Sydney Opera House and Ellen in Sydney!

This week has been the craziest ever! I had so much fun that I totally forgot to do my homework and have stayed at home the whole day today. It's all good though, because it's 32 degrees outside, so if I can't go to the beach, I rather stay at home :P

So this week on Thursday, after 3 days of school, Elif and I decided to go and take pictures around the Opera House. She had a class until 3 pm so I went off to Bondi Beach and waited her there. It took me forever to get to the city that day, but it was all worth it once I arrived to the beach. It was everything I expected it to be and more. It was quite cloudy once I got there, but that didn't disturb me a bit. I went in the water and stayed there for at least 40 min or so, surfing and body boarding without a board hehe. It was SO much fun!!! The waves were huge and water tropically salty, what a paradise. There were tons of dudes surfing close by and I realized that I need to take a surf lesson during the weekend I am visiting Manly Beach.

Bondi Beach

 I met Elif around 5 pm and we started off our little walking tour in the city. Firstly, we visited Chinatown. It was quite similar to the ones I have seen in NY, California and Canada, but still slightly different. I enjoy spending time in Chinatown, there is always this awesome vibe. We weren't really hungry, so instead of having a real meal, we bought frozen yoghurt.

Harbour Bridge

By 8 o'clock it was nice and dark already, so we headed to the Opera House. The Opera House was way bigger than I expected it to be and amazingly gorgeous in the night lights. Unfortunately, my camera started acting up and it didn't focus most of the pictures. Luckily Elif had the same camera as I did, so she took pictures for both of us. We were dancing around and taking silly photos like crazy, all the other tourists and probably some locals as well, laughed, but we had too much fun. I got home at 2 am and had an unforgettable first night out in Sydney.

Elif and I

Opera House at night

Opera House at day

On Friday I had my first night of babysitting Shianne's kiddos. They are so darn awesome and cute and Shianne is so cool. We started playing tennis with her on Wed and will most likely keep doing it 3 times a week. It feels so good to play tennis again :)

Ok, so here it goes, Saturday was THE BEST day ever!!! I saw freaking Ellen DeGeneres! I was actually supposed to go on a bush walk with people from school, but...I had waited for Ellen to come to Sydney ever since she announced that in January, and desperately following her tweets, today was the day. I didn't regret a bit! Maria and I arrived there at noon, just in time before Ellen did and the show started 15 min later. Only then it finally hit me what I was seeing and I couldn't have been happier. I love Ellen so much and it truly was one of my dreams that came true. She was as funny as always, giving out money and making us laugh. She even had a guest with her, Russell Crowe. The crowd went nuts when he came out. We all found out that he only lived about 15 min. from the park. Portia and Tony were also present and all in all the show was perfect!

unbelievable!

the one and only, Ellen!

Portia and Ellen leaving

Maria and I 

I just feel so extremely blessed to be able to travel and see places I have only dreamed about. I try not to take the beautiful countries and people I meet for granted, but to thank God for the opportunities he has given me. Every now and then I still can't believe I'm living in Australia now and that I have seen the Opera House. I guess it's true that dreams have no boundaries, especially when they come true.

Featherdale Wildlife Park

Last week went so fast and I explored so many new places that I didn't even have time to post a blog. As I have been extremely lazy today (no wonder, I got home from Sydney at 2 am last night), I decided to at least finish my last weeks' blog, before the new one comes on Sunday. So here you go...

wallaby

School has got little more intense as 4 weeks have passed so quickly. I still like it though, like I really do. I'm most excited for our graphic design project which will be designing a book cover for "The Catcher in the Rye". Sounds awesome, but I'll see how it will actually work out.

Anyhow, the week went fast and before I knew it was Saturday. On Saturday Megan, Angelica and I went to a Featherdale National Park in Bankstown. It was a beautiful and sunny day with 27 degrees, so obviously we made it a trip and had our lunch there as well. It was one of the best days in Australia so far! I could finally tick off two things from my bucket list: seeing/touching a kangaroo and a koala. They were so adorable!!! I was so close of just snatching one koala and run back home with it. Such beautiful animals, I just wanted to eat their faces off lol.

Kangaroos were cute too :) At first I was little hesitant to go and pet them. I have heard all the stories of kangaroos kicking people's guts out, but these creatures looked way too friendly. We spent at least an hour feeding them and taking pictures with them. What a happy day :)

St. Patrick's Day in Sydney

On Sunday it was St. Patrick's Day. I went to Sydney to meet up with Maria and Elif. We went to Hyde's Park to see all these crazy people dressed in green. I desperately wanted to buy a green wig or a hat, but after walking around the city for an hour not finding anything, we gave up. Back at the park, people were mingling, eating, drinking-all dressed in green. It was quite an experience. Later at night we went to the Darling Harbor and had a beer at the Hard Rock cafe Sydney. Definitely a great end for the week and good start for the new one.

How warm is warm?

Kakadu

It's officially my second week ending here, on Wednesday it's going to be 3 weeks since I left cold Estonia/Finland- wow, does time go fast or what!? Actually not too bad, comparing to my friend who's doing her exchange in Canada. She only has a month left until she is done with her whole semester and it feels like she just left. It just made me realize to enjoy every minute of Australia I have and take all of it.
Talking about that, I am going to Melbourne in a month, which I am extremely super trouper excited about, but will talk about that in next weeks blog :)

Rainbow Lorikeet

This week I was impatiently waiting for my scholarship, which unfortunately got delayed again and I have to wait for another week. That of course meant that I couldn't go to Sydney like I had planned and had to find something fun and cheap to do here in St. Marys. I have classes from Mon-Wed which keep me quite busy these days. On Thursday I went to the pool. It was my first time and I was really excited. The weather was cloudless and warm (26 C), perfect for sunbathing. When I got to the recreation center, only people swimming in the outdoor pool were 2 old dudes, everyone else was inside. I asked the lifeguard if something was wrong and laughed so hard for his reply. He said no, all is fine, it is just little cold today to swim outside, but it should get warmer later today. Cold!?!?! Lol, excuse me but 26 degrees out and 25 in the pool is more  than fine for me :)

On Friday and the weekend I decided to go and take a picture of some of the unbelievably beautiful kakadus and lorikeets I have been seeing around for quite some time now. Unfortunately I didn't get very good shots this week, but I will definitely keep hunting them down. Just a little example of how they look like. What a paradise I keep telling myself everyday :)

Pretty bird!

School starts!

This week was the so called 0 week. That pretty much meant that classes already commenced but lot of tutorials will officially start next week. It also meant that the campus was filled with different stalls of past time activities, clubs on and off campus and many more. It was quite fun; I met some people and got lot of free stuff, which is always good :) I joined the girls basketball team on campus and I'm REALLY excited to start playing ball again after a long break. I think the training starts next week, so I'm really looking forward to it.

I truly enjoyed my classes this week, seriously, I have never been so excited for school before :) I am taking four of the following units:

1. Intro to Advertising
2. Media Arts and Production
3. Graphic Design
4. Indigenous Australia

Totally LOVE graphic design already, I think I was born to be creative lol.

Oh yeah, here is my address, for the peeps who would like to remember me on my B'Day or just to come and visit :)

Kadi Levo
3/134 Glossop Street
2760 St Marys
NSW, Australia

Praying mantis

This week has mostly been the one to really settle in and get to used to the route to school and back. I have also walked around the downtown area but not really seen that much yet. At the moment, I'm really just looking forward to Friday the 8th when my scholarship should arrive,which also should mark the starting of fun times (if you know what I mean). So hopefully there would be something about Sydney in next week's blog :)

I did tick something out from my to do list this week; I ate a kangaroo burger!!! How cool is that :)
It was very filling with a little unknown after taste, nevertheless, it was yummy, definitely will have more of that joint.

Yumm yumm