I suppose the title of this post needs some explanation. So much has happened over the past three days that I had a hard time picking what this post should be. I considered 'Twinkle Twinkle" because I listened to that song being sung to a baby for 4 hours on my plane ride for Detroit to L.A. I also considered "The Great Wait" because of the almost 2 days that I spent in the airport before getting to Australia. 14.5 hours on a plane is a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be. I'm know I'm glad I don't have to do make a trip like that again anytime soon. "No Furbies Allowed" comes from the safety card on the plane. Among the banned electronic on the plane were Furbies. It seems a little out of date. I cant remember the last time I've seen anyone running around with a Furby, but I suppose it's possible.
Sydney in the summer is a beautiful place. It has been so warm here since we arrived. Thankfully it seems that we missed the super humidity that the have been having here the past couple of weeks. The first day off the plane they kept us really busy to help us get over our jet lag. They took us on a tour of the Wesley. It isn't very big, but its a wonderful campus. There are only about 400 students here so its going to be a close community. After we finished our first day of orientation we went to our home stay. My hosts' name is Ross Fraser. I'm really looking forward to getting to know him. His house boarders a national park. Its so weird waking up in the morning and looking out and seeing parrots instead of pigeons.
On the second day they took us into down town Sydney. We got to do a photo scavenger hunt with the first year Wesley students. There were all sorts of crazy things on the list such has building a human pyramid that looked like the Opera House, ask someone for a stamp, trade a clothing item with a stranger, and ask someone to buy you an ice cream cone from McDonald's. It was a lot of fun to run around down my the wharf. We got to see so many really interesting things like the customs house, the museum of contemporary art, and the opera house.
After we finished the scavenger hunt we boarded onto cruise and we got to go around the harbor and see the city from the water. It was such a great trip. Its one of my favorite things that I've done so far. It was a lot of fun to get to talk to the Australian students and get to know them a little bit. I was really surprised by how many of them were commuting from an hour away. I don't know why i was seeing that this is a commuter school. The end of our trip was quite eventful a man fell into the water who was standing by the opera house. One of the servers jumped in to assist him and the harbor patrol came and pulled them both out. I'm really glad that it ended well. It was a somber end to a really fun day.
The third day of orientation wasn't as exciting has the second day. We went through a bunch of policy type stuff. Nothing particularly eventful happened during our day at the school. After Greg and i went back to our home stay we waited for Ross to come home. (oh yes, my house mate from the ASC his name is Greg Hartnett. I've decided that it must be fate that my roommate's name this year was supposed to be Greg) After he got home he took us over to Carrie's house, which is another home stay close to where I live, and we got hang out with the girls who were staying there for a bit. After we left Carrie's we went to the local and had 5 dollar steaks. They were really good. Greg and I had arranged to meet another home stay group at their house but since we were running a bit late they had already left for the bus stop. Thankfully we found them. We went downtown for a while and walked around. There where so many people walking around. It was kind of like being in New York but the weather is far supirior and the people are much friendlier. We just made the last bus home, and I'm really glad that we did.
Well my computer battery is dieing so i guess that all for today.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Scotty!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear things are going well.