O-Week

Well, I was excited to finally be in Sydney after many hours flying. Not that Cairns, the rain forest, and the Great Barrier Reef wasn't fun, but I just was ready to find out where I was going to be spending my next 5 months. What a disappointment it was.

First, the Macquarie person that was supposed to pick us up in the airport was 45 minutes late. Then, the weather was absolutely dreary, unlike the fantastic weather that we were all expecting. The ride to our apartments wasn't too bad. The highlight was crossing the Harbour Bridge and seeing the Opera House for the first time. Our apartments on the other hand left a lot to be desired. It's not that they're that bad. It's just that the pictures online show completely different apartments. Better apartments.

Moving in, we found that the inside of the apartments were no better than the outside. They apparently were "professionally" cleaned before we arrived. I'm sorry, but a 2 year old can clean better than that. Regardless, after we got past our high expectations for these apartments, they aren't actually that bad. After moving all of our stuff in, we were off to the admin building to get sheets and pillows and towels for our bedrooms. That's when we found out about the west side.

The apartment complex is separated into two parts, the east side (where we live) and the west side (with the admin building). The west side apartments were the nice apartments, and were the ones that we were expecting to live in. Nonetheless, we were back at the admin building later for orientation which was boring, as expected.

After orientation came our first experience with a real Aussie barbecue. Well what a disappointment it was. A piece of bread and a sausage. That's your authentic Aussie barbecue. That's it, nothing more. I've been to two other barbeque's and it's the exact same. Sausage and bread. I don't know where this myth about aussie barbeque's being the real deal came from, but it needs to be shot down, and swiftly.

The first couple of days in Australia were spent cleaning the apartments, taking inventory of the apartment (which were in complete disarray), and stocking the cupboards. Each apartment has 5 bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. I was the first to move into my apartment (on Sunday). When Tuesday finally came around, I still was the only one in my apartment. Most everyone else already had all of their roommates. I finally got 3 more roommates on Wednesday, but I was disappointed to find out that they were all American. In fact, almost everyone on the East side is American. I later found out that they put all the Americans in the east side because the apartments are crappier, and thus more suitable for Americans because all Americans party all night, every night, and trash their place constantly, didn't you know. I don't know why they think this, but the fact of the matter is a lot of Americans come to Australia to get away from Americans, not form a mini American colony in Australia. All I want is to be integrated into the Australian way of life. Instead I'm stuck in a mini America. It hasn't gotten any better either. It seems as if all of my classes are full of Americans. It's not like I'm taking easy courses either.

Anyway, not that I got that out of my system (well not really), on Thursday we had our academic orientations and received our schedules. The morning session started off with an Aboriginal speaker named Uncle Greg. Guess what the first thing that came across my mind was? Stuck, think youtube. Still stuck, think Bailey's Irish Cream. If you don't know by now, well you'll have to watch the youtube video of that creepy character named Old Greg. Nonetheless, I couldn't take Uncle Greg seriously after that. Neither could a lot of Americans I talked to. About the only thing that anybody got out of his speech was that he wanted a grandson, because so far all he had gotten were granddaughters, and let's face it, what good are they?? Anyway, the morning session, was boring, drawn out, and had very little useful info.

As for scheduling, we didn't actually get to do that ourselves. We were handed a sheet with classes that we supposedly got approved to take earlier on our pre-approval forms that we submitted. Well, I don't know what kind of drugs they were on when they made my schedule because they only got 2 out of 4 classes right. I hate studying politics, so why would I sign up for a politics class? There's also no way I signed up for an astronomy class, nevermind a 300 level one. Regardless, I got my schedule figured out. The only downside, I have classes 5 days a week, which apparently is not common here. Most people don't have class on Friday. If they do have class on Friday, then they have another day off during the week. But not me. Oh well, I have Friday off next semester.

Now for the fun stuff. Thursday night was the International students harbour cruise. Oh, and did we tell you, it's 80's themed. Surprise. You better have a costume. That's what they sprung on us a mere 4 hours before the cruise was supposed to depart. Like anyone packed 80's stuff. Well guess again. A lot of people apparently reserved room in their suitcases for 80's gear. Then again, maybe they were told of the theme earlier than we were. Anyway, the cruise itself was nothing special. Don't get me wrong, the harbour at night is a cool spectacle and all, but it gets boring after the hundredth time going around the harbour. The harbour is not as big as I expected it to be. I took my video/photo camera with me on the cruise. It does not take great pictures at night though, so you'll have to wait until I go on another cruise on the 27th for better pictures.