Week One

Well...I feel as though my entire life is a whirlwind, but it's slowly starting to get a little bit more normal - and I finally have time to sit down and write this all. This will probably be the longest entry ever, but it does have to cover almost a week, and I feel as though I owe my parents lots of details that I have wanted to tell everyone and just haven't had time. I also want to write everything down so I don't forget it! - I feel like I've already learned so much!

Sunday 13 January -
My friend Rachel and I left the Manchester Airport around 3pm, and with a stop in Phoenix, we arrived in LA Sunday night and stayed with her uncle in "Rollings Hills." Which I guess we would call a suburb of LA? His house was absolutely beautiful and the backyard had a view of the entire city - which at night was pretty.. spectacular.

Monday 14 January-
I woke up so early on Monday, as expected, from the time change. I got to see the city in the daylight and actually to my surprise...there really *is* smog covering downtown LA...you can see it going through the buildings. gross. We spent the day just hanging out and Rachel's aunt and uncle took us too lunch at Donald Trump's golf course which had a beautiful view and we saw Catalina Island. We left for the airport around 5pm and to my surprise..there was no traffic. I thought this was LA? Anyways...arrived at the airport and a few hours later went on the plane. Unfortunately - my seat was pretty small - but I survived. Our flight from LA was 13 hours - I slept for about 5 hours, watched Super Bad, Knocked Up, one episode of CSI Miami, listened to some music, and had two meals...the eggs were surprisingly good.

Tuesday 15 January-
Oddly enough...with the time change we lost this day. weird?

Wednesday 16 January-
After 13 hours in the plane we finally arrived in Auckland, New Zealand. We had a two hour layover, went through security again, and waited to board our next plane. So I realized when I was getting my ticket and passport out to board the plane that...I somehow lost my passport. I basically freaked out (even though a few friends said that I was pretty calm). I went to the desk and tried to explain and the woman told me (with an attitude) that she had it, I left it on the last plane, and had been paged "six times." Point: Keep better track of your things...I thought I had been doing well but evidently...I didn't. That won't happen again...and I don't know what I would have done if I had actually lost it.

So I actually got on the plane and landed in Sydney. Wow. You could feel the heat once we got off the plane and we got through customs really fast. Cal and Mark, two guys from the program, picked us up at the airport and we got on two huge tour buses. We arrived at UniLodge, which is where we stay and also a Best Western hotel, and dropped off all of our luggage in a huge room. We were all greeted by a man named Pascal who works with the program as the "facilities guy" who is in charge of the buildings, etc. etc. Later I went to my room. Turns out.. it's one of the smallest rooms that I've seen in UniLodge. My roommate's name is Claire... she's a really nice girl, a BU student, in a sorority, and from Connecticut. I went to the mall that is across from my building which has a Target where I bought a $40 bath towel which I promptly returned.

That night we had a barbecue on the roof of UniLodge. We got to talk to a lot of the faculty and staff for the BU Center and had some great food. We had a great view of a lot of the city and unfortunately...it was raining. By the end of the barbecue I was so tired, I went to bed at 9:30pm.

Thursday 17 January-
On Thursday we had a lot of sessions for orientation. I went on the tour of the Sydney Uni (aka university) gym, which made me realize that we are so spoiled from FitRec, and walked around. We also had a girl come from Backpacker's World (a travel agency here) and a guy from Surf Camp. He cracked me up so much and also talked to us about water safety, crocodiles, and told us that more people die each year from coconuts dropping on their heads than from shark attacks.

Thursday night I went out with a bunch of girls to Scruffy Murphy's which is a local pub. We stayed there for a little bit, it was trivia night which was pretty funny and they ended up playing Sweet Caroline, which ironically everyone there knew, and made all of us pretty excited. We also headed to a bar/club called The Three Wise Monkeys, which we later found out is in the "backpacker's district," and that's why it was filled with so many people *not* from Sydney. We met a bunch of different people and there were a lot of people from the BU program there.

Friday 18 January-
Our first session was at 9am which was on "safety" and we did a ridiculous fire evacuation out of our building. After this all of the hospitality/psychology/journalism people met with our advisors all together. They are the nicest/funniest women. My advisor is Carrie, she's loud, organized, honest, and very quirky. The other women, Sharron, is so sweet I think she knows that and told us all that she was going to be a "cold hearted bitch" so people would stop taking advantage of her. Which brings me to the point that Australian people do not care about being politically correct... which is a nice change. Everyone just says what they think.

So by this time...it has been raining for two days. The staff booked a harbor cruise for all of us, which unfortunately was in the rain. A lot of people still went outside though and I have a lot of funny pictures outside when we could finally see the opera house and the harbor bridge. Our hair was...everywhere.

Three hours later...it was still raining. We went to a lounge right near the harbor called the Lizard Lounge. There was a live band playing which was really fun. Later when they closed we went to a club called Pontoon where we danced a lot and learned from a guy who is in the Australian navy that being in the navy is not cool (who knows if this is true) whereas in the US I think that anyone in the military is really highly regarded and gets a lot of attention.

Also... I saw the Real World Australia house which was pretty exciting...because I'm a dork.

Saturday 19 January-
We finally got to "sleep in," just a little... I met a ton of other people in the lobby at 10AM and we all took off to different locations with the RAs. I went to Paddy's Market which is in China town. Everything was pretty cheap and there was a lot of everything... electronics, souvenirs, clothes, and food. I walked around a lot and later we all met back up and went to a show were a man (who is actually aboriginal on his father's side) play the didgeridoo. The didgeridoo is a long wooden instrument that the aboriginals use for celebrations and gatherings. It was pretty neat to hear his life story and learn how to play the instrument.

Did I mention it is still raining here? Ya.. I thought I was in Australia! So we walked through China town and back to campus. I've been here since then, and have finally had the time to take a nap and just hang out.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to go on another trip lead by the RAs, maybe do a little shopping, and get settled before classes start on Monday. Now that I have this blog set up, I definitely plan to write frequently. There are so many different things about this culture that I want to write down...I don't want to forget anything. Including...they actually do say "no worries" alll the time. Now, we are planning internships, getting ready for class, and planning spring break and other trips. I'm so excited to explore the city, I feel like there are so many things to see and experience, I'm just trying to sort them all out in my head. I've been taking a lot of pictures and I plan to put them online soon!