Tara's Study Abroad ExTaraGanza in Australia

Wednesday the 20th I emailed Mom and cleaned my bathroom. It was gross. I did some reading and tried to do some other work, then I went with my roommate Glenis and her boyfriend Braley to one of their friend's house to watch Psycho on Braley's projector. It was a pretty good movie, but I was so tried i fell asleep right in the middle for about 15 minutes or so. Oops. I went straight to bed after it was over; I need to start getting a decent amount of sleep from now on!

Thursday I went to all my classes and I had another allergy attack in my Kid it lecture. I swear, every time I'm in that room I have one. There was must be a fan or something in there that irritates my dumb nose...well my nose is cute now that it has jewelry on it, but...haha just kidding. I was about to be productive later on, but then I got a surprise visit from one of my favorite Aussies and we hung out for awhile. Instead of going out like a normal person, I stayed in and tried to get some work done and write on here to catch up since I was falling so far behind. It has been pouring rain all week and isn't supposed to clear up until Tuesday of next week. Eew. It is Oz's Fall, so I guess that's to be expected, but I still don't like so much rain! It's funny, too, because Sydney weather is so unpredictable. One minute it'll be clear as day outside, then the next it will be pouring rain. There is no such thing as a sprinkle of rain here; it's all or nothing, clear or downpour. I'm really regretting not packing an umbrella instead of an extra shirt or two... There was been lots of flooding going on lately, too, especially in the Gold Coast. I went there just in time! Aussies wonder why there's all this flooding going on, yet they don't have many sewers and the rain just puddles instead of draining down somewhere; it has nowhere to go. I guess in one of the dams here we've gotten more rain in a few days than they've had all year, so it's overflowing. Crazy Sydney weather.

Friday the 22nd I really don't remember what I did all day. Weird. But that night I went to Cub eX's End of the Semester party, which was a lot of fun! It was Emergency themed, so nurses, police, secret agents, etc. i dressed up as a sheriff and made my own badge and everything. Somehow I acquired a play gun from someone while I was there at the Greenwood Hotel in North Sydney. We each got two free drinks, then we ate really good food, then stayed until Happy Hour ended before leaving for a place called Side Bar. That was fun, too. We all got our dance on and there was this one older dude who was SO into the music and his wacky moves; it was hilarious. Each of us girls took turns having a laugh dancing with him for a few seconds. It got crazy and we ended up getting back in the Village pretty late. My friend Katie got locked out of her place, so she stayed with me for the night so she wouldn't have to call security and get charged $10 for getting into her apartment.

Saturday I woke up ready and rearin' to go! I should've been tired, but I was just so excited for the Lady Gaga/ Pussycat Dolls concert that night that I was almost hyper. Twin fb me and said that she still hadn't received the tickets yet, so that made me really nervous and I started to freak out a little bit. I had been looking forward to this concert fro two months, so if I didn't get to go, I was going to be devastated because I love Lady G. It was a huge mess and took a few hours to figure out, but we finally did. Twin was charged for the tickets and the money was taken out of her account, we just didn't get the actual tickets, so we had to get them when we arrived at Acer Arena in Olympic Park. After we got that straightened out, Twin, her friend from back home and I went to the mall because I needed credit for my phone and they needed to get some groceries at Wooley's (ha- i started typing Willie's, the grocery store in Morris...aw good ol' MoTown). After that I showered and went over to Maeve's for some tacos before getting ready and leaving the Village a little late, by 6:20pm. The group consisted of Twin, Maeve, Erin, Bethany, Baby Cheeks, and I, so i knew it was going to be a good night! Since we left the Village late, we weren't going to get there on time at 7:30pm, so we decided to cab it for the last 15 minutes or so. By the time we got there and got our tickets, we heard the DJ stop and Lady Gaga enter the stage. We all freaked out and ran up the stairs to try and find our seats asap. I was a friggen track star- i haven't run that much in awhile, but for Lady G, I did it and I was leading the pack. She opened with "Paparazzi," Nikki's fav, so even though it was super early in MN, I called her so she could hear (love you, sis!). I had cleared out my whole memory on my camera and charged it up before I left so i could take lots of video. Since Lady G opened for PCD, she only played five songs, but I was almost out of memory by the time she was done. She is amazing! and weird, but funny, too. PCD was good, too, but I was mostly excited to see GaGa. This concert couldn't have come at a better time, because for my Music class, one of our assignments was to see a live performance and write a paper on it. Perfect.

After the concert we decided it might be best to cab it to the city (it was a fellow Australearner's 21st) instead of taking the train. Well we ended up waiting a good hour for a cab and it was freezing out! We almost eft our line to hop on a train, but then some people who had just joined the line said they just came from the train station and it was so overcrowded that no one was really moving. Even the security guards left us. They didn't do their job of flagging down taxis like they were supposed to, then they turned off their lighter things and said, "Well, you're all on your own now. Good night" and walked away. They said that more taxis were coming, but none did. Thanks security. Big help... Eventually a big bug cab pulled up and a bunch of people started talking toward it when the driver asked where they were going. They said Parramatta or something, and the driver turned them away because he needed to go to the city. He asked if anyone else needed to go to the city, and us girls ran up to the cab and jumped in. About time! Haha. It was an expensive ride, but at that point I really didn't care because I was cold and just wanted to get put of there.

We arrived at the Lowenbrau, a German Bar in The Rocks, at about 12:15am. It was fun; they play all funny music like "Love Shack" and the "Grease" Soundtrack. I went to the bathroom and somehow got to talking tot his girl who fell in love with me once she found out I was not only American, but a Minnesotan. She LOVED my accent. Haha it was really funny, actually. There were a lot of creepers there, though. Once i went upstairs and started dancing with the group, this guy in a green shirt pinched my ass. I turned around straightaway and gave him the dirtiest look. He laughed and I turned to Nick, this huge kid from Australearn (who actually tackled and knocked a guy unconscious when he broke into his apartment and tried to steal his TV), and told him. He took one look at the guy and got in between us. The guy in the green shirt looked kinda scared and taken aback, then left right away. Ha. Serves him right. all around, it was a pretty good night, though. I didn't get back to the Village until really late since we didn't get there until late.

So all around it was a great week, despite all the rain. I really should invest in an umbrella... but hey, life's not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain! :O)