Orientation week (Bond Week) has been going really well. My schedule is still a little out of whack but getting better. This morning I had an interview on campus for an internship with the admissions office. They take on a study abroad student each semester to help with various projects for their international/exchange team. I thought it went well, but I have no idea how many people applied for the spot. I should know by the end of today if I got it.
I promised in my last post to share stories from the Study Australia orientation which was held separately just for our program in Sydney last week.
We arrived in Sydney and I cleared the notorious tough Aussie customs although they did question what food I was carrying in my luggage (Jiff peanut butter). We stopped first at the apartments we were staying in for the week, the Tiffany at Bondi Junction. The apartments were really nice and in a great location, right above the train station and a bus stop. Across the street is the Westfield Mall, which was also pretty amazing. It had 6 floors of shopping and was ridiculously huge - I didn’t even get to see all the shops. They had electronic maps where you could type in what store or store type you were looking for and it would give you directions from where you were standing. I found it interesting in Australia that everyone closes fairly early, even in the city. The stores in the mall usually close around 6 during the week or maybe earlier outside of the mall, weekend times are even earlier than that. Each state does designate one late night shopping night. Sydney is in New South Whales so Thursdays are their night (open until 9pm). Still early compared to home!
We had some free time during orientation and then also scheduled activities. The first night we took a walking tour of the city followed by dinner at a restaurant on Darling Harbour. A lot of us ordered the kangaroo, which was actually very good
The next day was possibly one of my favorites because it was zoo day. We went to a wildlife park about an hour outside of Sydney. Part of it was setup just like petting zoo only instead of goats and sheep you could pet and feed kangaroos and emus. The rest of the zoo was fun too. They had a lot of birds and I got to pet a koala bear.
Another adventurous orientation activity was abseiling (rappelling) and rock climbing. In morning everyone had a chance to abseil three different heights. In the afternoon you could choose to either rock climb or abseil a final (and even higher) rock face. I went abseiling and as you can see from the look on my face, I was both thrilled and terrified to be there. It was a great feeling at the end of the day. I felt like I had accomplished something even though tons of people abseil those same rock faces everyday. It was a great feat for me.
As I mentioned earlier, we did have some free time so, Jenny, Nina and I took advantage of that Saturday morning and went on a tour of the Sydney Opera House. We had walked by it on our tour the first night, but it was worth going on the tour to see the inside concert halls.
There was still so much to do and see in Sydney that we didn’t have time for in our short stay. I really want to try and make it back there during the semester. I thought it was beautiful. It was weird because it was a big city but didn’t have an intimidating big city feel to it. The trains were easy to use and I imagine the bus system was similar. People do drive here but gas is expensive so you saw fewer big cars and SUV vehicles on the road.
Well, that’s my update for now. I am playing tennis with my roommate later today and possibly going on a job hunt. More to come from down under :)
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