I think I can get used to this...

It's been a long and hectic week since I last wrote! We had our study abroad orientation this week. This basically was sitting through boring presentations during the day, and exploring Melbourne at night. Although the orientation itself was pretty boring, I was able to meet tons of people from all over the world. I knew I was going to experience the Australian culture here, but I never dreamed I would be hanging out with British, Italian, Japanese, Malaysian, and Canadian students just to name a few. It's been very interesting getting to know all of them, and struggle with them to adapt to life in Australia.

The evenings of orientation week were worth sitting through the days. The first night they took us to Melbourne Central, a shopping center downtown, and the second biggest train station in Melbourne other than Flinders’ Street, which I mentioned in my last post. We went to two bars for dinner and drinks. The first one was great; they had really good personal pizzas for $4. The second place was an Irish pub, which I think you know how much I love. This one, however, was not good. It was overpriced, $9 a pint, and this was for cheap Australian beer too, not even Guinness (they didn't actually have any Irish beer!) Although the pub itself was disappointing, I had fun getting to know my new, mostly Asian, friends.

The second day of orientation (Wednesday) was over by 11, so we decided to go to the beach. I don't want to make you guys too jealous, I heard it through the grapevine (aka Facebook) that it has been snowing back home, but it was beautiful! It was the perfect day, about 85 and sunny, and the beach was gorgeous! It had a great view of the Melbourne skyline, and tons of very cute bathing houses. I must say, floating in the ocean in February felt pretty nice!



Brighton Beach Bathing Houses

As soon as we got back from the beach, it was time to go back into the city. We started at a place right on the Yarra River which had a sausage BBQ. It wasn't quite like having a brat on the terrace, but it was close enough! Next we headed to the Eureka tower for a trip up to the observation deck. The sky deck is the highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere at 935 ft (according to Wikipedia), and offered great views of Melbourne at night.

View from Eureka Sky Deck

Thursday and Friday were calmer days. It was raining Thursday, so we didn't go into the city. Instead I went to Chadstone Shopping Center, which claims to be the largest shopping center in the Southern Hemisphere (I guess this was the week of the best of the Southern Hemisphere). It wasn't as big as the Mall of America, but it did have a Target and Kmart. Friday we had a scavenger hunt on Campus. Laura, Lindsay, and Kaylin, if you thought our scavenger hunt freshman year was bad, you all would've died! The prize was a trip to Phillip Island, so teams were literally sprinting around campus. Luckily, it was a cooler day, so we all survived. Friday night was the study abroad cocktail party. I got to eat my first kangaroo!!! It was actually very good, though it was a bit tough. Anyway, it was one more thing I got to check off my list.

Saturday Matt, Yosuke, and I went back into Melbourne. We took a free bus tour of the city, and headed to China Town for lunch. Not too much to talk about here, except they both got a kick out of watching an American try to use chopsticks! (Matt is from the UK, but his parents are Chinese, and Yosuke is from Japan).

This week is going to be busy as well. All the Australians are moving into campus, and my dorm has tons of orientation activities planned. I feel like I'm a freshman all over again, except this time I'm older than even the RAs, and the classes don't intimidate me anymore (mostly because I only need 50%)!