Oh hey guys! So I've seen a bunch of people making a blog while they're abroad and figured I'd give it a go. It won't be anything special but for the couple of people interested in what I'm up to, I guess this is a good way to kill a few birds with one stone!
Update on the last two weeks:
After a long day and a half of travel, I finally arrived at UniCentral Housing, where I share an apartment with an Australian boy, a French boy, and an Australian girl. Two out of the three can cook better than I'll ever be able to so hopefully they can break my eggs and vegetable diet and teach me a trick or two to keep me from starving. The place is pretty nice and I have a room and bathroom all to myself, with the four of us sharing a living room, laundry, kitchen, and a patio with a small pool outside. It's a little bare but starting to feel like home.
As far as friends go, I've fell into line with an amazing group of people that I met at orientation! Sorry to those of you that are going to read this as I talk about you all. So far we've got a good mix, with people from the US (South Carolina, Missouri, Montana, California, and New York), Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, and Australia! We got through orientation together and spent the rest of the week sight seeing. Some of the major things were hiking in the Glasshouse Mountains (a group of 12 mountains that range in difficulty but all have a spectacular view) where we conquered Mt. Ngungun, the Big Pineapple and Big Macadamia Nut (part of Queensland's famous six 'Big Things'), plenty of beaches (Mooloolaba, Alexandra Headlands, Maroochy) where some of us tried our skill at surfing and in my case failed hard but hopefully I'll improve by the time I leave, sampled some Mexican and Thai food (we're working up to trying kangaroo), and did some shopping at the Sunshine Plaza. Taking the train and bus to all of these places was an adventure itself.
As far as school goes, today was the first day of classes for me. The teachers seem as laid-back as most of the people here and I was pleasantly surprised to see many of the students showing up with bare feet and beach hair. The school is completely open and outside, so the sun is everywhere on campus. Between the constant sunshine and amazing coffee, campus is a great place to hang out. One thing's for sure, if you ever make it down here, a flat white coffee is a must have. The campus also has an Olympic sized, 50 meter outside pool. I still swimmer nerd out hard when I get to swim in it (at least once a day for a sunset swim and sometimes a second workout earlier in the day between classes). Also good about the campus is the animals. Kangaroos here are similar to deer back home, just hanging out all over the campus, letting you get within a few feet of them to take a picture without giving you a second glance. The bad part about campus is also the animals. The birds are louder than car horns and won't hesitate to fly inches above your head. And of course the snakes. So far I've only seen two but I watched one attack a bird in the middle of a sidewalk so that definitely put me on high alert for a bit. Considering 10 of the world's deadliest snakes live in Australia, I'm sure I'll come across plenty more and eventually have to get over my deathly fear of them...
Overall, I'm slowly settling into the University of the Sunshine Coast and Sippy Downs. Already can't wait to get through this first week of classes to experience another exciting weekend touring around the Sunshine Coast and enjoying the "chilly" weather (It was 70 degrees today and the school turned on heaters in the buildings for people to sit under to warm up). Can't wait to go home in December to true "chilly" temps......
Oh fun facts though:
They call peppers capsicums, garbage is rubbish, if someone lives out in the sticks they live out in "whoop whoop", dollar bills are notes, McDonalds is called Macca's, it's next to impossible to find sunscreen below 30 spf, and of course they drive on the left side of the road.
