Hey all,

It’s the end of a short week of classes here in australia. Luckily for me I have managed to get a schedule of classes that only meet Monday-Wednesday. All my classes seem like they’ll be good, if not interesting, then not that hard. Nutrition seems like it will be the only class I’m really actually interested in, which makes sense considering I need it for my major and minor. The professor for that class is nice. He’s young. There are two people who will lecture for it. One is the main guy, and then the other is this little guy with spiked brown hair who just looks scared all the time. I guess it’s only the second year they’ve run the course and last years class was like half the size as this years, so maybe that’s why he looks scared. Who knows. I have lecture for that class every Monday and weeks 3-8 I have a tutorial along with lecture, and then the last two weeks of the semester I have a lab as well.

My second class is Modern Masters of Philosophy. I don’t know what to make of that class. The professor is from Germany and switches from speaking in english to german to french. He talks super slowly, like he is thinking about each word that is going to come out of his mouth. He is a philosophy professor, so I guess it makes sense. That class is 3 hours long every Monday night, which is a hell of a long time to talk about nonsense. We spent the first half of the class going over the course profile and then the second half he talked philosophy talk. I had no idea what was going on. There was an old woman sitting on my right and a girl who must have had a cold sitting on my left. She kept sniffling and breathing heavily and I just wanted to hit her.

My last class is creative writing which is broken down into a lecture and tutorial each week. My tutorial is very interesting. Everyone is australian, which is cool, then there is a study abroad student from germany who barely speaks any english. Then this guy who looks like Justin-Bobby back when Justin-Bobby had long hair. His name is Pooya, and when he was introducing himself, yeah we did introductions, he was like “its like boo-ay but with a P.” He mumbles like it’s his job. We had to do a writing on scars and then read them aloud and the guy sitting next to me was talking about hookers and drugs. Next week I’m not going to sit next to him. Then this girl walks in an hour late and she has a piercing in her cheek, then another one in her nose but the kind that goes like around the divider of your nose, she’s wearing purple high top Doc Martins and this black like crop top with a ruffly collar. She was gross. Then there is an older woman who is going back to school to get a new degree who just kept talking about her kids. Ok lady, I get it, you have kids, good for you. We had to go around describing what kind of writing we do, so I’m like, uh I don’t really write, I just need this for the credit. This girl is like I like to write about the mentally ill. Everyone just stops and is like what? She was weird.

I feel like they just don’t go to school. All of their classes meet once a week and they only have to take 3 classes to be a full time student. Like really? Class is just like an hour interruption in their day and then they go about drinking. There are these crows. Oh my word let me tell you. They are the worst things in the world. The other morning it sounded like they were dying, like literally dying. Their little bird call is the loudest thing you’ve ever heard. My roommates and I have decided to go see an AFL game. Which is essentially football, soccer, basketball, and rugby combined. The field is circular in shape and it’s really cool to watch.

And i thought americans drank a lot. Australians drink like it's their job. But the odd thing about it is that they start drinking at around 5 o'clock and then everyone is dead tired at around midnight. So this past week has been O-Week. Which is essentially a huge party every day and every night. Monday was really just a bunch of meetings, but at the end of each meeting we were offered a free beer. And who is going to pass up a free beer when alcohol here costs about 5 times as much as it does in the states. Tuesday was when the party really started. There was free pizza at night and then they bused everyone over to this club called SinCity. There were like 3 huge buses full of people already drunk. It was ladies night, so we got in for free and all our drinks all night long were free. Mistake #1. Mistake #2 was taking advantage of all those free drinks. I went with my roommates, so we stuck together the whole night long. So we get to SinCity at around 9:30 and the bus will take us back at 2 in the morning. We stay at that club for a few hours, get a few drinks in us, probably around 4 or 5, and then we go outside, where this nice 40 year old german man gives me his coat because it's freezing outside. He then tells us he lives in the Village, which is where i live. What is a 40 year old german man doing in the village. That's what i want to know. We then go back into SinCity, have a few more drinks and leave. We walk around Surfers and go into another bar. Where we have a few more drinks. Bad things happen at this bar, which is why i'm going to remove it from my memory. Mistake #'s 3-6. We make our way back to where the bus is going to pick us up. And on our way home we are. I don't get to bed until close to 4 and i have to be up at 7:30 to go to Byron Bay for an orientation trip. Now because i've been heavily intoxicated the whole night long i now need to pee every 30 seconds. So that was not a restful 4 hours of sleep.

Byron Bay was beautiful. We stayed in a hostel right on the beach, which was also beautiful. Our first day there we went on a hike up to a lighthouse which is on the most eastern point of australia. It was super super nice there. Wednesday night we go out to this restaurant/bar cheeky monkey. It was interesting. The DJ was awful and the dancing was all on tables. Now i was still recovering from tuesday night, so my wednesday was not that bad.

Thursday morning we went sea kayaking. I was with a girl from germany of holland, i'm not exactly sure. She was dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. They put her in the back of the kayak because she was bigger than me. Mistake #1. We flipped over twice trying to ride the waves in because she had no idea what she was doing. During a little intermission we had Tim Tams. Best thing ever. They are like this biscuit/chocolate thing. Oh my word they were fabulous.

Thursday night we had this cookout at the hostel and we all pitched in 5 dollars for a punch. Now this punch was like no other punch. It was red and white wine, vodka, rum, pina colada, and only 3 liters of juice to this huge vat of alcohol. It got me drunk, and it got me drunk fast. We then head out to this bar called cocomangas. Now i'm already trashed, can't walk in a straight line and can hardly stand up. We get there, and we get a free drink. Luckily that's all i drank while i was there. We stayed there until around 1, which by then i had pretty much sobered up.

Friday we went surfing in the morning. The water was so warm it was wonderful. I was able to get up which was lovely. When we got back to the hostel everyone was just so tired it was hard to think. And then it started raining so we just hung out. By this time i'm just so sleep deprived i need some energy. I ate an entire pizza all by myself. Mistake. We leave Byron at like 4:30 and head back to campus. Friday night was very low key. Me, Meaghan, and our 5th roommate kate went to see a movie. Their movies are expensive. like 16 bucks without a student ID, or 13 with one. I passed out after the movie and slept like a rock.

It's been a very eventful week, perhaps a little too much drinking and debauchery, but all in all, very successful. Monday is the start of classes. That's just so upsetting. Fortunately my classes only run monday-wednesday. It's still hard to believe i'm in australia. Every now and then i'll have one of those "holy shit i'm in australia" moments. Once classes start and i have a routine it will begin to feel less like an extended vacation and more like i'm actually here to study.

Hi all!

So I'm finally in australia after almost 24 hours of traveling! The flight from boston to LA was uneventful. And the flight from LA to Brisbane was long. When we got to the airport in LA it was a shocking surprise to find that the flight number was 16! So immediately I am in a terrific mood. Almost half the flight is students going abroad, so that was kinda neat. Although I was very tired from my travels and not in the mood to engage in conversation.

So we board the plane. Of course I'm in the middle seat. No big deal, the flight is only 13+hours. I fall asleep before the plane even takes off and am rudely awoken by a man asking if I wanted dinner because the next time I get to eat will be in 10 hours. After falling back asleep I am again awoken by the sound of snoring. Now we all know how much I hate snoring. So I spend a good deal of time trying to find the culprit so perhaps I can nudge them and we can all go about our business. But no. oh no no no. Needless to say it is not until morning that I realize the overweight gentleman sitting in front of me is the snorer.

So we get breakfast, bright and early at about 4 o'clock in the morning. We get off the plane, find a bunch of other kids going to griffith and make our way there. So two things I've learned about australia so far. 1. kangaroos are to australia as deer are to new hampshire. 2. they drive on the other side of the road.

We make our way to our apartment. Meaghan and I are in the same one. We get there a this nice looking boy with an accent opens the door. I don't remember his name, but he is from denmark! neat! Then another boy comes in. I'm not sure I ever learned his name. But he is from New Zealand! neat! Our last roommate is on holiday so I have not met her yet. The room is like a jail cell. Not as homey as Ithaca, but oh well. there are 3 bathrooms, 2 with showers and 1 with just a potty. I'm so super excited to be here!

More to come later!

Love to all,

Adina

Check here if you want to know all about my crazy australian travels for the next 5 months.