I miss you.

It's been almost two months since I left Australia and I feel as if I am stuck in time. I am no longer in Australia but I am not back at school yet which is causing me to feel lost and alone. I don't have my support system of almost 100 Australian people that I knew in Warnie and I am not back in my old groove with my long time friends at Iowa State.

Sometimes when I'm bored, I find myself reading through my blog or looking through my pictures on my phone from Australia and I feel a sinking feeling in my stomach. You know when you're in a public place and someone says "I have something to tell you" and you feel like your stomach has disappeared and all of your organs are sloshing around and your skin is tingling? That's how I feel when I look through the pictures and realise that it has all happened already and all of my friends are 9576.2 miles/15411.4 km (yes, I googled it) away and there's a 14 hour time difference.

I wake up to their crazy, drunken, night out Snapchats and go to sleep when they are rolling out of bed hungover to go to class. Basically I just want to say that I miss you all so much. I wish I was back there, living with all my old housemates and everything was back to how it was. I know now that if, no, when I come back to visit, nothing will be the same as it was in those four months I was there and that's what scares me the most.

I miss you all more than words can do justice and there are too many of you to tell you individually, so this is to all you crazy Aussies on res, off res, my fellow exchange students, I miss you.

Last Beach Day

Exhibit A: The first slot machine that I've ever played, a.k.a. the first time I've ever "gambled." And, naturally, I won nothing. 

On Saturday, Sarah, her mum, and I drove to the Mornington Peninsula, where I got to see the ocean for the last time in Aus. It was beautiful, naturally. We saw some surfers who waved at us with no protests from me ;) 

I found a starfish in one of the tide pools ^^^^^

We shared our lunch with a friendly little magpie at our table. 

We stopped by the Quarantine area where refugees and immigrants were kept if they had any contagious diseases like small pox or dysentery. All of their clothes and possessions were burned to prevent the spreading of the diseases and the people were kept quarantined in the hospitals on the peninsula. I think that they may have been haunted...who wants to spend the night in one with me?

We stopped off for some hot cocoa during the sunset, which was, as always, beautiful.

Once home, we Master Cheffed some homemade pizzas and watched movies.