First day of school.

It's weird to think that I'm in Australia to study. There's so much to do and see that today felt out of the ordinary. Classes are extremely different to ones back in the US. We only have lecture once a week, for 2 hours and a tutorial (like CU's recitations) or practical/lab. I only had one class today and it may just have been this class in particular, but there are 51 kids registered for the class, but less than 20 showed up. Apparently this is the norm, which I could understand because the professor had a 98 slide presentation that we went through and all he talked about was straight from the slides. Attendance is taking in tutorials so everyone has to show up for them and that's where we do the majority of the work (from my understanding).

One thing I still can't get over is how it's always cold - wherever you are. Everyone says it's colder than you expect, so I was prepared to wear jackets and jeans outside. What I didn't expect was that there wasn't any heating, anywhere. My hands are constantly cold and I can't sleep without thick socks, a jumper and my face completely under the covers (my nose gets really cold). So Wendy and I went on a hunt for a heater/fan combo we'd heard about. Turns out there aren't any in all of Wollongong (or so it seems). We spent about 2 hours looking for heaters and we figured we'd get dinner while we were out too. Around 4.45pm-5pm ish we couldn't find heaters and figured we'd take a break and go get some food because there are food places all over the mall. We were getting really confused when every food place was taking away the food and cleaning - it was only 5pm. Turns out the mall closes at 5.30pm - major culture shock. By this time we were tired, hungry and worn out from searching for the heater so we decided to head home and look for a Macca's (McDonald's).

Everyone says that McDonald's is different in Australia so we thought that yes it wasn't very adventurous but we were going to have to try it at some point so why not now. It was very clean when we walked in and the menu is a little bit different. The food tasted a little different, mainly because it wasn't so greasy. So it wasn't a huge difference, but then we saw the McCafe part. It looked like a little bakery inside the restaurant. We weren't having a great afternoon so we decided to splurge and got a chocolate muffin. It was delicious, more like chocolate cake in the shape of a muffin, but so good. So we ended the day with a little discovery and will look for more heaters!

First day in Sydney

Yes, this is a giant UGG boot

I woke up so excited this morning - we were going to Sydney. Our campus (dorm) hosts lots of events for both the Aussie students and international students. One event was a tour of Sydney. Turns out it wasn't much of a tour at all. We all thought that we would be getting on a bus outside Campus East and head to Sydney to see the sights. In actuality, we walked over to the train station (about a 5 minute walk from campus) and bought our tickets. At least now we know how to get tickets to Sydney. It's about an hour car ride from Sydney to Wollongong, so I thought that's about how long the train would be - maybe even more like half an hour with all the stops, turns out it's more like 2 hours.

St. Andrew's Cathedral 

We got off at the City Hall train stop and walked up to the streets of Sydney.  By the time we all emerged from the underground train stop it was about 12.45pm. We were all starving so our 'tour guide' (one of the RAs) told us to go find lunch somewhere around the stop and meet back at 2pm. We stopped and ate kebabs and pizza (after discovering that Pizza Hut in Sydney is really expensive), and the friends I was with tried Turkish Delights - they weren't big fans. But we were in Sydney and we were about to be shown the sights. Or so we thought.

Ceiling inside the Queen Victoria Building

When everyone had gathered after lunch our guide told us that there were some things to see along the road we were on and if we just stay on it, it would bring us to the Harbour. So we all started walking together as a group towards the Harbour. We walked through the Queen Victoria building which was really beautiful. And then while we were stopped at a light when we got distracted by a parade, so we figured that we were in Sydney - so why not check it out. It was a parade to free Cyrus. There were a lot of older people and some people dressed in what I think is traditional dress. It was a pretty unexpected sight, but it was interesting. But we also lost the group we were with, so we decided to venture off on our own - we knew our end destination was the Harbour Bridge so we started to make our way through the outdoor mall.

Being tourists

When we got to the Harbour it was surreal. We were in Sydney. We walked along the Harbour and got to the perfect spot between the Bridge and the Opera House. So obviously we all pulled out our cameras and turned into complete tourists. None of us could believe that we were actually there - that close to the Opera House. We walked up to the building (thinking that it was just one building), but turns out its made up of different sections. In my mind it was one huge building with a grand entrance, but I guess you can never really know a place until you go there. The color also threw me off. It always looks so beautiful and glistening white, but up close it looks kind of dirty (it's made of copper). When you go up even closer you can see all the detailed tile - not at all what I was expecting. But we were at the Opera House, and it was still so surreal - so we had to touch it.

Opera House at night

We walked around for a while and then stopped in a some souvenir shops before getting dinner. We didn't want to leave until we saw the Opera House at night, so we just explored around the Harbour. After having a really fast dinner at an Italian restaurant we went back and saw how beautiful the Opera House looks all lit up - it was absolutely beautiful. But it was cold and we still had a 2 hour train ride home so we headed back.




Tomorrow is the first day of classes. It's so weird to think that I'm actually here for school when there's so many things I want to do and so many places I want to visit. The more I learn about what there is to do in Australia, the longer my list grows and now I just need to figure out how I'm going to be able to make time to visit all these places (good think I only have classes on Monday and Wednesday!).

List of places to go/Things to do

This is the preliminary list of things that I want to do here and places I would like to visit. If you have any ideas of suggests please feel free to comment as I would love to go everywhere and anywhere possible!

Sydney:
- opera house
- Darling Harbor Bridge (bridge climb)
- Toranga Zoo
- Bondi beach
- aquarium
- Center Point Tower tour
- Featherdale wildlife park
- Royal Botanic Gardens
- King's Cross
- Paddy's Market
- Symbio Zoo

Other:
- Blue Mountains
- Mt. Kiera
- Fraiser Islands
- Uluru/Ayers Rock
- Whitsunday Islands
- Jervis Bay
- Cairns
- Byron Bay
- Melbourne
- Brisbane
- Nan Tien Temple (Wollongong)

To do:
- pet a kangaroo
- hold a koala
- learn how to surf

My first week.

View from my room

I've been in Wollongong for a week now, but today was the first day I was able to take pictures. They took my big hiking pack with all my cameras at the airport and made it checked baggage. It was supposed to be my carry on, but the bag was really awkwardly shaped so I had to give it up. I thought that was fine - I'll see it in Sydney when I arrive. I thought wrong. I arrived in Sydney with my bag with clothes and essentials - but not the one with my camera. So I've been slacking with the pictures but I was finally able to take some today - I was a little snappy happy!

Wendy

I moved into my 3 room dorm-room where I met my roommate Wendy from California. Our other roommate is Kathryn who's from about 2 hours away from Wollongong (she just arrived today). I was lucky because Wendy came as part of an AustraLearn group and they had just gotten back from a week in Cairns where she met a lot of other people studying at the University of Wollongong (UOW), most of who live in Campus East with us. There are over 600 people living in Campus East, 200 of which are Americans. There are different sections of Campus East - Slums (where we live), Trenchtown, Hospital, the Yard, Alcatraz and the self-catered section. Each section is unique. The caf is in the main building where we have some limited food choices. They have a separate little section that you can get ice cream, tea, coffee and this really good pear and raspberry bread which they toast for you. There aren't any glasses so you have to bring you own Nalgene, and right now more often than not I get my food, sit down and realize I left my Nalgene in my room. Hopefully I'll start remembering it more as the session goes on.

Mt. Kiera

This past week has been O-Week here at UOW, so they had lots of activities for us. They were all really fun - we went out to nightclubs for Disney and Cowboy and Indian themed parties. I was Lilo from the movie Lilo and Stitch for the Disney party and obviously a cowgirl for the second party. The music is very different here as they listen to Dubstep everywhere. It was kind of hard to get used to the different type of music but we had fun none-the-less. We were supposed to go for a hike at Mt. Kiera, which is here in Wollongong, however it was raining and the hike was cancelled. We're going to Sydney tomorrow which I am so excited for! Hopefully the sun stays and tomorrow will be perfect!

We've had awful rains the past 4 days, so although we all really wanted to go and explore we were stuck in our rooms, but at least we got to know each other through movie nights and card games. When it first started raining we were up at Uni doing an orientation for all the international kids. We got pretty wet. And it's really cold - there doesn't seem to be any heated buildings so you really have to layer up. Uni is beautiful though, it's much smaller than I was expecting but it's still really confusing to get around. There are trees everywhere and so many interesting, beautiful and colorful birds - I wish I could record the sounds they make because they are just extraordinary!

Because the rain finally ceased today Wendy and I wanted to get out and be productive! Even though we have a meal plan here, we decided to check out Aldi's the grocery store right over the bridge from Campus East. Our mission was to find TimTams as I ate my entire package that I bought yesterday. As I write this, I'm already more than half way through my second package so I don't think I'll be buying more any time soon. Our second quest of the day was going to the beach. We went earlier in the beach and it was beautiful. The water was calm and the beach was huge. Today, however, it looked like a completely different place. It's been pretty windy so the waves were huge and there was hardly even a beach! We saw some people get unexpectedly wet from the tide coming in really far. We've been learning a lot about surf awareness and rips so we tried to look for rips but the water was just too rough. It was so calming and relaxing to just sit and watch the waves roll in. I saw real sea foam for the first time - I never realized it was like actual foam! Before we left we saw a rainbow over downtown Wollongong, it was so beautiful and made me so excited that I get to live here for the next six months!

Road to the beach

SEA FOAM!

This is my first post, so I have a lot to write and I'm still not sure how everything works. I will try to put pictures up and I will work on the format for the next entry. For those of you that will follow this thank you and I hope you enjoy reading! I know my thoughts can be very scattered, but it's because I'm so excited and I have so much to write about. Also please look at my pictures on Facebook as I will put them up constantly. I also have a check list of places to go and things to do, so please comment if you have any suggestions as I hope to get the most out of this adventure I'm about to embark on. I can't wait to explore Australia and meet the people that get to live here!

PS - we also have lots of really interesting plants here too. Because of all the rain, the landscape looks really beautiful right now.