too well with most of us. The pancakes were great despite. We got on the train and had to change trains in Caboolture, a normal thing. Well, the train we were supposed to transfer to didn't come for another 2 hours. So, 6 girls, stuck in Caboolture (Keith Urban's hometown) for 2 hours and nothing to do on a Sunday when all we want to do is get home. So, besides the little layover we had, all in all, it was a great trip and got us out of
sippy downs.

Well, I might as well update to date this time. Last Friday Michelle and I went to the beach and met Becca there. Turned out to be a great beach day!! Saturday, we went with the University to Brisbane. We just basically checked out Southbank. There was a big festival with shops and food, in celebration of Buddha's Birthday...which I am not sure of the occasion. We checked out the man-made beach or lagoon as some prefer to call it. We took the city cat (boat) over the river to get to the central part of Brisbane. On the way back, it was just Michelle and I and we were too lazy to walk the bridge back so we decided to try to take the boat back. Well as soon as we got on, we realized it wasn't going to direction we wanted it to go. oops. So, 45 minutes later and just in time for our 2:30 departure out of Brisbane, the boat was back at where we needed to be dropped off. It was a close one, fun trip around the city though.

Sunday, Michelle and I went to the big pinnaple. It is just a giant pinnaple in the middle of nowhere, and had a surprisingly good gift shop...you know I checked that out...a couple of times. You could actually go up the pinnapple by stairs. It was pretty neat. There was a macedamia nut factory right next to it but we wouldn't fork over the $8 to take the tour. We did buy some nuts though. Oh and we had a banana split there too. yeah, we shared it, it was huge and really good. I keep saying I'll post pics, so hopefully I follow through this time.

Yesterday, Monday it was Labour Day. Michelle and I rented the Notebook and watched it last night on my computer. It was a great movie...I'm sure you've all seen it by now. Today I had class and yeah...it is raining again. Oh, and the exterminator is coming again. They have been here like a dozen times...I think it is because Michelle and I complain all the time...haha.

Well I better get going...I have to pay rent before the office closes. Their hours are 10:00-3:30, Mon-Fri...they are too lazy to stay open any later.

Miss and love everyone reading this...

hilary

Fraser Island

Hey everyone,

It has been so long I almost forgot my username and password for this thing. My mom also informed me that April 12th was my last update. I was for sure someone else would get on me for that, but no one did...

Well, a few weekends ago we went to Fraser Island. It is the largest sand island in the world and was only about 2 hours away. Michelle and I went with all international students. There are no roads on the island, just beaches...we had to transfer into a four-wheel drive bus and it just drove on the beach!! They warned us about looking for cars because you can't hear them coming over the sound of the waves. It was a little bumpy at times but a really fun experience. We first went to Lake Wabby. We had to walk what seemed like forever over sand dunes to get to the lake. We rolled down a big dune into the water, getting sand in crevices I didn't know I had. The lake was a really beautiful green color. In the afternoon we went to Indian Head. It was a rock shaped like an...you guessed it...an Indian Head. The view was amazing. We got some great pics! We stopped at the wreckage of a desserted ship...Michelle will have to fill in the details, as she had a long chat with the tour guides.
The next morning we got up early and went to Lake McKenzie. It is 10 meters deep (according to Sara's blog) and you can see to the bottom. It was sooo beautiful. We were there over an hour and I could've spent all day there. The aboriginals had great skin, hair and teeth and was previously attributed to their diet. It was later found that the water and sand of Lake McKenzie was what was making their skin to great. We spread the sand over us and put it in our hair, which left our hair feeling super solf. Michelle brushed her teeth with the sand and supposedly her teeth felt cleaner. Right after leaving Lake McKenzie is started raining, so we passed on the rainforest walk. We were all ready to get home. We were gone only 2 days but they really packed those days full and the nap on the way home was a much needed one.

Well, I'm all computered out (if that is a word) and I will update again soon and tell you about the Rugby game and our trip to Surfer's Paradise. Hope everyone is good, great and wonderful.

Miss ya all.

love, hilary

Another Rainy Tuesday.

Hey everyone,

How are you guys? It has been a while since I've updated. Not too much has happened. We luckily got a bus out of Byron and on to Brisbane. I think we took the last 3 seats. We took a train from Brisbane and will start the rest of our trip in June in Brisbane.

Michelle celebrated her 20th birthday on the 7th. I made her a cake and she didn't see much of it, as Bryan, JP and Matt pretty much devoured it...must've been good. Anyways, we went to Motown for cheap burgers and drinks. Michelle got a free shot with Absinth in it and of course it was a flaming shot so that made it much cooler. We went swimming afterwards (Michelle insisted on it) and then we went to a dancing club which is always way too busy and you can't walk through it without having a drink spilled on you or spilling a drink on someone else. Needless to say, we didn't stay too long.

On Saturday we took advantage of another one of those free international student trips. This time we went to Eumundi Markets, watched an aboriginal show, learned to throw boomerangs and play the digeridoo, and made a final stop in Noosa. We left at 7:30 in the morn and got back at around 5:00, so it was a long day and we took a few naps on the bus ride.

So, ever since we've gotten back from vacation it has been raining. Literally, it has rained everyday but one. Believe us, that one day we were definitely outside enjoying the weather. This weekend we go to Fraser Island, which is the largest all-sand island. We are really hoping for good weather. I'll make sure Michelle doesn't do anymore rain dancing. I'm sure I'll have something more interesting to talk about when I get back from Fraser.

Well, I'll write more later if I think of anything good. Hope everyone is going great!! Love ya and miss ya all.

hilary