OCTOBER!

Well, it’s been a month since I’ve updated.. oops! But let’s be real, is anyone that shocked that I procrastinated on something?

I’ve been taking notes about what I’ve been doing and going through them now and realizing that I’m really boring! So, I’m completely stoked about telling you all about the notes I took!

So at the end of September/beginning of October I was nice and sick. It was fun, I lost my voice really bad and I sounded really funny. Also, I paid $50 to sit in a chair for a minute and a half, have a doctor look at my throat and feel my throat only to tell me I had a virus and needed fluids and rest, thanks doc! But, she was right and I got better eventually.

Here’s some exciting news: close to the end of September I signed up for graduation! I will be graduating from ASU on December 20, 2012. HOLY COW. When did that happen? It’s very exciting, slightly nerve racking that I don’t have a job or an idea of what to do after, but exciting none-the-less!

This month the homework really started flowing, I wrote 3 papers and had 2 tests. For Intercultural Marketing, I had to write a case study paper and got an A- on it. I was happy with that! I also had a test where I didn’t do fantastic on but I got a 76%. I’ll do better next time for sure. I can’t decide whether I like that class or not, it’s kind of interesting but it’s also slightly boring and the test didn’t really seem to get many answers from the lectures so that’s slightly frustrating. But, I do feel like I am learning from it. In Cross Cultural Communication I’ve now written a total of 3 papers. The first one was just an intro paper and she gave everyone a 4.5/5 on it. On the second paper, we had to write about influences on our identity (cultural, personal, and social identity) and I struggled on this one, a lot. My mind was occupied by other things so it took a while to get going but I finally did and finished it at 3am the day before it was due. Again, shocker. But I ended up getting an A- on it! Score. The third paper I wrote just last week and we had to write about 2 cross cultural experiences and how they relate to cross cultural communication so I talked about that along with the importance of intercultural competence. I’m still waiting for the grade on that one, but I’m crossing my fingers for a good mark! The other test that I had was in my Learning Through Internships course and it was just an essay exam, I got a 14.5/15 on it, and yes mom, that is a 96%, thank you very much! So overall I would say school is going really well!

On to my internship. It’s going well! I’m still doing lots of administrative tasks like making flyers, putting together websites, updating newsletters, sending letters, managing the VIP club thing and whatnot. The only new news I really have is that my boss is going out of town and I’ll be doing her job. I’ll still be supervised, but I’ll have a lot more responsibility which is awesome, but definitely nerve racking. I’m excited to be getting the experience for sure! I definitely feel like I am getting a lot out of it and I think they are happy with me too! Mainly because they told me today that they are happy with me. I figure they trust me enough to do the job, so that has to mean something! Oh, and I got to do a champagne tasting the other day at work and it was awesome, so there’s that.

Mid October was spring break here! It was awesome, I went to Cairns for 4 days. A bunch of CAPA went but I went with Mollie and Morgan and we stayed in a different hostel than everyone else. So in saying that, I stayed at a hostel! It was an experience.. interesting, but I’m not going to lie wouldn’t be bummed if I didn’t stay in one again haha. It really wasn’t that bad, we had 5 other roommates from all over the world and they were barely ever there. We weren’t there that much either, but anyways! So the main reason I went was to snorkel! At none other than the Great Barrier Reef! It was incredible, we went on an hour and a half boat ride to the first reef and snorkeled there which was really cool. Then after a while we went back inside and had a buffet lunch and then headed to the next reef which was called Hastings Reef (I think) and that one was incredible! As we were sitting on the back of the boat ready to jump into the water, there was a school of fish right in front of us and they were jumping out of the water out us! It was insane! I never thought I’d be afraid of a little fish, but it was scary being in their territory, I promise. Anyways, that reef was the best, it was SO gorgeous and the water was SO clear. Words can’t do it justice, pictures barely can either. I really think everyone needs to do that. 100% worth the time and money. After the second reef we had a 2 hour boat ride back complete with live entertainment by ‘Lucky Phil,’ the boats chef and entertainer. All in all it was an amazing day, and I slept like a baby that night too. The rest of my time in Cairns I spent walking around, sunbathing at the lagoon (because who’d-a-thunk, there aren’t any beaches in Cairns, woops!) and also, HOLDING A KOALA! Which was so fun, we only got to hold Harvey for a couple seconds but it was totally worth it, he was adorable! After that I headed back to Sydney, and thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in a bed with clean sheets in a room by myself. The rest of spring break was pretty laid back, I slept and watched tv and studied for the test I had on Monday after break. EXCEPT! On the Friday I went surfing at Manly beach! It was SO much fun and I would love to do it again! I got on my knees on my first try and on my feet on the second! I only did it for like and hour or an hour and a half and I was sore for like 4 or 5 days, it hurt to move haha. But it was awesome, I want to do it again. But my next challenge is snowboarding! Katie and Zach? This winter? Ehhhh?

Well, I can’t believe I only have a month left here. BUT, I have lots of stuff planned and I’m super excited for it all. I’m going to see Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi this weekend and hopefully do the costal walk from Bondi to Coogee. Saturday night is the Show at the Opera House!! And next weekend I’m doing to bridge climb! WOO!! So yeah, definitely lots to look forward to still. But I definitely can’t believe how fast the time has FLOWN by and I feel so ridiculously fortunate to be able to have done this.

MISS YOU ALL!

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure!

aboriginal dude at the harbor!

the BEAUTIFUL ocean and reef!

Mollie and I!

the lagoon at Cairns

part of the surfing crew!

 chicka chicka yeah!

Round 2!

Back again! I can’t believe it’s already been almost 3 weeks since I’ve gotten here. Where has the time gone?!
So! The last place I left off was the interview, which was forever ago. Oops! I guess I’ll talk about my work a little then. But first I’ll tell you guys my schedule just for fun.

Monday:         Marketing 9-12:30
                       Internship 1-5
Tuesday:         Internship 9-5
Wednesday:    Internship 9-3:30
                        LTI class 4:30-6
Thursday:        Internship 9-3:30
                        Communications 4:30-8
and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are free!

Back to work: I work in the marketing/sales department at a super nice hotel which is right on the harbor. It’s pretty surreal walking from the train to work every day and seeing the Sydney Opera House. Anyways, I help mostly with administrative tasks. I wrote down everything I did for the first couple of days just so you guys can know all the SUPER exciting things I do!
Day 1: First thing I did was added people to the QG and QW(another branch of our hotel which is pretty close, it’s closer to The Rocks) newsletter, first name and email to be more exact. Then, I was given a fairly lengthy list of companies that had recently had meetings or conferences at our competitor hotels and looked up the companies head office address and phone number and put all that into a spread sheet. After that I made a fact sheet for another branch of our hotel. My last task of the day was updating the “What’s on in Sydney” page on the Quay Grand and Quay West websites! (If you want to check them out, then go to http://www.mirvachotels.com/quay-grand-suites-sydney andscroll over "special deals and click on "ECQ's makeover turns 1"  also, scroll over "Visitors Guide: Sydney" and click on "What's on in Sydney") I know that it might not be major, but it feels really awesome that something I did is going to be seen by people and might help out!
On days 2 and 3: The thing that took up most of those two days was updating the room rates for company rates and whole sale rates for the rooms at the QG and QW. It was lots of basic addition and data input and messing up and getting new information and having to redo it a couple times. But it was kind of cool! My boss told me that it got checked over before they sent it in and I did it perfectly. Woo!
I also made a flyer for the spring conferencing incentive, updated the website for the spring conferencing incentive and made a new web page for the new candy and dessert buffet/bar that starts this month. (if you want to check that one out then go to http://www.mirvachotels.com/quay-grand-suites-sydney and scroll over "Dining" and click on ECQ's couture candy and dessert bar).
Beyond that, I’ve updated a number of web pages, created a couple, updated the newsletter, more data entry and whatnot.
Also! This past week I got put in charge of the VIP club for the bar/restaurant/hotel! It’s still relatively small, has about 80 members, but it’s really cool! I know that I got put in charge of it because my boss doesn’t exactly have time to, but it’s still exciting that she trusts me to do it! I clean up the data base that’s already present and add people that email in their information. When they email the info in, I add them to the spreadsheet and email them so we can figure out the payment for the membership. Then, when they pay I send them the letter welcoming them along with their key ring with their VIP member number on it.
One of the incentives they get for joining is a birthday voucher (which is $20 to the bar) so when the birthdays are coming up I make the voucher and send them a letter with it as well.
So I feel kind of important!
I also sometimes run errands, yesterday I got to go on a nice 40 minute walk (round trip) to pick up a banner, it was nice to get some fresh air during work! Today I actually went and picked up a blueberry cheesecake for a coworker who just had a birthday! And I got to eat some. AND I got to go to a wine tasting at work today! Wine is still not my favorite, but who’s going to pass on free wine and cheeses and crackers? Not me! Today was a good day. :D

I finally went out with some friends to a bar last Friday (the 7^th) to a bar where I got a pretty yummy margarita!  Then the next day went to Manly beach! (I know what you’re thinking, “Bree, was it ... MANLY?!”  and no, it was not “manly” you corn balls). But it was very pretty! And cold and windy, but very pretty! Then the next day we went to Bondi Beach for the Festival of the Winds! It was a huge kite festival! (Which was way cooler than it sounds). It was a little warmer and the beach was gorgeous! It was super crowded but that was to be expected. I can’t wait until it’s a little warmer so I can go swimming!

Last week was pretty uneventful, just work and school. Food chopping and eating is going better though! Found some simple meals, I ate pasta with meat sauce 3 nights in a row, and plan on doing that again this week, starting tonight. Who needs variety! I also finally started bringing my lunch, and yes mom I’m eating fruit! I bought some cuties (the Australian version, which are basically the same) and I bought some apples. But don’t be too proud, I also bought ice cream and tons of tim tams. :D

On Friday, the 14^th, we had a trip to Cockatoo Island, which was cool and weird. It used to have a prison on it and was a ship yard and stuff. Now they have abstract art exhibits in random places. But there were some really cool ones! I’ll put pictures soon. Oh, also, there were creepy people that were wearing plastic animal masks and stuff, it was so weird. And I saw some pirates (they were fake though, don’t worry).

I didn’t eat any more weird stuff this time, so nothing fun on that front.

But things are going well! Starting to have a good routine down and still have lots of things to look forward to! I’m trying to decide what I want to do and which trips I can afford to do as well. Spring break is coming up and I’m hoping to go up north so I can see the Great Barrier Reef! Fingers crossed!

Okay, I’m getting hungry. Time to go cook up so meat and pasta!

LAST THING! In 5 hours it turns to my lovely sister’s 25th birthday! KATIE! YOU GET TO CELEBRATE FOR 41 HOURS! Get ready for it! I already texted you but your card is going to be late (surprise surprise) BUT, I am half way around the world. So there’s my excuse this year!:D BUT! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope it’s a great one! And I look forward to skyping the family on Saturday (it’ll be Sunday for me, but yeah) and seeing everyone! Bummed I’m missing the barbecue, but have an extra drink for me! Love you guys!

I hope everything stateside is going well!
Until next time. :)



Here are some random pictures! I haven't plugged in my camera in a while so these are just some randoms from a couple weeks ago. Enjoy!

 going out with the girls!

 beef pie thing!

 different view of the Sydney Opera House!

My favorite part of the zoo!

Flowers at the Royal Botanical Gardens with the Opera House and Harbor Bridge in the background :)

The annoyingly detailed first post!

Well, I’ve been here for 13 days now, so I think it’s about time to start my blog so you guys can read about my adventures! Bear with me, the first days were jam packed with stuff, so this may get a bit boring, and this is just going to be about the first weekin which i kept a detailed account of everything :D

Day 1: The Journey

So, I’ll start with the looooong plane ride. 14 or so hours to be more specific. It actually wasn’t that bad, I slept a little, first for 2 hours then woke up for a little, then fell back asleep for an hour and woke up again, then I got a whopping 3 hours of sleep before waking up for the rest of the flight. Luckily on the flight there’s a little screen in the headrest in front of you on every chair that had free tv shows and movies! I watched some Big Bang Theory and some How I Met Your Mother, also some New Girl which was pretty funny, and I also fit in watching The Avengers and The Muppet Movie. Oh, and some Family Guy. There was a lot of time to fill!
Anyways! So we arrived in Sydney around 6:30 (on Wednesday morning, which was actually like 1:30 on Tuesday afternoon in AZ) and got our luggage and then headed to the Meriton (the apartments where we are all staying). Luckily, mine was one of the few rooms that were actually ready so I got to head right up and take a much needed shower. Met one of my roommates also! The first day we went on a walking tour around Waterloo, the city where the Meriton is. We also had a brief orientation and then the rest of the day was ours. I went with Kristen, one of my roommates, and we decided to explore the city a bit! We took a bus to the Darling Harbor area and just walked around there for a while finding a really cool fountain, some nice shopping areas, and a couple random art structures. Definitely enjoyed walking down there and can’t wait to check out palces like the friendship garden. After that we headed back and did a little food shopping and ate some dinner. I managed to stay up until about 9:15 and then passed out until 7:15 the next morning. Needless to say, I slept well!

Day 2: Brewhaha

This day was filled orientations, walking, and bus riding. This was the day I got my new cell phone and dongle (USB plug in for internet!) I then walked around North Sydney with the awesome girls I met from Anderson and we stopped at the best café called Brewhaha for an amazing iced caramel coffee and a piece of banana bread. Ohmygosh so good. After that we headed back to the apartments and I went and had spaghetti dinner with them and we all drank wine.
SIDENOTE: Beer is $40+ for a 6-pack here. A 6-PACK. Looks like if I’m drinking here at all it’ll be wine haha.

Day 3. The day I ate kangaroo.

This day started with going back to Brewhaha for an early morning pick-me-up, after that was the internship orientation and then a travel presentation thing as well. After that we had a welcoming lunch at a pub in the city called Australian Hotel. This is when I tried kangaroo and crocodile. Crocodile.. was disgusting, never again. Kangaroo was okay, but.. never again. Glad to say I’ve done it, but I’m good now. After that I wandered with a group of people to go see the Sydney Opera House! Let me tell you, it’s incredibly beautiful. I never knew it was tiles, I always just thought it was pure white. I’ll put pictures of that up on Facebook when I can get to some reliable wifi. But, wow. I was blown away by how gorgeous it was. After that we wandered past the Opera House into the Royal Botanical Gardens, again, wow. It was so beautiful, and green, with so many interesting plants and trees to look at. I can’t wait to go back and wander around some more!
Another side note! It’s cold here. I was not prepared for being a popsicle in the mornings and at nights and pretty much always except from about noon-1. And I don’t care if it’s in Celsius, 19 degrees is cold whichever way you look at it!
Anyways, it started to get super chilly and a little rain so we ended up finding our way back to the Meriton.
Oh and I made a note in my phone to mention that the weirdest part to having people drive on the opposite side of the road is that I have no idea which way to look when I need to cross the street!

Day 4: Blue Mountains are actually blue-ish!

This was Saturday and the Blue Mountains Excursion! We all got up early and loaded onto the bus. On the bus ride I saw a Hungry Jack’s (aka Burger King) sign that called breakfast, brekky. They’re big on abbreviations (or as I like to say, abbreves) here, I guess they don’t want to waste too much time talking!
The first stop on the trip was Sydney’s Olympic Park! We only got to stop for about 15 minutes but it was really cool to see all the poles out front that had the names of every single person who helped at all with the Olympics, even people who had simply handed out flyers! Then, we loaded back onto the bus and she gave us a little factoid about the Australian 20 dollar bill. On the back, is the man who started the Royal Flying Doctors. He traveled by camel which was too slow so he approached Qantas who eventually donated a biplane. (She said more stuff but that’s as much as I could remember). Next stop was Featherdale Wildlife Zoo! I got to pet a baby wallaby at the entrance, which was possibly the cutest thing in existence. Then I got to pet a koala and take pictures with it! Found out that they sleep for 18-22 hours a day and for the time that they are awake they eat and the leaves they eat make them completely stoned out of their minds. Then I got to feed wallabies and kangaroos! The kangaroos were just small ones but they were pretty adorable. And they were different than I expected them to be, they didn’t hop everywhere, they kind of crawled and moved pretty slowly. And even the bigger ones we saw weren’t as big as I expected. Still very cool though. Oh and they weren’t really caged in so occasionally you’d have one hop right by you! After that we walked around and saw dingoes, and an alligator, and peacocks, a Tasmanian devil, funny little wombats, penguins, lots of birds, and my favorite animal of the day, an albino peacock! It was probably the prettiest animal I’ve ever seen!
Next, we stopped in a little town for lunch which wasn’t really worth mentioning, so moving on!
Our next stop was the Blue Mountains! It was kind of like a tree filled Grand Canyon. (I think I like the Grand Canyon better, but it was still very pretty). One of the main things we saw were called the Three Sisters, which was a group of rock formations which again I’ll show on Facebook. After that we went on a hike (which most people complained about) but I really enjoyed it! It was about 3.5 km which was less than 2 miles, but the first 1.5 km were 982 VERY steep steps. Scary steep. Like, if you fell, 30 people in front of you were going right down with you and not stopping until you hit the bottom. Luckily, no one fell! The hike, after the steps was absolutely gorgeous! There were a couple little trickily natural waterfalls, like tiny streams, still gorgeous nonetheless. At the almost end it opened up a bit and it was like a scene from a magazine, a bunch of waterfalls working their way through big, moss covered rocks. It was one of the prettiest landscapes I’ve ever seen that’s for sure. So in doing this hike, we were at the bottom of a mountain, and guess how we got back up? A SUPER scary, amusement-park-like ride thing. It went up at a 52 degree angle. And if you can’t paint that picture, IT’S REALLY FREAKING STEEP! I’m going to try and find a picture of this thing because nothing I say will do it justice. But then once that was over we hopped back onto the bus and drove back to the Meriton. BUT! On the way home, I saw a cockatoo just flying. I didn’t know that actually happened! Woah!
And, I have a new favorite candy or cookie, it’s kind of both, but anyways they’re Timtam bars. Holy yum.

Day 5.  The disappointment of Ginger ale.

Woke up feeling a tad homesick so I ended up calling my wonderful sister and she cheered me up! After that I went to the grocery store, and let me tell you. Shopping here just isn’t the same. They have a lot of the same-ish stuff. But it’s all just a little… off. The brands are just a little different and the taste follows suit. Chicken flavored chips are kinda big here, so that’s different! All the frozen pizzas are a little odd as well, no “normal” cheese or pepperoni. Hawaiian is popular and ham and other somewhat random flavors.
Now, gingerale is somewhat of a comfort food (err.. drink) for me so I was excited to see they had it! Although nervous that it looked different than what I remembered it to look like in the U.S. but I decided to try it anyways. Well, it tastes like someone put a ginger plant in a blender and then put some sparkling water in it or something. Straight from the garden. Aaaaand not my cup of tea, but that’s okay.
Also, Philadelphia cream cheese has a weird consistency, it’s almost grainy.  Bagels are super tasty though! Other than the fact that they get moldy really quickly.
Funny story for Katie and my mom.. So remember like 3 weeks ago I was eating that pita bread and then mom pointed out that it was moldy? Yeah well I’m pretty sure that my parents didn’t teach me to inspect my food well enough because I ate a third of a moldy bagel the other morning. Sooo.. that was fun.
Anyways!
Later in the day I went and found my internship and then explored The Rocks, which was really cool! There was a cool little market type thing going on with people selling art and jewelry and clothes and candies and other random stuff too. Definitely looking forward to going back.

Day 6. The interview, dun, dun, DUNNNNNNNN!

It went well J. I was freaking out! But it ended up being a group interview with 2 other girls on the trip and the interviewer, Joel, took us into a room and basically just asked what we wanted to do or get out of the internship and then he walked us around Quay West. And that was it!
I work in the marketing department of the Quay Grand Suites Sydney, which is a RIDICULOUSLY nice hotel with apartment style rooms and beautiful views. Honestly, nicest hotel I’ve ever been in!

OKAY! That’s it for now. I’ll write about what I do at work in my next post. Again, sorry for all the details, I’m new to blogging so hopefully I’ll get less boring as I go!

I miss everyone at home a ton!

AND for your viewing pleasure, PICTURES! :)

 this is me petting a BABY adorable wallaby!

 a bunch of us on the way down the 982 steps on our Blue Mountain hike

Manly beach:)

me feeding a kangroo!

 me and an old man in front of the opera house! aka. this was the first time I had seen it and I really wanted to get a picture with it, and the old man being in it didn't phase me. but I will be getting a better one of this soon :)

 

PS. I should definitely mention that i am LOVING this adventure. I am completely out of my element and doing my best to figure out what the heck I am doing. I'm learning new things every day and I am so thankful that I have this opportunity!