Spring break in Hawaii

I'm going to let you in on a secret. Are you ready? As soon as I found out that I'd been accepted to WWU and I'd be spending 6 months in the US, I knew that I had to go to Hawaii while I was there. And I did!
After hours and hours of study and stress we finally made it through finals which means it's spring break! The two greatest words in the English language for an American college student. About two weeks into my exchange in Bellingham, Valentina, Jessica and I booked tickets to head to Hawaii during spring break. We put the offer out there to some of the other exchange students but the guys decided they would rather go to Cancun. We weren't really that surprised. Anyway, the day after our last final saw Valentina, Jessica and I hopping on a plane and heading for Hawaii. We were spending a week on Oahu. It would've been nice to visit the other Islands but we decided we wanted to get a good look at where we were and relax a bit while we did it. We arrived at Honolulu airport at about 11pm but as we walked off the plane we were all commenting on how warm it was! As wonderful as Bellingham and the Pacific NorthWest is (and it is wonderful), it's not exactly warm so we were all glad to have the chance to lie around in the sun wearing nothing but shorts, singlets and bikinis (as a side note - even if you are going somewhere cold and wintery, take a pair of bathers and at least one pair of shorts or a summer dress. You never know when you might find yourself somewhere tropical). After we'd grabbed our bag (yes, just one. Baggage was extra so we'd made the tough decision to just take one suitcase between the three of us) and caught a taxi to our hotel - Waikiki Gateway Hotel - which was a couple of blocks from Waikiki beach. If you're ever heading to Hawaii I'd definitely recommend it. It was a nice hotel, the staff were friendly and helpful and there was an info desk available to help you book tours and recommend places to visit. In addition it was fairly close to the beach and the main shopping area of Waikiki.

Anyway, over the course of the week we spent our mornings waking up late, eating yoghurt for breakfast and lounging on the beach. During the afternoons we spent some time exploring. We visited Hanauma bay and went snorkelling which was beautiful! Unfortunately this was one of the few days it rained so we didn't stay for long but it was nice none the less. You can hire all the gear out from there and spend as long as you like in the water. We also hiked through a rain forest to a water fall and got covered in mud which was a lot a fun, did a tour around the island and saw some of the sights (where I think we were the youngest there by about 15 years), indulged in some shopping (almost a little too much when it came to going home - maybe one bag wasn't such a good idea??), hung out with some locals who invited us to join them on a night out in downtown (Senor Frogs anyone?), ate at a wonderful Japanese restaurant, visited Pearl Harbour, hired a car and spent a day driving to the other side of the island and back and spent a lot of time soaking up some much needed vitamin D from all the places mentioned above!

Hanauma bay where we went snorkelling

On our tour around the Island

Playing in the surf

Outside The Cheesecake Factory where we had dinner one night

Hiring a car and driving around the Island meant we got to stop for coconuts!

After the last 10 weeks, in particular dead week and then exam week it was nice to be able to kick back and relax. Hawaii was definitely a good place to do that and it pretty easy to navigate by foot or car. Oahu (particularly Waikiki was packed with Australians. I'd love to go back someday, especially to see some of the other Islands. For now though, it's back to class!

Love Danielle xx

A week in the life of a college student...

The last two weeks have been pretty quiet. We've all been busy studying our hearts out to get our last assignments in and to study for finals - they call it dead week for a reason!
I've still been hanging out with my friends and taking naps in between class like usual but we haven't been going out as much and we haven't organised anything in terms of going away because there just isn't time (also, spring break starts next week and we're heading to Hawaii! But that's another post). So in this blog I thought I'd just share some photos with you. I've decided to keep it local and all the pics you'll see are from Bellingham or surrounds - just to give you a better idea of where I'm living. I'm sure I could spend this whole blog talking about how much homework and study I have to do right now but that's not nearly as exciting. So, here's a look at B'ham!

The view from my apartment balcony. I live in Birnam Wood which is student housing but it's like a little apartment. You have a kitchen, bathroom and living area. I share with 3 other girls - 2 people per room.

One of the uni halls where classes are held

Fairhaven Village - it's very quirky and cute. We spend a fair bit of time here.  It helps to know what time the last bus is - you'll save yourself a bit of a walk.

Playing in the snow - it was -15 degrees Celsius! 

The bay. My suite mate Kelly took me down here not long after I'd arrived in Bellingham.

More snow - I got really excited about it and took quite a few pics!

One of the uni halls

Jess, Valentina and I bowling with the other international students and their buddies. Check out our super awesome shoes!

Bellingham Bay on a clear day. This is taken from near the dining hall on campus.

The library. There's a room called The Harry Potter room because it looks a bit like Hogwarts. Unfortunately it's a quiet study room so I didn't get a photo of it. I preferred to study on the sky bridge.

Part of campus - another side of the library.

Clayton beach - we did a roomie trip and spent the day at the beach, exploring. It was glorious!

Walking down to clayton beach reminds me of New Zealand.

Around town

Our first dinner all together - On Rice at Fairhaven

Around campus - I found a mammoth outside one of the uni halls

Where I lived for six months

My apartment - these little signs come in super handy when you're still trying to remember what apartment is yours.

My desk when I first moved in - I decorated it more as the semester went on.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of Bellingham. Look out for my next posts which I promise will have some more info in there - that is if I get through the next two weeks. Finals week is just around the corner. I'm off,  come back and visit soon y'all hear!

Love Danielle xx

Seattle...and a side note!

First off, here's the side note:
Ok, so if you're reading this blog and you're like "hey, what's up with these dates? She posted this in February 2013" well basically I stopped blogging and wrote everything down in a travel diary instead. I found it was easier to do time-wise as opposed to trying to find time to sit down and write a full post in one go (this post for example has actually been sitting as a draft since about April 2012). So I'm now going back through and putting all those events onto here. If you have any questions feel free to message me (on here is fine however, if you're an ECU student reading this wanting more info, contact the international office. They'll either be able to help you or will give you my details so I can answer questions regarding my exchange!).
Anyway, I just wanted to explain that before I continued.

So. Here's Seattle.

It figures since we live so close that we should spend a weekend here and there exploring Seattle and that's what we decided to do on the third of March. There was myself, two other exchange students - one from the Netherlands (Jessica) and one from Italy (Valentina) and our American friend who happened to be a local and became our tour guide (thanks Chris!).

We left early wanting to make the most of our day away. Chris came to pick us up from Birnam Wood so we piled into his car and drove south. Chris has great taste in music. He also likes to listen to it LOUD so that coupled with Starbucks kept us awake on our journey. We weren't sure where to park when we got into the city but we eventually found a parking garage that was close to downtown Seattle and wouldn't cause us to spend our life savings on parking. From there we walked just about everywhere. We decided to head to the Space Needle first. I was pretty excited about this since it's pretty well known. We wandered down there, stopping for a hot drink along the way at Forza Coffee (which was delicious by the way - white chocolate mocha..mmmm). When we eventually got to the Space Needle we purchased tickets and had a look around. They had these little kiosks everywhere that told you facts about Space Needle itself and about certain places around Seattle. It was really interesting and it was like doing a tour of the city without actually going anywhere. After spending a bit of time wandering around we then ventured outside onto the viewing platform. It was unbelievably cold and windy up there but the view was fantastic! We didn't stay too much longer, just took some photos and Chris pointed out where he lived across the Puget Sound. We headed out through the gift shop and continued back to Pike Place Market. For those that aren't familiar with Pike Place Market it's basically just indoor market. There's shops and restaurants/cafes that are a little more permanent but there's also just benches/sections that people hire. It's pretty cool. There's a fish market there where the guys actually throw the fish back and forth to each other and across the road is where the first Starbucks opened. We didn't go in because the line was huge and we'd already had a coffee fix but it was nice to see anyway. From there we headed around the back and down towards the pier which was bustling with people. We had lunch at Red Robin (they do really amazing burgers and if you're gluten intolerant and often miss out on eating things like that, they do them wrapped in lettuce instead of in bread!). After digesting for a while we wandered back and visited the gum wall. Imagine peoples chewed up gum stuck to a wall. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. We all added our piece (which was gross but oddly exciting) and took some photos. It was an experience and that's what this trip is all about! After that we had a brief wander back through downtown and then headed back to Bellingham to spend the rest of the weekend up to our eyeballs in homework.

Overall it was one of the quieter weekends but it was fun nonetheless and it was good to have a break. I enjoyed seeing more of the city. It's got character. Chris mentioned that there's an underground tour available so maybe next time we'll look at doing that. Apparently Seattle used to be a lot steeper than it already is and so they moved all this dirt down the hill to try and flatten it out a bit and in the process created these underground basement/tunnel things. Sounds pretty exciting if you ask me!

Have a good week all.

Love Danielle xx