On Tuesday November 20th we went out to celebrate one of the Australian girl’s birthdays (Rachel) at Panama Joe’s, which is kind of like our local as it’s become that way.  The Wednesday was a public holiday for Veterans’ Day so it was perfect!  However because of the public holiday there was an absolutely insane lineup and we ended up outside in the line for around an hour and a half, with dribs and drabs of our group (around 20-25 of us) being let in at a time.  Hannah had also gotten stinking drunk and got kicked out not long after she went in!  So the night was very short for her  The next day we were expecting the arrival of Joel, one of the exchange students from last semester who was coming back for a 3 week visit to all the friends he made from his time here.  He’s also from Brisbane and actually goes to my uni.  There was a big surprise in store however and Penny, Steph and Jaclyn completely freaked out when they realised that THREE of them had come back. Not only Joel but Connah (Brisbane) and Fletcher (Melbourne) as well.  So it was a big reunion for them, and just good to meet some new people for us.  We all took a limousine into Hollywood that night to celebrate their arrival and went to My House, one of the clubs there we’ve been to more regularly.

The next night we had a fairly casual plan and just went to Yoghurtland (frozen yoghurt with all sorts of toppings) and watched a movie at I-House.  Friday night Keenan (one of the Americans) had a party at his house that he shares with his brother and a few friends from his home town of Valencia.  Following a fun night we decided to go on a late-night walk to Jack in the Box only to find the drive thru does not accept pedestrians.. a bagel and croissant place had to suffice for our hungry tummies.  Saturday was a day I was hugely looking forward to as we had tickets to the USC vs. Stanford American football game at USC!  It was a 12:30pm game and we must have left around 10-10:30, planning to tail-gate the traditional American way beforehand and meet up with other friends there.  The traffic was SO horrendous though that we didn’t even get INTO the game until around 1:30-2pm, missing almost the entire 1st half!  Thankfully it is a VERY long game so we soon discovered we hadn’t missed much… The experience was amazing though.  As we walked through the university looking to find the stadium we saw the remainders of the tailgating- lots of people set up with their tents and BBQs, food, music, some with TVs etc.. Merchandise for sale everywhere, all sorts of overpriced food available outside the stadium itself, and people cooking and selling hotdogs on little portable BBQs- something I’ve never seen before!  We decided we HAD to get a hotdog (American tradition) but didn’t trust the independent ones so got one from inside the stadium  and proceeded to watch the boring game that is American football.  The atmosphere was one not to be missed though, and the 10s, maybe 100s of thousands of people combined with the cheerleaders and the band made it a very cool experience.  After the game we checked out USC’s Sorority/Fraternity Row, which is where the frat/sorority houses are placed along a long street and many members of these live inside the houses.  Some of them were incredible!  And it was really cool just to see all the different insignia outside the houses marking the various frats/sororities.  After strolling up and down the row we made our way back to the car and headed back to Long Beach just in time to have dinner, get showered and dressed and go to a white t-shirt party for the night.  Some of the American girls we were with decided it would be fun to put on English accents and go around giving people false names and backgrounds, making up all sorts of fun.  haha they both agreed that as people with accents, they got alot more attention than Americans and they definitely appreciated that

The following Thursday, after another week of classes, we headed out to Panama Joe’s (AGAIN!) to celebrate another Australian birthday- Jess from Melbourne.  She was joining the club of 22!  We had wanted to go somewhere different and aimed to go to Newport but it ended up being too difficult with not enough drivers for the cars we had.  Sometimes it can really suck not having a car!  The next night some of us went into Hollywood and stayed the night in a motel there- we squished 7 people into a room meant for 2 people!  Luckily there were 2 big double beds and so only one of us had to sleep on the floor — poor Joel! — and it meant we only paid around $15 each for the night.  We went to a club on Hollywood Boulevard called Playhouse, which is meant to be a place of ‘debauchery and decadence’ and they certainly did put on a show.  Like My House, it’s a very beautiful club.  They had two gymnasts, a male and a female, performing a show on these hanging curtain things… everyone was completely in awe.  It’s those sorts of random things in Hollywood that make it so surreal to go out there.  The next night, after having brunch at Cafe Brasil in Venice Beach and coming back to Long Beach for the afternoon, we headed back into Hollywood to stay at a different motel and go to KRESS nightclub, which we had heard was good.  In hindsight, we should have stayed at home… haha, it was a completely ridiculous night full of to- and- fro’ing and none of us had much of an enjoyable time.  At least it was another adventure though I guess.

Sunday and Monday we spent in Long Beach, trying to catch up on school work and other ‘housekeeping’ matters before our flight on Tuesday afternoon to NEW YORK!!! The flight got into JFK airport around 11:45pm on Tuesday night and we (Hannah, Jess and I) picked up our bags and walked outside, looking for a cab.  We were approached by this man who said “Manhattan?”  We said yes, and he told us to come with him.  We asked about the other cabs we could see and he said “no no, they only go to Brooklyn, come this way for Manhattan”.  We discovered he was completely full of it when he ushered us into this parking garage where his regular, silver commodore awaited.. we quickly walked back out to the ‘regular’ cab area and once we were on our way we asked our driver about those men. He said they were illegal drivers who would try and jack people for money once they were halfway to where they wanted to go by charging $50 a person.  If they wouldn’t pay, they apparently drop them on the road right then and there… scary thought.  Anyway so when we DID get to our hotel eventually, we promptly went to bed, exhausted but excited about the next 4 days ahead of us.

Wednesday the 25th was our first day to explore the city and we started with breakfast at a place on Greenwich Street down near the financial district.  We wanted to visit the World Trade Centre site and when we got there we saw all the construction going on as they are currently rebuilding it.  We visited the WTC memorial museum as well, which was a touching tribute to those who lost their lives.  There were also quotes up on the walls that served as accounts of the day- people who were actually there talking about their memories of the day, and there were videos showing and memorabilia from the site.  After the memorial we wandered down Wall Street, saw the New York Stock Exchange and Trinity Church before going down to Battery Park to go on the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island cruise.  It was a cloudy day so we didn’t have the best views possible but it was still amazing to see it up close.  We caught the subway to Times Square and had lunch at this gorgeous little delicatessen before going to line up for ‘cheap’ Broadway tickets at this place called TKTS.  We ended up buying tickets to Phantom of the Opera for $90 and again, hindsight would have been a wonderful thing- really we should have gone to see one of the other 2 in our top 3- either West Side Story of Mary Poppins.  To fill in the time between buying the tickets and the actual show, we did a bunch of shopping in Times Square, both for NY souvenirs and clothes etc, then went and got a quick dinner and headed down to the Majestic Theatre for the show, which wasn’t nearly as good as I was expecting for Broadway- the Brisbane production was even better than this one! Oh well, it’s an experience you have to have in NYC.  We caught a cab home and went straight to bed, exhausted from the long day.

The next day was Thanksgiving!  We got up with the intention of going to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade but by the time we got near the beginning of the route it had already started and to be honest, looked really slow and boring.  We were all hungry so we went into a sandwich shop and watched the parade on TV as we ate breakfast.  After eating we took a long walk through Central Park and explored the tribute to the Beatles in Strawberry Fields, and watched all the friends and families enjoying Thanksgiving Day together.. I actually couldn’t believe how many people were out and about.  I think Central Park was my favourite place in New York, looking back at it.  The autumn colours were just spectacular and it was such a peaceful, beautiful place to spend some time.  We walked all the way to Rockefeller Centre from here and saw the famous iceskating rink with a huge line of people waiting to get in!  We also saw the huge Christmas tree set up, ready to be lit the following week.  We explored 5th Avenue a bit before deciding we wanted to do it properly when we had planned it for the next day, and we walked all the way to Times Square from there and caught a subway to Madison Square Garden.  There wasn’t much for us to see there so we headed back uptown to sort out our Thanksgiving dinner at a lovely Jewish restaurant called Lansky’s.  We had some time to explore before dinner so we went down to Riverside Park and the Hudson River, took some photos, and sat and observed the scenery for a while.  It got too cold so we walked back to the restaurant where we had a delicious 4 course Thanksgiving dinner for only 30 dollars.  Amazing!

We had a little accidental sleep in on the Friday- exploring is so damn tiring!- and we headed out around 10am to go and see the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and it’s famous steps – Gossip Girl fans anyone?  We caught the bus to the beginning of the main shopping area of Fifth Ave (59th Street), which continues down to 34th Street.  We had brunch around 12 at another little deli before we split up and Hannah continued shopping and Jess and I went to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) on 54th Street.  We spent about an hour there and continued down 5th Ave to meet up with Hannah.  We went to the Empire State Building around 4 but didn’t get up the top until 5 (lines for EVERY part of the way up- and down) and it was RIDICULOUSLY windy at the top.  We had to take photos without the flash on so we could capture the beauty of the city lights at dusk but it was soo hard to keep the photos in focus with the amount of wind blowing about.  So we took a bunch of photos and froze our tooshes off and then went on our way back down.  We went to Victoria’s Secret on 34^th Street and the craziness of Black Friday (an annual day of huge discount shopping nation-wide) was INSANE.  Very overwhelming experience.  I guess it’d be like going on Boxing Day but more nuts- last year a Walmart security guard was trampled to death by crazy shoppers.  We made our way to Times Square once more and went to dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s and had THE MOST amazing cheesecake in the entire world in the history of man.  I’m not even joking.

Saturday was our final day in the Big Apple and we spent it shopping and doing the true New York experience for any Sex and the City fan- the tour!! We got down to SoHo at around 9am and had a casual breakfast while we waited for the shops to open at 10.  We explored the shops along Broadway in SoHo and then walked north, all the way into the East Village, otherwise known as Greenwich Village.  We were told these were main areas to shop but honestly I don’t think we even saw the half of what we could have.. definitely places I want to go back again so I can spend more time just browsing and exploring rather than having 2-3 hours in each.  We had lunch near Union Square – and the best cookie of our lives for dessert- the food in New York is amazing!!!  We headed back t0 5th Ave to begin the Sex and the City tour, which went for 3 and a half hours and took us through Chelsea, the Meat Packing District, SoHo, the East Village, and dropped us off back near Times Square.  Was great fun!  We walked the rest of the way in to Times Square to meet Peggy and Anika (german exchange students from Long Beach) near the big red steps in the centre of the Square.  We all went for dinner with them at Planet Hollywood and had some cheesecake for dessert- Hannah and I both agree it was second-rate compared to the previous night  We caught the subway home via 50 blocks out of the way due to some construction that was taking place.  What a little adventure to cap off the trip!

Anyway so as you can tell it’s been an AMAZING 3 weeks full of many different adventures… if you’ve made it all this way through the blog- congratulations and thankyou!  haha there won’t be many more of my rantings so never fear  Write again later xx

We went into a couple of the house parties before deciding to go home around 2am- we couldn’t take the cold any longer!  But it was definitely an experience I was glad to have had.  I’ve never seen more students on the one street partying like that before.  From the balcony of one of the parties we went into, they looked like 100s and 1000s on a piece of fairy bread, all dressed differently, in costumes ranging from Teletubbies to beer bottles to Tigger to ghostbusters.  Saturday night, which was ACTUALLY Halloween, we went to a local house party of some random person we knew through Greg.  Everyone was pretty exhausted by this stage and it was not a big party, so everyone made their own fun and had a pretty good night, all in all.  It was a bit of an anti-climax though, after the 2 nights we had had previously- the real halloween felt a little dull!

Monday November 2nd I had the absolute pleasure of getting to attend a taping of the Ellen DeGeneres show!!  We travelled the 2 and a bit hours to get to Burbank, LA from Long Beach by public transport (enjoying the delightful characters aboard the Metro as we went).  We got there around 3pm and pretty much just sat around waiting until they eventually took us into the studio just before 6.  I could have cried when they walked us into that studio I have seen so many times on TV- I couldn’t believe I was actually there.  We were also really excited because it is ‘Doughvember’ at the moment on Ellen which means she is giving away tonnes of stuff this month.  We had watched an episode while we waited to be taken in, where every single audience member had gotten a Playstation 3 and a bottle of perfume one of the guests was promoting.  PLUS Ellen had been shooting cash out of a cannon into the audience.  To our utter disappointment, we received none of the above and all we got out of the taping was a pair of headphones which, frankly, I have absolutely no use for.  Plus, the only guest really was Pamela Anderson, and Ellen had hurt her back several days beforehand and so was in a LOT of pain (and painkillers) and was not her usual bubbly, energetic self.  She didn’t even dance  Sooo it was a little bit of a disappointment but at the same time an absolutely awesome experience and one I would gladly do again (hopefully not with such bad timing next time! )

This past weekend there were 2 birthdays to celebrate- Adam (an exchange student from Manchester) turned 21 on Thursday and we all pitched in to ride in a stretch hummer limousine into Hollywood, to go clubbing at Bardot.  It took us TWO HOURS to get in there by the time we had 2 pee stops, an alcohol run, and stopped to pick up one of the guy’s girlfriends.  So around midnight (!) we eventually got in there, and it turned out the club was right next to Tiger Heat, the gay club we went to a few weeks ago.  I never would have even noticed the entrance was there, it was so hidden.  Bardot was more alternative than most of the other clubs we’ve been to, and it had a live band as opposed to a DJ.  We moved from room to room (one of the rooms actually did have a DJ) before leaving when the club shut at 2, and caught the limo back to Long Beach with more stops along the way to drop various people off at their homes before the last stop at Cal State.

Saturday night was Anthony’s birthday (he’s Canadian and turned the young age of 20) so we went out to his choice of club in Hollywood- Ruby, an 18+ club.  We all made our way in separately in different cars and met there (having experienced HORRIBLE traffic on the way in- that’s the worst thing about LA).  The club itself wasn’t as upmarket as some of the others we’ve been to, and the people weren’t as ‘flashy’ either.  There were three main areas, all playing different sorts of music, and again we moved from room to room but mainly spent our time in the middle room which played pretty mainstream music.  Had a ball!  And luckily we were with a lovely bunch of guys who looked after us to no end, even picking up some of the more drunken girls when they fell over once or twice.

And that brings me to now!  It’s Sunday night and I’ve just been catching up on some homework before the week begins all over again.  I can’t believe how quickly it’s all going.  Tomorrow is the beginning of week 11, which means there are only 5 more weeks of classes, before a week of exams, then 4 days out of the university before flying home.  It will all just go so quickly and I won’t know where my 4 months here have gone.  I mentioned how little time we have left the other day, and Hannah started to cry (a little dramatic, I’ll admit).  But I look at it a different way- I’m positive about going home because I’m certain I’ll see most of these people again.  I’ve now made friends from all over the world and I know I’ll have a friendly face to stay with, should I travel to their countries in years to come, and vice versa.  And to me, that’s one of the most positive aspects of exchange.

Write again soon, take care, xx

The last fortnight has been mostly filled with uni work as I had my dreaded mid-semester exams and a midterm paper due for my feature writing class.  Thankfully I’m on the other side of all of that now though and just have to wait for the results to come back!  I went on a trip to San Diego last weekend with the University’s Surf Club/Team.  Originally it was not at all planned that I was going to go ‘with’ them; I was just going down because it seemed like a good opportunity while some others were going.  I then found out the surf club were going as well and had extra room at their accommodation- the Banana Bungalow hostel- and went in with them.

We arrived down there after a 2 hr drive at 5pm on the Friday night.  Steph, Penny and a couple of others were staying at Steph’s family’s home in San Diego, but apparently San Diego is a really massive place so she actually was 45 minutes to an hour away from where I was staying in Mission Beach.  They came to pick me up at 7:30 to go to a UC San Diego soccer game Steph’s friend was playing in and after getting lost several times, we eventually arrived at the game in time to count down the last 10 seconds of the match!  It was such a beautiful school though, so I’m glad I got to see it.  It’s a private university and the buildings are much newer-looking, really nice architecture etc.  There was a Sean Kingston concert going on in one of the buildings on campus so his music was blasting out over the carpark.  We left Steph to spend some time with her friends from high school and we went on a mission to find some nightlife/food.  After realising we were all buggered, we settled for some food at a nice little Japanese restaurant before going back to Mission Beach to drop me off (once again getting lost on the way!!)  and they went back to Steph’s house for the night.

On Saturday the surf team were participating in a university surf comp at Blacks Beach in SD and we went down to support the team.  In order to get down to the beach though, we had to walk down this MASSIVE mountain, avoiding dodgy footing so we wouldn’t fall down, and by the time I got down the bottom my legs were jelly!!  Alot of the heats had been called off/postponed due to the bad fog that was plaguing San Diego that weekend, but I did manage to see Chris, an Aussie exchange student from Woolloongong, participate in his heat, so that was good!  We headed back up the massive hill, this time taking another path which was paved- my legs got a massive workout that day!  That night the surf club had a ‘rockstar’ themed party out on the deck of the Bungalow, complete with kegstands and Jungle Juice.  A true American experience.

On Sunday morning we headed back to Long Beach, just in time for me to study for my design midterm which was on Monday morning at 10.  Great finish to the weekend, haha.

My birthday weekend started off on Thursday night when we hired a car and Anthony, the Canadian exchange student, drove us in to Beverly Hills and Hollywood for a night out.  First we went to this girl’s house in Beverly Hills.  One of the girls here, Rachel (from Melbourne) is Jewish and spent part of her winter break in Israel.  She met this guy Michael there and then bizarrely, she met him again here at a party the other week!! He goes to Cal State Long Beach as well… such a small world.  Anyway so it was his friend’s house.  Her name was Roxy and her parents had gone away for the weekend to Vegas (haha, as you do).  So we had heaps of fun starting off there, they even had a DJ?!  We headed in to Hollywood at about midnight and went to a gay club called Tiger Heat.  It was so much fun- such good music and it was such a good thing for us girls just to be having fun and dancing.  Eventually we called it a night and drove back to Long Beach, getting lost on the way home (again!)

Friday we still had the hire car and we decided to spend the afternoon at Universal Studios.  So after battling our way through LA traffic we got there at 12:30 and spent the afternoon on the Simpsons 3-D Adventure ride, The Mummy rollercoaster, the Jurassic Park log ride, and the Shrek 4-D show, as well as going on the Studio tram tour.  Even though I’ve been to Universal it is always alot of fun, just a really nice atmosphere and doesn’t feel as rushed as some of the other parks like Disneyland, where there’s just SO much to do.  Alot of the theme parks at the moment had Halloween themed celebrations going on for the whole month of October, where you can go at night time (separate to the day time ticket) and have the living daylights scared out of you by terrifying characters who roam the park.  Thankfully we opted out of that one!! The Haunted Horror House is enough terror for me :S

After we were finished at Universal Studios we had a wander around the restaurants and shops of Universal City Walk, which is just outside Universal Studios.  We had dinner at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant there, which was lovely (so nice to get out of the dining hall!!)  After a long day, we eventually headed home, AGAIN getting lost and extending our journey by about 45 minutes. haha sometimes it really sucks not being a local.  That night we (Hannah, Jess, Anthony and I) went home to bed but Rachel went out to Panama Joes with some of the others.  She then woke up her entire building at 3am because she drunkenly made the mistake not to put water in her Mac & Cheese and set off the smoke alarm!… I bet they were really happy with her, haha.

Yesterday (Saturday) was my birthday here and after a nice sleepin, we had a cruisy afternoon around campus, before getting ready and taking the bus downtown to have a lovely dinner at Japanese restaurant Tokyo Wako.  It was right on the shoreline, next to the harbour and after a beautiful dinner, complete with surprise ‘special ceremony’ organised by my friends (in which the staff put a coat on me, made me stand up and then sang to me), we went for a walk along the boardwalk.  We took lots of photos, using the beautiful night and spectacular views to our advantage, to create some more memories

But now I am old, and wallowing in self-pity about that fact…. haha not really. I do however have to do school work so I’m off to do that now..

Until next time, take care!  Thanks for all the birthday wishes to those of you who sent them by the way  Made me feel very loved

xxx

The dining hall has really cute decorations at the moment- little and big pumpkins everywhere on tables and serving stations, and fake corn and ‘fall’ leaves in the middle of each table.  Hannah and I nicked 2 mini pumpkins from the centre of our table the other day and they’re now serving as decorations in out room

On the weekend of October 1st-4th we headed up to San Francisco for the LovEvolution music festival, formerly known as Lovefest.  Hannah, Rachel and I left in Kyle’s car at around 7pm on the Thursday night to get a headstart on the driving with an overnight stop off at Kyle’s parents house in Modesto.  We got there around 1:30am after sitting in traffic for an hour and Kyle thankfully drove us all the way there with no complaints, even while we slept for a bit in the back!  His family have a very warm, welcome home (some might say overly-decorated but that’s beside the point), and his west highland terrier Wallace was the most adorable thing I’ve seen since I left poor Mia at home!  We left his house on Friday m0rning at around 10:30 and drove the remaining 2 hours to San Fran, where we made out way to the hostel and met up with the others, who had left Long Beach at 4AM that morning!! So they were feeling pretty bleary-eyed still. 

We checked in to the hostel with all sorts of problems.  First, the price had gone up by about $10 each.  Linen costed extra and tax was not included in the initial quote.  The place looked like it was about to collapse, and we got the distinct feeling it had been in ‘renovations’ for quite a while.  We had been told we would have a room only with people we knew, because there were so many of us, but we ended up having a random 34-year-old Italian named Fabiano in our room, who was on his way up to Northern California to work as a marijuana plant-cutter for a while.  (He actually turned out to be really lovely but we were pretty worried by it at the start.)  Anyway so then we went to Union Square to find meet up with Anthony and Chris, who had had a 6am flight from LAX, and grab something to eat.  We split up that afternoon, some of us went to the Golden Gate/Alcatraz while the rest of us went to the Haight Ashbury district of San Fran where the hippie movement apparently started.  We spent the afternoon wandering around the boutiques and checking out the vintage stores before grabbing dinner at a (terrible!) Indian restaurant and going back to the hostel to get ready to go out.  When we exited the tram at the other end, near our hostel, we got out just in time to see a drunken hobo fall clean off the curb and smack down on the road.  So we stopped to help (in the freeezing cold) and had to call 911 to get the ambulance to collect him.  The first day in San Francisco was quite a shock for alot of the group, who had never realised how large the homeless population is in the city.

That night we went on a wild goose chase around San Fran trying to find a good place to go out.  We went all the way down to Fisherman’s Wharf- one of the German girls we were with said there were lots of good places to go out down there- only to be told by a local that there were none!  But the girls managed to get some free turtle-shaped sourdough rolls from a bakery down there so they were temporarily elated before realising they taste like crap.  We split up into groups and Mandy, Chris, Benjamin (a Frenchman) and I eventually made our way to a hookah bar where a friend of Mandy’s was.  Chris, Ben and I soon left the hookah bar and went to an 18+ club where Penny etc were and danced the night away at City Nights.  We made our way home around 1:30am in the freezing cold and I climbed into my very creaky top bunk. 

On Saturday we went to the LovEvolution parade in the main street (Market Street) which involved a lot of floats with half-naked people on them, more half-naked people in the streets, some bare breasts, some pants-less men, and a whole bunch of wacky people in the streets to celebrate the ‘love’ in San Francisco.  About an hour into the parade we went to get food at Burger King where 2 guys came in and literally urinated in the corner of the restaurant.  On the ground.  About 5 metres from where we were sitting.  It was disgusting…    Aaanyway, then we went back to the hostel to gather our strengths before heading into the actual music festival, went round in a circle to see the various floats, observed the nuttiness of the people there, and ended up staying at the drum and bass float and danced around a bit before going to grab dinner and heading back to the hostel to get ready to go out.  It was so ridiculously freezing and windy by this stage, it was difficult to get into the spirit of going out, so half of us did and half of us didn’t.  And I didn’t, so that’s the end of that night! 

Sunday we headed down to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf to see the shops, the sealions, and get a view of Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.  We left San Francisco at about 1, stopped in to Kyle’s grandparents on the way back for burgers and cookies courtesy of his grandma, saw Wallace again, and headed off on the road again, this time with me driving!! I had had a short driving lesson on Thursday afternoon to test my skills on the other side of the road and the other side of the car in a manual car and Kyle was tired by Sunday afternoon so he let me take the wheel.  I drove for about 3 hours of the journey home, which I was pretty proud of   We got home, exhausted, at about 10 that night, with lots of memories and another part of America under our belts.

This past weekend was our trip to Las Vegas, partly for Hannah’s 22nd birthday and partly because it’s one place every person needs to go while they’re here, especially if they’re 21 (the legal drinking/gambling age).  It was just Jess, Hannah, Rachel, Polly and I that went.  We were meant to leave LAX at around 6:15pm Thursday night (Hannah’s actual birthday) and had arrived at the airport around 3:30, but due to flight delays we didn’t leave until around 8:30pm and had a wonderful 5 hour wait in the airport lounge.  We got in to Vegas and by the time we got to our hotel (Planet Hollywood) and settled in it was around 10:30.  We got ready to go out on the town and headed up to the club in Planet Hollywood called Privé- it’s supposed to be a hotspot for celebrities, although we didn’t see any.  We got there and realised Hannah had forgot her ID, but when she came back with it she also brought the club owner, who she had met in the lift!  She’d told him it was her birthday and he comp’d us a table in the lounge called ‘The Living Room’, including free drinks and bottle service the entire night!! It had great music, we met some really nice people and it was an amazing way to start off the night.

We went to Tao in the Venetian next, which is an Asian-inspired club also supposed to be a celebrity hangout spot.  It was so huge inside and was complete with dancing podiums and bathrooms that have clear doors until you lock them and then they become foggy and you can’t see through!  Polly and Jess ended up getting kicked out because they tried to go into one of these bathrooms together (which American clubs really don’t like) and then they realised how drunk Jess was.  Polly also somehow threw her phone against the wall in frustration and then had to buy her FOURTH phone of her exchange so far!  We left Tao, caught a cab back to our hotel and went to the 24-hr cafe there at 4am.  We went to bed around 5:30 and didn’t wake up til half past 1 on Friday.

After we woke up so late on Friday, we spent the afternoon lounging by the rooftop pool of our hotel and doing a bit of shopping in the Miracle Mile shops attached to our hotel.  We bought our Halloween outfits in Fredericks of Hollywood and I bought some new shoes to wear out that night (which I would later come to painfully regret!)  We had dinner at a lovely restaurant in the shopping mall before going to meet Privé’s club promoter Diesel, who was giving us entry to the club for a special event which Jermaine Dupri was meant to be DJing.  We were in there for a couple of hours before realising we basically couldn’t walk in our new shoes anymore (mine had even cut open one of my toes!!) and Rach, Hannah and I went back to the room quickly to change into our old faithfuls.  As we were looking around the area we were in back at the club, we realised that club promoters have the best gig ever in Vegas.  They just recruit girls, then pour drinks, drink, smoke, dance, and talk to women WHILE they’re working the club at night.  We weren’t really feeling Privé that night so we left soon after changing shoes and headed to Body English at the Hard Rock hotel. 

We walked around the entire front area of the hotel before realising we’d already walked past it- it was sortof hidden in the wall.  But we walked in, they said they’d “take care of us”, they asked us pretty much as soon as we walked in the door if we wanted to be in the VIP area and we said YES!  haha.. We were ushered into this area where David, a wealthy New York business guy shared his exclusive table and drinks with us for the rest of the night.  We had an awesome time dancing around the lounge upstairs with a great view of the club from the balcony.  By 4am our feet were tired so we headed home to the 24hr cafe and then bed!

Saturday we woke up again at 1, went to the pool for a bit and went shopping again for a little while.  I spent $1 on the pokies and won 6- woo hoo!  haha.  We got ready to go out, went to dinner at the hotel’s “Spice Market Buffet” and headed to LAX in Luxor at around 10:30.  We had an unfortunate incident with our taxi driver on the way who took us the complete wrong direction because he’d misunderstood what we said and then expected us to pay for it.  Hannah and Rachel were especially excited about going to LAX because Kristen Cavalleri from The Hills was hosting and they’d set up a mini-red carpet for her to walk down into the club.  We waited there for about 40 minutes (ridiculous!) for her to come, and eventually she did thank god.  Hannah was ecstatic because she ended up being about a metre from her near the end of the carpet and Kristen even said “hi” to her.  We also saw Cris Angel (famous magician/illusionist) as he walked into the club.  There ended up being a massive wait to get in and they were pretentious so we bailed on LAX and headed to XS at Encore.  It was absolutely amazing- just so extravagant and beautiful but by this stage we were all tired, our feet hurt, and we were completely sober so we had just about had enough.  We went back to Planet Hollywood  with the intention of gambling a little (not me) but the universe had other plans for us!  We met some random guys at the blackjack table where Rach & Jess were playing and went to the Heart Bar in PH to have a bit of a dance.  Somehow it came up that Hannah wanted to go to a strip club in Vegas because she’d never been to one before and where else should you go to one if not there!! So, at 4am, the guys arranged a bus to come pick us all up and take us to Sapphire Gentleman’s Club and along it came to our hotel, stripper poles inside and all!  We had so much fun dancing around the bus on our way to the club that when we were denied entry because the bouncers didn’t like the look of the guys we were with, it didn’t even matter.  We ended up going to ‘Rick’s Burlesque Club’ at around 5am, and stayed there in absolute awe and amazement for the next hour and a half.  It was absolutely crazy and something I’m glad I did but wouldn’t necessarily like to repeat!!

We left the club at 6:30 that morning and walked out into daylight, caught a taxi home and went to bed.  We slept til 12, checked out of the hotel and wandered down the Strip to Caesars Palace and through the Bellagio before catching our flight back to LA at 6pm Sunday night.

It’s been an absolutely crazy couple of weeks and things are only getting busier.  My assessment is starting to increase now and trips are in the works left, right and centre!!

So that’s enough of my novel!!! If you have stopped reading by now, that’s ok   It’s more for my account than anything else.  So I can remember the most of my trip- all the little details    

Otherwise, hope everything is well back home!! I am missing the normalcy and routine of it all but know it will all be the same when I return so I’m lapping up every moment of adventure I can squeeze in while I’m here!  xx

Anyway, so when we eventually got there, we had the best day.  We had all managed to get really cheap tickets- normally they’re about $70 but we’d been able to get some cheaper ones through the university and some free ones because Polly’s roommate works at Disneyland and was able to get some people in for free!  So when we split it all up, most of us ended up paying only $16!  It was a Friday so it wasn’t as insanely busy as the weekends get at Disneyland.  The longest we had to wait for a ride was about 20 minutes and that was rare.. most were 5-15 minutes.  We managed to cover all the main rides and got photos with Minnie Mouse, Goofy and Pooh Bear   I think every time I go there, I just have to remember where I am and not to take it all for granted because I’ve been there before.  It really is an amazing place. 

We stayed there late enough to see the fireworks display and did some shopping before we headed home.  I couldn’t believe the coincidence when I ran into someone I knew in one of the clothes stores!  Harry is a boy in Bianca’s grade who I know through the volleyball trip and he happened to be in the same place at the same time- what are the odds?!  We went to IHOP opposite Disneyland for dinner at about 10:30 that night before taking the bus home again- this time, thankfully, minus the oddballs. 

The next night was another frat party, this time the theme involved everyone wearing white t-shirts, a black-light, and everyone getting artistic with highlighters.  It was a really fun night and the effect of everyone wearing white t-shirts under the black light was really cool. 

The next day, I woke up early to catch the bus down to San Diego for Aunty June’s 80th birthday party.  I rang Aunty June that morning however, because I was starting to come down with something; we decided I should probably rest and save my visit for another day.  So that was really disappointing but in hindsight, definitely the best move, because I was sick for almost the next week.  I was pretty knocked around with that bug all last week, as well as having a whole bunch of homework to do and some assignments, so it was a pretty quiet week for me.  We went out on Thursday night to a local bar on 2nd Street called Panama Joe’s.  That was a lot of fun and it felt good to be out and about after feeling so crappy all week. 

On Friday we just chilled out and went down to 2nd Street for dinner at a Mexican place and dessert at a delightful little ‘cupcakery’ called Frosted.  They even sold cupcakes for dogs!  (That seems to be a big thing here in SoCal).  On Saturday Hannah, Rachel, Polly and I went into West Hollywood and Beverly Hills to go shopping for the day.  We left at 8am and didn’t end up getting back til 9pm!! Because again, we were catching public transport, so it took us almost 4 hours from the time we left in the morning, until we actually GOT to Melrose Avenue.  We arrived there just before 12 and decided it was definitely time for some food (we hadn’t had any breakfast).. we had THE most amazing lunch at a sidewalk cafe.  Although we haven’t had much to compare it to lately with just dining hall food on our menus   We strolled up and down Melrose for around 3 hours before catching a cab to Beverly Plaza in Beverly Hills.  Spent a couple of hours there before realising we really needed to get a move on!  And then spent quite a while in a cab in LA traffic trying to get back to the Metro station we needed to leave from, to get back to Long Beach.  We then caught the ever-enchanting Metro Rail back to Long Beach with all the wonderful characters that LA has to offer. 

By the time we got back it was 8 o’clock so we’d missed the dining hall hours- we went to the reliable IHOP for some dinner and caught the bus home.  It was a long and exhausting, but fulfilling day.  Yesterday (Sunday) we mostly just hung around the campus, chilling out.  It’s starting to get a little cooler here, and we had been planning on going to the beach but it was a little bit too chilly.  We needed a relaxing weekend as well because we’ve all got alot coming up in the next couple of weeks.  We’re heading to San Francisco for the ‘LoveEvolution’ music festival from this Thursday- Sunday and then off to Vegas NEXT Thursday-Sunday for Hannah’s birthday.  In the few weeks after that, I think San Diego in on the cards, and then Santa Barbara for Halloween (apparently it’s THE place to be for college students for the holiday).  My birthday is in between all of that as well so I’d like to do something exciting for that too!

Hope everything and everyone are well back home   I’ve started to feel my first pangs of homesickness this week but hopefully all the activity in the next couple of weeks will keep it far away!  haha.  Take care everyone xxx Briony

Friday night we had planned to go to some house party one of the American girls told us about but it was being broken up by the police by the time we got there so we just kept driving.  We went to a frat house where they were supposed to be having something but they were shutting it down too!! So those of us who are 21 ended up at 2nd Street, the main going-out district in Long Beach.  We went to a sports bar called “Panama Joes” and waited in the line for almost half an hour!!  One of the guys we were with celebrated turning 22 while he was in the line as it clocked over to midnight.. poor thing!  So we danced the night away in there as the DJ played a mix of hip hop, dance & 80′s/90′s music. 

Saturday was a pretty cruisy day as we rested in preparation for Delta Chi’s toga party/grapestomp that night.  Essentially everyone has to dress in some sort of toga (a pretty common theme) to get let in.  The difference was that there was a massive pit, FILLED with grapes, at the beginning of the night, that everyone could ‘stomp’ in and get a little dirty.  By the end of the night, everyone was absolutely covered in grapes/grapejuice.. it was pretty disgusting actually. Poor Hannah left the party quite early because she was still feeling sick from the night before and got pushed in to the grape pit as she left!!  So she was not a happy Roman   I was fortunate enough to escape the pit myself but did end up with alot of the stuff all over my legs and feet.  Oh!! Forgot to mention that I’d called Shannon & Saxon (who I know from school) earlier in the day and they were at Universal Studios.  I thought the party would be an awesome opportunity for them to experience traditional American culture and their first ever frat party while they’ve been over here, so they came to the party, dressed in leopard-print toga sheets taken from their youth hotel earlier in the day   We lost Saxon part-way through the night but he somehow managed to find his way back even though he had no phone, no address & practically no money, and knew no-one who he was with.  Shannon kept walking out to the car to check for him and he eventually found him at 3am, sound asleep in their newly purchased van, ‘Windston’.

Sunday afternoon we said goodbye to Shannon & Saxon after they had a wonderful encounter with the campus dining hall (they thought it was fantastic, all-you-can-eat for $7!) and we had a lazy afternoon. 

Since then I haven’t been doing much interesting except uni work    My classes here are really small- no more than 30 students in any of my classes- and there’s really no difference between a ‘seminar’ and an ‘activity’, not like at home where there are lectures and tutorials.  My professors are all pretty nice except for one who is awful, and I know it’s going to continue to be a struggle through the semester with that subject, but I’ll try to keep putting a positive spin on it all!  I already have assignments due (next week!) that I haven’t started and I have a student profile due next Thursday which I haven’t done the interviews for.  I managed to find someone who I think will be pretty amazing though.. it’s amazing the new people you meet all the time being here. 

We finally met out suitemates last night.. I took it upon myself to walk into the common room when 2 of them were talking and just joined in.  Hannah came in not long after and 2 other girls as well and we all stayed up talking past midnight.  So it’s great to finally make some friends in our own hall!  They all seem really sweet so hopefully we’ll get to spend more time with them as the semester goes on. 

In the meantime, we’re off to Disneyland tomorrow (Friday) as a big group and I’m busing it down to San Diego on Sunday for my Great Aunty June’s 85th birthday party.  So that’ll be a good opportunity to meet alot of relatives, however distant they might be!  Hannah & 2 other exchange students are at an episode taping of Ellen as I speak and I’ll be doing that in November so that’s really exciting! 

Anywayyy I’d better get going and try to jump on some of my schoolwork   Hope all is well back home!  xx B

Ok soo… Thursday night is apparently known as ‘Thirsty Thursdays’ around here and much like the good old days when I was an 18-yr old youngin, they are student nights!! However, because of the fact that most students around here are underage (the legal drinking age being 21) they tend to make their own student nights by having house/frat parties to celebrate the (almost) end of the week.  Although, hardly any people I have found actually have classes on Fridays.  It took us aages to find where we were going to go but eventually headed to one of Penny’s friend’s apartments.  [Penny is a fellow Brisbane girl who also studies Business & Journalism but at UQ, and we'd been talking on Facebook for months before I got here.  She's helped me so much with organising things and I've asked tonnes of questions, and now I'm so glad to have finally met her because we get along really well!]  Ian is an American student who lived in I-House last year but has moved out to Beverley Plaza, another popular living area for students (apartment blocks).  After a brief stopover there, we decided it was too much for the neighbours and we headed to our first big frat party which was held at a huge house in a really nice neighbourhood in Long Beach.  Lots of red cups and fraternity boys to be seen!  That was fun for a while before we were soon being told to “shut the f*** up” because the police were there and they didn’t want to give them a reason to obtain a search warrant!  So we quickly left that one soon after!  We went to Ben & Greg (etc’s) house for a bit to dance and talk before we eventually headed home.  There weren’t enough spaces in the cars so Lucas (Colombia), Mandy (England) and I walked the 20 minutes or so back to the dorms at 4 or so in the morning. 

Friday we slept in until lunchtime before Penny, Lena, Steph & I drove to the Cerritos shopping mall to spend the afternoon there.  It was pretty smallish, had things like Macy’s, GAP, Forever 21, etc.. so I made my first purchase in Macy’s and bought some perfume!  I think the novelty of buying things from iconic American stores will soon wear off..  We went to what was supposed to be a really great party that night that had been really hyped up, a frat party held by SAE.  As soon as we turned up we got a pretty good gist of the frat though, when they separated the males & females into lines.  The females could go straight in, no questions asked, with whoever they wanted, but all of the guy friends we went with weren’t even allowed in!! There was some sort of restrictive guest list and you had to be friends with someone in the frat to be on there.  So we left there pretty quickly.  We split up and half of us ended up at another party, while the other half (including me) went to Delta Chi, the same frat whose basement we first visited!  haha.. they were pleased to have us back 

Saturday was another afternoon of shopping, this time at Lakewood, and after trekking there by bus we were pretty disappointed to find out we could not buy the one thing we really NEEDED- which was a fan!! The heat in the dorm room was getting pretty ridiculous during the day and we were having difficulty sleeping at night because of it as well.  We did however visit the MASSIVE Forever 21 store and bought some cute stuff there.  Saturday night was one big messy drama, which included 2 frat parties (a TKE beach themed one where hardly ANYONE was dressed in theme! This one also got broken up by the police, as pretty much all parties do around here.  And a Sigma Pi party, which was alright except for the intense heat on the inside of the house and absolutely no ventilation- you needed to keep going outside to keep from passing out.)  One of the English guys on exchange here got slapped by 2 girls, then we all headed to the RLC (off campus student housing) where Hannah somehow lost a solid gold bracelet she’d been given by her parents and everyone eventually got fed up and went home.

After a couple of very late nights (til 4 or 5 every morning) we were all pretty exhausted by Sunday.  We went to Sunset Beach in the afternoon for a bonfire which was being held by the owner of Elizabeth Manor, where alot of exchange students live.  She was so lovely, provided food for them all and even us!  They had set up massive tents and organised a BBQ, bonfire pit etc, for the residents to enjoy.  After going for dinner at In n Out Burger (finally! So many Americans go on about how great this place is)  most of the girls chose to have a night in but Mandy, Sharon (England) & I decided to persist on and go to a Labor Day ‘White Party’ held at local 18+ club V2O.  It was a great night with an awesome atmosphere, song after song of fantastic dancing music (though again it was disgustingly hot inside and frequent air breaks were needed) and the concept of an 18+ club is really interesting.  The 21 year olds had a completely separate area and a separate bar so they could not just ‘sneak’ drinks to the underage consumers, and there were 3 different music areas, including one outside which had drum & bass, house music etc.  ALTHOUGH, the concept is pretty useless, considering most of the 18-20 year olds who got entry were completely drunk before they went in?  So I guess they’d just drink & dance at home anyway… There were also these half-naked girls up on stages who constantly danced and gyrated their way around the place, which alot of the guys were fascinated with, haha.

Monday we went out to the RLC for brunch because we’d been hearing all about this amazing food they have.. I have to admit it is better than ours.. and came back to ours for a bit before going back out to RLC again to use the pool there.  They have a pretty nice setup there with their own pool right in the ‘backyard’.. ours is a university pool and it’s a tad feral.. but luckily all of the RLC facilities are open to us.. we could eat there every meal if we were bothered to catch the shuttle out there!  We were planning to head to a Luau (spelling?)  on Monday night because Tuesday was a university shutdown day (due to the budget crisis & cuts to funding, the campus has decided to save money by literally shutting the campus down 8 days out of the year, one per month.  We also then have days for each of our subjects where a. classes are cancelled or b. teachers are prohibited from working, being on campus, or contacting us in any way.  They can’t write back to emails, queries, mark our work, etc etc.  They call it a ‘furlough’ day)  The hawaiin party got shut down before we even left the campus though so we went to a Theta Chi party which turned out to be ok.. small but good because the noise is restricted from the street and doesn’t attract those pesky police as much!!  So we stayed there for a bit before AGAIN going to the RLC for a while, before going home to sleeep. 

Woke up on Tuesday at around 1:30pm, went to IHOP (international house of pancakes) for ‘breakfast’ and to Target etc to run some errands.  Since then (it’s now Thursday afternoon) I’ve just been going to classes and trying to catch up from all the partying over the weekend!! I can already tell it’s going to be extremely difficult to fit in socialising, uni work, travelling, etc.. not to mention SLEEP!! haha.  But it’s been great so far and I’ve been kept far too busy to think of missing any of you lot  

Sorry about the length (again) I’ll be surprised if all of you have made it this far!! If you have, congratulations!! You get some virtual cuddles as a prize for your efforts  

Catchya later alligator!! xx

I decided for the house party, which actually turned out to be a frat party, and after getting lost 3 times and walking for around 2 hours we eventually found it!! It was completely dead at first, no music, no people, in a basement, and the fact that we’d just walked for so long didn’t help either!  It did liven up though as more people came and they got some music going, and we ended up having a pretty good night!  We voted for a taxi home though.. thought it’d be best for all involved! 

On Sunday we had a BIG sleep in, followed by a walk around the campus to find our classrooms for the semester (to avoid extra stress and perhaps embarrassment!) and then went to the big welcome BBQ on the lawn here.. It started at 4:30 and finished at 7:30.. We arrived at 5:30pm and hopped in the GINORMOUS line for food, and pretty much spent the next 2 hours there!! It was good food when we got to the end though, so I guess it was worth it?  haha and we had a good time hanging out and chatting in the line, meeting some new people etc.  We had a meeting afterward for all new on-campus residents.  Just basic stuff regarding rules of living on campus, had some very lame interaction games (moaaannn haha) and then went back to our dorms to crash for the next morning of classes! 

I’m lucky in respect to classes- mine are all organised and my timetable is full.  Alot of the other exchange students are having to practically BEG for positions in classes they need to take.   A couple currently have NO classes in their schedules- they are having to literally ‘crash’ classes, just turn up in the hope they can be accepted into the class by the professor.  It’s very stressful for alot of the exchange students at the moment so we’ve all got our fingers crossed for them that things work out. 

I had my first class at 10am on Monday morning and it only went for an hour instead of two, which I was impressed with!  My professor for that subject is really lovely and although he has very strict expectations of our attendance and punctuality, he seems reasonable and like he wasnts us to enjoy the course (Media Design).  I had the rest of the afternoon off and we trekked the 10 minutes down to the gym for our first session!  Felt good to be in the wonderful cool airconditioning after DAYS of boiling hot temperatures.  We don’t have airconditioning or fans in our dorms either so it can be quite awful in the middle of the day, especially if there is no breeze.  Can make it quite difficult to concentrate on study!   We had a building meeting at 10pm Monday night, which basically was the same thing as the new resident meeting- the rules, the expectations etc..  If we get caught with alcohol in the dorms we get sent to an AA meeting (!!), next we have to see a counsellor, and on our third write-up we get kicked out of the dorm completely.  This includes people who are over the legal drinking age (which I am) but it’s a simple rule which means that most campus residents just go off campus to drink!  This is why house parties are so popular in the US.  Plus, there are several 18+ clubs but there are different sections within the club which are restricted to 21+ and obviously, the patrons under 21 are not allowed to drink in these clubs either.

On Tuesday I woke up bright and early for 8am class and had Feature Writing first, followed by Copy Editing which went til 12.   This professor scared the crap out of me and has made it very clear that it is not going to be an easy semester for this subject and that he takes his job (and the field of copy editing) very seriously!! But I know that again, if you put in the time and the effort, it’s not impossible to do well in any of the classes- they just expect you to give the time to the subject and you should see results.  It’ll be very hard though (as I am already seeing) to find time for a sufficient amount of uni work, gym, socialising, and rest time.  It’s already a bit of a struggle when everyone is so social and so lovely and we all want to hang out in our spare time!! 

Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) we had to go to a gym ’orientation’ which basically involved being told the rules of the gym, how to work out, etc.. haha a little basic and kinda put us to sleep but we were glad to get it out of the way so we can get on with a normal membership!  Tuesday night consisted of an outdoor movie night on the lawn again, Star Trek, and I went down to watch that with some friends but mostly spent the time talking, not watching the movie

I had class this morning 10-12 and I have a break til 4.  Finish class at 6:45 tonight (that 3 hr ethics class will be hard to sit through!!) but I’ll be glad when the day is over and I can chill out for a bit.  Actually I have a TONNE of readings to do but hopefully they won’t be too long chapters? haha here’s hoping

Anyway sorry for the length.. trying to remember details is a bit of a struggle sometimes and then I tend to put TOO much in   Ohh well.. Catchya laterr xx

We left the campus at about 2 and took SO LONG to organise everything that by the time we got back to our dorm it was almost 6 o’clock!! The American phone system is sooo complicated here and it took us so long to understand everything and choose the best option for us!! We went to Best Buy, which is like a bigger JB hi-fi, and I ended up buying a $25 (!!) LG phone on a Virgin pay-as-you-go thing.  It’s a cute little black flip phone.. just enough to get me through the next 4 months and then I’m expecting it will crap itself, haha.

We eventually got back to campus at about 5:50pm, just in time to grab a dinner package to eat al fresco on the lawn near our dorms.  It doesn’t get dark til around 8pm so we stayed out on the grass, eating and chatting til around then, and then ‘retired’ to our rooms for the night.  (‘We’ being me, Hannah, Jess, Mandy (from London) and Thibaud (guy from France)).  It’s so nice to meet all the different exchange students and learn about them, try to remember their names and where they all come from, what they’re studying, etc etc.  I’m getting pretty good at it though!! However I’m pretty sure none of them have a clue what my name is, haha.  It’s a slightly harder one to remember I guess?

Anyway, so on Thursday morning we wandered the 10 minutes or so to “Frogs” gym, which is slightly off campus at the Pyramid, which is a big blue structure where alot of the CSULB sporting matches are played.  There’s a women’s volleyball game on show for us on Saturday night actually!  It has been STIFLINGLY hot the past week so we felt like we’d run a marathon by the time we got down there!  But we went into the cool airconditioning and were soon won over by the $35/month fees (so cheap!) and our motivation to not come back from the fattest nation in the world as fatty boombahs! 

We struggled back up to the campus to have lunch before we chilled out for a bit in the rooms (trying to get cool!) and then went to a pool party arranged by the CIE.  We saw a bunch of the other exchange students we’d already met and met some new ones as well (which I loved).. there are so many lovely people here to get to know and spend time with.  It was great to dip our feet in the pool as well to cool us down!!  We went to Target again in the afternoon to pick up a few other things for start of class, including desklamps, books etc, plus a beach towel (which will get a workout here!) and a couple of other random things.  We bused it back to campus- we’re getting quite good at the public transport system here which is CONFUSING!!- but it’s actually pretty convenient for us to get around, obviously as we don’t have cars, and it’s free for us as students, to anywhere around Long Beach or Seal Beach, which is great!!

When we got back to campus we had dinner (hamburgers) before chilling out in our boiling hot rooms for a while, waiting to hear from some friends about what the plan was for the night.  Mandy gave us about 20 minutes notice (not enough for me!!) about a gathering that was happening at Elizabeth Manor, which is a popular off campus house for exchange students.  It houses 11 people, 9 of which are currently girls, and 2 boys.  We headed off at about 10:30pm and went out there for a couple of hours, had some fun chatting with my new-found foreign friends, and taxi’d back to campus. 

After a late night last night (Thursday) we had a sleep in this morning before we had to go to the Student Health building to get our TB tests checked-  thankfully, I’m all clear!  haha.  We had lunch before chilling out for a bit, then got ready to board the bus at 2pm to go to the TV taping.  It took us about 40 mins to get there, and we didn’t leave there til 10pm!  So it was quite a long afternoon but it was worth it for the experience.  Lots of between-take entertainment, music and dancing etc, and it was good to see how filming for those kinds of shows works.  A once-in-a-lifetime experience which I’m thankful to have had!!

We got back to campus at around 10:45pm and with it now being 12:30am and a trip to Laguna Beach, Orange County, planned tomorrow, I had best be off to bed!! Hope everyone is well back home..

Catchya laterrr xx

Firstly there are 2 things I forgot that I should’ve included in yesterday’s post.

1. We saw our first celebrity over here and it was only half as exciting as it could have been because it was ROVE!! While we were waiting at LAX to collect Jess he came out of the gate after arriving from Melbourne also.  Talk about a small world.

2. They have a Pizza Hut in the Target here, and a Starbucks in the uni library… Only in America!

We started off our day with International & Exchange Student Orientation which took us up until about 1:30, including a lunch and mini-information fair put on by the university.  It mostly had information on fitness classes, clubs to join, and excursion we could take to a Hollywood TV taping this Friday, which we’re going to!! It was only a dollar and we figured it doesn’t get more LA than that.. even if it isn’t the best show, haha.  We met a few other Aussies and quite a few people from England.  In our small info session we had a ‘get to know you’ game by having to go around and find people with the category we needed to complete our sheet.  eg, Person who has a dog, person who speaks more than 3 languages fluently, person who knows the capital of California…  So that was a good way to meet some new people as well and I am quickly trying to memorise as many names as I can!

At the lunch we stood talking to a French guy and his NZ girlfriend who met while studying here 10 months ago.  After a short trip home, Sophie came back to America to study through her NZ uni by correspondence and continue to be with Steven as he studies his Masters here at CSULB!  They live in a beachside town near here called ‘Seal Beach’ and after exchanging numbers/emails, Sophie asked us if we wanted to go to the beach near their house because she was free for the afternoon!! We quickly said yes and headed off in their car after changing into our togs. 

A short drive later (10 mins or so) we got to their quaint house and had a bit of a tour, including their magnificent view from the top of  the 3-storey apartment/house where 3 different residences exist.  On the way down the stairs I had a not-so-pleasant fall and scraped up my knee that had just started healing from when I fell into my house (haha) so that was a bit of a laugh for everyone!  After patching it up with a bandaid, we went down to the beach with Sophie as Steven went to teach his kitesurfing lessons.  (He told us later that he gets paid $50 / hr to do this, while Sophie gets only $10 minus tax at one of the local beauty therapy places!)  It was another hot day here so a beach trip was perfect, although the wind soon made it slightly chilly.  

After getting a bit of a tan, we walked through some of the local boutiques, had some delicious cake batter-flavoured icecream from ‘Cold Stone’, and then had a stroll through some of the local streets before heading back to Sophie & Steven’s house, having an orange juice on the rooftop, and eventually being dropped back in town by Steven, who was on his way to collect some other students he had met today, to take them for a surf!! This WAS 6:30 at night but keep in mind it doesn’t get dark til around 8.  We had a quick shop at Target for some necessities before having a delicious (CHEAP!!) meal at a cute Italian family-owned place near Target.  It was only $5.50 for a plate of spaghetti & meatballs, with a side salad and piece of garlic bread.. Amazing.

We braved the dark streets on the walk home, armed only with our shopping bags, and eventually made it back to campus at about 8:30 tonight.  It’s now almost midnight and I’ve been on the computer pretty much since we got home, trying to keep up with communication, do some research for some adventures we have planned, and getting prepared for classes which start next week.  We have an international/exchange student ‘check in’ tomorrow, and after that we’re planning a little campus tour for ourselves so we can wander round and casually find our classrooms, before heading off (FINALLY!) to Walmart to finish the rest of our shopping so we can feel completely at home and settled in the dorms with all our new things

Til next time, ciao!

xx