My last travel post :(

Ok, I'm officially in Texas and have started uni. So I guess my travels are over: I'll officially be in one place for the next 4 months. I'm definitely antsy to start exploring again, but I guess the exploring will have to be more local. That's ok- I'm sure there are a few hidden gems just waiting to be found!

Tomorrow I look for another photography club and maybe some people to go rock climbing with. I might be able to join a quartet this year- who knows. Plus I need to figure out my life post-graduation. Blech. I'll be busy.

But anyway, I thought I'd finish this blog off with a few more (mostly unedited, sorry) pictures from the end of my travels. If I had any recommendation about studying abroad or traveling across the world, all I would have to say is do it. It'll be worth your time and your money and any annoying flight layovers you may have to endure. Do what you love, but do it somewhere else. You might be surprised at what happens :)

Houses on the Tjörnin, Reykjavik

Hallgrímskirkja

View of the city from Hallgrímskirkja

Garden of the Vestal Virgins, Roman Forum

The Colosseum

The Vatican

Vatican Guard

St. Peter's Cathedral

St. Peter's Cathedral

Temple of Saturn, Roman Forum

Temple of Saturn

Schloss Sansoussi Garten, Potsdam

Schloss Sansoussi Garten

Schloss Sansoussi Garten

Part Two: Seoul Sneakpeak

Pro tip- avoid monsoon season (aka July) in Seoul. It's a cool city, but man was it wet and humid. I felt like I was in a steam bath most of the time.

Can we just appreciate this for a second?

More to come about Seoul, Germany, and Italy when I get back from Rome. We're leaving tomorrow afternoon and I'm procrastinating packing by putting up photos. Sorry I'm not sorry.

Snaps of Sydney

I'm getting a bunch of sass because I'm not in any of my own photos from Sydney. The sassy people don't have to look at these, but for anyone who would like to see them, here are a few:

On the walk from Bondi Beach to Coogie Beach

Sydney Opera House

May Lane in Newport

Sunset on the Opera House, seen from atop the Harbour Bridge's tower

Traveling Part 1

Just got into Seoul after 3 long, exhausting days in Sydney. I've officially been to 4 out of the 7 continents, guys! Whoooooooooooooooooooooo

I finished my exams on Friday, said my goodbyes, and tried to get rid of my things. I was super proud of how much stuff I had gotten rid of until I realized that it still wouldn't fit in 1 large and 1 small bag. MERRRRRRRRRRRR. I had to sneak the extra kilos onto my flight and get rid of my things in the Sydney hostel. And because Australia has decided that it's ok to charge someone $90 to keep them from dumping electronic waste into the ground, my hostel is now the proud owner of a new computer.

Of course, by new I mean falling apart, completely wiped, and with some weird thing that made it so the root user does not exist (how I did that, I don't know), but yeah...new. The hostel was a bit dodgy, though, so they can deal with it. It was full of long-term workers, so that wasn't super conducive to having sightseeing buddies. The management was also able to scam me out of my key deposit because I had to leave early and the after-hours hotline was not so hot. So, not a great experience staying in Sydney :(

But Sydney was good! I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had been traveling with a partner. It's a bit loud, and the maps are a bit confusing for one person to navigate by themselves. But walking around alone makes you very, very time-efficient: in my 3 days there, I was able to see Chinatown, Darling Harbour, Bondi Beach, Newtown, Circular Quay, the Rocks, the Garden, the Opera House, and the Harbour Bridge. My feet were so tired! My last night I was able to catch up with the first person I met in Australia, which was cool but also sad.

After a 11 hour flight today, I arrived in Seoul, took the wrong train, had to catch another train, got caught in the train station and couldn't leave, got lost twice, but finally found my hostel, which is super charming. And then I got to see Hongdae, which is brilliant because it is busy late at night, dirty, and cheap. Boy is it cheap. I had dinner for $3.50. I don't know the last time I was able to go out to dinner that cheaply. But on the not-so-bright side, it's pretty muggy here and it plans on raining the next few days. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that I won't be able to see the sky in such a large city....

Quiet from the Peanut Gallery

My probability prof just complained that he had two tests right after each other and that he had to mark all of his exams. Yet he wasn't too keen on my suggestion just to give everyone 100s to make his life easier. I just can't win.

In other news, my last exam starts in...2.5 hours. Let's get it, guys.

A brief hiatus from studying

I am almost done with my exams. The worst part about the Australian system (in my opinion) is two-fold:

1. All of my exams are worth about 70% of my final grade
2. Reason 1 causes me to study less diligently until 3 weeks before my finals, which is s t r e s s f u l.

I had 4 exams two weeks ago and my first math exam on Saturday. And now I have a healthy week and a half before my last exam, which shouldn't be too bad. I'm taking the opportunity to relax a bit now and get prepared for my around-the-world travelling. That means eating through all of my staples and getting rid of the clothes I can't bring- both of which are significantly more difficult than I originally thought. I need to eat a little less than a pound of dried chickpeas in one week. Is it possible? I don't know. We'll see.

It's officially winter here in Adelaide and I must say, this weather is deceiving. It's too sunny, and although I complain every day about it being too cold, it's actually not that bad. The house just isn't insulated so well, and so at night the inside of the house actually feels colder than the outside environment. I really wish things that illogical weren't possible.

But, as with all of my good-byes, I'm starting to get into a nostalgic mood. I'll miss quite a few things, like:

• How two rolls of sushi costs you less than $5. Seriously. I'm never buying sushi in the States.
• Tim tams, Lamingtons, Pavlovas, and all the delicious desserts that helped me to gain so much weight last semester
• Being able to bike everywhere and feeling (relatively) safer on the streets than I would biking along most of the roads in Texas or North Carolina
• Being able to say "heaps" and "keen" without getting weird looks. Guys, they're good words. 
• Orchestra. Keith. A viola section. Private lessons. Performing. Not that it's not possible in Texas, but the options are much more limited. Which is, of course, logical- TAMU is an engineering/agricultural university. But still, I get sad even thinking about how I'll have to return my borrowed viola.
• Living a short ways from the beach. Being able to surf and kayak with the dolphins over the weekends! Going on outdoor climbing day trips. All the climbing people I've met.
• City photowalks. Urbexing attempts. Photography club.
• Dance halls that are not country-western themed. The lack of cowboy/cowgirl boots on the street
• Cafes other than Starbucks. Good vegetarian options at restaurants. 
• Being with international students. Having such a large international group in a university (where only 1% of the students are international at TAMU, I think the number is closer to 16% here)
• Living in a city. Sure, Adelaide is known for being boring, but anyone who says that is obviously not comparing it to a Texas country town. 

But, to be fair, I guess I should list a few things I'm looking forward to:

• Being able to keep my money! And not having to spend it all on things like food or toiletries.
• Real Mexican/Tex-Mex food. And Taco Bell. 
• Being able to have a car. Although I think I will make more of an effort to bike around now. 
• Having family only 1 time zone away instead of, you know, 11. 
• Having insulation in my housing. And maybe a dryer for my clothes. And getting my bed back so that I don't feel carpet every night. 
• UScholar stuff. Yeah, I'll admit it, I miss being able to do those activities and talk to everyone. The group is made up of pretty good people. 
• Discussing basically anything American without having to resort to apologetics. 
• Being able to catch up with my TV shows (I've been so upset at my lack of access to Arrested Development). Internet service that is not extremely slow!
• Knowing how to spell most words. Becoming better at English (if you want to make your English skills go down the drain, hang out with non-native speakers. It works)
• Catching up with friends from high school and college more easily. Getting free cake in Blocker every month for people's birthdays. Free pizza every week from the Math society! It's usually Hungry Howie's. Those crusts are amazing.

I'm sure the latter list will be less pessimistic as I get more excited to return to the States. All in a matter of time. Once I start travelling, I'm sure my opinions will change. 

34 days

I started this blog with a post titled exactly the same as this one. I was 34 days out from travelling to Australia, and I decided to start this blog because I was freaking out a little bit about what was ahead of me. At the time it felt like moving to Australia meant I would have to give up a lot of the things I felt comfortable with. I had put 2 years worth of effort into settling into life at A&M, and I didn't know how just leaving and going somewhere else would turn out.

Obviously, it turned out ok. Well, more than ok- I've had an amazing (if somewhat confusing and, at times, super stressful) year here in Australia, and I've experienced and learned a lot. Australia and study abroad have been good to me. But I've been here almost a year, and I don't want to go back to the States just yet. I could stay in Adelaide for a while more. I could travel for a while more. I'm just not ready to get back into my comfort zone, if that makes any sense.

"I don't really get it, but whatever." -Ryan Hall on running

So, as most people who read this/talk to me should know, I had my first big adult race last Sunday. I had decided to complete a half marathon over the break, and I started training for this thing way back in January. I went from running 6-7 miles a week to pushing 20 a week. It was a lot of work, and most of the time I never actually believed I could actually finish a half. But spoiler alert: apparently I can! Whoop!

Farmland at sunrise, just north of Adelaide

The race was to start at 8:30 and all the hostel rooms were booked for the night before, so I had to leave Adelaide early in the morning. My friend Chris picked me up at 6:40 and we headed north to Barossa Valley. However, due to someone not fully understanding his directions, we ended up taking the route to Flinders' Ranges and had to backtrack. I was stressing. We got to the race about 15 minutes early, but (of course) the line for the women's bathroom was way too long and so I only got a 2-minute warm-up before starting the race.

Tired and unhappy at the long line for the bathroom.

I made it to the line right before 8:30 and we started running. There were a lot of people in the race- at final count, there were times for about 660 runners. People always warned me to start off slow for the first 5k or so, and man that was hard. There were people all around me, and everyone wanted to go fast. I tried my best to stay steady- there was a pacer for a 2:00:00 time and so I just tried to stick with that.

After a few kilometers, though (or maybe 2, I don't remember), pacing myself got boring. I had taken one of those sugar/caffeine gels before the race and I was revving. So I passed the pacer and just started to go for it- the last thing I wanted to do was finish the race feeling like it wasn't too bad. The course was already really flat and so I wanted to push myself.

So I did, and my gosh it got difficult by the end. I started to hurt around kilometer 16, but I was not going to slow down or stop. So I turned the final 5k into a race. And then I kicked it for the final kilometer. Which was entirely uphill. And I wonder why I was so sore the next two days...

But I made it! And I beat my goal time by 8 1/2 minutes. Boom. Mission accomplished.

Just walking around Adelaide....

Sometimes I feel like I'll miss this city.

Let's go for a run

This is a big week for me, guys! This Sunday I'm running my first ever half marathon in Barossa Valley. While you're all sleeping, I'll be trudging my way through 21.1 kilometers, and then I'll probably die.

Like this. Except, you know, without the six pack :( :( :(

Since Barossa Valley is awkwardly situated from Adelaide, we're renting a car and driving up there at 6:30 in the morning. My goal is to sleep in the car. We'll see how that goes.

Not going to lie, I'm a little scared. A half marathon seems like a really long distance to me still, even though I've been working on my long runs and can run 12 miles without gels. But still. I don't want to get sick or hurt myself or wake up too late for this thing- if I do, it's not just a waste of whatever it cost me, but it's a waste of almost 6 months of training. Yeah. 6 months. I go hard when it comes to these bucket list things.

My goal is a sub-2:00:00 half time. That's about a 9:09 mile time. I just realized that right before I typed it, and now my eyes are kind of popping out of my head. That seems really fast for me...maybe too fast? Here's to hoping I can do it! Keep your fingers crossed and hold your thumbs come Sunday :)

Diurnal Adelaide

Adelaide falls asleep at around 8 pm. Seriously, not much is open past 7. Which stinks if you ever want to go out and do something, but it's awesome if you just like to walk around and explore in peace. 

Everyone sleeps....except this guy. He was
 just chilling painting the mural for Mayo's makeover

I'm super proud of this photo, so if you don't like it....whatever

Perth Part 2: Or how my fall break became really expensive

Guys, I really like Perth. It's not super exciting like I'd imagine Sydney and Melbourne would be, but hey, it's better than Adelaide. Plus, the food is really REALLY good. My first night back I went to this Indian restaurant called Annalakshmi- it's a buffet that is (get ready) all you can pay! As an American (aka poor) student (aka poorer) this phrase is music to the ears. So when I went, I ate way too much food- it was all vegetarian and they had a selection of curries and rices and even this tamarind soup that was pretty interesting. But when I found out it was being run by a charity, I ended up giving them $20. Ugh, conscious.

I think I'm starting to turn into a city girl. I had no qualms walking about the city by myself at night and shooting different areas. Considering I used to be (and still kind of am) afraid of the dark, I would say that is pretty good! It was a Saturday night, so there were people all dressed up for the clubs and bars- it was pretty classy.

On my day 2 back I went to Fremantle with a super adorable Korean gal from my dorm. At my hostel, most of the other people were staying for at least a few weeks; apparently, Perth is a good place for backpackers to find work. Fremantle is very cool- it's a small beach town with a market, an old prison, and a nice harbor with a plethora of fish and chips places. Plus, the Little Creatures microbrew is there and it's not bad. Not bad at all.

Next stop was the beach. I have officially been to 75% of the world's oceans, people! Whoop! It's a shame I won't be able to get to the Arctic Ocean when I go to Iceland, but I'll just have to travel some more to get there :) The water was nice- pretty warm, actually- but the weather was fussy. It would rain for 30 seconds and then get really windy and then sunny BUT WAIT more rain and wind. So not super fun but a nice day overall.

I was super keen to get back into the city by 5 pm because that was when the paczki truck was going to close. But funny story, while I was eating a plum paczek my flight to Adelaide was departing. I had thought it was leaving on Monday, not Sunday (plot twist!), and only figured that out when I tried to print my boarding passes a day late. WHOOPS. But in my extra 24 hours I got a nice tour of the hipster district and King's Park from the Buckeye Shia LeBouf lookalike I met my first day here. So it wasn't a complete waste. But now I know to write down my itineraries...or tattoo them, depending on how important they are!