So, this is it. I'm in Australia. I am 21 hours away from everything I have known my entire life. I am in a foreign land with a set of people I have never seen before, set to experience things I have never done before. Everything is new. As frightening as that is, it is also very exciting. It's like a clean palette - nobody knows anything about you or your life back home, and you can share with them as much or as little as you want and develop your own sense of self as you go. Also, the promise of returning home safe and sound after just 15 weeks is very appealing...no matter what happens, it will all be over in 15 weeks and I will be back to my normal life in the US. That being said, I plan on having the best time a girl could ever have here. If I want to do something, I'm doing it. No matter the cost of any factors involved, it is just going to happen. I like that idea already!
The first week, or O Week as it is so lovingly called down here, officially ended yesterday. From this point forward, we choose our own activities, plan our own trips, figure out what we want to do with our free time. It was really relieving to have O Week to get accustomed to everything gradually and have a lot of time for rest and play, but I am glad to be beginning a normal schedule. I do better with routines and structure, and I think classes and the work that comes with them will give me just that. Surprisingly, EVERYONE seems to feel the same way. It's like a little dose of normality in an otherwise entirely new existence.
This past week has been quite the whirlwind of activity. They really do it up big here, with tons of events planned for new (mainly international) students. BUSA, which is eerily similar to St. Rose's student association, organized almost everything - I can't even imagine the planning that went into this. To summarize...
First view of Australia, taken by a very nice Australian man :)
Sunday - This is the day we all arrived. At 7:30 in the morning. After the longest flight known to mankind. It was painful. We took the shuttle to campus and got our room keys, welcoming us to what our life will be for the next 15 weeks. My room is kind of small, but for the small quantity of stuff I have, it works perfectly! After unloading everything, it already started to look and feel like home. My roommate came halfway through the day and we immediately hit it off. Her name is Sarah and she, like half the people here it seems, is from St. Louis University. I was so thankful for a roommate I could get along with. We went to a welcome barbeque later on that night with the weirdest burgers...they tasted like meatloaf, and were served on bread. And there was no ketchup! They encouraged us all to go to this bar in Market Square, which is really close by, so we all packed into Bar CBD for a fun evening of drinking and getting to know each other. We ended the night fairly early to get some much-needed sleep.
Monday - We started off our first full day here with a lot of running around - getting accounts set up, having pictures taken, receiving bundles of information all at once. After all of this madness was finished, we enjoyed our first meal in the dining hall. Cafe Bond is interesting to say the least, and as we would soon come to realize, VERY expensive! The activity for the night was a toga party, beginning at the bar on campus, Don's, and ending in an afterparty at Bar East in Broadbeach. It was really funny to see everyone in their togas, dancing the night away. The return buses didn't come until 3:30am, which made for a very long (yet fun) night.
Tuesday - Today was our official welcome to Bond. I could already tell this would be different from our St. Rose welcome back in freshmen year because one, it was held outside, and two, there was champagne served to everyone. Not to mention the fact that there were aboriginal performers dancing and playing the didgeridoo. Just hearing that instrument took me immediately back to sitting at the beach, listening to Barefoot. It's amazing what one sound can do for you.
After this we all went to "Hypnotic Hysteria." It was definitely a good time, but for me once again it brought back memories of past events...especially because some of the things he did with the volunteers were exactly the same as the hypnotist who does the St. B's graduation parties every year. Really funny stuff.
Wednesday - We were able to save our meal points and get a free lunch during the first of many "Wednesdays by the Water." Basically, it was one huge Australian barbeque. And I mean HUGE. There was a line reminiscent of a busy summer day at Abbott's that lasted for the whole two hours this went on. I'm still not used to not having ketchup for my "hamburger" or "hot dog," but the bread/grilled onions combo is growing on me, I suppose. That night we went to the Trivia and Comedy Night. Our team was appropriately called "The Damn Yanks." Although we didn't exactly dominate the competition, the 9 large Pizza Hut pizzas enjoyed by our 10-person table made the evening quite memorable. And Australian humor is quite different from American humor...Many of the jokes flew right over our heads, so they eventually gave up and just started saying sexual innuendos - something that the entire world understands.
Thursday - TIGHT AND BRIGHT PARTY. Apparently this is a huge tradition here at Bond. Basically everyone dresses up in the most ridiculous assortment of tightly-fitting, non-gender-appropriate, bright-as-a-summer's-day clothing and goes to Don's. We were well-prepared for this night, having some knowledge of it from people we talked to. It was an awesome time. The clothing seemed to take the edge off, and everyone was laughing and dancing by the end of the (very long) night at East.
Saturday - Beach Day :) We took 5 buses full of people to Broadbeach, an unbelievably beautiful strip of sand and water about 10 minutes away from Bond. The feeling of stepping onto the sand for the first time is something I can't even describe. It was soft, white sand that you rarely find on a New England beach, laced with the warmth from the sunshine. Plopping down and falling asleep to the sound of the mid-sized waves gently lapping against the shore could easily be likened to heaven for me. I knew at that instant I had made the right decision in coming to Australia. We enjoyed lunch in the marketplace/mall nearby, and what did I have, you ask? Fried seafood :) It was extremely interesting, they do not cut apart the sea scallops - you eat every part that is attached while they are in the water. It was a new experience for me, and after the first one I took to tearing them apart myself. When we got home last night, we were thoroughly exhausted.
Today - To celebrate the end of O-Week and the one-week anniversary of our arrival in Australia, we decided to go to the beach again. We went to Surfer's Paradise this time, a place renowned for their crystal clear water and white sandy beaches. It was gorgeous. It was also a total tourist trap, a place to be likened to the Jersey Shore with streets lined with kitchy souvenir shops and restaurants, shadowed by the tall hotels and apartments nearby. I loved it. Toward the end of our time there today, it started to get chilly, and I wrapped up in my sweatshirt. It reminded me of Maine when I was little, sitting at the beach on a cloudy day with the wildly crashing waves getting closer and closer.
Tomorrow we start classes, and I am so excited to see what they are like - will they be similar to St. Rose or completely different? Are they strict or lax with work? Will the teachers be nice? It will really feel like a true first day of school...and I cannot wait :)
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