Jen Down Under: Birthday Bash...

First and foremost, I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to my mom and my oldest brother...Happy Birthday Mom and Jayson!

So...this past weekend was my birthday as well. I can honestly say that it was the best birthday I've ever had in Australia :p Anyway, we ended up going on a hike in the Blue Mountains for a class field trip on my actual birthday. That was pretty awesome - I got to get away from the city and all of its annoyances for a while. Not to mention I love hiking! I couldn't have asked for anything more :) Gail (my Aussie "mum") and my mom conspired together to get me flowers. Well, Gail definitely went overboard with the plants, so I ended up with about three bouquets of daisies and roses. It was absolutely lovely. My parents always seem to send me flowers every year no matter where I'm at - it's probably the thing I look most forward to when mid-October roles around :)

birthday round one with Gail and my roomies...

round two with a few friends...

notice the cakes says "jen is 22" and "Merry Christmas"...it also has Australian flags and a little panda bear in the top right corner. oh, and the whole cake is slanted. when Callie put it in the oven, she accidentally put it partially on top of another pan sooo the whole thing cooked on a slant. it was a most excellent cake, and i wouldn't have wanted it any other way! hehe

Callie's host mom and dad made a bbq chicken supper for us all for my birthday. they didn't even know me before I came over yet they went to all the trouble of cooking and such. the generosity and hospitality of people never seems to stop amazing me. i really liked Peter and Sue. i liked them a lot. they stuck around after supper and talked to all of us for about an hour. that was probably one of my favorite parts of the evening.

we were dorks and decided to talk about the American map for a good half an hour. and then we took photos in front of it to document our lameness...

gymea lillies - they can grow up to 20' tall. they're super common in this area...

*note: you can see the tip of my head in the bottom right corner.

playing with bluebottle jellyfish at manly beach...

what i learned from my last jellyfish encounter in Mozambique is that jellyfish can't sting you where you don't have hair. that's why we can hold them in the palm of our hands without being stung. pretty nifty, eh? oh, and this is my friend JoAnn. She is real neat.

at a block party with some Italian friends (Silvio and Lorenzo). the mural on the top is of the two African-American sprinters who did the black power salute during their awards ceremony in the '68 olympics. because this mural is on this street (it's a historical landmark now), it helped save a bunch of houses when the city wanted to tear them down for development...