Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Catching Up on Month 1

Hey Guys ~

Well, I figure that doing a blog while I'm here is the best way for you guys to stay updated on my escapades! For those of you who are just joining...I'll give you a little run through of what I all did during Month 1!

The plane ride over was extremely long, but not so bad...thank you Tylenol PM! It was really nice on my way to San Francisco, I had 3 seats all to myself! But that did spoil me...it made the 14 hour flight to Sydney seem a little squished. I sat in a window seat next to a creepy older guy...awesome. So, after about 20 minutes of hearing him talk about his "band," I popped in 3 Tylenol PMs and was out cold in about 15 minutes. I slept about 10 hours, so the flight was not that bad!

After arriving in Sydney, I met up with my group and we all hopped into the Happy Cabby and booked it up to Newcastle. I met my roommates, Lisa & Nicole, on the Happy Cabby. Our apartment was, simply put, a mess when we got here. It was extremely dirty, dead bugs everywhere, and it smelled very musty. Not what you expect. The other houses were very clean and very nice, so we complain a lot until finally our "mum" over here, Catherine, called in a cleaning lady. Lisa pulled out the lucky number and got her own room, and me and Nicole were supposed to share a room. That lasted about a day before I moved my bed out to the living room/kitchen area. It actually worked out nicely...we each have our own space now!

I was here for 2 full weeks before school started, so we had a lot of time to kill. The first couple weeks were spent traveling around Newcastle and getting used to everything. We checked out all the beaches, major shops and pubs, and eventually we made it over to the "Uni" (school) to check out where our classes were going to be. The Uni is a jungle!! Population wise, the campus is close to UW Oshkosh, but the actual size of campus is much bigger than UWO. It took awhile to get my bearings, but we are good now!

The second weekend here, I got to go on an "excursion" where I could either go to the Reptile Park (basically a small zoo) or the Dolphin Experience. We were told that we get to swim with the dolphins, so of course I chose that one!! But, of course, they wouldn't allow us to because they are wild...so that was a waste. I definitely would have gone to Reptile Park!

I registered for my classes during my second week. I had 10 classes pre-approved for credit transfer before I came here and not one of those 10 classes are offered this semester...perfect. So I had to come up with some different classes and I'm hoping the credit will transfer back! I'm taking Australian History, World Religions, Creative Writing, and our Cross-Cultural study class. We will see how it goes!! I only have classes on Wednesdays and Thursdays which is super nice. It gives me a lot more time to travel, which is what I plan on doing while I'm here!!

Well...that is pretty much it! Everything else exciting was in my last post, so check it out!! I'll be updating soon with some pictures, so stay tuned!!

Mindy

No comments:

Post a Comment