So I bought this book yesterday called "Things Bogans Like", essentially it's like the book "Stuff White People Like" only for australia. Regardless, I am super excited to start reading it. Books here are super expensive, borders was selling it for $40, but alas, with my clever shopping skills I got it for a mere $24 with free shipping. What a find. Bogans have been everywhere in the past couple of days with the Gold Coast 600, a race car event of the sorts with bands playing at night. "Race by day and Rock by night". It brought the bogans out in full swing. This was not a weekend to be spent in surfers, although there never really is a weekend to be spent in surfers. But alas, I shall now take the time to describe how australians speak.

Their favorite words include, but are not limited to, heaps, reckon, bogan, eh (not to be confused with canadians). Sunnies=sunglasses, doona=comforter, jumper=sweatshirt, singlet=tank top, they refer to pots and pans as cookery, silverware is cutlery, bathers=swimsuit, a fillet is pronounced with the t, nap=kipper, they enjoy saying they will "have a think" or "have a sleep", liqueur stores are bottle shops. Overall australian speak is way more fun than american speak.

I went for a run the other day along a path I usually run on, and it had been raining for the previous several days. I'm running along, rocking out to my music when all of a sudden a blue tongued lizard runs out in front of me. Now, blue tongued lizards are not large, maybe a foot long, but are they dangerous? Well i have no idea. So of course it scares the crap out of me and i have a little freak out, all by myself, on this path. It's a good thing i was all by myself or i may not have any friends at the moment. But as it was running across the path it turns its nasty blueish head to look at me and slithers its bright blue tongue at me and then continues on. It was most distressing. But i pressed on.

The tongue has not been colored in, it is literally bright blue.

Meaghan, Kate, and I went for a walk about a week ago, and it was chilly in the shade so we switched up our normal routine and decided to go for a walk through some of the nearby neighborhoods. 1. so we could stay in the sun and get our bronze on, and 2. to creep on some of the houses/people. On our way back we decided to follow a path through the woods that would take us back to the village. The path ended. We had to bush walk it back to the village. As we're walking Kate says that we should make a lot of noise so the snakes don't come out. Excuse me?! So in a span of a few days i had my first aussie wildlife encounter and i had myself a nice bush walk. How very aussie of me.

It's the last week of classes over here. crazy, i know. But no fears, i'm not completely done until the 18th when i have my only final exam. Lame. But meaghan and i will be venturing to sydney next monday where we shall explore the Blue Mountains among other things. And! I'm officially going to New Zealand! It's official, the 21-27 i'll be an unofficial Kiwi (New Zealander). I'm going bungy jumping off the Auckland Bridge, a 40 meter jump, and they dip you in the water! It's all so exciting. We're doing it on Thanksgiving as well. So when i'm asked what i did for thanksgiving i can say "well i went bungy jumping off the auckland bridge." Who gets to say that?

The thing about kitchens without ovens. Creative cooking, I like to call it. We like to refer to our microwave as a "moven". It supposedly has an oven setting, but whether this is a true "oven" setting is questionable. It only heats to 100 degrees, which, if you've ever cooked anything in your life you know 100 degrees won't get you very far. So what do we do? We improvise. This past weekend we had two lovely family dinners. Lasagna was cooked in the "moven", I discovered there is such a thing as brocciflower (a broccoli/cauliflower hybrid, apparently it's brocciflower season), we indulged ourselves in a roast, which could be smelled from down the sidewalk, gravy was made from a bag, and cheese sauce was served out of a tupperware container. Now, these weren't dinners to write home about (although I did) but for broke college students without a real functional oven, it was the best thing I've had since I've been here that's been cooked in a village kitchen. I don't know if it's that they don't trust us with ovens, because they are very serious about their fire safety. In the first week we were told maybe 10 times that if you set the fire alarm off you have 30 seconds to press the "oops i set off the fire alarm" switch and then you have 2 minutes to clear the apartment of smoke before they call the fire brigade and charge you $1000. And no one wants that. Especially now that the exchange rate is no longer in my favor. But that's a whole other story.

In other news, it appears that I will be New Zealand bound the last week in November! If all goes according to plan (and mommy and daddy say yes) I will be flying into Christchurch (the south island), spending a few days there, and then flying to the north island to Auckland and spending a few days there. Other than that not much has been happening around here. It's been raining essentially since we got back from the Whitsundays. I thought I left Ithaca, but apparently it's weather came with me. Finals are coming up, so everyone has finals fever. Although it is must less severe here than back home. I really could care less about them considering I only have one final. If you can even really call it that. Also, the release of Harry Potter in australia is before its release in the states. And I will be seeing it at midnight.