HEY FRIENDS!!!!
FIRST BLOG POST FROM DOWN UNDA!!!
IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!
I am in SYDNEY AUSTRALIA!! It's my third day here and everything is absolutely INCREDIBLE but I am currently exhausted.
Everything is a whirlwind and is so insane, we are jammed packed but each experience is amazing! While we're here theres three main parts of the program. The first is set in Sydney, we're currently staying and using the University of Sydney's facilities, but this program isn't affiliated with any of the universities here. While here we are getting a great dive into an introduction of each of our classes: History and Culture of Australia, Indigenous Aboriginal History, Bio geography and Venom Biology. The second part will be a lot of travel. We'll be going to the Blue Mountains this weekend, a host of islands, national parks, the Lamington Plateau, some small cities as well as Tasmania! Through this portion we will be conducting loads of field research and hands-on experience with seeing the bio geography, interacting with the culture and learning the history of the Aboriginal people. The last leg of the semester will be in Brisbane with a little travel too. We will be doing loads of marine biology research, field research, and lab work.
I flew in Jan 13 and the first day was just an introduction to the program and how the schedule will run. The second day was a tour of Sydney! We bussed around and saw the different districts. We went to all the tourist places too and I fulfilled a HUGE DREAM of mine and went to the Sydney Opera House!!!! We also went around Darling Harbour, Hyde Park, and Bondi Beach!!!!
Today we had our first set of lectures! It was a jam packed day and I am exhausted. Throughout the trip we are having over 30 guest lecturers all talking on their expertise. We started today with our bio geography lectures on tectonic plates, the history of Australian Continent and Bio regions, as well as Australian Climate. It was a loaded morning with about 4 hours of lecture. My friend and I went walking and explored Hyde Park after that. It's been really fun to explore the city!
This semester is so full and the itinerary is truly incredible. Due to our immense amount of travel the only home bases we have with Internet access will really be in Sydney and Brisbane. Due to that we have front loaded a lot of assignments and class time because of the access to resources.
I'm also exhausted because I'm still not over the jet lag and have gotten up at 5am the last two morning.
Anyways, this is a loaded and disorganized post. I will try to post weekly, it might not happen every week due to our lack of wifi and service in some areas but I will do my best to post as much as I can.
However I can say this about Australia so far:
1. Their car's drivers seats are on the right side, and they drive on the left side of the road. This is confusing as heck when trying to cross the street and I have already almost stepped into traffic twice. whoops.
2. The left side thing? Yeah, that applies to walking too! I never realized how ingrained it is in me to always walk on the right.
3. The sun is strong. No joke. I have a small sunburn on my cheeks, tallying to be my second ever sunburn. Sunscreen is ESSENTIAL.
4. Wifi is really hard to come by. The house we stay at gives us a free 500MB per day. That is not a lot. To put in perspective streaming one Netflix show is about 1GB. If you ever come down, get a data plan.
5. There are the coolest birds and wildlife around! Their version of squirrels are birds call ibis. There are also parrots everywhere and they're beautiful!!! They also have loads of massive fruit bats that come out at dusk.
6. There are loads of little bugs around, and a lot of cockroaches; plus of course, the spiders... the huntsmans that I'm so worried about are apparently not as present in Sydney, that being said I already have seen one small baby one and by baby I still mean about 2 inches in diameter.
7. US needs to catch the heck up with metrics. Everyone of our lectures today and just in general around, everything is in metric and I don't understand any of it. (That's a big goal I have while studying here - to come back knowing how to judge the units)
This has been a long day and a long post, so I'm going to leave it at that for now... I will keep you all updated... :) (I also might post multiple times in one week to make up for the lack of posts later on during our travels)
Coming up next time.... on Wednesday we're going to the wildlife park and will be able to go to the kangaroo enclosure!!!
Cheers for now!
Kate
FIRST BLOG POST FROM DOWN UNDA!!!
IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!
I am in SYDNEY AUSTRALIA!! It's my third day here and everything is absolutely INCREDIBLE but I am currently exhausted.
 |
| Me in front of the Uni of Sydney :D (It's basically Hogwarts!) |
Everything is a whirlwind and is so insane, we are jammed packed but each experience is amazing! While we're here theres three main parts of the program. The first is set in Sydney, we're currently staying and using the University of Sydney's facilities, but this program isn't affiliated with any of the universities here. While here we are getting a great dive into an introduction of each of our classes: History and Culture of Australia, Indigenous Aboriginal History, Bio geography and Venom Biology. The second part will be a lot of travel. We'll be going to the Blue Mountains this weekend, a host of islands, national parks, the Lamington Plateau, some small cities as well as Tasmania! Through this portion we will be conducting loads of field research and hands-on experience with seeing the bio geography, interacting with the culture and learning the history of the Aboriginal people. The last leg of the semester will be in Brisbane with a little travel too. We will be doing loads of marine biology research, field research, and lab work.
I flew in Jan 13 and the first day was just an introduction to the program and how the schedule will run. The second day was a tour of Sydney! We bussed around and saw the different districts. We went to all the tourist places too and I fulfilled a HUGE DREAM of mine and went to the Sydney Opera House!!!! We also went around Darling Harbour, Hyde Park, and Bondi Beach!!!!
 |
| BONDI BEACH |
 |
| Sydney Harbour |
 |
| IN FRONT OF THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE!!!! AHHHH |
Today we had our first set of lectures! It was a jam packed day and I am exhausted. Throughout the trip we are having over 30 guest lecturers all talking on their expertise. We started today with our bio geography lectures on tectonic plates, the history of Australian Continent and Bio regions, as well as Australian Climate. It was a loaded morning with about 4 hours of lecture. My friend and I went walking and explored Hyde Park after that. It's been really fun to explore the city!
This semester is so full and the itinerary is truly incredible. Due to our immense amount of travel the only home bases we have with Internet access will really be in Sydney and Brisbane. Due to that we have front loaded a lot of assignments and class time because of the access to resources.
I'm also exhausted because I'm still not over the jet lag and have gotten up at 5am the last two morning.
Anyways, this is a loaded and disorganized post. I will try to post weekly, it might not happen every week due to our lack of wifi and service in some areas but I will do my best to post as much as I can.
However I can say this about Australia so far:
1. Their car's drivers seats are on the right side, and they drive on the left side of the road. This is confusing as heck when trying to cross the street and I have already almost stepped into traffic twice. whoops.
 |
| Cowellas: These are everywhere, and they are very noisy! |
3. The sun is strong. No joke. I have a small sunburn on my cheeks, tallying to be my second ever sunburn. Sunscreen is ESSENTIAL.
 |
| Flying fox bats that come out in the park across the street from our house |
 |
| ibis |
6. There are loads of little bugs around, and a lot of cockroaches; plus of course, the spiders... the huntsmans that I'm so worried about are apparently not as present in Sydney, that being said I already have seen one small baby one and by baby I still mean about 2 inches in diameter.
7. US needs to catch the heck up with metrics. Everyone of our lectures today and just in general around, everything is in metric and I don't understand any of it. (That's a big goal I have while studying here - to come back knowing how to judge the units)
This has been a long day and a long post, so I'm going to leave it at that for now... I will keep you all updated... :) (I also might post multiple times in one week to make up for the lack of posts later on during our travels)
Coming up next time.... on Wednesday we're going to the wildlife park and will be able to go to the kangaroo enclosure!!!
Cheers for now!
Kate