Ello, mate. sydney was just an all around amazing time, hands down. What an interesting city, so clean. Everyone's so healthy, I love it! Overly friendly, so different than what I'm use to. While we finished up our orientation week in sydney, we kept seriously busy. Always on the go! We did the sydney harbor bridge climb. I was pretty nervous at first, but went out there with no regrets. We climbed to the highest point on the bridge, reaching 500 feet. What an amazing sight it is up there. You can see all of sydney, all the way to the blue mountains. I wasn't expecting sydney to be as hilly as it is. Breathtaking, we took pictures along the way, as you see! After the climb, we had some lunch outside. The food is phenomenal. It's all just so fresh & delicious! Later that night, we went out to a nightclub called soho with kat's friends that are from around town. Very welcoming folks, took us out & got in for free. Always a plus. We left there and continued on with several other bars & nightclubs.On our last day there, we had the whole day to ourselves to do whatever we pleased. A few of us went downtown to paddies market. Just an outside vendor sort of thing with goodies. At 4 we all went out on a dinner cruise. We had a 3 course meal & enjoyed dancing with old folks to a live band. The macarana came on & all the aussie's looked at us like we were crazy. A whole group of americans doing the same simple dance, how odd. Australians can't dance. They'll admit it too. It's quite funny, they all sort of stand in a circle and hold their pointer fingers out to point-dance all over the place. None of that grinding stuff that we tend to do. If we were to do that here it would strongly convey an awful message to your dancing partner. I like it though, it's not all grimey & dirty. Everyone's in their own little world so I fit right in! Haha. After the cruise, some of us went to some random bars on the way home & later on to the casino. It was my first time at the casino so I had fun! We all stayed out really late since it was our last night & had to up & pack the next morning to catch our plane to townsville. We had to say bye's to a few people going to other uni's, lame. We arrived here to 90 degree weather with 100% humidity. Yeaaahh, it's hot as hell here. We all slowly got dropped off at our dorms to find out that we had no a/c. Yeah, it sucks. It gets extremely hot during the day, but night is tolerable. Thank god for ceiling fans. If you're outside for more than 6 minutes, ya start to burn! It's just a little known fact around here so they all load up on spf. There's really no point in showering either. You feel so clean then once you're out you just start to sweat instantly. Very different than what I'm use to, but I love it here. This whole week is "O week" (orientation week) for freshman so I assume we're here because we're new students & it's a great way to meet everyone around here. They have all sorts of activities set up for us all week & all sorts of parties every night. It's quite fun. However, 2 nights ago I experienced some aussie hazing! Apparently, australians haze all the freshman during this week. The aussie's believe that all this non sense comes from america. They see american pie movies & think that's how it actually is... It's pretty weird. Sort of like some stereotypical frat/sorority thing going on. My "college" (which is just what they say for your dorming community) was all given BIBS the first day we got here. We have to wear them to all our meals & functions. Other colleges were given shirts, bandanas or something of that sort they have to wear as well all week. It jus depends on where you're living. So 2 nights ago we were woken up at 3 a.m to go outside and do war crys for an hour & a half until the R.A's approved... very weird? It's just an ice breaker thing they do so people can meet each other.
It's nice to be all settled in here. I can truly say that I'm having the time of my life & could honesly see myself living here. Hats off to the next 4-5 months!
