Final Fortnight Down Under

Well hey there! It’s been a while. I’ve been busy, but ther hasn’t been any really huge events. Mostly just run of the mill, day to day, class related stuff. There have been some good times, like returning to the Opera House to see the Symphony play music by Beethoven from his music for the Goethe play Egmont. That was really cool. There were some great pieces. My favorite started with a loud, warlike drumbeat. We also had some pretty crazy Halloween parties. I went as an overexcited American tourist complete with Sydney shirt, an ‘I heart Sydney’ mug, camouflaged explorer hat, camera around my neck, and Sydney tour guidebook. At one party I couldn’t find my Sydney shirt, so I threw on some blue jeans, a wife beater, and a Jim Beam hat. I grabbed a toothpick to chew on and walked around barefoot emanating hatred to everything, like a true redneck. Everyone was impressed with my commitment to character. Wow, November already. Seems like last week I was on a bus from the airport on my first time over the Harbour Bridge, in awe at the Sydney Opera House. Now, in less then 2 weeks, I will be taking the train back across that bridge on the way to the airport for my flight home. Time really does fly.

Anyways, back to what I’ve been up to. Which is not much. Mostly just school work. Yesterday we spent taking a surfing lesson at Manly Beach. It was a gorgeous day out, but the sun was really intense. I managed to get a few good surfs in. After 2 hours of surfing, we went kayaking on the harbor. We went to a little cove with a nice cliff to jump into the harbor from. It was about a 25 foot drop, so I went twice. After being there for a bit, we kayaked over to a nice little beach then to the old quarantine hospital, that’s now a restaurant and museum. It was pretty neat looking at the stuff about keeping the sick people there, away from the main Sydney population until they got all better.

After that, we hung out in Manly and walked over to Shelley beach to see the view. Today starts our last week of classes. Then it’s 3 weeks of finals. I have no exams, so I just have to finish up my last paper and a project by Friday and then I’m done. I leave here and arrive at home on the 20^th after a 21 hour trip or so. Gotta love the time zones. That’s all I have for now!

-Dan

Here's some links to some more pictures also.
Manly and Art and About: https://picasaweb.google.com/114301813770586203479/Manly?authkey=Gv1sRgCKaBkNSru4qW6QE
Skydiving: https://picasaweb.google.com/114301813770586203479/Skydiving?authkey=Gv1sRgCP2fxKOZhs2MNw
Rafting: https://picasaweb.google.com/114301813770586203479/Rafting?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ3E3Onh366eeg
Snorkeling: https://picasaweb.google.com/114301813770586203479/Snorkelling?authkey=Gv1sRgCKmD4LCGi6GWNw
Other: https://picasaweb.google.com/114301813770586203479/SpringBreak?authkey=Gv1sRgCL_Wr5i5mIStUg

Spring Break!!!

Wow, it's been a while. A lot has happened. So here we go:

Woo! Spring break!! We flew into Gold Coast yesterday. It’s gorgeous. On the way to our hostel we passed Palm Beach and Miami. Right next to our place here is Vegas (restaurant and bar) and today we walked past long beach during our wanderings about the city. This was after our walk up the beach and mini golf at King Tut’s Putt Putt, but before our visit to Coldrock Creamery. It looked awfully familiar, but don’t recall ever going to a place called Coldrock. We then went to a Woolworths to grab some chicken and pasta to make for dinner. After dinner we went to

On Monday we went to a wildlife park in Burleigh Heads, just south of Gold Coast. It was a bit of a hike to get there, but it was a really cool site. We got there just in time for the snake show. It was mostly just a guy talking about the snakes, and he had a few to show us. We also saw a tree kangaroo talk and a platypus talk, as well as many other animals. 

Afterwards, we wandered around Burleigh Heads for a bit, and had an excellent dinner at Wahoo. That night we went to bed pretty early to get up for our early flight. We made it to the airport really early and got through security. We then had to go through customs since our flight was also a big transfer for an international flight to Japan. It was really bizarre, but there were no complications. When we got to town, we checked into our hostel and walked over to the lagoon where we met some people from Uni that were leaving in a few hours. We sat with them for lunch then saw them off. After that we just wandered around and did a little grocery shopping for the week to keep costs down. We had free dinner at one of the restaurants in town since we’re staying at the hostel.

Wednesday we got up early again to do a rainforest adventure. We got in a big van and picked up some other people, then drove north an hour or so to stop at a rainforest zoo. Saw lots of kangaroos and wallabies and koalas. It was pretty cool. We then drove a bit further and got out and wandered through the Daintree Rainforest a little. About an hour further up the road, over some mountains, we had lunch at a resort in a literal rainforest café and walked on the beach a little bit. There were some good climbing trees. After lunch we headed back south. We stopped for another quick walk through the rainforest, then at a scenic lookout to look out over the ocean. We then stopped for an hour-long river cruise where we saw a few crocodiles and a tree snake. We then drove back home and made dinner and watched some movies before bed.

Thursday we had a day off. We spent the day wandering around Cairns and hanging out at the Hostel. It was pretty uneventful. That evening we met up with some friends from England who live in Parklands

Friday we got up early again, this time for White Water Rafting in the Tully River. It was a two-hour drive or so to get to the top of the river. We got our life jackets on and got in the water. After a brief briefing of the rules of the raft, we went on our way. We rafted for a few hours, hitting a couple level 4 rapids. Towards the end of the morning half, the guide put us in the front of the boat and we went over a meter and a half tall waterfall. We all fell into the water and got stuck under the raft for a few moments of panic. It was totally awesome! We then stopped for a lunch of Aussie BBQ. We had a hot dog and burger on a bun with some coleslaw and beetroot. Top it off with some sweet chili sauce for a super savory sandwich of monstrous proportions. It was quite delicious.

The afternoon was full of more gentle rapids, but was still fun. I didn’t put on enough sunscreen at lunch so I got some wicked sunburn on my shoulder blades and the back of my neck. That evening we made more pasta and sat around and relaxed. The Saturday afterwards was another day off. We spent the day recovering from sunburns and colds by reading and movies and hanging out in Cairns. It was pretty relaxing.

We got up early again on Sunday to go out on the reef for some snorkeling. We ran into Ryan in line since he inadvertently signed up for the same trip. We spent the next hour playing go fish on the way out to the reef. I got a wetsuit for the day so that my sunburn wouldn’t get any worse. Once we got to the first dive spot we got to jump in the water. It was plenty warm and within a few seconds of getting in I saw a sea turtle. We spent a few hours swimming around there, enjoying the scenery and the bright coral and fish. After a few hours of that, we got back on the boat where we had another BBQ. This time they had some pasta salads and shrimp as well. It was another delicious and extremely filling meal. We took another hour boat ride to get to our second destination. We got back out and had another couple hours in the water. This trek was one of the most breathtaking things I’ve ever seen. That evening we rested up and went out for a couple drinks and another free dinner, then early to bed since Monday was skydiving day.

We got up early again to catch another bus to go out to Mission Beach for a skydive. It took a couple hours to drive out there, and then about a half hour wait for our group to be ready to go up. We got all our gear on and hopped in a van to take us to the airport. We saw a cassowary crossing the road on the way. Cassowaries are the most dangerous bird in the world. We got to the airport and spent another 20 minutes flying up to the 14,000 feet to get ready to jump. Once there the hatch was opened and the guy I was flying tandem with threw us out of the plane. The first sensation was deafening wind. Then I caught my breath and was able to enjoy the rest of the minute long free fall towards the ocean. The parachute was pulled after a minute of falling and we floated down for 4-5 minutes to land on the beach. It was the most exhilarating few minutes in memory.

Afterwards, Sarah and I went to a beachside café to get some lunch and hope our ears would pop so we could hear each other talk. Had some interesting, failed conversations about not being able to hear each other. It was funny. It took us an hour and a half to get our food, but it was really excellent. Then it was time to head back to Cairns to pack up and get ready for our early flight back to Sydney. We made it back to the Uni without a hitch and had a little welcome home party. I spent the next few days lazing around and recovering from all the excitement of break.

The Saturday after returning, we went to the Manly International Jazz Festival. Manly is a suburb on the north side of the harbour that you need to take a ferry to get to. It was quite a fun outing with lots of good music, good food, and good friends. We stopped and got some dinner and I had the best calamari of my life, then we stopped at a Coldrock for dessert.

Sunday was daylight savings day, so we lost an hour but Monday was Labor Day so we had the day off. That was bittersweet since I don’t have class on Monday anyway. What a waste of a day off of school…

We ended up going into the city on Monday evening to meet up with a German we met while rafting who had made her way down to Sydney for dinner. Tuesday was back to class. Nothing special happened. Wednesday we went to the city to walk around and experience Art and About, an international art festival on the streets of Sydney. It was a bunch of installation pieces throughout the city. It was pretty cool. After that we went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. I got the eel. It was really delicious!

Thursday was paper day. Spent most of the day in the library writing about the original War of the Worlds broadcast. Friday we had a birthday party for a couple of the guys in the parklands.

Saturday was a big day in the city. We had tickets for the Giuseppi Verdi Opera, Macbeth. It was an incredible experience. The words were in Italian, so it was hard to understand them. Luckily there was a translation above the proscenium so you can read along. Unluckily we were in one of the two rows where the balcony blocked the translation, so I just had to work off the synopsis and enjoy the other aspects, which I could see. Overall the show was phenomenal. The only aspect I wasn’t blown away by was the costuming. Particularly those of the Lady Macbeth. The costumes didn’t seem to fit together at all and most of Lady Macbeth’s dresses looked weird or didn’t seem to fit right. It was a little distracting, but the large set, awesome music, and lovely lighting made it an excellent show.

After the Opera, we walked to the Paragon Hotel for some BarCraft. This was really interesting. It was a bar filled with a bunch of people watching a sport. Everyone’s been there. The difference is this bar was full of nerds watching a live stream of the Global Starcraft Team League finals. It was really interesting and pretty intense.

After we made it back to Parklands and had some dinner, some people convinced me to go back into the city to hit up some pubs. We hit Hart’s Pub to get a paddle, which has 4 quarter-pints of beer. They were quite delicious and fairly inexpensive. Made it home and to bed around 2:30, only to get up at 6:30 on Sunday.

Joey and I got up early to help out a girl upstairs. She’s filming a short film and needed two guys to rough up a little Korean girl for her Vietnam flashback story. We spent the morning in the suburb of Cabramatta filming away. We had some Korean food for lunch then wandered through the marketplace there before heading home. And that was pretty much the end of the weekend. 

There goes September...

16-9

Well it’s September. Not much new and exciting to speak of. Classes are still going, nothing too terrible. This week was the last week before break so I had a sound project due as well as a student-run tutorial. But first, let’s go back in time!

Funny thing about my Media Cultures class: I had to write a paper outline for this class. We turned it in on the 30^th, and the lecture that day was on how to do research. Supposedly for the paper outline, which was due an hour before the class started. Not exactly sure how that made sense. Frisbee was fun. Didn’t do much on Thursday. Friday we went to a local’s house to have a few drinks. We were going to leave, but missed the last train home, so crashed on his couches. When we woke up, we had a movie day. That Saturday was one of the British girls’ birthdays, so we went to the city to the Three Drunk Monkeys. It was a pretty cool, three story pub/club. We watched a good cover band play some classic 80’s and 90’s rock stuff. Sunday was a nice, relaxing day.

Then it was Monday again. Not much to mention here. Same old stuff, apart from a spontaneous trip to Mona Vale beach Monday afternoon. Spent time this week looking into Mid-Semester Break plans, since our big trip up the coast to Cairns fell through, due to lack of interest. We ended up settling on a 3 day stay in Gold Coast followed by a week in Cairns, complete with Skydiving over the Great Barrier Reef and landing on the beach, a day on a boat and snorkeling on the Reef, a day of white water rafting, as well as another full day bushwalking through the rainforest. Booking everything was a hassle, since I was having an off day. I won’t go into the bloody details of it, but it took several hours.

Last weekend involved a night at Ubar and the Ranch on Friday. That was quite fun, then Saturday was a movie night, then Sunday was working on my sound project. Monday was a lot more sound project work and some prep for our tutorial plan. Tuesday was more of the same, along with classes. Wednesday was the day of the tutorial, which went quite well, followed by more sound editing. During my work in the Mac lab, I start getting frantic texts. Apparently Michael put an egg on to boil on the stove and stepped outside for a smoke and some reading. The door closed and he didn’t have his keys. So I had to rush home to let him in and turn the stove off. The water had all boiled away and the egg had exploded all over the kitchen. It was kinda cool until the clean up. We celebrated not burning the apartments down with a night at the ranch.

Thursday was finishing up my sound project, which went well. We were watching some movies when Joey came in and told me some English guys had tickets to a comedy show in the city in an hour! We frantically got ready to go and hopped on the train. Then took a cab to where the show was. It was a quaint little comedy club inside a cool, outdoor mall in one of the southern suburbs. It was a great show. We were laughing for hours. Afterwards, we grabbed some food then came home.

Ahh, Friday before break. Conception day. Conception day is a giant music festival on campus to celebrate break. There’s lots of food, drinking, people, and everything involved with those. We got up around 7:30 and made it to the W.A.N.G. breakfast (We All Need Grub). This club’s purpose is to provide BBQ’s and cookouts for students. This event, however, cost an extra fee, but came with unlimited food and beer and Wangria. Had a couple hot dogs, and several beers and then went to sound class. After class, I went to the fest, grounds. There were 5 stages with live music, 3 temporary bars (as well as Ubar) and a couple thousand students partaking in all of the fun. They also had bumper cars and a mini Ferris Wheel.

Had tons of fun enjoying the live musings of Regurgitator, Bag Raiders, Dead Letter Circus, and Art Vs. Science. After that we came back to Parklands to start getting ready for the trip, and to hang out and relax.

I doubt I will have the time or energy to update over break, so I will see you all after and I’m sure the next post will be huge. We leave on the 17^th for Gold Coast, then fly up to Cairns on the 20^th. We come back here on the 27^th and there’s the Manly Jazz Festival on the 1-3 of October. This could potentially be the only post in September. Where did this month go? Then the following weekend, a few of us are going to see the Macbeth Opera by Guiseppi Verdi. So we will be quite busy. Hope things are well for all of you.

Catch you on the flip side!

-Dan

What's new.

Monday the 22^nd was a reading day for me. Then Tuesday was back to classes and we had planned a small get together for dinner. Joey made chili and people brought stuff and it was a nice little potluck. Except there were 35 people in our apartment. There was hardly any room to move at all. We borrowed 5 more chairs so we’d have enough seating for most of the people. It was a really good time, and we had a lot of chili and pasta. We had some desserts too, like mini cakes and a cool chocolate cookie like dish. We had some wine and ended up staying up until around 3:30.

That Wednesday was a pretty uneventful tutorial. Then back to Ultimate Frisbee club and then the Ranch for Hump day celebration. That Thursday we were all pretty tired so we went to the Ranch for dinner. I got some humongous buffalo wings and we all had a bunch of potato wedges. It was quite delicious.

Ahh Friday at last. Now’s where things get interesting… We were supposed to meet at 11AM at Lane Cove National Park for my Advanced Sound Design class to record some sounds and get familiar with the equipment. I made it about halfway there before I realized I didn’t have the phone number they had given us in case we got lost. I tried calling some people, but they were in class or didn’t have any credit on their phones. I got to where I thought it was supposed to be and didn’t see it so I decided to go back and try the path I had seen. I took the Great Northern Trail all the way through the park (4.2  km). It was a pretty gorgeous walk and beautiful weather so It wasn’t that stressful. By the time I got to the end of the path I had seen about 5 other people, a big lizard, and all sorts of birds. Walked down by the river for about a kilometer, and was a little tired. At the end of the path I ran into the class, and got a bit of pity from them when I told the tale. But I got a ride home out of it. Overall I walked about 10.8 km (5.6 miles). By the time I got home I was a little less exhausted. We went to the U-bar for some drinks around 5:30 and ended up staying there for several hours. It was fun.

The Big Merino

Shot from inside the big Merino

Saturday we work up early to get on the road by 10 to go to Canberra. We stopped at Goulbourn on the way to get some meat pies and see the world’s biggest merino. The meat pies were delicious! The whole trip was about 3 hours of drive time. 

View of Capital Building
from the lookout

When we got to the Capital, we went up to Mount Ainslie lookout to see the city from up high. We then spent a few hours at the Australian War Memorial. It was pretty sobering and really cool at the same time. Saw some great displays and they had a lot of diorama exhibits that were awesome to look at. Afterwards we checked in at the Youth Hostel there and went out for some Thai food, where we had some red curry duck, curry puffs, garlic chicken, squid and some other stuff. One of the best meals I’ve had here so far. After that we watched a Rugby game at one of the downtown bars and had some $3, weak drinks.

Sunday we got up and went to the National Museum of Australia and wandered through there for a few hours. After that we went to the Parliament house and took a tour. It was really cool to see how their system works over here. I felt like I knew more about their government than that of the US afterwards. We then visited the National Art Gallery. After that we grabbed some food and hit the road. The trip back seemed much quicker.

Monday was a catch up day. I used it to write a paper outline due on Tuesday and catch up on the blog. Well now I’m caught up to the present and I am sure you don’t want to read about how I’m updating my blog, so I’ll see you next time. Thanks for reading!

Another view of the Capital Building

Fountain in the manmade lake in Canberra

Cool statue in front of War Memorial

Entrance to War Memorial

Pool inside entry to War Memorial

View of the path up to Capital
with our guide Murray and Sarah

Wall of names of soldiers lost

Tomb of an unknown Aussie soldier with stain glass reflected in it

another wall of names

Reading about the unknown soldier

Reflecting pool with the flame

Entry way to the War Memorial 

Murray and Sarah

The cannon shot out the sun!!

-Dan 

What's old.

Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated this, so I will do my best to remember what happened. The Friday after my last post (12 August.) we had a “booze cruise” on the harbor. Sarah, Joey and I went down early and walked around Darling Harbour a little bit. We got on the boat around 6:45 and took full advantage of the open bar until around 10 when we docked to get off. The whole trip cost $20 and we had open bar of beer, wine, and champagne as well ass some appetizers that they walked around with. Afterwards I walked around the pier a little bit enjoying the weather, and then we hopped on a train to go home. A pretty uneventful Saturday followed, until that night when we had a little gathering at an apartment next door.

Didn’t do a whole lot on Sunday if I recall. That Monday I went to an internship orientation session. It was pretty boring and uneventful. I waited for people to get back to the apartment so we could go get some fish and chips at the Ranch. By the time we got around to heading out, the kitchen had closed at the Ranch. We found out that the Maccas a bit away was open 24 hours, so we decided to take a little excursion over there. It was a good walk and we hung out there for a while. It tasted fresher than McDonalds back home.

That Tuesday was back to classes, then there was a party at the World Bar in King’s Cross. I went downtown early to stop at the Opera House to pick up tickets for Graphic (more on that later). Sarah and I then walked from Sydney Opera House to World Bar, only making a minor detour out of the way to ask for directions…  We got student price teapots of alcohol for cheap. They were fairly alcoholic mixed drinks and they gave us little shot glasses to go with it. We hung out there for several hours, drinking, and karaoke-ing, and having fun.

That Wednesday was pretty cold and rainy out and I had a meeting with some guys from Colourful Trips and a bunch of other students to talk about a mid-semester break trip, so I forewent Ultimate Frisbee club that night. The trip is a 13 day, practically all inclusive trip up the east coast to our final destination of Cairnes. Along the way we will be stopping at Fraser Island, surfing, and doing all sorts of fun stuff. But more on that later…

That Thursday and Friday were pretty uneventful. Then Saturday was Graphic at the Sydney Opera House! I got up early and caught a train to the city and got in around 10:15 or so. Got to watch a panel with several Australian comic writers who were presenting their work in a slide show. Highlights of that were, one guy who had a friend playing metal guitar as a soundtrack for his Viking epic about the last Viking, and the Chinese dragon dance to present the comic about the training that goes into learning the dances.

After that, I went to watch Masaya Matsuura talk about his career in sound and music video games. It was pretty fun. Then I had a few hours off so I wandered around Sydney to get the lay of the land better. That was pretty uneventful, but I do feel more comfortable in the city now. I went back to the Opera House and watched a panel on wordless comics and how they need to be approached differently than normal comics when being created. It was alright, but I wasn’t very familiar with any of their source material on the subject, so I didn’t get as much out of it as I would have liked. After that, the final show of the evening was a screening of Talking With The Gods, a documentary on one of the greatest comic writers, Grant Morrison. This was an awesome movie and a great ending to a great day!

The following Sunday was day two of Graphic. This was the day I was waiting for with the Scott McCloud talk on Understanding Comics. His books lead the market of the graphic arts “how to” books. Sometime during the hectic weekend I got in my head this event started at 4. It wasn’t til I got on the 3:00 train that I realized it was at 3 actually. I decided to go for it anyway, but the theater was closed and said no entry when I got there around 3:45. I was pretty distraught, but decided to walk around the rocks after grabbing some fish and chips and eating on the Quay while listening to some didgeridoo buskers playing there. I wandered through one of the markets in the rocks and looked at all the cool arts and crafts they had around there. After an hour or two down there, I went home and had a pretty easygoing night.

That’s all I have time for right now, I have a paper outline due tomorrow. I will hopefully have time to catch up to this week tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.

-Dan

Catching up.

Hey there! Welcome to my new blog! I like this one better so I will be using it now. This post is going to be for putting all the stuff from the old one onto here now so this is just a catch-up.

More pics can be seen at https://picasaweb.google.com/114301813770586203479/BondiAgain?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIrnkpX65bn_DQ&feat=directlink

and https://picasaweb.google.com/114301813770586203479/Sydney?authkey=Gv1sRgCKWbibu4-JeNswE

Classes, ugh!!

August 10th, 15:28

 Second week of classes! There’s a lot of reading to do. The classes are set up differently than they are in America. There’s a lecture and a tutorial for each class. The lectures are just what they sound like, huge classes with tons of students where the professors get up front and talk at us for an hour. The tutorials are the class participation portion, small groups where we have more in depth discussions on the topics discussed in the lectures.
Enough about classes, let’s get to the fun stuff! The last 2 Saturdays we got a fairly big group together to go to Bondi and hang out on the beach. We threw balls and Frisbees around and waded through the shallows getting soaked by the giant waves. Last week was the welcome back, join some clubs fair on the main courtyard. I signed up for chess club, the film society, and W.A.N.G. (We all need grub). Have yet to make it to chess club and W.A.N.G. hasn’t had any events yet, but I have already seen two movies with the Film Soc. Last Wednesday we went to the event cinemas to see Captain America. It was quite an awesome film, especially for the cheap student price ($8) we got. After the movie was the big back to school bash at the Ranch. It was pretty much jam packed, but we had a fun time hanging out and chilling at some apartments afterwards.
The following Thursday was a normal school day and that night was the big welcome back event at the U(niversity)-bar. Yes there is a bar in the campus hub. Complete with billiards, dance floor, and most importantly a small arcade. It was pretty fun. Again lots of people and loud music though. Friday was good. Had a pretty easy class period and went to the speed friendship event. It was a great time. Met loads of people there. When we were walking home we got invited to an apartment for dinner. We went over there and there were a couple Italians cooking a sausage chili dish and an egg/potatoes dish. We spent the evening eating and drinking wine there, and it was delicious. We went back to the Ranch to enjoy a nice calm night there. 

Saturday was Bondi all day then we went out to some Sydney bars. It was stressful getting home since the train was down for repairs so we had to find where the bus stop was. Sunday was a nice, laid back, lazy day. I made some lazy-man’s spaghetti for the guys. Monday was my day off and then we went to Inferno’s Caffe for all you can eat pizza and pasta for $20. We brought some bags and gladware to put some leftovers in. Shhh! We got about 4 meals out of it. It wasn’t a buffet since the waiters were bringing the food out to us. At one point the waitress asked, “Would you like vegetarian or meat lovers?” so I asked, “You can carry those on the same tray?” After that we went to an apartment party next door. I went home early since I had to get up early for class the next day, but everyone had a good time. Yesterday was Tuesday. I had 2 classes and just hung out on campus. Today I spent in class then trying to figure out internet stuff. Not sure what’s going on for the rest of the week.
That’s about it for now! Thanks for reading!

(no subject)

July 30th, 2:42

 I’m adjusting quite well. Almost on a reasonable sleep schedule. Slept in until 8:30 or so today. The weirdest part of adjusting is my internal compass. I’m so used to the sun being in the Southern part of the sky, so I keep catching myself thinking that north is south and vice versa. The campus is quite gorgeous. We’ve done quite a bit of walking around.Another roommate arrived on Monday. John is pretty cool. We’ve got a good group of guys. John and I went to the Macquarie center and ran into Mike again and ended up hanging out with him most of the day. That night we went across the corner to The Ranch Hotel for dinner and a few drinks. I Had a meat and mushroom pie and Fat Yak beer. It was quite excellent. 

Tuesday was the big day in Sydney. The program I booked the study abroad through, CEA, had a day trip with the five students from the program, and our guide Murray. 

 We met up at 10 AM and did a quick tour of the campus. Then caught a train to downtown Sydney. We walked around for a few hours down there, then caught another train out to Bondi beach. We had lunch and then walked around for an hour or so. Possibly the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to. 

Guy playing with bubbles in Hyde Park

Cool fountain in Hyde Park

Thursday was pretty laid back in comparison. I was able to sleep in a bit and then went to an interview with the International office to work on setting up an internship and learn more about the program. Then last night was the international students’ welcome cruise. We got on a boat around 7 and had lots of pizza and took a cruise around the harbor for 3 hours. They had a DJ playing music and there was lots of dancing.
The best things about Australia so far, besides the weather, are that the prices at restaurants and stuff have the taxes built in, so you pay the price that’s on the menu; they import almost no food items so everything tastes fresh and much better, including the pop; and they are much more easy-going and not as uptight about things (i.e. they have signs for toilets, and I have only seen one sign for a restroom.) That’s all I have for now

Greetings.

July 24th, 16:41

G'day mates! Welcome to Dan's wonderful world of super Sydney silliness. I arrived here safe at about 7 this morning local time after a 16 hour flight that departed around 10:50 PM from Los Angeles last friday (Where did Saturday go?). 

LA through the fog

Shot of Los Angeles area

I've only had a couple hours of sleep since I got up early Friday morning, which seems like a lot, but it's really only going on 2 days right now. So far the trip has been great. We waited at the airport for a good half hour for a plane that got delayed. 

Qantas A380 Air-jet like the one I rode in

First view of Sydney Skyline

 We then took a van from the airport, through Sydney, to the Macquarie campus where the 8 of us from that airport pickup were dropped off at the 4 different housing locations. Here's some pictures from the van on the ride to campus. I got my keys and moved into my apartment where I met one of my apartment mates, Joey. He's pretty cool. Quite easy to get along with. I have my own room in an apartment with 3 bedrooms, a living room, a small kitchen/dining room, a restroom, and a toilet closet (?). Pictures to follow.

Finally some authentic Australian culture!

We spent most of the day wandering around the macquarie shopping center, a huge 5 story mall with all sorts of food stores and everything else you can think of. We picked up some necessities, e.g. food, pillows, wine. While wandering through that monstrosity, we met up with a couple of the guys I met from the van trip to campus and we hung out there for several hours before retiring to our apartment for a bit. We decided to go for a walk since we were falling asleep (Yay jetlag!!) and now I am getting my internet fix at the library. :)

First view of the Opera House.

There are certainly lots of things to get used to here, such as the metric system: It was 7 degrees when we landed, which is ~44 degrees farenheit, gas is 1.44$/litre which is about 4$/gallon. The roads and cars are reverse of what I'm used to, and theres tropical plants and birds (Joey swears he saw a macaw) and it is only 45 degrees out... Plus everything is really expensive due to it being a big city and the exchange rate, about $1.165American:$1 Australian. So far it's been worth every penny, and we haven't even gone to downtown Sydney yet!! 

Orientation stuff begins on Tuesday, we register for classes on Wednesday, and we start classes Monday. It'll be a busy week and I may not post again until we get internet in the homestead...

First view of my new Uni!

-Dan