Hello again! I've been constantly moving around and exploring the city, and I wanted to update everyone on my life down under!

School has been great so far! Classes aren't too bad, but definitely require a lot of reading for each tutorial. Monday is my busiest day because I have 4 classes, but the rest of the week is a breeze since there's only one class a day.

I've done a lot of exploring and done some things that I've been told I "have to" do around the city and I'm definitely glad I took their advice! A couple friends and I went to this place called Lentil As Anything, a vegan restaurant run by volunteers that makes their money based on what you think you should pay, and it was delicious! I never knew vegan could be so good! They had a buffet style set up with 7 hot dishes that they switch out when they run out and one dessert at the end. I had a black bean soy noodle dish, vegetable salad, potato salad, and another pasta dish. I was told the dessert was good, but I was too full to get any by the time I was finished eating. At Lentil, $12 is more than enough to pay for the meal and $5 is not quite enough, so people usually pay somewhere between those or donate more if they're feeling generous.

The second thing I was told I should do was go to a football match. Not American football, but what football is almost everywhere else: soccer. The Melbourne team is called Melbourne Victory and I went with five other friends. Student tickets were cheap and we had good seats right by the cheering section, which is the best part of the stands! They played and tied Perth, which was a very anticlimactic ending, but it was still fun to watch and feel like a true Melbournian!

Two weekends ago (the 8th) I went to a music festival called Future which had a lot of known artists aroundt the world performing. Not really my favorite kind of music but I didn't mind it. I was very colorful and hot and started out being fun until I got separated from my friends, couldn't find them, and had to find my way home by myself...but aside from that the music was good!

This past Saturday my friends and I finally made it down to one of the many beaches in Melbourne! We decided to go to Brighton which has the famous painted beach boxes along the shore. It started out as a hot day, then clouds came in and it became windy and a bit too chilly to be wearing a bathing suit, so we decided to leave, but not before getting pictures in front of the boxes!

I can't believe I've been here for a month already! Time flies and I'll be back state-side in no time (: I'm making tons of friends in my building and meeting their friends. Still have yet to meet a ton of aussies though...I've met more international students than locals, but I know I'll meet some soon enough! It's definitely weird being the outsider/international student in class! People give me weird looks when I talk and only some have the courage to ask why I have an accent...which is very odd, but I'm used to it now and when I get the weird look I just tell them I'm a yank/from the States (we are all called yanks to aussies and brits so I've just started calling myself one)

Some upcoming and exciting news is some friends and I are going to Thailand! We decided we wanted to go somewhere over Easter Break so we looked into places and decided on Bangkok! We are going to go to an elephant sanctuary to see what they do there (we were made aware that we shouldn't ride them by our group leader because of this http://expertvagabond.com/elephants-in-thailand/) But we will still be able to play with them and hang out with them and bathe them, so I'm still happy (: We are also going to go on a zip line adventure! We are going on the longest zip line in Thailand and everyone is excited! Expect lots of pictures and videos from that trip the week after Easter.

That's all the updates I have now, hope everything is going well back home! I miss everybody tons!