Week 1 in Australia! Welcome to my Australia and Singapore blog!!
On Friday, January 12th we left Newark airport on our way to Sydney. We stopped through San Francisco before getting on our 16-hour flight to Sydney. We landed here bright and early at 6:30 on Sunday morning. Unfortunately for me, I lost one of my suitcases on the way which delayed the process for me but luckily it arrived a few days later. During the Sunday we started by dropping our things off at the accommodation. Then, we drove on the bus to the Botanical Gardens where we had a beautiful view of the Sydney Opera House. It was so surreal to see it in real life and so much fun to explore around. After this, we stopped to get some food at a local food court for lunch. Finally, after waiting around all day we were able to check into our accommodation and see our rooms for the first time. We all quickly showered and changed as we had a quick turnaround for our dinner. For our group dinner, I had the chicken sandwich but was able to try a bite of the kangaroo that some people ordered. I was not a big fan of it. Later that night my roommate and I explored the city with some new friends we made during the day and met up with others on our program.
Monday: This was the first day of classes but fortunately I did not have anything until 3:30 so I had the morning to get situated. I took the time to unpack my things and head to the grocery store to pick up my food for the week. I then went to my first class which was Global Management. Later that night I explored the city some more with some new friends but was pretty exhausted still from our travels.
Tuesday: This was my first day of full classes and finally a day to catch up on everything (including sleep). I went to both of my classes, took time to go to the mall in between, and even took a quick nap. The beginning of the week was super rainy so it was nice to have a relaxing day.
Wednesday: This was my second full day of classes which were both enjoyable. After my global management class on Wednesday, our professor took us out to dinner at Spice Ally. I got a pad Thai and spent time with some classmates. Later that night I met up with some other Bucknell friends and headed out with them!
Thursday: I only had one class in the morning. For the Australia Life and Culture course I had to give a presentation about the Stolen Generations which are indigenous people referred to as Aboriginals who were taken from their homes as kids and placed into foster care. It was startling to learn about but cool that I had the opportunity to do more research and present about it. The rest of the day Thursday I walked to the Sydney Opera House by myself to go explore and look around. I took lots of pictures (shown below) and stopped to take in the scenery before heading home. Two of my roommates and I headed out for dinner to a place called Fratelli Fresh which is a short walk away. We ordered some appetizers and recapped our first few days together before heading out as a group for the night.
Friday: This was our long-awaited first beach day of the trip. We headed over to Bondi Beach for the day and even got to see them filming a bit for the rescue TV show they filmed there. We were so exhausted from the day so we stopped quickly to get dinner from Betty’s Burgers and headed back where we all fell asleep pretty early.
Saturday: We had a walking tour to learn more about the history at the rocks. We had a nice tour guide who took us around and were able to see more of Sydney Harbor. After this we headed over to Manly beach to spend a few extra hours in the sun. I am so excited to keep exploring more beaches as there are so many and they are all so beautiful.
Sunday: Today was our day at the Zoo where we were able to pet lots of Kangaroos and see Emus. They had lots of different activities there but the highlight was definitely interacting with all the kangaroos. We had some sizzling sausages for lunch (which is basically just a hot dog in a piece of bread). Then we walked around and saw some Koalas, snakes, dingos, and a few other native Australian animals. We then got to throw boomerangs and crack whips but I didn’t participate I just watched everything. Finally we got a nature tour and ate some termites which tasted like pepper. Now we are cleaning up our apartment and finishing up our work for the week! It has been the most amazing first week and I can’t wait to see what else is in store for me here.
