Welcome to Sydney!

Now that I am settled in Sydney (I will get to that later) I am free to be on the internet whenever I chose so I will be trying to update regulary.

The day on the reef was a pretty good day! Another busy one that's for sure! We woke up to partly cloudy skys and took off pretty early for the warf and the reef. The boat ride out to the reef spots we were hanging out at was about 2 hours. It went fairly quickly actually, but unfortunately it became pretty overcast on the way out there. It really wasnt that warm either... MAYBE mid 70s but probably low 70s. We had the option to snorkel or scuba dive. I chose to snorkel as I was pretty clogged up from allergies and flying a bunch and I just wasn't sure if my ears couple handle diving it that day. We got to snorkle off of a beach on an island in the middle of the ocean! It was pretty incredible snorkeling really... we saw 2 sea turtles, lots of fish and cool types of coral. Spotted a sea star too which was new for me so that was exciting! It was overcast all day and rainy also which was a bummer but oh well! Nothing we could do so we did the best to have a positive attitude about it.

After the reef we had another orientation session and dinner. After that we decided to check out the night life of Cairns. We did some bar hopping (the drinking age is 18 which is different) and ended up at 3 different bars throughout the night. They were called Shenanigans (what a wonderful name! :D), PJ O'Briens, and the Woolshed. Did that with a bunch of my new friends from America (hadn't really hung out with any of the locals yet as we weren't in Sydney with the school yet). It was a wonderful time and I am glad that I took the time to go out and experience the nightlife there in Cairns!

Today we had a travel day from Cairns to Sydney. It was quite an adventurous day! First our flight kept being delayed until it ended up being delayed an hour. Which we didn't really see to be a huge deal. It was a fairly uneventful start to the day after that. Once I stepped off the plane is when the madness really started. First of all, the person that was supposed to pick us up wasn't there. We rang her (I'm starting to use the lingo haha) and she said she would be there in 20 minutes. That because our group was running late she had to take another group to their accomodations instead of waiting for us. So we waited like lost children in the Sydney airport for about 45 minutes before calling her again. She said that there was a "bus party" and that she wouldn't be picking us up after all and somebody else would be. They finally showed up about a half an hour after that. So we all moved our stuff and went over to the vans in which they were going to transport us. Well turns out they were 2 seats short for the amount of people that we had. So somehow my friend Kim and I ended up being left out of the transportation that was supposed to be provided for us. We were told to go catch a cab (easier said than done when you are in an unknown airport) and that the study abroad office would eventually pay for it. We spent 10 minutes or so trying to track down the taxi area before a local pointed us in the right direction. It kinda stunk though to be left out of the transportation that we were expecting to have. Oh well.... we just looked at it as one more adventure to encounter. So the taxi driver didn't even know where he was going when he started driving and kept trying to look at the map during stop lights! btw ("by the way" for those of you not so up to date on your internet lingo) the taxis here are much nicer than the ones in the states. Not so intense either. Like the types of cars they use are nicer and also there is no seperation between driver and the passengers in the back like there are in the ones in the states. They are def. not so worried about stuff over here in general and I really appreciate that!

But anyway.... he got me to my apartment building in which he just dropped me and my stuff off. I got out of the car and hardly knew what to do with myself! I then spent 10 or so minutes trying to lug my suitcases up a bunch of flights of stairs (and soon thereafter discovering the elevator) and about 10 or so more minutes trying to find my room. I am staying in room 11 and I couldn't figure it out as I could find rooms 10 and 13 but not 11 or 12. I was soooo confused and starting to get really frustrated. I kept riding the elevator up and down and could NOT figure it out. I eventually ended up in the basement parking garage where I realized there are 2 diff. elevators that serve different places... WEIRD! but anyway I was pretty embarassed that I had that much difficulty finding the room but it was ok because I saw NOBODY in the mean time. So I finally found my room and walked into an apartment that is clearly already occupied by SOMEONE. Well I poked around and concluded that 2 of the girls were already moved in and that one had still not arrived. Neither one of them was here which made me feel pretty lonely. My roommate (the one who I was sharing a bedroom with) is still not here and I could tell because our whole bedroom and bathroom are empty. We have a HUGE apartment and it's super nice! So by now it is dark outside but I am so lonely because I haven't seen anyone around, I didn't have any food because I didn't know where the grocery store is, I can't get on the internet beause I didn't have the password, and it was dark so I figured I shouldn't be walking around in dark. I decided to take a shower and begin to unpack when my roommates came back. They are super nice and I think that I will enjoy living with them. They took me down to the convenience store where I got some food and stuff. After that we just hung out around the apartment for a bit, they have plans to go out, and I am going just going to unpack and hit the sack because I am EXHAUSTED! It is nice to finally get to put stuff away and not have to live out of suitcase anymore! Unfortunately our closet was only built for one person and it is going to be incredibly hard to fit two people's stuff in there but hey, we have to make it work! So now I'm sitting here trying not to fall asleep, updating this and catching up with the real world. Here are a couple of pictures for you guys to enjoy :D

oh and people keep asking about the boomerang success from the last post... it curved like it was supposed to but didn't have quite enough power to make it back to me. its harder than it looks! even the guy teaching us didn't get all of his to come back to him! it was a great experience to get to try though! :)

Thanks again for reading,
Val :)