February.

I'm not gonna lie, this has probably been the most eventful and emotional month of my life. And for once i'm not being dramatic.

I now live in Australia.

I know, i'm still waiting for it to sink in too. I still kind of feel like i'm on an extended holiday.

But i'm getting ahead of myself, this didn't happen until the 17th, so let me take you back to the beginning.

So to commemorate my leaving the country and so I could see as many people as possible, I threw a fancy dress party at my house, with the theme being anything beginning with A (for Annabel and Australia). We had an Arab, Aurora, the Avengers, 2 Addams Families, 4 Amy Winehouse's, Adele, 4 Angels, 2 Alice Coopers, Ash Ketchum, an Alligator, Andy from Toy Story, Ally McCoist, an Aviator, ABBA, Andie Pandie, Arrow, an Apology and my Grandma dressed up as me. I had an absolutely brilliant (and emotional) night, it was the perfect way to say 'see you later' so all of my closest family and friends. I then had 3 of my best friends, Mary, Melissa and Josh to stay over afterwards which was great as we haven't been together (all 4 of us) in such a long time. We stayed up until 5am catching up.

Just a few of the fantastic costumes everyone pulled together!

If you haven't been to see Deadpool yet, stop what you are doing right now and go see it (finish reading this first obviously). I went with my school pals to go see it 2 days before I left for Aus. We basically just reminisced about all the bad decisions I made and stupid stuff I did in high school which is always a good way to have a laugh. It was nice to have a separate goodbye from the madness that was saturday. But the film was hilarious, and I can't wait so see it again (unfortunately it will have to wait until i'm back in England).

So, on the 19th of February, the day had arrived for me to leave everyone and everything I knew, and move to not only a different city or country, a different continent all together. It was bye bye hats and scarves and hello to shrimps on the barbie. Saying goodbye to my family for 5 months was without a doubt the hardest thing i've ever had to do. I've now got to wait a long time before I can have a bear hug with my dad, the weird fist bump thing Baymax does with my sister or just sit and chat for hours about everything with my Mum like we do most evenings.  I've already written about the plane journey, which you can read here. And my not so great first day here. And my slightly better second day here. I think i'd just been so excited about the whole thing that before I came I didn't consider the bad parts. 

During my first week there were a few things I needed to sort out in my flat such as bedding, towels, WIFI, my phone contract, food, washing supplies, toiletries etc. Along with this I also went to the White Night festival in Melbourne with 2 girls I met here that also go to Leeds Beckett back home. We sort of felt like we missed the main event as we didn't understand all the hype behind it. There was a fire eater/sword swallower, projections on buildings and different works of art out on the streets. It was interesting but for what we heard was Melbourne's most popular event, we just didn't get it. We also visited St. Kilda beach the day after. I slapped on the factor 50, however the parts that I forgot to apply cream to burnt like a crisp. At least I know the sun cream works. We also went on our first night out in Melbourne.

St. Kilda beach at 27°

As an orientation trip specifically for the study abroad and exchange students at Victoria University, we went to Lorne, which is a little more south of Melbourne. It was such an amazing weekend and a brilliant start (after my slightly shittier first day) to my adventure in Australia. I'll write about it in more detail in the next week.

My time here is already going so fast. Before I know it i'll be back in England in the pouring rain!
To go from never living out of my family home to moving to the other side of the world was pretty risky leap, but i'm so glad i've done it.
𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕝