Hi all! Australia has been so amazing and fun… and I’ve only been here for a week!
I am so thankful for the friends I have met already and the experiences we’ve shared. I was blessed with the 3 best roommates: Michael (from Australia), Chelsea (from Australia), and Luke (from New Jersey). All 4 of us have gotten along so well and have already clicked. Along with my roomies, Erin (the girl I met from the airport who goes to Concordia) and I have still been hanging out and adventuring together! I have met loads of other people from all over, including a large amount from the United States, Norway, Brazil, Germany, South Korea, and of course Australia. This area is filled with so much diversity and I have had so many amazing intercultural experiences.
Monday kicked off the first day of Orientation Week (or O Week as it’s known here) and has been continuing throughout the week with new activities every day. As the week comes to an end, I look forward to starting classes Monday. But for now, I’d love to share with you all a bit about how O Week went in the land Down Under!
Sunday : At 7:30am Michael, Luke, Erin and I decided that a morning adventure was in store. As you all know, adventures never go as planned (but always make for the best memories). We drove 1 ½ hours into the Sunshine Coast Hinterlands in search of a 2 km hike to a waterfall. The drive was stunning and the landscape was breathtaking, I suggest looking it up on Google Images. Unfortunately, we got a little lost and were unable to start at the trailhead that we wanted to. Instead, we had the option of doing a 20 km hike (which wasn’t really an option for us haha). So we decided to leave that adventure for another day! Instead, we headed about an hour back towards Sunshine Coast to a waterfall called Wappa Falls, which was just as beautiful. The area was a perfect way to spend a sweltering hot day in the sun – with cliff jumping, sliding down waterfalls, sitting in natural pools and lakes, and enjoying the company of great friends (well, besides seeing a spider in the rocks about the size of my hand…) made for a great adventure!
(from left to right: Luke, Erin, Michael & me at Wappa Falls)
After we returned from waterfall adventuring, we had an International Student BBQ to attend. This is where we met a lot of the people from countries I named above! Free food and talking other international students was a great way to spend a Sunday evening. Plus, there were some animals from the zoo that came to visit so I got to see my first Koala and Wallaby! What was not so thrilling was holding a Python for the first time, I think I held it for a total of 5 seconds. After this gathering, I have made a point to learn and get better at using the metric system and Celsius degrees as we had with our phone calculators to help convert temperature so people would be able to understand how cold Minnesota really was!
Monday : Market Day and Academic Study Skills Sessions were today. The day entailed events like the official welcome to USC and group photo, intro to Blackboard, discover the library, and approaches to study at USC (specifically for international students). Easily the best part of Monday’s O Week festivities was the Market day which included lots of free things from clubs on campus, entertainment, and a free BBQ.
That evening Michael brought us to Activate event (outdoors/adventure club on campus). We set up a slack line on Mooloolaba beach, and I can definitely say I’m only good at slacklining when someone helps me across. We then got to meet other adventurous members of the Activate club. And my personal favorite part – Luke, Erin and I took our first swim in the ocean since arriving! The waves were quite large and so fun to jump, but definitely exceeded my daily salt intake after that. Then we headed to The Good Bar which is a social bar/restaurant, got a table, ordered food, and then I ordered my first legal drink. We spent over 2 hours just getting to know other Activate members and talking until the bar closed. It was a good end to Monday!
Tuesday : Faculty Day was today. So I started off by attending the International Student Orientation Session with Luke and Alex (who attends Concordia as well) and Lane (from North Carolina). We then just hung out and chatted until I left for my 10:30-12:00 School of Communication and Design Faculty session. It was extremely interesting to begin to learn more about the differences and similarities in education from the US within my program, and great to meet the department lecturers and tutors (what we call professors except one person does lectures and one does tutorials).
After that, I of course had to go get the free BBQ and met up with Luke, Lane and Sara (a member of Activate). Soon after I finished eating, I got to try out playing Quidditch (Harry Potter fangirling right now) with the 2 biggest club teams on campus. Not to brag but they both were recruiting me after they saw me play… let me tell you, I make a mean Chaser! Then all of us just hung out in the tents, sheltered from the rain, and talked for a few hours. That evening I just spent the night hanging out with friends which included a lot of singing to Disney music!
Wednesday : Today started out great because I went to another free BBQ and then got to Skype my Logan! It was so good to chat with him almost in person and see his face J When I got done chatting with Logan, I checked to see what Erin, Michael and Luke were up to and they were all Skyping their partners as well – the best way to spend a rainy day, I guess! Yes, it was raining again… and it’s predicted to rain until next Tuesday. I heard it is pretty rare for this much rain for a straight week, but I’m ready for the sun to come back out so I can head to the beach! Since it was raining so much, the roomies, Erin & I decided that a Disney movie marathon was what we were going to do. So we made some food and drinks, and then watched Moana, Road to El Dorado, and Pocahontas for the rest of the day!
Thursday : Today was Student Guild Day on campus, which is a group that organizes events for students. Luke, Erin & I headed over there and got (yet again) another free BBQ, meet some campus clubs, and then (my favorite) hung out with some adorable dogs! Afterwards, Erin & I had to run into the Sunshine Shopping Plaza to get some art supplies for one of our classes. We took the bus all by ourselves and surprisingly managed to do everything right. We then had about a 30 min walk to the store we needed to go to, but thankfully it wasn’t raining at this point. We spent too long looking for art supplies and eventually got what we needed… I think. Unfortunately, by the time we were done it was (yet again) down pouring. We unanimously decided that we didn’t want to walk another 30 minutes in that rain to get on a 40 minute bus ride back to Uni… we were very grateful for the wonderful invention called Uber, which picked us up from the store and we were back in about 15 minutes. At 5pm we had trivia night at the Student Guild which we rocked at the beginning (but not so much at the end), and for some questions our group was very thankful to have 4 Americans on their team! We also got free pizza and dessert… I think I’m just going live off free food while I’m here. After that, we decided on another Disney movie night (this time it was Tangled) because movie nights are the best on rainy nights.
The first week living in Australia has definitely flown by. I’ve learned so much and I’m excited to learn more. Here’s just a few other random things before I sign off:
- Classes start on Monday (I haven’t had class since December 15th… we’ll see how this goes)
- Wifi is actually kind of horrible here. You have to pay for a certain amount of GB, for example, I pay $30 AUS for 100 GB per month. And yes, it cuts out a lot during the rain.
- I’ve seen kangaroos everywhere. Actually, one just hopped by as I was writing.
- You know the saying, “when it rains, it pours”? Yeah, that’s Australia.
- This country is amazing.
Another Point of View 