Arrivals

G'day from New South Wales! I have been in Australia for almost 3 days now and it has been quite an adventure...at times a little overwhelming. My housing is a townhouse in Coogee, a suburb of Sydney.  The house is a 3 story, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom house.  The best part is the small jungle we have in our backyard; a patio with lots of native Australian plants.  My bedroom window looks right into a huge tree that always has new birds to see and HEAR in the mornings.

My flight over here was long, but not as uncomfortable as I had imagined. They had a massive selection of movies and games, a decent selection of meals (dinner, snack and breakfast) and I'm pretty sure nothing is better than watching the sunrise over the Fiji Islands from an airplane.

We have begun learning the slang and the customs and taking lots of touristy pictures like of the "bubbler" (drinking fountain) and the "rubbish" bins.  Getting used to people driving on the wrong side of the road has been interesting, but I have not been hit by a car yet! :)

My roommate, Amanda, and I went grocery shopping yesterday and were hit pretty hard by the prices...$9.00 for a box of "Frosties" (Frosted Flakes) or "Rice Bubbles" (Rice Krispies)...props to Kelloggs for the overseas exposure though! We found some good deals and bought what I think should be a few well-rounded meals, started learning the bus system, and then went to the beach for the rest of the day (a 7 minute walk from our house).

For the first day or so I was feeling a little homesick, but just yesterday after getting the groceries I really started to feel like this city could be mine.  We haven't gone into Sydney yet, but we have plans to do that this weekend. The weather has been warm, but kind of rainy. At orientation they told us that they don't consider it to be the hot part of summer until the steering wheel is too hot to hold.  We also learned about the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" in Australia where they support the underdog in any situation, and they openly dislike people who feel and act superior to others (the tall poppies).  Following this logic, waiters and waitresses get paid A LOT and they don't act as "servers" like they would in America.  You don't tip at restaurants, and if you have to complain about something, you must do it kindly and apologetically, otherwise they will ignore you and possibly spit in your food.

I now have my student ID, bus pass, and my class schedule so I'm starting to feel like a real student here. I'll be taking an intro anatomy class (with a cadaver lab!), a marine environment class (field trips to the reef), learning and behavioral psychology, and a geology/paleontology class where we go to dig sites in Australia and learn to work with fossils.  The campus itself is gorgeous; mostly it's like walking through a rainforest with courtyards all over.  It is divided into upper, middle and lower campus and with all the sets of stairs on campus it's pretty easy to figure out which part of campus you're headed towards at any given time...

Hopefully I will have pictures up to facebook soon, but I only get internet on campus so far since we're still working on finding an internet plan for our house.

Love and miss you all!