A long awaited blog....soo much info

Alright so heres the deal.....I may forget something but get ready for a biggie....

I'll start with school....we just got done with out intensives so this Monday I will officially be starting school and I can't wait. I will be finding out what band I am with and what group I will be put into. The intensives were alright, they were crazy long so we just tried to make it through together. It was a lot of basic welcome to college type stuff. For school I have to service jobs...one is being in Choir on Sundays...and the other is in the Library which I still have no idea what I will be doing there. The profs seem very very cool and one I have really grown a liking to his teaching ability.

I got to experience a vision Sunday at Hillsong and it was awesome! They are opening a church in NYC and building some crazy schools in South Africa. Two days later we went to the Hills campus for Vision night which is when Brian gives a much deeper explanation on how everything is going to work. Before that we had school at the Hills campus and got to have a question answer session with Joel which was really cool. It was funny to see how much he is just like us. That night I got to meet Jad Gillies and Ben Fielding which was really cool. A bunch of us were hanging out in front of the stage while Joel was practicing and they walked out so I just decided to go introduce myself. They were both very cool guys and were completely cool with me introducing myself. It's cool to think that I could be playing with these guys at sometime this year and it won't even be a big deal.

I am actually heading to North Beach church (a branch of Hillsong) with a friend to go see Marty Sampson. I'm really excited about this becuase the church isn't very large and we heard you can actually hang out with Marty after services. I really am excited about this because he wrote songs that have had huge influence on my life.

I did get to see the Superbowl!!! they had a huge party for us and we got to see Drew Brees win the MVP......safe to say I was very pleased with the superbowl this year....sorry to all the Colts fans...at least you got there. I have been hanging out with my group of friends almost everyday and I have been meeting new people everyday. Our group is now starting to really feel like a tight knit group and its been great. One of them will be leaving in a couple months so we will definitely miss them.

My favorite beach has now become Bronte beach with Moroubra in a close second.....no worries has slowly come into my vocab since you hear it every second of everyday.....My roommate and I have become very close and seem to go everywhere together which is great...we still have a little UK vs. U.S. every once in a while tho for good measure ;).

Everything is going great I am loving it here even tho I do miss people very much....but I knew that would happen so o well :)......I am starting busking next week so I can't wait to start making some money! I'm sure I will think of something to write later..but for now...LOVE YOU!

Stralia day/First day of school/everything else

Alright so lets see.....I have found a pretty awesome group of people that I have been hanging out with which is great because it is really starting to feel like home. We're all starting to become really close and it's really incredible to see how fast our relationships are growing.

We've pretty much done everything together for the last week and a half and I've absolutely loved it. Going to the beach has been absolutely great! O o O I totall forgot!!! I got stung by a Jellyfish!! I was so excited after it happened...I felt like a real Aussie!.....I got stung in Moroubra beach and I had a huge burn and inflation up my leg.

I've also gone rock climbing at the beaches and I celebrated Stralia day in fashion....we went to Bronte beach and it was the most beautiful place I've ever seen..... We went cliff jumping and I did a crazy sprint off the side of the cliff which was probably stupid but it was well worth the risk. The church has been great and I've really enjoyed being apart of it. Jad Gillies is apparently leading worship next week so I'm really excited and he is also a very cool guy.

I'm leaving tomorrow for our 18-25 retreat in which almost every studen't goes. Today was awesome and the first day of school was so much fun....I just can't believe I'm in school for playing/writing/creating music. The chapel before school was crazzy awesome and it kind of refueled my fire for leading worship and writing music. Right now I'm getting ready to try some Kangaroo...o and btw We made buddies with the Security Guard and whenever someone is moving out he is finding out what their not keeping (couches, tv's, other appliances) and giving them to us....we already got a 24 inch lcd t.v. , a dvd player, and a couch.....

I can't think of anything else right now but If I do I'll be back!!! LOVE YOU!

Whats been going on!

Alright so there is a lot of information to fill everybody in on so I can't promise I will remember everything.

First off we still don't have internet but we finally met our roommate (which is quite a story) so we can now plan on getting it in our flat.
Let's see.....First off, yesterday a girl walked into our flat and told my roommate Istvan and I that we were accidentally moved into the wrong flat and our other flatmate that we had been waiting for had been there for a week staying by himself in his flat. She said his name was Daniel...I thought to myself, "surely it can't be Brit Dan that we've been hanging out with the last couple days." Turns out the guy we had been waiting for we were already friends with him.

So we began moving out across the courtyard and into the other flat building....Bad news is we lost our courtyard view where all the college flats are, Awesome news is that our apartment living room is twice the size of most and it is huge! So we took a couple hours packed all of our stuff up and I will be unpacking today once I'm done with this blog.

I went to my first Hillsong service on Sunday night and it was great! The worship was very passionate and moving, also the church is very very missions focused on their community and all over the world. They also had a huge ministry for people 35 and younger which was really cool to see the age group 25-30 have their own "youth" group.

I've gone to the beach 4 times already! the great thing is that I can ride there in about 15 minutes which nothing. The beach was great...the sun here is different...after the first day we only went for about an hour and a half and I got a tan immediately. The beach in awesome...so many people to meet and also you can see down to your feet more than a hundred feet out in sky blue water.

My new favorite meal here is a fruit salad they make with yogurt and granola....it is sooooo good. Also, I decided to get back into really good shape and this is the best place for it...I have two parks, a workout center, a pool (with a hot tub), and there is always sports to be played. I actually played futbol with some guys yesterday and it was awesome.. They were from Germany, Chile, Brazil, Holland, Sweden, Russia, and England. I had so much fun and i actually represented the states farely well.....They told me they were impressed with my defensive skills (thats all I played since I don't have any sort of ball skills. So it was awesome to meet some new guys and play some sport.

boyoyoy sorry I know this is a biggy.....so funny story real quick.....So I'm walking back to my new flat and I had only been there once before....it's about 7:30 p.m. and I walk in my door and theres two girl laughing in our kitchen....I was so confused so I just said, "who are you guys?" Turns out they just met my roommate Dan and they told him the would meet him in our flat...he was already there and didn't know they had come in....They were really really cool and quite attractive :) but they asked us if they could make us pizza at their flat and obviously we said of course....We went over there met all their flatmates and made some really good friends....we built one girls bed for her which was fun and just hung out for quite a while.....we come to find that one of them is having a birthday today....we decided why not have a big party in our huge living room....so tonight we are having a dance party at our place which will so much fun.....

I will be getting some pics up in a little while once we have our internet + some movies of sydney harbor, the beach, and our party tonight.

Sorry for the crazy long blog...there is so much more to tell but I can't think at all....Love you and can't wait to see you.

Sitting with Istavan at Creme cafe getting in touch with the western world.

So I'm sitting here at 1:30 with my roommate Istavan (who's a pretty cool cat) at the Creme Cafe where we get free wireless.

I went on a bike ride at about 6:30 today and went to Bondi beach and also to all the huge stadiums (which are less than a mile away from me). I ended up being completely lost since I didn't bring a map, address, or any sort of directions of any kind. I figured that as long as I go east I would find the ocean.

Good news is my theory worked, bad news is I forgot that I also had to get back. Luckily I remember the most random things. As I was riding I kept thinking, "There has to be something I will recognize..." Well turns out there was this sidewalk where a lot of trash cans had been pushed over that I passed when I was heading to Bondi.

Somehow I came somewhat back the same direction and found that sidewalk and then remembered how to get back home.

Random Sydney vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfFRINXFg28

So I got to do a little exploring yesterday.

Let's just say there are a lot of awesome places here and I have already found my favorite spot. Watch the vid, I apologize for how random it is because I couldn't fit a vid longer than 10 minutes on youtube.

I also sang the Shaving cream song out on my balcony this morning with the song playing through the stereo. I had to make sure I marked my territory and I figured that would be the best way.

I also went to the weight room to workout....well I forgot everything is in Kilos....I grabbed the 35 kilo dumbbells and thought to myself, "why are these so huge." I picked them up and then thought, "why are these so heavy? this does not feel like 35 pounds." Then I realized......wow....I'm and idiot hahaha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktwD2FiZZ1g

Here's a vid of my last night with my best friends before I got up and headed down unda!

Flights to/getting into Sydney

So the flights were pretty eventful....first the pilot on the way to Chicago had the highest voice of all time and I was laughing inside of my head all by myslef. Second, the flight to LAX had a man singing the shaving cream song (only a few will understand this) and I started laughing in my seat and he loved it that I knew the song.

My flight to Sydney was awesome.....though it was about 14 to 16 hours I met two really cool Aussie girls who were sitting next to me. We talked throughout the whole trip and got to know a lot about each other. One of the coolest parts was about 1 in the morning when all the lights were out and I opened my window and looked at the night sky....The stars were so bright they were singing off of the clouds which was a beautiful sight.

Some great movies came on, 500 days of summer was playing about 3 times over and I watched it every time, turns out I can really relate to that movie. The food was great to which really surprised me. I know I'm being random but I'm so tired right now, anyways.....the rest of the flight was great and I ended it making pretty good friends with the Aussie girls....they gave me their number in case I got a phone and said they would get in contact with me on facebook so that should be fun to look forward to.

Once I arrived I was kind of taken back and once I entered into Hillsong I just thanked God for giving me the dreams that I have and for allowing me to make it there. That was quite a moment, as I stood in the doors I just thought to myself, "Am I really doing this?"

I met my host and we've been hanging out all day. He showed me the ropes to shopping and getting around. My apartment is awesome and very large, I have a huge balcony that overlooks a courtyard + there is a workout center and hot tub/pool in the complex. Surrounding the apartments are some large sport parks, fountains, brick roads, and really cool shops. I guess you could say I'm starting to like it. I am missing everyone very much especially my family and my best friends. I can't wait to see what I get to take part in and what I get to do. Christ has blessed me beyond my dreams. Love you all and cannot wait to see you......well...until after I get done here of course. :)