Finally in Oz...

After quite a trip... delayed, missed flights, turned away, let known at the last minute that I needed a visa... my goodness, it felt like we would never get here...but finally, here we are.

No time to post too much now...but a few piccies....

Here I am with beautiful, beautiful Mere!!! She's putting us up for two days (instead of three because we missed our dang flight!) here in Sydney, before we fly off to Melbourne....

(Isn't she cute>?!?!?!?)

And now....how lucky am I to meet one of Australia's premiere actors on my first night here?!?!? One of the stars of the new movie, "Australia"!!!!! Who are you thinking of? Nicole...yeah, she's a Sydney girl... not her... Hugh Jackman? No, no, it wasn't either of them...

Bill Hunter!!!!

(In case you don't recognize him...he was in Muriel's Wedding, Strictly Ballroom and many more... and yes, we met him at the bar tonight. )

So, here we are... safe and sound in AUSTRALIA!!!! Whooohoooo!!!!!

Look! We have friends!! :)

A few of you have written and asked how we're doing here- and specifically, if we've made friends. We definitely have made friends. Of course, it takes time to make your way into existing groups of friends- but I'd say we've done pretty well.

So, on Saturday we had some people over for a few drinks (and of course snacks made by me!), and I made Joel go outside and take some pictures so I could prove to you all out there, that we do, in fact, have friends! :)

The reason for the get together was put out there as to "celebrate or commiserate" the AFL Grand Final. Unfortunately, it ended up being to commiserate, as the Cats did not win the game. It had been a long day though- what with having gotten up at 5am to watch the game. We did take naps, but, I still got tired pretty early. So I went to bed around 12. Apparently I missed a bit by going to bed that early- most notably stark naked shotgunning of beers. I don't get it. Why would you want to? Anyway, at least Joel wasn't one of em doing it...




Anyway, so, there are the pictures of our first porch party. I would call it a success. There was beer left over, but, there was also a big mess in the morning. My food was almost completely eaten. I woke up at a decent hour and had a productive day, Joel (who has also been suffering a terrible cold this whole weekend) woke up late, and was useless all day. :) Too bad tomorrow is Monday again....

Special shout-out...

To the Domestic Nemesis, one of my very favorite "blogger buddies" (to use a horrible term I hate)....

I hope that today is wonderful for you! I certainly wish I was around to celebrate with you- but being it's a Friday- I'll have one tonight in your honor! :)
Lotsa love coming your way,
M.

A Story in Two Parts

Part I- Thursday, also known as Don't Mix Beer and Margaritas and Mojitos and Think You're Going to Make It

This is/has to be a story in two parts. It all started on Thursday. Joel got in to Madrid on Wednesday night- it was fabulous to see him. We came home, unpacked a bit (I got some presents- thanks everyone!) and then went down to McDonalds so that Joel could have a burger, and we both had a beer (yes, McDonalds serves beer...).

So, Thursday I go to class in the morning like normal, and leave Joel to hang out and sight see with one of my roommates husbands (who also happens to be Australian). They had a nice day, we had a nice day...it was all good. Of course, I was very excited to have Joel meet all my course buddies, in the last 13 months we all had heard so much about each other... so, it had to happen. So we made a plan to meet for dinner that night.

Ah dinner.... yeah, it started off very nicely... we met, Joel and all the guys from my course hit it off right away, we had a few beers in the square, and then we went to this Mexican restaurant for dinner. We ordered nachos-- and margaritas. Joel was the only smart one who did not switch to margaritas, but continued on the beer.

At the Mexican place, Joel, me

J and his lovely wife V

Can you feel the love?

Little close up of D.

Let's just say that it was all going very well... we're all having a good time, laughing, getting to know each other, and drinking pitcher after pitcher of margaritas. People kept filling my glass up, so I had NO IDEA how much I was drinking.

Long story short, I think we ended up changing bars once, and at the next place, when I was already beyond drunk, we had mojitos. What I remember from the second bar I remember only in snippets. I do remember that finally at one point, I was feeling great, but then, maybe not so great, I knew it was late, and it was time to go home. I told Joel we needed to leave and we left.

For beyond drunk, we look pretty good...

Did I mention the love? Can you feel it?

Here we are at the next bar, and oh look, everyone is drinking water... why didn't *I* get some of that?!?

These guys felt much better the next day than I did... maybe the water helped!

And then the mojitos started...

Cheers!

Joel and Yonmon. (Yon has an amazing story- during this course (the spring semester specifically) he had to flee his home country of Chad because of the political turmoil there. He actually wrote his professors emails along the lines of, "Um, I'm not going to be able to get this assignment in on time because I have to flee my country this weekend..." In the end though, he did end up getting all his stuff done, and graduating with us. Sort of puts things in perspective about things being possible/impossible, huh?)

We made it to the metro and all was ok, but on the metro I realized that all was not going to be ok. So we got off the metro at a place still pretty darn far from home, and I, well, let's just say there was some stuff that I needed to unload, in the street. It took us an hour and a half to get home after that, because well, I had lots to unload.

We finally made it home, I stumbled into bed, and passed out.

This morning I awoke at 7:15 only because my roommates knocked on my door, and realized that I was still completely drunk, but verging on the worst hangover I have EVER had. I spent the next hour or two unloading some more. Then I slept again. The rest of the day basically passed in this fashion, and I never made it to class. ON THE LAST DAY OF CLASSES!!! So, when I wasn't sleeping or throwing up, I was feeling like the lowest, saddest, most ridiculous person ever. I have never been so sad to NOT be at school.

Part II, Friday, also known as Graduation or Introducing Mara P., M.Ed Intl.

I finally got myself together this evening because well, heck, I missed the last day of school, but I couldn't miss graduation. I still felt like crap, but I did my best to make it look like I didn't. And we went to graduation and it was fabulous! :) We took a bunch of pictures before:

Brenda and I

Cindy, Amelia, Brenda, me and Hanaa

Dan letting me know he's glad to see me, and giving me a hard time for not being in class that day.

"Yeah, so first in Sol, then in the taxi..." Jeff laughs with me...

Me and Hanaa

And then the ceremony started. It was lovely too.

This is me entering the graduation.

Brenda coming in too...

And then I received my diploma!

And we took more pictures:

Yay! They can't take it away from me now!

:) Another milestone, celebrated together.

The Graduate

And from the side, so you can see my hood. :)

With Viktorija and Ron

The Baltic girls... Viktorija is Lithuanian, and for the love, for the past 13 months everyone has mixed us up with each other... some say we look alike (?), and others well... who knows. Anyway... good friends are wonderful. :)

And in the end, I was still feeling like total shit, so, we came home early. But then, here is the funny bit -- I'm here, in bed, doing all of this, still feeling slightly nauseous, and Joel ended up going out again with my roommates. I guess he likes these people (which is good, cause I love em all!).

So, it's been a long couple of days. Tomorrow we leave for Barcelona. I still haven't gotten my passport back from the Angolan Embassy which is a whole other can of worms that is doing a good job of complicating just about every part of life right now. It's going to be nuts the next week while we try to get where we're supposed to be going on time and handle the visas and stuff. Wish us luck!

One more for today...

Ok, ok... so I swear this will be the last post for today... :)

This isn't from today, but just shows the kind of fun we have in class. These guys from my group made up a song as part of one of their presentations. It was great. :)

Awww.... (now with pictures!)

I love this group of people. I have the best classmates ever.

I decided this morning that I was really excited about my -1 anniversary (as demonstrated by the previous post). So, I ran out at break time and bought a couple bottles of 6 euro chamapagne. Just before we broke for lunch I came in with the two bottles, and let everyone know why today was special for me, promised I would send pictures next year, and asked them to celebrate with me today.

I had told my professor in the morning about this, and she had whispered it to some of my more eloquent classmates... so what do you know? We pour the champagne, and we have toasts! I received three proper, beautiful, sometimes funny and oh so appropriate toasts. It was GREAT.

Best group ever. It's funny because, I might end up working with one or more of these people at some international school in the future. And I might not be friends with them people forever. Communication is bound to taper off, and people will lose touch (even though we've been so intensely close for the last 13 months)....but the cool thing is, I get the feeling that these are the kind of people that I'd be able to pick up with whenever we meet again. That is cool.

So here are the pictures...

Here I am saying, yeah, I'm a dork, but I want to celebrate this day with you!

And here we have the beginning of the opening of the one bottle. David there next to me was ever so happy to get that other bottle off my hands. :)

But the bottle won't open. Lots of people were cringing and getting out of the way, thinking I'm going to poke someone's eye out or break a window... but I swear, that cork just wasn't budging!

No, but really! It's NOT moving!

So Peter steps up, thinking I'm just being a girl, and has just as much trouble budging that cork as I did! See the look on my face, you can hear the, "I *told* you it wouldn't open!"

And then, David has poured me a classy plastic cup full of 6 euro champagne, and I can't be bothered with Peter's bottle anymore... :)

Viktorija and I (notice in my hand I am holding a class evaluation...) Oh, and notice Peter back there excited because he poured champagne for others, and then we ran out of cups, so he got the rest of the bottle.

And then everyone was doing evaluations while drinking champagne!

Some even had to get on the floor...

And once champagne was consumed, of course we all started talking at once... oh no wait, David and I talked all the time anyway...

The end of another week... there we are the lot of us. One week from graduation! Whoohooo!!!

Lost in thoughts...

I have found myself lost in thoughts about the last few years a lot lately. I've been randomly spending way too much time looking through my photo archives on my computer (when I should be writing a paper or something...). Maybe it's because so much is changing now- leaving another "home", earning my masters, moving to a new country and a new job, planning a wedding... there is a lot in my future (yay!), but for some reason right now, it's making me appreciate the past. So, I thought I would just put up a bunch of random pictures from times in the last few years (in somewhat reverse order) that were really, really good. :) Enjoy.

Celebrating my birthday with Joel. This was when I got the present of going to Venice. Best birthday present I've ever gotten.

Bumbi the baby. Look how tiny he was!

Ha! My first trip with Joel (to London), and my first Cats/AFL game- and my first streaker!

The Robbie Williams concert. The only substantial amount of time I've ever spent in Sweden.

Meeting my goddaughter. How little was she?!?

The end of the first summer in Madrid. Good times.

Jumping way back- Halloween in Shanghai- myself and the other Kindergarten teacher dressed up together. Pretty good costumes eh?

At AW's (she was AV then!) rehearsal dinner. I was her maid of honor the next day!

It was a summer of weddings... three generations of women on my mom's side of the family, at my mom's wedding.

Riding an elephant in Thailand. Awesome.

Getting massages on the beach in Thailand. Double Awesome. Still being able to wear a bikini, endless awesome.

Another Halloween in Shanghai (or the same one?)- our version of Charlie's Angels. Pretty good no? Man, that was a crazy night.

Freezing every part of ourselves in Harbin, PR China.

Warm weather, beaches, snorkeling, friends, and more in Malaysia.

The Red and Black Gala at SCIS. What fun it was to dress up!

Hosting Thanksgiving in Shanghai- I think we had around 50 people show up. A totally random and awesome group.

Wasn't that a fun trip through the last few years? Of course, there are lots of events missing from these pictures...which doesn't make em any less special...just means I might not have a good pic to share. :)