what I “realised”

I woke up this morning, at 6am (haha this is a usual thing…sleeping in for me is about 7am due to the time change) and decided to take an early bus to school to meet some friends for early morning coffee and Skype sessions. Due to the fact we don’t get Internet at our home stays, and there are not free wifi places here (other than McDonalds, aka Maccers), we have to be on campus to get any sort of mediocre Internet connection. This is something we are ALL going to have to get used to, and not going to lie, kind of sucks. Coming to a major city I anticipated Sydney to be a lot like the United States, but to be honest, it is behind the US (technology wise) 5 or 10 years. Seriously, why can they not have wifi EVERYWHERE!? It is making blogging, facebooking, emailing, skyping, and even google research extremely difficult. But, this was only the start to my 21^st birthday!

Rushing out to stand at the bus stop, I saw cars driving by with their windshield wipers on and thought that was odd considering it wasn’t even raining. Not even joking, one minute later was a torrential downpour! Haha because I carry a thousand things with me everywhere I was digging for my umbrella, but before I could get to it I was already drenched. Honestly, I have “realised” I have to give up EVER looking good here. By the time I walk a marathon to school, I am pouring sweat, the humidity makes my hair frizz and I’m so greasy, others don’t have to use a mirror to see their reflection! Haha welcome to my life in Sydney! So after an hour travel to school we went to a coffee shop right down the road hoping to Skype. I “realised” there was no Internet, typical. So I decided to get a coffee instead. That’s when I “realised” you can’t even order a coffee here. All the drinks are called something weird such as a “short black” and a “flat white,” so I had to spend a half an hour just asking what the whole menu was! Then I tried to enjoy an éclair for breakfast. Literally the first bite I took, all the cream fell into my lap, on my white dress I might add! What a perfect start to my day!!

I thought the day would only get better, because after all, this was a monumental birthday! Haha I’m not quite sure you could call it “better,” I guess more like “memorable.” We were finally able to Skype for our first time when all the kids in our student union started yelling and freaking out! I look down and there were 3 cockroaches running towards us and my bags were open on the floor! Panicking, I made Kristin jump up to step on them, but all it did was make them seize on the floor! Haha so nasty!

But, what made my day most memorable was this was my first day of classes! Kris and I are taking a Design Studio so we are trying to find class and the password we have to unlock the door didn’t work so we were banging on the door 15 minutes before someone heard! What a way to start off our first class of the semester. We have to walk in as the teacher is talking, and sit in the front row, literally next to the teacher. So awkward. Then the students proceeded to tell me I have a “whiney” accent, which made me oh so happy. Late, sweaty, and whiney. Perfect first impression! But, just wait, the day got even better. We learned basically the highest grade teachers give out is the equivalent to a “C” in the US. There goes my GPA. And then we were bombarded with information for 3 hours trying to learn what paper sizes they use in Australia and the rest of class was spent trying to figure out what in the world they were talking about! It honestly was like they were speaking Chinese…they might as well have been because I wouldn’t know any more than I know now. As each minute passed, I felt dumber and dumber. They would call on me to answer questions (because in Australia, their first week of classes, you actually have to work) and I had no idea what was even going on so they probably thought I was a retard. I didn’t even know what a “service station” was, so I said a gas station to clarify, and they were still confused because they call it petrol here. Haha can this get any more confusing. Well actually, it does. So for our projects in the class we will be making promotional packaging and brochures. I asked if I can type how we do in America, but that was shot down with “this is our home territory, so you do it our way.” (The teacher telling me that was from Cali, FYI! Lol how dumb.) So for all of you who have no idea what I am talking about, welcome to my world! I found out they write in Old English here and spell words like color with a “u” and realize with an “s.” I don’t even know what words you do that to, so basically I am just praying to pass haha forget anything else! So, my first class in Australia I spent having heart palpitations.

Luckily, Kristin’s host family made my day a lot more special. I went to their house for dinner and they had the house decorated with “21” stuff all over. They made the BIGGEST meal even and even had homemade personal banana cakes with a “21” candle. It was so sweet and I am so glad I got to spend it with a family that tried to make it feel like home!

After dinner, we went to meet up with some friends at Majors Bay for some gelato (we are celebrating my birthday Friday night) and when we were walking in an alley way (sketchy, I know) we saw rats running in front of us and we all started screaming!! Then, cockroaches covered the ground and we were wearing sandals! We were so terrified we started to book it, and over the fence 2 pit bulls started barking like they were going to kill us! Needless to say, I never have run so fast in my entire life, and for the record, this is not exaggerated!! (for once lol.)

But, this is turning into a novel, so I will end it as this was the most memorable 21^st birthday anyone could ever have! I never expected to come to Australia and it feel so foreign, but what I have “realised” is Australia is a lot more different from the US than I had thought. One thing that is the same, is it still was my 21^st birthday and will be a day I will never forget!!

first time to the beach

Saturday was our first day to truly explore Sydney and get accustomed to everything here. None of us have had cell phones, so we decided to all meet at the mall to get phones. Little did we know, it was a HUGE ordeal. I told my friends I would meet them outside Target at 10:30, but still don’t know how to read a bus timetable, so I missed my bus. I ended up waiting at the bus stop for 45 minutes in the blazing heat with no way to contact them to tell them I was late. A thousand thoughts were running through my head thinking what if they leave me because they don’t think I’m coming. An hour later I finally made it and we went to the Virgin Mobile store. No joke, we were in there for 3 hours because there were 10 of us buying phones and their network crashed!! We were all so cranky from exhaustion and not eating by the time we left, but decided to still head to Manly beach. We all jumped on a train to take us to the city and were trying to figure out or phones while driving. When we approached our stop, we were all frantic and got off the train, and one of the boys left his buss pass on the train which is worth $600. Because none of our phones were working, he had to leave us to figure out how he was going find that train without having to spend all that money for a new one. Meanwhile, the rest of us took a ferry to Manly beach and it was the cutest ferry ride! When we arrived we walked through the town and saw a row of pine trees blocking our view to the beach. How weird is it they have pine trees on the beach? But, the beach was so crowed with surfers, red bodies, and lifeguards. We all laid down our beach mats but by the time we went to tan, it was already 4pm, and after being in the sun 5 minutes, we all were burned. Ha needless to say, our trip to the beach didn’t last too long. That night we ate at a bar at the Wharf (first time to get carded lol) and it was adorable! Everyone was so dressed up and we all looked like bums in our beach attire. Oh well, they never will see us again! But, that night us girls took the train back to our houses and when we got off it was so loud and we looked up, and no joke, at least 1000 birds were in the trees and flying around!! It was like the movie Birds! We were all running and screaming, freaking out!! The day was so eventful, but I was exhausted. Lol I don’t think I can deal with this laid back atmosphere!!

Haha by the way, sorry this is so scattered. There has been too much to remember and I am overwhelmed lol.

 

 

my journey to oz

Two days ago was my first step into a country I would call home for four months. This is my journey to AUSTRALIA! It all began when we rushed off to the airport from our house, on the way discovering Kristin forgot her ipod! Tears later we made our way to DIA where we realized my bag was 2 pounds over weight. Frantically digging through my suitcase trying to figure out what was not an “essential” for our trip and sending it home with my mom, Kris and I said our happy/sad goodbyes to our parents and were off having no idea what would be in store for us. We landed in LAX, and to be honest, I was already tired of flying haha and that was only a two hour flight! Getting our bags we had to “switch” terminals, which entailed us carrying our own bags (haha a 50lb suit case, winter coat, 20lb backpack, camera bag, and purse) onto a bus where we got lost! Everyone was starring at us because I couldn’t even lift my bag onto the bus. After asking 3 people for directions we finally found where we were supposed to meet our group in an hour. We ended up eating dinner and talked through every possible way of walking up to the group because we were so nervous!! Truth be told, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated! We finally boarded our plane and I was blown away by how HUGE the plane was! Haha this was the type of plane you see in movies. We each had our own personal tvs with free movies, games, tv shows, music, basically anything you could ever want while traveling!! One movie later I was out for most of the flight! The only times I woke up were to eat! First time I have eaten a meal on a plane since I was 5!! It seriously was the coolest thing ever,  haha it was like I was a kid in a candy store!! The 14 hours finally became a reality and next thing I know, I was in AUSTRALIA!!! Meeting our ASC members, we left on a bus to school, and this was the first time getting to see Sydney. I didn’t really come here knowing what to expect, but I can say it is totally different than I imagined (haha even though I don’t even know what that was).

Our whole group has been exhausted and severely jet lagged, and on top of that we have been going through orientation. Our second day here we met all the “first year” students at our school and were sent into the city for a scavenger hunt! This is my first time seeing the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House! Seriously AMAZING! Pictures don’t even do it justice! But this truly was a day we will never forget. Half way through the day Kristin started feeling sick and ended up throwing up 6 times all over Sydney. She christened the ocean off the Dock of the Sydney Opera House just as we were boarding a boat for a harbor cruise! The sites were so incredible, but Kristin and one other girl in our group ended up spending their evening in the bathroom both being sick. Not a way we all thought our trip would start, but definitely has made us all a lot closer.

Coming to Australia, I was shocked to find: the street signs are MASSIVE, every kid you see wears a uniform, Australians actually love Summer Heights High (because its exactly how it is here),  you eat 6 times a day, you get 2 breaks throughout the day for morning tea and afternoon tea, everyone is REALLY friendly, everyone takes public transportation, there are tons of oriental and Thai restaurants, there is a park every block, our school is just like the movie Step Up, there are spiders bigger than both of your fists, they don’t have AC, I love TIM TAMS, everyone loves our American accents, and my host family has 3 chickens for pets!! Haha so weird, but so cool!!!

I know I have only been here for 3 days, but it makes me excited for what’s in store over the next few months! “This is not my semester, this is our semester.”