Category Archives: Australia
Protected: Gray Arrival Blog 30 Aug 2013 Sydney, Australia
Protected: Gray Pre-Departure
Protected: Gray Introduction
Classes
1
I have been here now for three almost four weeks. its been really hard adjusting to the classes here because the classes are much less structured. I asked my professor when our assignment was due and he told me that it will never be due because it is used to study. I wont have anything other than quizzes and tests. This is much different from classes back home where I would have an assignment each week. I was able to get down to the beach though. it is really beautiful water and sand here. with lots of surfers and swim baths. The beaches are very regulated too. My mates and I were told to get out of the rip tide by the lifeguard. They have flags posted all along the beach for safe swimming areas. Coffee shops are a big thing here too! These have come in handy when I was up late doing an assignment. Many of the terminology is different, things like “boot” instead of “trunk” and “bonnet” instead of “hood”. My mates give me a hard time for my accent too because I keep calling things what I normally call them back home. Overall I am having a great experience, lots of nice people and a good community in my dorm complex.
Jake H.
Spent a few days at the beach just a short ride down to it.
Kangaroos at the golf course
Went to see a golf course today where supposedly over 1,000 kangaroos live! They are all tagged and have collars on with I think their names on the collar. They were so much bigger than the ones that I saw and played with in Newcastle. Its nice because they are able to be wild here at the golf course but they are also wild and in a natural environment! We walked around the course and counted probably 100 at least. They stayed in packs and we saw quite a few babies with the mama’s too! It was awesome to see them. Some of them were probably bigger than me when standing tall, and I’m 5’9!! This one is the picture above is just posed so perfectly by the green!
Hattie
A long weekend away! Hello, Melbourne
On Thursday last week Kiki and I decided that we should take a trip to somewhere and Melbourne is where we chose! We booked our flights and left this Thursday. We were there until Tuesday and had so much fun. We stayed with Kiki’s family in a small town outside of Melbourne called Tourquay. This is where the brands Quicksilver and Rip Curl were started. We also went to Geelong where Billabong was started. We spent 3 days in the City of Melbourne, wandering around and seeing our friend Iris who is going to school out there at La Trobe University. The rest of the days we hung out in Tourquay. We got to do a drive along Great Ocean Road thanks to Kiki’s family who took us the whole way. Kiki and I thought the whole thing would take a few hours, after returning 9 hours later we were pretty wiped out. We stopped along the way to see the Twelve Apostles and see some awesome view points along the way and to stop in a cute town to look around and get lunch.
Great Ocean Road Entry
The Twelve Apostles
While we were in Tourquay we also got to go on a road which is infamous for having lots of Koalas in the trees and we saw so many! Some were really close to us and some were further away, we saw one baby and one just walking on the road.
Chillin’ in the trees
Hattie
Foooooooood! Yum
Food in Australia is so much different that I could have ever imagined. We eat pretty much the same foods we would at home but the variations of things are different. As well as just simply not tasting the same as food does in America. I do miss the food in America quite a bit though. I would love to have a good ol’ Voodoo Doughnut and a Dutch Brothers coffee. Here is some of the meals that I have had while abroad. Still pretty American but the meals still have their Aussie twist.
Pizza with Kiki at Manly Beach- biggest slices ever! YUM!
Mixed noodle pasta made by all of our friends in Newcastle
Scrambled eggs and Aussie style bacon! With a tasty hot chocolate on the side!!
An afternoon tea after horse back riding in Cairns with a snack!
Hattie
Back to the school grind
This first week back from mid-semester break has been terrible to adjust to! It would be so much fun to be back in Cairns just chilling at the town Lagoon or the pool at our hostel. But don’t fret because we had a lovely Tuesday afternoon at the Manly beach aquarium. The aquarium was so much fun, even though we missed the daily penguin show. We still got to watch the cutie penguins play in the water. We also got to walk through a glass tunnel of sharks, sting rays, and other wild sea creatures. I haven’t been to an aquarium for so long so it was fun to see all the different stuff. We were able to hold shark eggs and baby star fish too! 
A crazy looking fishy!
Glass tunnel with some sharks!
Hattie
Mid-semester break week 2
Cairns is really treating me well, I love the small town and have been having so much fun! We’re staying in an awesome hostel and have met a bunch of other Americans, as well as Germans, Asians and a few British people. The atmosphere here is awesome and has been lots of fun! This week we decided to go horse back riding in the jungle. The horses were awesome and so pretty. They were huge too, one of them was previously a race horse and was worth $900,000! We got to go swimming with the horses and ran with them through lots of streams and ponds.
This horse is called Whistle