Charmingly Lost

Day 3 Sat

Saturday, I was nervous that it was going to pour. The forecast called for thunderstorms, so I was ecstatic when I woke up that it was sunny out. We left around noon to go explore the city and do all the touristy stuff. My Aussie roommate Heather luckily knows her way around Sydney so she was our tour guide. Our first stop was of course, the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge. The three of us took a ton of pictures and afterwards we were famished. We stopped at a cute harbor side café and all shared a pizza. It’s true that good Australian food has the freshest ingredients. The chicken I had on the pizza was some of the best I had in a while. After lunch we headed towards Paddy’s Market. Paddy’s Market is an indoor, massive collection of flea market type sellers.  Pretty much anything you would want to buy is at one of the stalls somewhere crammed inside. We probably spent about two hours there. Paddy’s market was right next to China town so we walked through their huge gates to go see it. After walking through Chinatown, we headed to Darling Harbor. At the Harbor was a Hard Rock Café and a Starbucks, probably one of the very few that exists in Australia. It was comforting to see some remnants of home. Since we had been walking all day, the three of us treated ourselves to some gelato. We bought the gelato from a chain store they have in Sydney, Gelatissamo. Delicious!  It was about 5:30 at that time so we decided to head back to campus. After resting for a bit and waiting for it to get dark, we collected a few more of our friends and went to go see the city at night. Everything was lit up so the sights were even prettier in the dark.

Day 4 Sunday

Day of rest- literally

Day 5 Monday

The international group planned an outing to Manly Beach so I went with the group to catch my first glimpse of the famous Sydney beaches. Unfortunely it took forever to arrive. We had to take a subway and catch a train just to get to the beach. It was a little more than an hour to get there. Once we were finally there, the “Buddies” told us to go get lunch for an hour. When we finally got to the beach it was 1:30 and we were leaving at three.  But I still very much enjoyed the beach. The water was a good temperature and the sun was nice and warm. Amazingly enough and hour and a half at the beach, even wearing sunscreen, is still enough time to get slightly burnt. A good thing about heading back was we took a ferry to Sydney Harbor. It was so pretty to see the Opera House from the ocean. Once we got back I rested a bit til there was a Village meeting to go over some information for living here. The best part was of course they served a free BBQ.

Day 6 Tuesday

I had finally gotten to the point that I decided I needed a real pillow and comforter for my room. So I spent the day going to the mall near campus, about a 8 minute walk. When I first walked in I was blown away. This mall, Macquarie Center was, I’m pretty sure, the most gigantic mall I’ve ever been in. It has 4stories and very expansive. I probably spent about 3 hours in it total. Of course when I finally decided to leave, it took me about a half an hour to find the correct exit. I was completely lost but thank goodness I eventually found it. In the afternoon the Uni put on a game night for International students so I went over there. I met some students from Wisconsin and we played Scategories and Clue. The Uni also feed us a free dinner of lasagna. It was a very pleasant evening over all. And then of course I finally got to sleep with my new comfy pillow and quilt!   

Hey everyone,

So this jet lag thin g is actually true. The first day I went to sleep at 9:30 and my body woke up at 5:30am. Not cool, but of course I managed to stay in bed for another two hours. I spent most of my morning revealing in the fact I now had internet and keeping up with people, but I also had an adventure with our stove. We have gas stoves in our apartment, and usually that would not present me with a problem. I have a gas stove at home too and I didn’t think that I would have any problems with this one. Turns out I was wrong. This type of gad stoves actually keeps you to manually light it with a lighter and I couldn’t figure that out for the life of me. Luckily, a roommate (Ida) very generously started the stove top for me and I could enjoy making my egg sandwich. I also explored a little the area around the village but nothing too exciting.

At noon there was an exchange students bbq so I went to that with my roommate, Heather. It is an universal fact that college kids love free food and taking advantage of orientation week offers is always a good thing. It took a while for the food to cook, so I got to learn more about my Aussie roomie. Apparently my previously impressive record of 20+ cousins is not at all unusual in Australia and actually pars in comparison to my friends 60+ cousins.

So finally they put out the food for us. NOw usually I hate hot dogs but when in Rome… They actually weren’t too bad and the sweet BBQ definitely helped. One weird thing though, they served the hot dogs/sausages with just regular slices of bread, no hot dog buns! The BBQ also gave all the exchange students a chance to meet one another. I got to meet some girls from Spain, South Korea, France, Switzerland, Fiji and Germany. Then a person came around and offered all of us a chance to try Kangeroo! It kinda tasted like spicy sausage, but mre earthly if that makes any sense.  So it wasn’t my favorite but it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve tasted. 

Later in the day, about 5 my roommates and I went to an orientation activity called Music Under the Trees. It was at the University of Sydney so I was able to try out Sydney’s public transport system. It was 6.60 for a ticket there and back! Everything here is quite expensive. But on the subway ride I received my first glimpse of Sydney’s Opera House! Hopefully I’ll get a better look today when we go into the city again. The artist at the event was a Malaysian techno singer and was.. interesting. I did get to have a delicious take on bruschetta with feta and mushrooms and arugula so I was happy. We arrived back at campus around 10:30 and I was exhausted so I went to bed around 11. Taking this jet lag thing day by day!

Love

Just as a side note to people on Tumblr, I will be using this as my travel blog so you can happily disregard any long blocks of text if you want to .

Disclaimer aside, I loved my first day in Oz! I arrived at Macquarie Uni around 10 o’clock and then settled in my dorm room. I promise pictures later but I was just getting my bearings the first day. There were so many things to gawk at!

Macquarie is huge and I believe I spent the first 4 hours of my time here pretty much just exploring. The campus hub is the center point of the uni and where a lot of the orientation stuff is happening. There are a ton of Asians who study as Macquarie apparently and it was very evident to see walking around campus. I think half the eating places on campus serve Asian food. Which I’m happy with so it’s alright. I also found out today though that I won’t have access to the wifi on campus until next Wednesday because that is when they enroll me in my classes. So no texting until then.

Later in the day I met up with all of my roommates. They are so nice and luckily three of them actually know their way around Sydney. One of them is actually from Australia and since it is rare for Internationals to make local buddies I’m really lucky! Plus she also has a car on campus and offered to drive me to the supermarket or stores whenever I need!

One of the orientation activities was karoake, with free food so we went to go snag some food. It was funny seeing some of the people get up there to sing, but none of us actually did it ourselves. At the event I also met up with the girl, Jordan, who also goes to Butler. It’s nice to actually know someone from home(ish). On the way back we saw wild cookatoos! Its so crazy. They are beautiful birds that are just a common local flock! I promise pictures later.

After that my roommate, Heather took me to go get a local phone (yay) and pick up some groceries. Though it was only 9:30 I was exhausted so I went to bed. Hopefully jetlag won’t last too long.