Hello!

Happy New Year! We hope everyone's 2010 is going great already. Last monday we had a bit of a shambles of a day as we tried to arrange going to the cinema with Ellen and Chuey and it all fell through. After we had faffed around with that we went for a walk along the beach and to the little cafes at the end of them. We watched a film and went to bed. So being in Australia clearly makes no difference to the blah days that follow christmas and preceed the new year!

On the Tuesday we went for a swim with Ellen at the beach just down the end of the road from us in the morning, which was lovely and the water was really nice. It seems like such a lot of effort to get all sunblocked up and walk down to a good beach but then once we're there we realise how much we like it. That afternoon after we de-salted in the shower, we headed (without Ellen) to the cinema in Warwick to see 'Did you hear about the Morgans?' which we really enjoyed and it was really great to get out of the blazing sun into the air-con.

We went to the beach again for a morning swim on Wednesday. This time though we had to go to a patrolled beach because there had been so much wind the night before that the waves were quite violent! On the way back, we were walking up the road and were attacked by a bunch of irritating prepubescent skaters who found it funny to try and scare us into moving off the path by skating through us. It was really very odd and we were a bit baffled, haha. That evening Ellen, James and Chuey came over for drinks. Amy made a call to her mum because it was her birthday and we all got rather drunk before we had even left. We went to catch the bus and it nearly drove past us, on the way there we were talking to a random man who we actually thought they must know but it turns out they didn't. When we got to Hillarys, we went to queue for BarOneTwenty but as it was such a long line we decided to grab a drink in another bar first. It was the same when we got back there though and when we discovered we would have to pay $15 and wait for 40 mins to get to a club they didn't even like that much we made them turn around and we walked home via the servo to get lollies (Mary-Ann) and chippies (Amy)!!!

So Thursday was New Years Eve and we had planned to go to Rockingham in the day but because we woke up so late after a heavy-ish night we decided to spend the day doing some exercises and went to the shop to stock up before being picked up by Chuey to go to James' who was having a gathering. By about 10 o'clock though, we decided we should go to another place because it was a bit uneventful where we were and the boys fancied a change of scene. So we got in the car and drove to another house party which was a bit more lively but we didn't know many people. Still unsatisfied, at about 10 to midnight we got in the car and drove to the beach where we had the countdown (about 7 of us: Ellen, James, Chuey, Elliot, Ben and us) on the jetty - it was pretty nice! After this everyone went their seperate ways and we went with Chuey to go and pick up his very drunk sister, Mylinh. It was hilarious. She was demanding a Maccas run in the back seat of the car and kept falling asleep on Maryann. Chuey agreed to Maccas ont he condition she shout us all sundaes.

New Years day was very uneventful, we didn't wake up til 12 and had planned to go to Rockingham but realised nothing would be open, so we hung around the house, Amy made some cookies and some nice calls from home, but we were both feeling a bit homesick.

On Saturday we went to the zoo with Ellen, James and Louise and a picnic. It was baking hot! Mary-Ann saw her first kangaroos and koala. It was a really nice day out and we had a giggle at the monkeys who never fail to be the most entertaining animal at zoos! When we saw the African animal section it brought back lots of memories of Tanzania and it was weird then to see giraffes (giraif!) and zebra etc in an Australian setting. It was an exhausting day (mainly because of the heat) so when we got back Maryann took a nap and Amy wrote in her diary outside which was lovely and peaceful. What was not so peaceful was when we went to bed that night and we discovered 2 cockroaches lurking in our bedroom - yuck!!!!!!!

Sunday was another relaxing day, in the afternoon we went to the much advocated Cottesloe Beach Hotel for their sunday session with Chuey, James and Adrian. It was odd to see people drinking en mass at 4 in thr afternoon but there was a really nice atmosphere and because we hadn't eaten since 12 we got embarassingly drunk from 2 (or 1 and a half in Amy's case) Smirnoff Ices!!! After a few hours we went to the beach quickly so that James and Adrian could have a swim. We drove back to Innaloo where we went to Nando's. We discovered it was nowhere near as tasty as the ones in England. Not only were the burger buns the thype you get from Tescos with seeds on, the veggie burgers were 90% lemon and corriander and boring and there was no halloumi option!! Oh well, this will save us a lot of money in the long run! And it was nice to have dinner out for once.

Yesterday we went into town to do some errands and then went in the evening to a pub in north Fremantle with Chuey to see Adrian at an open mic night. It was really fun and interesting always to see different acts. There was even a little baby kangaroo randomly in the back garden of the pub? It seemed to belong to one of the drinkers there and crawled into his t-shirt like a pouch!!

And that's it so far! We're off to the cinema in a bit then to meet Ellen and some others. Hope you have a lovely day, lots of love,

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