What can I say, I'm blessed!

And let me tell you why...

I live approx. 3 minutes from the beach. One of my favorite places in the world. It has been my dream to live right on the water since I was little. I can't even explain to you how much I love sitting and listening to the waves or waking up and looking off my porch to see the clear blue ocean. It's perfect. Let me tell you a little about the beach that sits right across the street from my home. Well for starters the water is AlWAYS the perfect temperature. There is no arguing that. Two: the sand squeaks when you walk on it and it is blinding white, but in a good way. Three: there are millions of shells that line the waters edge- especially when it's low tide. I'm keeping a collection on the table beside my bed. Four: there are barely any blue bottles directly outside of our house so I am not scared to go in the water! It's a huge deal. Five: the water is really clear and sometimes you can see things swimming around your feet. Six: it may look calm from the shore, but it's definitely not. The waves are a lot stronger than they look and a lot bigger once you're standing directly next to one. Seven: there are a lot of rips, which can get pretty strong, but the life guards are on duty and they post flags for people to swim in so it's safe. (I should probably learn to swim there... but that's a story for later). Eight: the sunsets are beautiful - even though it sets on the other side. Nine: the waves have been amazing lately giving Matt perfect waves to surf on and Molly and I perfect waves to practice on. And lastly, it is the perfect place for long walks with my boyfriend either after school or at sunset. It's one of my favorite things to do. It's so cliche, but I really do love long walks on the beach. After reading this it's really okay to be jealous, I would be too :) haha just kidding.

Anywho! So I really should be studying for my psych midterm... I kind of already have so this is my break. This weekend was a really, really, really good one. I had so much fun spending time with my wonderful roomies and our friends from Brisbane! We pretty much spent the entire weekend at the beach getting tan and practicing surfing. I attempted to teach Molly how to paddle out which was an experience. While she was out braving the waves, I stayed a little more shallow and yelled directions at her. I'm not sure if coaching is one of my strong suites. Sunday Shwayze came to the Gold Coast so of course we had to go see him. It was SO much fun. I loved every minute and the fact that I knew most of the songs thanks to my boyfriend who is obsessed. Oh and I pretty much almost drowned one of the days cause I got caught in a gnarly rip tide - but thankfully Matt was there to save me. I can honestly say I'm still scared to go back out, but I'm working my way in slowly. Lets see... what else... well I'm ready for this week/weekend to be over! (never thought I'd say that). I'm dreading my midterm Saturday. Thankfully it will be over at 6pm and we can all go out and enjoy the last bit of our weekend! Well I'm done with my break so I'm gonna go back and study. Hope everything is going well. Love and miss you all tons!

$5.50

Hm. It's been a while since I've blogged. A lot has been going on! It pretty much all started with the best $5.5o purchase ever - a membership to the Burleigh Beach Club. I can't wait to get my card with a picture of the beautiful Burleigh on the background and my name printed on it proving that I am official. Unfortunately later in the week I started to get really sick. It hit me really randomly, but thankfully it didn't last more than a couple of days. Even though I was sick, our friends from Brisbane still came down and stayed with us. It was fun!

After that another week started, and on Wednesday we all got a little surprise. As Molly and I were waiting for our last class to start we were sitting in the lounge- Molly was skyping with her family- and all of the sudden Molly's dad came up and kissed her on the cheek. We both were super confused and shocked. He flew all the way from Colorado to the Gold Coast to surprise Molly! It was really cool. Thursday night we had Molly's dad over for a BBQ on the roof and Friday we all headed over to Byron Bay. It was BEAUTIFUL. Australia surprises me more and more everyday. When I think I see the most beautiful beach (Coolangatta) I see Byron Bay. I wonder what will top that? Anyways, so we explored Byron Bay and took some epic photos.

Roomies + Molly's dad :)!

Family/Roomie pic!

Love her.

Deadly rocks.

I slip on everything.

When we got back that night there were flowers waiting in our room for me from my dad! He is awesome, he never fails to give me flowers on valentines day- even when I'm half way across the world! I love him. I'm so blessed.

On Saturday Nanae, Matt, and I decided to head over to Jupiter's and check it out. It's a big casino over here that's apparently a big deal. We got all dressed up and headed over. It was cool, but expensive. Glad we can say we've checked it out.

Always keepin' it classy :).

Sunday was Valentines day, obvi, and Matt and I just relaxed during the day. We watched Knocked up and laid on the couch. Nanae wasn't feeling well so she slept the whole day. Later that night we had reservations for the Thai place we went to a couple weeks before, so we both dressed up and headed over there. It was very romantic and sweet. I had a good night :) He was a perfect Valentine. Molly's dad came and stayed with us Monday night since he had an early flight out of Brisbane the next day. It has been a great couple of weeks!

I'm so ready for the weekend. It's almost here. Only 2 more classes! Our friends from Brisbane are coming down again and we're going to see Shwayze on Sunday! I'm super stoked. Should be another great weekend :) I hope everything is going well wherever you are! I miss and love you all.

Mail!

Here is my address. I LOVE getting mail so it would be super rad if everyone sent me something :) No excuses!

Jennifer Bowker
Unit 2204
220 The Esplanade
Burleigh, QLD
4220

I'm not sure if you have to add Australia in there somewhere. Maybe at the bottom? Ha. I promise I'll write letters back.
I'll blog more later. The internet is too slow.

Cooly.

The other day Matthew and I decided to jump on a bus and head somewhere new. After looking through one of the few Australian to do books we have, we picked Coolangatta. After waiting for what felt like forever we got on the 700 bus and our adventure began.

As we were driving we saw a sign for honey world, a surf museum, and a wild life zoo type thing- we decided to get off and check it out. It was already past 4 so we didn't expect anything to be open because in Australia everything closes at like 6pm. No one really knows... The wild life place was open so we went and looked at some pretty birds while children fed them and let them land on them. No thank you. I don't really like birds all that much.

After we got back on the bus we decided to get off when we saw a small town and a beautiful beach. We wanted a smoothie but of course, Australians decide when they want their store to be open and when they need a break.

Typical sign --->

We decided against the smoothie and walked up a gnarly hill instead. It was worth it. We were able to look out over Cooly and see the beach stretch for miles and the waves go for what seemed like forever. We thought it was the most beautiful thing we'd seen all day. Good thing it wasn't. It only got better as the sun set.

After walking through the town a bit, we got hungry so of course when we saw a Nandos we couldn't pass it up. We're seriously obsessed, with reason of course.

When we finished our Nandos we walked to the beach and headed over to this area that almost looks like it doesn't belong on the beach. It is covered with tall trees, almost like a rain-forest. That's another thing about Australia, they randomly have pine trees planted everywhere. At Bond (our Uni) while we're waiting for the bus I feel like I'm in Oregon because of all the trees surrounding the school. Or the first time I got off the bus at Burleigh I remember thinking I was camping because there are tons and tons of trees just lining the beach. It's crazy. Anyways- we "hiked" up a few steps to a nice little look out and watched the sun set. Oh my goodness, it was incredible. These pictures don't even do it justice.

When we finished watching the sunset we headed back and told our roommates all about it. Little did we know we'd be back the next day hanging on the beach, "hiking," and eating Nandos again. Perfection. I'll blog later about the weekend. Time to go to PacFair and get the boy some hangers and pens. Also some sushi- I'm starving.

Cheers for now, mates :)!

706? 750? 704? Mugabera? Pac Fair?

I hate when we miss the bus because it came early. First time being late to school today because of that very reason. I really don't like Wednesday's either. They're so long and draining, but hey once 6 o'clock hits it's another 5 days of sleeping in and exploring our new home. I was thinking about going back to the states today and it was a weird thought. It seems so natural to be here now, especially since I have a routine going and a bomb place to live. It's going to be a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I know it's still far off in the distance but after looking at my school schedule, and how quick the weekend is over, I realized May is gonna be here before I know it- gotta make it last and make sure I do everything I wanna do!

We spend too much time trying to get internet at McDonalds.

Now that I'm done complaining/fretting about going home let me tell you about our lovely weekend in Brisbane. We headed down there on Friday and stayed with some friends we met a couple weeks before. It was a lot of fun and really nice to explore a different part of Australia. We were taken under Scott's roommate Jamie's wing on Saturday and he showed us around downtown Brisbane. He was extremely nice and helpful. He bought us movie tickets, water, and introduced us to the greatest chicken ever made, Nandos. After a weekend of guitar hero, going away parties, and new friends we headed back home to the Gold Coast. Thankfully the train ride was only $5 each way- cheap way to travel :)!

Now that school is back in my mind I've been trying to get everything together and buckle down. It's really hard when the closest internet is slower than dial up and a trip to Bond is a whole thing. It's okay though, I'm starting to get a feel for the long politics readings that seem to be in a different language, as well as the Spanish homework that takes hours to learn. Thankfully Molly is there to learn it with me- we really enjoy the music that plays in between lessons. I probably should be doing more for Social Psychology but it seems to be the easier subject since I've taken Psychology twice in the past two years. Well I have a midterm already in 2 weeks for Psych so we'll see how much I really do know.

We miss our South Africa mates a lot, obvi.

I'm not really sure what we're doing this weekend. Hopefully something relaxing because I'm tired. I've been falling asleep in my classes all morning. Nanae's friend is coming to town and we might have Jamie and Scott over. Another Australia Day? We'll see :) Oh! I'm pretty sure the storm moved from California to Australia because there has been hurricane like weather here the past few days. One minute it's calm and the next there is a torrential down pour. It's pretty insane. Molly and I sat on the beach the other night and watched the lightning. It was breathtaking. I don't really know how anyone can see things like that and not believe in a God. Lets see.... what else could possibly be worth mentioning... hm... oh well I guess this is kind of exciting. Just kidding! It's super exciting. When Matt took me to get Thai food the other night he asked me to be his girlfriend :) It was super cute. He's crazy and too much to handle sometimes but I wouldn't want him any other way. He makes me laugh really hard when everyone else is yelling at him because of the silly things he does. He's super sweet, when he's not trying to be a badass [haha], and he is really easy to talk to, when he isn't making fun of me or laughing at me. I'm excited to see what God has in store for our relationship and how it's going to unfold. I'm excited to grow with him as a person and experience this journey in Australia together, as well as back home. He's a definitely a keeper.

God has definitely blessed me with amazing travel companions who have seriously become like family. In my Spanish class we have to talk about our family and show a picture. I've decided to talk about my Australian family and my American family. We'll see how my teacher likes it!

Alright, I'm done. I have to go learn a whole lesson of Spanish in 2 hours. Wish me luck!

Cheers for now, mate!