I woke up wanting to kiss you...

<< This goes out to every single person I love in America. I miss you~
Mom, Dad, Jack
My extended family especially my beloved Nanny.
My beautiful friends from home especially Lauren, Paige, Chase, Courtney M.
My amazing friends in West Chester- especially my old roomies Alexx Lindsey and Kate and all the other friends that have made this a spectacular year of my life including, Sam T, Kev, Zach, Nate, Sam P, Tyler & a very very special shout out to my second family, who I could not survive without, WCUltimate Fam, I do not know what I would do without EVERY single one of you. I miss the US terribly especially yesterday being the 4th of July. There was a small celebration here in Australia for American Independence day, but nothing compared to how we do it in the land of the free.

Two weekends ago I went to the horses races with Kayla, Keri and Patricia. The girls had met a jockey who got us in the races for free. It was nice to get out of the city for a day and enjoy this nice event. Some of the girls bet and actually won a couple times, only one of them had a come up though. I guess I'm not such a risk taker because I couldn't bare the thought of losing money so I just watched. We ate lunch and I had a chicken kebab which tasted exactly like wings except on a stick instead of a bone. Yummm...

On Sunday I went back to Manly beach and jumped in the ocean with Patricia! It was freeezing cold. Afterwards we did some shopping in the town. During the week, we had a barbie at Park Lodge with all the international students since it some people were to bid farewell. We had a ton of food and stayed up late eating and chatting. On Tuesday me and my Swiss mate went to Maxwell Brener's for some chocolate fondue. It was delicious.On Wednesday I stayed late at work to have drinks at the office because it was some other interns last day. Thursday was the start of an amazing weekend... my favorite so far. Despite the fact that I was taught the invaluable lesson that there are fake people no matter where you are in the world I still had the best time. On Thursday all of park lodge went out to Cargo bar and I met a cool Aussie! We chatted up about all the differences between Australia and America (he used to live in NY). Its quite funny how different we really are!

On Friday Carlos and I took a trip to Bondi. We ate at the mall and Carlos got KFC. He was in heaven. We went to KMart and it was amazing because its the only place I've been in Australia where everything is CHEAP.. even cheaper than some things in the US. It was incredible. When I got home I went for a long run in beautiful Moore Park. I made plans with Patricia to go out to a bar I'd heard about from so locals. Patricia and I went to Shady Pines on Crown Street. By far the best bar in Sydney. The Americanized Wild Wild West theme had me feeling like I was right at home. Bluegrass music played while I ate a bowl of peanuts out of the shells. Here I met a new Aussie mate, Simon. Since Patricia had to take her slightly-to-intoxicated friend home, I stayed with Simon and his mates. We went to another bar called spectrum that was kind of punk rock themed... Something I had not seen in Sydney very often. It was a very successful night!

On Saturday Patricia Keri and I went to Glebe markets a cool hippy market with TONS of vendors with all sorts of cool stuff. There were so many vintage clothing, art, jewlery, music, and all sorts of other vendors. Live music was played by local artists and there was a lot of food choices too. It was a really neat place.. I was too busy taking in all the sensory to take pics- sorry!

After Glebe we went back to Bondi so the girls could take there turn splurging on cheap goods at KMart. Then me and Kari went to Bondi beach for the winter festival! This is where we saw the ice rink on the beach.. One of the coolest/craziest things i've ever seen. It was 60 degrees and people were ice skating on the beach. We ate chruos and sipped chia tea watching all the Aussies fall on the ice.. it was a riot. We met Simon here and took us for a drink at Bondi RSL which is sort of like a country club except its just a restaurant and bar. You can see the view we had by checking out their Beach Cam except you have to view it at night because we're on the opposite time and if you look at it during the US day time it's just going to be pitch black. After, Kari and I headed back to Surry Hills to get ready for a night out.

On Saturday night I planned a big night out for everyone to go to a Sydney club called Chinese Laundry where there was a big DJ show featuring 12 different DJs and one famous Australian duo, The Aston Shuffle. Honestly this was one of the best nights ever. I had so much fun, I met some Aussies, dancing, sang, raged and I wish I could go back !!! We didn't end up staying so late just because it was so crowded that it got ridiculously HOT! We were all sweating so much so we left. On our way home we heard a DJ played inside another bar so we checked it out. The bar was completely empty but the music was so good!! All of us Americans took over this bar completely. It was awesome.

On Sunday after a morning recovery from a crazy night out, me and the boys went to walk the Sydney Harbor Bridge. What a view!

This week was themed around fourth of July obviously. We had a wonderful celebration but it doesn't even compare to a real fourth of July in the US. There were about 20 of us Americans all together celebrating and we got a free beer at Scubar for being American along with free hotdogs. After we went to Side bar for another free drink and free fries and an awesome live band. It was a completely free night, which was very enjoyable for me and I was very proud to be an American.

Tomorrow I leave for Melbourne (south of Sydney) with Kayla and Patricia.. As wonderful as Sydney is, I'm looking forward to going somewhere new for the weekend. Hope Everyone had an amazing 4th of July and is having a fun, happy summer!! If you couldn't tell from the beginning of this post, clearly I MISS YOU ALL.
So much love,
xoxoxoxo
~mrlb