Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!! Hope you enjoyed the clip from It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! It is such a great fall movie! 


This past week has been crazy. I'm in the second week of midterms and have been writing papers like there is no tomorrow. I am going to be thankful when thursday at 5pm rolls around because then my midterms are over. I cannot wait.


Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I did get to go out on Saturday night and enjoy it. I dressed up as the classic Daisy Duke. It was not my best costume, but it worked. Halloween really is not a big holiday here, but when Australians dress up they go all out. It is awesome! Saturday night I went over to my friend Sara's house and had a few pre-drinks with her and her fellow Ninja Turtles. Then we went over to a house party in her neighborhood and we met up with a couple of our friends and hung out there until heading over to East Nightclub. We all partied the night away there. That was the extent of my Halloween partying. 


Sorry there are no fun stories this week. I literally have been in homework and studying mode and that doesn't make for anything interesting. Unless if you want to hear about the Australian wine industry suffering from an oversupply problem or how convicts were treated when they were brought over to Australia. Trust me it is not that interesting :)


Anyway, here are a few pictures from my weekend!

Rockin' the classic Daisy Duke Hair.

Daisy Duke and the Ninja Turtles

Later Gators
<3 Melissa

Midterm Mania!

Homework? Is there actually such a thing that exists in Australia? The answer to that, my friends, is yes, it indeed exists. The universities actually give homework, and there is a such thing as class in this fabulous continent filled with blue water and white sandy beaches. Now I know many of you think that I do not study and only party, but that is not the case. I just don't bother to talk about homework because homework is homework and there really isn't anything exciting about it. Anyway, it is midterm time at Bond University, and in the next two weeks I have 1 presentation, 1 test, and 2 papers due! Yay! So, I will be busy, busy, busy these next two weeks, and the library is going to be my best friend. There is the studying update, now on to the more exciting things I have done this week :)

This week completed week 6 of uni. Holy Hannah! Six weeks of class has already gone by, and I only have less then 2 months left here. That is insane and I might cry. My classes are becoming a little easier because I am more comfortable in them. They are all still awesome, and TV studio is still my favorite class out of all of them. To prove that I am not slacking in work here is a picture of one of my wine tasting evaluations. For each wine(not flavor, but bottle) we taste we have to fill out one of these sheets. We start with sight, then smell, then taste/feel, then state our overall observation, and finish with which meal we would pair the wine with. Sounds easy, but it is super difficult (week 4 was the worst for wine tasting, I don't think my nerves have ever been that frazzled).  

Looks like fun huh?

This week my mom sent me pictures of Eddie, my older sister's 2 1/2 year old Sheltie. I love him and miss him a lot! Plus with a face like this it is hard not to love him, so I must share it!

Eddo's sleeping on my bed, well now his bed it seems like.

My big adventure this week, before midterm madness started, was to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Three other girls and I went to go and visit the animals and do the ropes course. I literally turn into a 5 ear old when I see the animals, and it becomes a lot worse when there are baby animals. When we walked in we saw some koalas. Koalas have become my new fascination for some reason, probably because of how fluffy and cute they are. Then we went to visit the Kangaroos. There was a joey chilling in his momma's pouch that decided to poke his head out and say hello when we were there. It was adorable. After the Kangaroos we went and did the ropes course. I have never done a ropes course before so this was a new adventure. It was so much fun I cannot wait to do it again! My friend Jacqui is a master at them and actually zip lines upside down (at this place she wasn't able to unfortunately). After the ropes course we went and saw more of the animals and then came home. It was a lot of fun and I'll be going back soon for sure! Here are a few pictures from Currumbin!

Doing the Emu walk. Yes I am a freak.

Baby joey!

Pre-ropes course

These lizards were everywhere!

Ohana <3

Wombats!

Dingo eating a box.

On the forest walk.

That is my adventure this week!
Homework calls...
Later Gators!
<3 Melissa

Jumping out of planes at 14,000ft!

Free falling!

Hey everyone! So this week I decided to do a video blog because words cannot explain how awesome the skydive was. Also this way you can see me alive and not just through pictures. Enjoy! (Sorry the picture isn't very good.)

Just to clarify the Lisa I am talking about in the video is my aunt, Lisa Stifter. 

Links to the pictures:

Byron Bay Skydive

Mojo Surf- Surf Adventure

Giving Nado a hug at the end of our dive.

The view!

My favorite picture.

Sky diving gets two thumbs up!

Also for those who are wondering how to get ahold of me here are ways to contact me

Snail Mail ( I love letters!)- Letters from the US take about a week and a half to get here in case you are wondering.

Melissa Plamann

1108 Meriton Apartments

2669 Gold Coast Highway

Broadbeach, QLD 4218

Australia

Facebook:

Search Melissa Plamann 

Augustana and Bond Uni Networks should show up by my name

Skype (I miss everyone from home and this is a easy way to get ahold of me!):

mel.p.0913

Later Gators!

<3 Melissa

A picture is worth a thousand words

Hello hello!
As you can tell from my previous posts that they all contain pictures. I love pictures! Since moving here I've had time to play around with iPhoto on my mac. I think that the pictures that I've messed around with have turned out really cool and thought I would share.

-A lot of the following pictures are of my cousins Elijah, Josiah, and Gabriel. They make for really cute models when they are fishing, and whenever I visit them in the summer that is pretty much all we do is fish.-

Josiah-2009

Elijah-2009

Melissa, Josiah, Elijah, and Gabriel-2011

Josiah, Elijah, and Gabriel-2011

Louie, Josiah, Elijah, and Gabriel-2011

Louie, Josiah, Elijah, and Gabriel-2011
This picture is by far one of my favorites.

Josiah-2011

Flowers in Sydney 2011

Fountain in Sydney-2011

Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge-2011

Coastal Walk-2011

Bondi Beach-2011

What can I say, a picture is truly worth a thousand words :)
Later Gators!
<3 Melissa

Aussie life 2.0

Hey its a 2-for-1 week! 2 blogs well instead of one aren't you lucky! :)

This week marks the 7th week that I have been in Australia (wow how time flies!), and in honor of being here this long I am beginning to miss so of the American delicacies, but finding out what I truly enjoy about the Australian lifestyle. 

What I miss:

• I miss rain. I love falling asleep to the sound of rain falling on the roof (or side of the house), and it has only rained here maybe 5 times since I have been here. Don't get me wrong I LOVE the sunshine, but a rainy day is nice every not and then.

Raindrops on the balcony

Eddie

• Netflix and Hulu. -Heads up to anyone who is thinking about studying abroad or moving here for an extended period of time. These do not work here so start watching ABC shows because that is the only website that I have found that streams over here.
• Eddie. Yes, I miss my family, but I miss him a little bit more.
• Grocery Store prices. Everything is expensive here, but if you search around you can find things a little cheaper then other stores.

Now what I love about Australia

Surfing at Byron Bay!

• Surfing! I have only gone once and fell in love immediately. There is just something about it that is awesome.
• The Beach! I absolutely love running on the beach. It is so tranquil and relaxing.
• School. Not very often to college kids admit it but I love school here. All of my classes are so relaxed and my professors are so relaxed and chill about everything. It is a totally different atmosphere from Augustana, and I like it.

Bond University

• The people. Everyone is really friendly here and more then willing to help if you are in a bind.

Anyway that is all for this time!

Later Gators!

<3 Melissa

We like to party, yeah we like, we like to party.

Alright, so many people know the popular 1990's song We Like to Party by Venga Boys, and that is the only song that is playing in my head as I write this post. As you can probably tell from my previous posts Australians love to party and drink. It is the lifestyle here and trust me I enjoy it (but not as much as some other people are).

Happy 20th Jacq's!

This week was my friend Jacqueline's 20th birthday. We went out for dinner and drinks at a Mexican restaurant, and rode the monorail over to the casino. I live right across the street from the casino, but we were feeling adventurous and decided to take the monorail. It was one of our guy friends first time on the monorail, and he made for some good entertainment. Upon exiting the monorail he tried to go though the entrance gate and ended up running into a wall. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard or seen other people laugh so hard before.

This week in my TV studio class we got our assignments for BUFTA (Bond University Film and Television Awards ceremony). This is a huge event at Bond where they invite students from all over Australia who have entered in their short films or been nominated to win awards. One lucky student is awarded a full ride scholarship to Bond to pursue a Film and Television degree. It is a huge event and I'm the stage manager for the live show. So, while everyone back in the states is celebrating Thanksgiving, I'll be working at BUFTA so have some extra turkey and stuffing for me :)

On Friday I went and celebrated Oktoberfest in Brisbane with my friends Steph, Cody, and Laura. Just like at any Oktoberfest there was German Beer and spirits, sausage, and men in lederhosen and women in dirndls. They even flew in an authentic German band from Munich to play German tunes all night and weekend long. It doesn't get more German then that! 

Steph, Cody, Me, and Laura in the cut-out face picture thing.

Enjoying a German Beer!

When we were there Steph and I ran into some Australian guys dressed in Lederhosen and they invited us to sit and chat with them. Sitting and chatting with them turned into joining their group for the night. Later on a group of three German guys joined our group (they did not wear Lederhosen though). Towards the end of the night everyone ended up on the dance floor enjoying the music and dancing the night away. Perfect way to top off the first night of Oktoberfest!

<3 Melissa

Guess who is (finally) 21!!

Just another beautiful day in Australia!

Hello hello!
Talk about a week filled with adventure! This week has literally been a blur. Classes are still going really well, and I love all of them! But writing about classes is beginning to get a little on the boring side, so classes are out of the picture for this post.

To start off I want to wish, my birthday buddy, Miss Taylor Kaczmarek a very Happy Birthday!! Hope your day was fantastic!!
Also a very Happy birthday to 2 of the kids I baby-sit back home, Miss Jayna and Mr Ashton Matejcek! Hope your day was also fantastic!!


As you all know from previous posts, I turned the big 2-1 on Thursday, September 29th. I still cannot believe that I am that old! It was a little tough to be away from home and celebrating one of the most important birthday's in the States, but I made due here and FYI to my friends and family back home, get your party pants on, because when I get back we are going to celebrate a true 21st birthday!

On Wednesday my friend Steph, who is from England, and I went shopping for my birthday outfit. I got a blue dress, black heels, a crown, 2 buttons, and a birthday sash which blinks. I was finally ready to welcome the big 2-1 and looked awesome.

My birthday outfit!

On Thursday I woke up and was supposed to get my weekly Dance Marathon update from my friend Lynae and one of my partner's in Morale committee crime, but that didn't happen because she was busy with internship stuff, so I skyped with my family instead. They sang me happy birthday and Eddie(the puppy) brought me one of his chewies. I miss them a lot, and it was nice to talk to them on my birthday! After that I got ready for and went to my sport coaching class. We got done an hour early and then I headed over to my friend Steph's house where I had my first legal drink as a 21 year old.

My first drink as a 21 year old!

 

I then headed back to my apartment in Broadbeach to get ready for the night, and then went back over to Steph's to begin the celebration!

My kiss me I'm single button. Yup, it worked too!

We went over to our friend Sara's house for pre-bar drinks and celebration.

Almost everyone at Sara's!

At Don's

We went from Sara's house to Don's, the bar on campus, and then took the bus to the nightclub East. We were supposed to go to Shooter's but those plans fell through. When we got to East it turned in to a disaster. The security guards at East hate my ID because the corner is cut due to MN wonderful indication of a new license coming. Well, they don't understand that in Australia and each time I go there I bring 3 forms of picture ID with me, and this time they really were not happy with it, they made me wait for everyone else to go in the club, studied all of my ID's like they were expecting them to change, and made fun of my international student ID with the one head bouncer saying to another bouncer in front of me that he could make something better for $22 dollars. (The international ID is something my school requires me to have so I really was not happy when he said that) I ended up crying because 1. that was out of line and extremely rude and 2. because it was my birthday and no one rains on my parade when it's my birthday. Let's just say I'm not going to be so kind to him the next time I see him. I finally got in to the club, went and collected myself, and then went on to get a drink. All in all it was a good night minus the few bumps in the road.

Friday was a day of recovery, and Saturday was the big Skydiving and surf trip day with the Bond Uni Exploration Society! I got up at 3am because my friend Emily and I had to be to campus by 4:50 am to catch the bus to Byron Bay. There were a little over 30 people on the trip, and we got to the Sky diving place at a little after 6am and everyone was already exhausted.

6:30 am and ready to jump out of the plane!

  Unfortunately the weather was not on our side and no one was able to sky dive. It was a bummer but worked out for the best because now everyone will get to make the 14,000ft jump on a nicer day of their choice. While half of the group was waiting around to jump, the other half went surfing. We went surfing with the Mojosurf crew in Byron Bay. One of our instructors, Wapu, has been surfing for over 25 years. The other instructor, Nalon, is a long haired Cali to Aussie transplant. He was my favorite, and really cute. They took us to Lennox Point and taught us all about surfing. I am now in love with surfing. It is really easy and I got up on my first try! One of these day's I'm going to go and buy a board!

"If someone gives you the shocka sign make sure you do it back, because if you don't well, that's just rude."- Our long haired surfing instructor,  Nalon

The guys trying to get the van started.

After our surf lesson we were free to explore Byron Bay. Emily and I walked around some of the shops, got some food, and then as the good tourists we are we went to the bar. We got drinks, found a table and chairs nest to a wall and watched the rugby game with our eyes closed. We were exhausted. Later that afternoon the surf group went over to Buddha bar for pizza and beer. It was a really nice, but we were all exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep.

Overall, I had an amazing, fun filled birthday weekend, and I could not have had a better friends to spend it with either!

Well that is all for this post!
Till next time my friends!
<3 Melissa