First Day of School

2/27/2012*

First day of school! First day of school!

So today I had my first day of school. I had to be at school by 9am for Photo III. I got to the bus stop a little after 8am and wouldn’t you know it, two busses that I could have taken to school didn’t show up. So didn’t get on a bus to school until a little after 8:30. Lame.

Plus, when I did eventually get on a bus, there were a million school girls who crammed on the bus before me. So much so that I was standing right next to the driver. He didn’t like that very much. Then they all got off just two stops later! Ladies, please, just walk the two blocks! Some of us have a lot farther to go.

So I eventually got to class  (a few minutes late), but Weasley is so laid back, it didn’t matter. There are a total of 8 students in my class (3 ASC, 5 Aussie). We went over the calendar and learned how to set up some lighting. Most of the work we’ll do in this class will be portrait studio photography. I’m excited to get to know how to control my lighting. I’m used to being subject to what Mother Nature provides. But the whole set up wasn’t too difficult, but if I break something I might as well go crawl in a hole, because I would have to sell my organs to pay for it all.

After class, I hunted down internet on campus and skyped my family. That was a pain. Not skyping my family. Hunting internet. Come on people.

Later, got on bus (the driver looked like The Rock), went to shopping center, bought notebooks for school, walked home. Hung out with the family tonight. We discovered that there is a macadamia nut tree in the back yard. Neil showed us the special nut cracker that they use and we tried to crack a few nuts. Unfortunately all of the nuts we cracked were moldy. Hopefully one of these days we’ll get a good one.

Neil made us ‘chook’ which is Australian for Chicken. We also had green beans, potatoes, and corn on the cob. So delicious! And for dessert, Banana pudding! (This whole living with chiefs thing is not too bad). The best part, is we watched the Australian version of The Biggest Loser while we ate dessert. 

Neil, when he remembered the show was on, shouted “Oh! We have to watch the fat people!” 

We talked for hours around the dinner table. Mostly about all of the students they’ve hosted in the past. Some good some bad. We mostly hear about the bad, but that just means that the bar is set really low for us. We concluded the evening by watching a Q and A with Australian politicians. Braeden and Kieran worked very hard to explain the basics of Australian politics. I actually think I grasp the basics more that I do American politics.

Tomorrow I have a pretty full load of classes, but I hope to have some internet time to get this post up.

*I think somehow my dates got off. To clarify, this post was written on Monday.

Humble Pie

2/25/2012 (Sunday)

So I may have mentioned before that we are required to do service placement. So everyone is in different places around the city doing different types of community service.

 Mine happened to be in Lavender Bay, which is just a few train stops away. Braedon helped me figure out that I would get off the train at North Sydney and I could walk the rest of the way.

So I was feeling confident that I was going to get there with no problems. In fact, on the way to the train station at Strathfield, someone stopped me and asked me for directions! I mean, I couldn’t tell them how to get anywhere, but the fact that I looked like I knew what I was doing enough for him to ask was awesome! So I was feeling pretty darn good about myself. A little too good in fact.

The next two hours proved to be like eating a big slice of humble pie. I will admit that the first 30-45 minutes of being lost was totally my bad. I was not in the right spot. But the last hour was completely not my fault!

It all starts at the North Sydney train station. I got off at the station I was supposed to and emerged out of the train station and took a right, as I thought I had to do. I walked for a while, found the street I was supposed to be on and followed it. I passed a man at a pay phone and I thought ‘there’s still payphones in the world?’ As I kept walking I realized that the address numbers where going up when I needed them to be going down. Also, the name of the church I was going to was called “Church by the Bridge”, and where I was, there was no bridge to be found.

No problem, I’ll just turn around. But I didn’t want to look silly in front of everyone. Because obviously everyone was looking at me and knew I was foreign. And by everyone I mean no one. So I got to the next intersection and crossed the street and began to walk back from where I just came. Then I got back to the train station and I realized that the road I was supposed to be on just stopped.

Later I would find that the road is split by a highway and picks up on the other side, and to get there I just had to go left out the train station rather than right.   

But of course I didn’t figure that out. 

I thought to myself that, 'Maybe I was right the first time.' So I walked back up where I just was, and passed the man at the payphone once more. He looked at me, and unlike before when no one was looking at me and judging me, he was absolutely looking at me and judging me. 

It was everything I had not to say “Yeah, I’m lost! What about it?” But I didn’t.

Eventually I realized that I was on the wrong side and worked my way down to where I should be. But then, I was standing at the right address, and the church I was looking at did not have the same name as the church I was supposed to be at. So I walked around for quite sometime trying to see if I was just missing it. As it turns out, that was the church, and all my problems would have been solved if I had got of the train at Milson’s Point and not North Sydney. But you win some, you lose some. Now I know.

So I went home, bested by the streets of Lavender Bay. But the rest of the say wasn’t so bad. I got back, wallowed in shame for about an hour. Ate lunch. Met up with my roommates at the local library and got on the internet for the first time in 4 days (hence the 20 blog post from the same day).

Then we ended up going to Hillsong church, which was awesome! It wasn’t the main campus one (we’ll probably go there soon). But it was so cool to hear the band and see them perform. I’ve listened to them on CD for the longest time so it was pretty cool to see it in real life. It was super easy to get to too. We just had to take the train a few stops and Hillsong provides a bus that takes you from the train station to church. I like that idea a lot because I had had enough walking for one day.

Riding Solo

2/25/2012

Today, we left the house around 8:15. Took train to Circular Quay. Met up with group at Warf 3. Took Ferry to Manly Beach. Very touristy. Lots of shops. Sat on the beach for a while. Went into one shop that was going out of business. So I bought  the standard souvenirs: Q-tips, tainless steel water bottle, nail polish…the usual.

After that, decided I wanted to head back so I took the ferry back to Circular Quay, and caught the train back all by myself. I thought I was so clever because I figured out that I could take the train with limited stops, go one stop beyond where I wanted to go, then get back on another train going the opposite direction to get where I needed to be. I didn’t realize that the train going the other direction would take 22 minutes to get there.

So I sat on the platform for a good while (probably enough time to have walked to the shopping center I was trying to get to). But I had my iPod and I didn’t feel like walking so I waited. Once the train came I took it one stop and got off and walked to the shopping center.

When I say shopping center, I really mean mall, but my hose brother Braedon doesn’t like it when Americans call it a mall so I’m conforming and calling it a shopping center as to not upset him. He’s got all sorts of attitude. But he's great.

At the shopping center I was able to get a sim card for my phone to have a local number. Once I got all that figured out, I went to target, bought come cotton balls (as travelers do) and proceeded to walk back home. By this point it was pretty hot outside and I will go ahead and admit that I had gotten pretty burnt at the beach (even though I put sunscreen on 3 or more times!)

After I had had a shower and cleaned up a bit, I went in the house to hang out with the family. I watched some T.V. with Braedon and Kieran (my other host brother who I had not met yet and was starting to think didn’t actually exist). It was fun just sitting and hanging out with them, seeing what shows they watched (mostly American) and hearing their snarky quips.

Braedon and I helped set up for dinner. We moved a patio table out onto the lawn and set up chairs. Just before eating the other 3 girl arrived home from their day’s adventures. We ate chicken kabobs, some specialty sausages (with tomatoes and various herbs in it), potatoes and salad. It was delicious! After dinner we helped clean up everything, then went inside to watched a few Australian shows with Braedon.

We watched a show called Kath & Kim (I’m pretty sure there is an American version of it). Then we switched to watching Summer Heights High. I had seen so many clips of this show but had never been able to see full episodes! (If you haven’t heard of this show, just youtube ‘Mr. G’s Drama Class’. That is a good sample of the ridiculousness that is this show). We watched a few episodes, shared in witty banter amongst ourselves and eventually I was so beat I had to go to bed.

Public Transportation & Sanger Banger's

2/24/2012

Today we took our first bus ride!

Breaden was a peach and walked us to the bus stop to show us where we needed to get on and what bus we were looking for and made sure we knew where we had to get off.

We got on the bus and a few stops later a couple other girls from our program got on the bus. I had the little book of maps so I followed the route as we went. We even got off at the right stop and everything!

So we got to orientation and had a mini worship session in one of the classrooms. The day was pretty much the same as the previous. Session, Morning Tea, Session, Lunch. 

Lunch was interesting. It was a very thin sausage that you put on a piece of bread. Apparently it’s called a 'Sanger Banger' and it’s a thing. I would call it a 'Hot Dog and I Ran Out of Buns'. Also, we had 'Iceblocks' which is Australian for 'popsicle'.

After lunch we found out about our service placement.  Everyone is in a different service placement in some sort of organization around Sydney. I was placed with 4 other people at a church that hosts a lunch every 3^rd Sunday of the month. But the woman who came to talk to us wasn’t really in charge so it was all very vague information, which wasn’t good because we were supposed to start on Sunday. Dumb.

After that we all met up again and there was a “raffle” of various things that the director had. It included some blow dryers, hair straighters, curling irons and cell phones. Our homestay “won” a straighter! Yaye for looking presentable!

 After that we took a bus back home. But we had to wait at the bus stop for about 45 minutes  before it actually showed up. I can already tell public transportation is going to be awesome.

We went to the mall and found that the mobile phone store that we wanted to go to had closed at 5 so we were too late.

So we went home, rested for a bit, ate dinner with Michelle and Braedon. After that we watched a cricket game with Michelle. It was a “one day game” but it still dragged on forever! I can’t imagine watching a 5 day long game.

It took a while to figure out the rules but Michelle was very nice in explaining them to us and answering our questions as we had them. After a while I actually started understanding it…kind of. I felt bad but by 10 o’clock I was beat and had to go to bed.

The next day we planned to go to Manly Beach!

Waking up in Australia

2/23/2012

I’m actually writing this post in hindsight. I did not have time to write about my day yesterday, as it was too packed with fun and adventure.

Our whole house woke up about 6am. We had about an hour and a half before we had to leave so we were able to take our time getting ready and getting to know eachother’s habbits. Braeden, our hose brother, was to drive us to school this day because we had yet to learn anything about the bus system.

We arrived at school around 8:15. The majority of the day was just orientation stuff. We had several different sessions with the ASC staff. But what made this day slightly more exciting was that it was orientation for 1^st year Australians. Meaning that there were several parts of the day where ASC and Aussies were mixed in sessions. We had morning and afternoon tea with them as well. I met a several girls at lunch time, Emily, Rahil, and another Emily.

It is interesting how some of them are older but are just now getting into their first year of Uni. In talking to them I found that they all actually really like Americans. They were very happy to talk with me and had plenty of questions about the States.

Also, I asked them if they could tell I was American before I spoke. They all confirmed that they had no idea I was American until I introduced myself, in a blatantly American voice. I was pretty proud of myself for blending in.

Later in the afternoon we were all split up into smaller groups and taken into Sydney. We walked a few blocks from campus and caught a bus into the city. My first Australian public transportation trip: great success. It was a fairly short ride, one I will probably make again on my own.

We got off and walked a ways to find Circular Quay (pronounced ‘key’, which is stupid). Here there are several warfs, where as far as I understand it, you catch ferries to different parts of the harbor. This is also where the train station is.

We walked around for a little while, saw the famous bay harbor bridge and of course, 

The Sydney Opera House! 

What the what! So exciting! Took plenty of pictures.

A little later on we took a “cruise” Around the harbor. It was reserved just for our group. So it was all ASC students and a few Aussie 1^st years and our group leaders (most of whom are 2^nd years). It was about a 3 hour ride. They fed us dinner and there were three different levels to enjoy the view from. We got to watch the sunset and take many pictures. I meat several more Aussie girls, Georgie and another girl whose name was to unique to commit to memory after only hearing it once. But she had short hair and glasses and I could pick her out of a crowd. So I get some credit for facial recognition.

On the cruise we were introduced to a drink that is very popular here called a lemon-lime and bitter. Which, if I remember correctly, is half sprite (which they call lemonade),  half some sort of tea, and the ever so slightest amount of bitter beer. We’re not supposed to drink while on the program, however our director Kimberly says we can drink all the lemon-lime and bitters that we want to, because there is such a low alcohol content that you will not feel a thing no matter how much you drink. Challenge accepted.

Once we got off  the cruise we were challenged to get home on our own. They gave us some printed out directions but it was up to us to make it happen. We found our way to the train station and used our passes to get onto the platform. It wasn’t to difficult, but I think that might be because I’ve experienced subway stations and feel pretty confident on how to work them.

Our one mistake however, was not taking the express train. Rather than only making 3 or 4 stops and making it home in 20 minutes, we stopped at every station along the way. Probably at least 13 or 14. But I told myself it was actually a good thing to get familiar with the other stops.

We got off at Strathfeild and easily found our way to the cross streets we needed to be at. Our host mom, Michelle, had walked us close enough to the train station to show us how to get home the night before. When we arrived at the house we poped into the living room to find Braeden (our host brother) and Neil (Our host dad) watching tv. 

This was the first time we had meat Neil, and he was delightful. He was loud and charismatic and very friendly. We chatted for a bit about our home towns and we discussed bus routs for the next day. He gave us a book of maps that he lends to all of his host kids and showed us where our house was and where the school was. This would all be very pertinent information for the next day when we would have to take the bus to school.

Day 1: longest post ever!

2/22/2012

Made it! I’m alive.

So I am now in Australia. Officially. It is weird. Not the country, but just being here. Although I do find the people to be odd too. But my kind of odd, ya know?

Anyway, so Gina and Natalie were dolls and dropped me off at LAX. Turns out there are multiple counters for the airline I was supposed to check in with. I didn’t see the lady that I was supposed to check in with, so I just parked it on a bench and waited for someone else to come along and look as confused as I was. It didn’t take long for a girl to come by with both of her parents in tow. 

I quickly grabbed my belongings and stalked them through the airport. Eventually they stopped and sat on a bench and I approached them in a totally not creepy way and asked if they were doing the ASC program. Fortunately they were, so my stalking was worth the trouble. The girls name was also Rachel. She goes to Biola, but I decide not to hold that against her seeing as she is my only friend at this point.

After a few minutes we found that we were in the wrong terminal and we had to go to the main check in. I was glad that I was no longer alone and I could mooch off of the competency of others. I mean I could have figured it out on my own, but there is comfort in knowing that someone else would choose what you chose.

Eventually we found where we were supposed to be and who we were supposed to check in with. I got my bag checked and got my boarding pass. Once the whole group was together we made our way to security.

Let me tell you, this was probably some of the most relaxed security lines I have ever been through. Seriously. They didn’t even make me take my liquids out of my bag. That was super nice as I already had about 30 other things I was trying to keep track of (passport, boarding pass, laptop, shoes, camera bag, etc.) But they just seemed so nonchalant about the whole process. Chatting up a storm. Keeping every thing super casual. This is international travel people! It’s not meant to be light hearted. It’s supposed to be stressful and I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to get yelled at or scolded for doing something that I didn’t know was wrong.

Then I passed through security, and the (bald, African American and very burly) TSA man standing at the podium leading to the gates looks at me and yells 

“YOU!” with such a booming voice I nearly wet myself. 

‘Here it is’, I thought, ‘I messed up something’.   

Seeing the effect he had had on me his grimace turns into a beaming smile of satisfaction. He then completes his sentence with, “Have a great trip!” Since when do airports prank people? I thought TSA was all business. Apparently not at LAX Qantas airlines terminal.

Then we got to the gate, played cards to kill time, then finally boarded the largest air craft I have ever been on. It was a double decker one. The kind that has first class on top and below is 88 rows of 3-5-3 seating. Of course our group was in the cramped economy class.  I had a middle seat in a row of 3, which wasn’t ideal, but it could have been worse. So we took off around 11pm. About 2 hours into our flight we got dinner (It was around dinner time in AUS). It was actually rather good. I had not eaten dinner before I got to the airport so I was thankful to have something to eat. Then I watched a couple movies (Our Idiot Brother and Megamind) on the freaking awesome in flight entertainment system, and attempted to sleep. I think I slept off and on for a good while. It was hard to get comfortable in that middle seat and I did not know the girls on either side of me well enough to peruse a cuddle-buddy relationship.

As we got closer to Sydney we got breakfast. I watched a couple episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Brushed my teeth. And then we landed (which I was able to watch on our sky cam on the entertainment system).

Once we got of the plane we had to go get our passports stamped and our visas cleared. There was a bit of trouble with mine which ended up being a result of me having two middle names. The visa and my passport didn’t match in that regard (probably because there is no place to put two middle names on most applications). But they fixed it and we got on our way. Got through customs. Met up with the ASC people. Got on a bus and headed for campus. It was about 9:30am at this point

We had a long day of orientation. We received lots of information that our tired brains probably won’t remember tomorrow. Shame because a lot of it seemed awfully important. Got out transportation passes. Played games. They fed us a lot, mostly as an attempt to keep us awake. Finally, they showed us how to get on the Wifi. Sent some e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, quick blog post, and then my host mom, Michelle, had arrived.

Me and my 3 roommates went with her to her house. She has a Husband, Neil, 3 sons, 1 daughter and 1 dog. 2 of the sons live at the house. One is 25 and one is 19. Michelle makes it sound like people pretty much come and go as they please and it is rare to have everyone together.

Us girls are living in what they call a “granny flat” where Neil’s parents used to live. Once they passed away they started using the flat to host students. It is basically a little house in the back yard. There 1 bedroom with 2 bunkbeds, a bathroom, a little kitchenette area with a sink, a full size fridge, table and chairs, a couch and a ‘telle’ (t.v.). Hopefully I’ll be posting pictures soon.

So we all got settled in and showered. We then went up to the house where Michelle had made us quiche for dinner which was very delicious. And we had some sort of cinnamon bun custard cake type thing for dessert. That was good to.  By this time it was about 7:45pm. Michelle offered to show us how to get to the train station from the house (about a 10 minute walk). So we took the molly (their little dog, I forget the breed). The walk was very helpful. I now have a few landmarks in my mind to remember how to get to and from the train station.

The bus system will be a whole other adventure. Michelle says it takes about an hour by bus to get from their house to school. So that’s a pain considering I’m used to being so close to campus. But it’s all about life experience.

Anyway, that is a rather brief overview of my last few days of travel and arrival.

My ratio of hours awake to hours asleep is way off at this point. It is about 9:45pm and I am nearly falling asleep at the keys. I have to be awake at 6:45am tomorrow in order to get to campus for another exciting say of orientation! So I think I will grant myself come sleep.          

Here and Alive!

I am here. And I am alive. I have no time to write my full post. But I will post about my day of travel experience when I have another wifi connection.

But the important part is I'm not dead yet! And I need a shower.

God's Greatest Gift

Gods greatest gift to earth is President’s day weekend.

 Okay. That may be an overstatement. But President’s Day weekend turned out to be pretty freaking awesome for this girl. I arrived in Southern California on Thursday the 16^th so that I could spend some time with my friends at APU before I embark on my adventures down under. It has been awesome.

Although getting to CA was a bit of a challenge. I had quite a difficult time at the airport. As I had mentioned before, packing space was tight, so when I ran out of room, I just had to wear everything else. This meant:

Tank top

Long sleeve shirt

Over shirt

Cardigan

Zip up Hoodie

Scarf

Rain Coat

You would think that it was freezing in PDX…it wasn’t, and I was sweating. (All I kept think of was “I can’t put my arms down” from a Christmas story). So security was rough, because I had to take off all those layers.  

There were some other kerfuffles that made my travels difficult (like the entire University of Portland Baseball team before me in both the check in line and the security line). And of course the one time I’m in a hurry, security has to pull me aside and pat me down. Typically I would have been bashful or felt weird about it, but I just wanted to get on my flight, so I just presented myself to that poor TSA woman. I practically grabbed her hands to get them on my body just to speed up the process. (She kept wanting to chat with me and I was in no mood). Finally after sprinting to my gate wearing my 8 layers of clothes carrying my 30 lbs of stuff, I made it.

Relieved to have made it to the plane I took my seat. For some reason or another, there was no one in the seat next to me on the plane. Unheard of right?! This actually happens to me a lot. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thankfull, but, I’m I really that bad of a airplane partner that the universe wouldn’t dare put anyone next to me? As I was thinking about this I put my feet up on the other seat and proceeded to sleep for the whole 2 hour flight, completely sprawled over the two seats. (Just as well, I probably smelt bad from all that running I did earlier...and all the layers).

Once Arriving in CA I got to see so many friends and have probably the best consecutive 4 nights of my life. I am choosing to not post about it on the internet because I think everyone would just be too dang jealous. Lets just leave it at: I have great friends.

I plan to leave for LAX in about 2 hours and I still have a lot to do. My towel is in the dryer and my bag is completely unpacked. So I better get crackin!

Next time I update I will be in Australia! Finally.

Home Stay/ Packing!

Yesterday, after many weeks of waiting, I found out who I will be living with once I am in Australia!

It is amazing how vague that e-mail was.

Here I thought I was going to get a whole bio on what wonderful people the program had selected to house me for the next 4 months. The family I had made up in my head consisted of a Dad (probably named Jeff) a Mom (with a name like Ellen or Bonnie), 3 children (2 boys and a girl) with names like, Ivan, or Colleen. The 2 boys would be in 7th and 8th grade, just old enough to feel completely insecure and therefore be delightful to embarrass and tease. The daughter would be in 1st grade and hopelessly attached to me as soon as I walked in the door. We would spend the next 4 months having tea parties and playing at what I'm sure are weird Australian parks. They had a cat named Roo and a dog named Croc. They lived equal-distance from the campus and the best coffee shop in Sydney. They enjoy befriending Americans and want to set me up with their long time family friend who is on a fast track to become an Australian millionaire who wants to use his riches to build schools and housing in 3rd world countries, leaving us to lead a humble but comfortable life together.*

You know...nothing too specific.

Instead I got: their names, they have a kid (a son) and a dog. And I'll have 3 other students with me.

And when I say kid, I really have no idea how old he is. They just said their "youngest son". That's not very helpful considering I'm my parents youngest child and I'm 21.

In other news, I am finding packing to be quite the challenge. The first thing I picked out was shoes. But I have an awful feeling that I'm going to have to omit a pair or two due to spacial reasons. So sue me if I want to bring black flats, brown flats, red flats, vans, nikes, wedges and flip-flops. The same challenge is apparent with scarves (is 12 too many?) and cardigans.

It doesn't help that I'm bringing 4 months of toiletries and make-up. However with all my packing woes, I am determined to stick to one duffel and one backpack. I don't want to be instantly recognized as an American by having too much stuff! I'm sure they will know I'm a stupid, consumerist American as soon as I open my mouth.

*Disclaimer: These may or may not be real thoughts that I had.

Almost Time

Greetings to all! And by all, I of course mean my mom, as she will probably be the only person to read this blog.
But for the occasional internet nomad who may stumble into (or is it onto?) my humble blog, let me explain what is happening:

I am a college student.
I am studying abroad in Australia.
These are my adventures in written form.

I don't officially arrive in Sydney until February 22nd. However I figured I would need a little time to figure out this here blogging machine. Be kind, as I am new to the blogging world (aka it'll probably look pretty ugly for a while).

So feel free to come back and check out my awesome life!