I’M GOING TO LIVE IN AUSTRALIA!

I have this life list. On it are a few things that I would like to do before I die. It might be more appropriate to call it my bucket list but life sounds much less morbid. I just realized this, but since I have turned 21 I have been able to accomplish four of those life list goals. In the span of a year I have (in order) biked across America, ran a marathon, graduated college, and now I’m going to go live in another country. Australia! I can’t wait to see what my 22nd year brings. Man I must say God is good.

Life is crazy. I think that my initial Bike and Build “Sea to Sea” blog title was much more fitting than I would have ever thought. I leave to go to Australia today. Today! I’ll stay and work in Melbourne, Australia for a year as a youth ministry intern. I’ll also attend college there and study Bible classes. I’m pretty excited but also fairly nervous. I’m sure there will be plenty of ups and downs along the way (leaving certain people) but I’m ready to ride both. I’ve always been one for adventure so I think that this experience will be as my grandma would say “right up my ally”.

So I’m going to use this blog to cover my times and experiences while I’m in Australia. I’ll do my best to keep it interesting. My goal is to update once a week but there will be times when I write more than that. I just felt that this was the best way to share with my family and friends of my time in Australia. To be honest, I think this blog will be anything but boring if I just keep doing what I do. For those who know me well (or at all) then you know exactly what I mean. For those who don’t, um… I tend to make um… “ditzy” (I hate that word) mistakes especially when it comes to navigating myself through a big city. I’ve lived in a small town my entire life. It’s safe to say that my big city navigating skills are a kin to Barney on the Andy Griffith Show. Great. I’m coming from a town of 2,000 people and moving to a city of 4 million! C’mon this is the girl who has a whole post dedicated to getting lost in Dallas for 2 hours, barely making it to her Peace Corps interview, and then accidentally winding up in the HOV lane on the way back while wondering if that was the lane for blind people (see previous post). Um yep I’ll have plenty of stories to tell. Besides doing stuff like that from time to time just makes life more interesting, right? Well I’m sure my next post will be from the great land of Australia so stay tuned. I've got a 20 hour plane ride to get through and I barely slept a wink last night. Joy.

P.S: For those who were wondering, I did finally get accepted to the Peace Corps but have declined. They wanted me to go to Namibia. I felt that right now Australia was the best place for me to be.

NEAT FACT: I have grown up in the small town of Frankston, Texas most of my life. There is only one other town named Frankston in the entire world. And do you know where that would be located? Four miles down the road from me in Australia! The irony is crazy. I go half way around the world and still end up being only a few miles from the name of my town.