Byron Bay

Hi everyone! As promised, this post will definitely have more pictures. I just got back from Byron Bay and I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to put it into words. It's gonna be tough, but I'll try my best to make you feel like you were there with me!

This trip was discounted for us, and 6 out of the 10 (including myself) from Fairfield went on the trip. We left Saturday morning and got back around dinnertime today (Monday). I skipped 2 out of my 3 classes to go on this trip- whoops! I didn't even know what Byron Bay is, so I had little to no expectations, which made it absolutely amazing. We woke up early Saturday morning and took a bus to the University of Queensland, where all of the other students who came with us are staying. There were around 30 of us total, and most of the other students had already done a trip to Sydney together so they were all familiar with one another. Everyone was super friendly, and it was very refreshing to be able to hang out with American students as there really aren't that many in Brisbane.

On the bus to Byron Bay, we stopped at Coolangatta Beach and it was incredibly beautiful. We all got to walk around for about an hour and a half. There was even a surfing competition going on!

Fairfield girls throwing up our stags!

I can also assure you that there are no filters on any of these photos! Trust me, when you're in Australia, you really don't need a filter. From Coolangatta, we went to our hostel in Byron Bay. I've never stayed in a hostel before, but it was actually a lot better than I had anticipated. There were 5 of us in one room, but we really weren't in the room all that much. Also, we were in New South Wales, which is the state south of Queensland. NSW has daylight savings, so we were 16 hours ahead of home instead of 15. However, everyone at home sprung forward, so then we were back to 15, and now that we're in Queensland again we're only 14 hours ahead. All very confusing to deal with this weekend.

Shannon, Grace and I headed to the beach, which was a 5-10 minute walk from the hostel. We got to see a wedding on the beach! We also saw three more beach weddings throughout the day. That afternoon, we went for a mini-hike to the Byron Bay lighthouse. I don't want to be sappy or anything, but the views I saw that day were the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. We were all walking around in a complete state of awe. I have never been so genuinely happy. As much as I love Brisbane and it's really cool to live right in the city, Byron was the Australia that I was expecting. The natural sights were so incredible, and it really reassured me that I made the best decision to come to the best continent. 

The most eastern point of Australia!

Byron Bay lighthouse

After we went back to the hostel, we showered and then got ready for dinner. All of our meals were included, which was really nice. Paul, our tour guide, bought tons of boxes of wine (which they call goon here), so I was pretty much buzzed the entire weekend (sorry Mom if you're reading this!). We went to Cheeky Monkeys, where we had dinner and then partied that night. The nightlife is a lot more laid back in Byron compared to Brisbane, so it was a nice change of pace from the dressy clubs we've been going to.

The next morning, Shannon, Grace, and I woke up at 5 to go see the sunrise. We walked for a half hour to a certain point on the beach and looked at the stars until the sun started to rise. Because this is the most eastern point of Australia, we were the first people in Australia to see the sun that day. We were also almost the first people in the world to see the sun (I think just New Zealand is before us). It was so beautiful. We just stood there in silence as we watched the whole beach light up. There were also a ton of surfers in the water as the sun rose which was really cool!

The very beginnings of the sunrise!

 

We went back to the hostel for breakfast and got ready to go kayaking. Let me tell you, I get motion sickness to begin with, and when you combine that with a brutal hangover it was a recipe for disaster. The kayaking instructors were so awesome- they were the stereotypical chill Australians that you would imagine they'd be. The kayaks were for two people; I was in the front and Shannon was in the back. Getting through the waves was definitely the hardest part. Somehow we made it through without falling off! I was doing fine at first and then I started to feel so sick. I wasn't the only one as pretty much everyone else was hungover and seasick. A couple of people quietly puked and we didn't find out until after. As much as I felt like I was going to, I refrained from puking in the South Pacific Ocean. My favorite part was when we were paddling back into shore and a huge wave knocked me and Shannon off of our kayak. The water was so warm so I didn't mind it at all! It was also nice to know that I made it back to land without throwing up. I creepily found these pictures on the kayaking company's facebook page and I'm so glad they took them! As much as I felt crappy at certain points, it was such a cool experience and I'm so glad I did it.

I'm in the front holding on for dear life as we're about to get knocked off by a wave!

The instructors are the guys jumping for joy in the back

After we got wrecked by a wave on our way back in!

We spent the rest of the day Sunday just hanging out at the hostel. We had dinner there and then went out to a bar called the Beach Hotel. It was so much fun! This guy who looked like Jesus was dancing and a circle formed around him. We later learned that this guy was in the top three of Australia's Got Talent for dancing. If you youtube Salty Rain (his nickname because he sweats so much and when he shakes his beard, Salty Rain comes out of it...), you can witness some of what we experienced last night! It was one of the strangest and funniest things I've ever seen. Today we actually found him at the place we got lunch and he sat and talked with us about life. Everyone here is just so friendly and open. We got to walk around the shops today before we left for Nimbin.

Nimbin is this tiny little hippy town and also happens to be the drug capital of Australia. We stopped there for about an hour and just walked around. Everyone was super nice to us because they were all high as kites and they could clearly tell we weren't from there. We went into the Nimbin museum which was just this crazy little place advocating for the legalization of marijuana- no it's not legal here but they still sell it everywhere!

The Nimbin version of the Mona Lisa

This is definitely my longest post yet so I apologize if you are bored of reading this! In case you couldn't already tell, I loved everything about my weekend in Byron and I definitely want to go back for another weekend while I'm here. Everything else has just been normal- getting into the routine of classes and my internship and everything else. I can't believe I've already been here for over a month. I'm scared of how fast it's going by, but so excited to see everything else that Australia has in store for me! Thank you for reading this novel!

The "Study" in Study Abroad

Hi everyone! I hope all is well in the States. This post doesn't have any pictures and probably won't be very exciting. I got really, really sick last week and had to go to an emergency care clinic. I had a pharyngal virus in my throat and I've been on penicillin since last Thursday. I basically feel like I've been in a coma and haven't seen anyone! I quarantined myself in my room for three days, and only left when I went to my internship on Friday. Unfortunately, I was at my sickest then, so Friday was a rough day. After sleeping for three days, I've been getting better every day since Saturday. I finish my penicillin tomorrow, so hopefully I won't be getting sick again after this! Being sick anywhere isn't fun, but being sick on the other side of the world when you've only been there for two weeks REALLY isn't fun.

I'm really excited for my internship, however. Everyone seems really nice and laid back, pretty much just like everyone in Australia. I made the mistake of wearing heels on my first day- no one wears heels here. Needless to say, I will be investing in a pair of flats before I go back. I don't really even remember too many details about going there on Friday because I was so sick and I could only think about crawling back into my bed.

Yesterday was our first day of classes at ACU! I had Environmental Studies from 9-12, so we had to leave our apartment at 7:20. Traveling to and from school is the biggest pain because it takes so long. Trains come at random times and the ACU shuttle schedule seems to be even more random. There were only 11 people in this class, including the 5 of us from Fairfield. I asked one of the Australian kids in the class if professors ever let you out early, and he said no. The longest classes we ever have at Fairfield are 2 and a half hours, and mine have always gotten out early, so I was dying by the end of the three hours. We played with play-doh to build a makeshift dam, though, so it wasn't too mentally draining. We're going on a field trip to Moreton Island for a weekend in April, which should be fun! 

Nicole, Kai, and I had a gap from 12-4, during which we just hung out on campus. In Australia, most universities (or "unis") don't have dorms, and everyone commutes. A lot of the students hang out on campus during the day, so campus is usually pretty lively- and also it's 80 degrees outside. Our second class was Religion in Australian Culture from 4-6. To our surprise, this class is entirely online, so we never meet our professor. We are also taking this class with people all over Australia. The professor was on a live video stream on our ACU accounts and there is a chat box where students can type to him and each other. The "class" only meets every two weeks, with a short 400 word essay due every class. It's very different for us; I'm not sure if I'm going to like it or not!

Today was the second day of classes and there was also something called UniFest. Basically, it was like Fairfield's activities fair on acid. There was a DJ bumping club music, a mechanical bull, and tents set up for different student organizations with free stuff. I had my history class, Australia to 1900, from 3-6. There were a lot more people in this class. I don't know anything about Australian history, so I'm hoping it will be very interesting. Classes here really don't seem very hard... I hope I'm not jinxing myself. 

I've been meeting so many nice people everywhere I go! They ask questions about America and how I'm adjusting to life in Australia and are genuinely interested in how I'm doing here. Not that people aren't nice in America, it's just very different here. People aren't always in a rush to get from point A to point B and everyone is very laid back.

I also realized I haven't written anything about my apartment building! I'm living in a place called Urbanest, a building of apartments for international students. At first, we thought it would be really cool to be in a building with people our age from all over the world. It is really cool... but they aren't very friendly. A lot of them hang out on the back outside area of the building and smoke cigarettes. A lot of cigarettes. We have been making more friends with local people than the people in our building. We also have to pay for everything. Laundry, which is included at Fairfield, is $4 per wash and $4 per dry here. I've spent $24 on laundry in the past week. We also only get a certain amount of data per month, and after that, we have to pay for more.

The women who run my internship are away this week, so I don't start until next week. It's Tuesday night now and is officially my weekend! All of the other girls still have classes and internships, so I'll be doing errands, catching up on sleep, and going to the beach until this weekend. If you've made it to this point I am very impressed and I thank you for reading because this has probably been really boring. Hopefully my Australian adventures will have pictures to go along with them for my next post!

Kangaroos and the Gold Coast

Hi everyone! It's been about a week since my last post and so much has happened. I can't even comprehend what will happen over the next four months because so much has happened in the week and a half that I've been here. It's been a roller coaster of emotions in the best possible way!

The highlight of my trip so far was on Thursday when we went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. I'm normally not the biggest fan of zoos but this was entirely different. I got to hold a koala! Yes, she was cranky and scratched me a little, but it was so cool. My favorite part was definitely feeding the kangaroos. We paid $2 for food to feed them and just walked right into the field where there were probably 20 kangaroos just hanging out. I had heard that kangaroos can be aggressive, but they were so nice! My hand was completely covered in kangaroo slobber but it was so worth it. We hung out there for a while and made ourselves look like idiots as we attempted to get the perfect kangaroo selfie. Not to brag, but I got some pretty good ones. There was this one kangaroo that we called the hulk of the kangaroos. He was straight up MASSIVE. And quite terrifying. His forearms were really muscular... it was pretty creepy.

ACU arranged for us to have a trip to the Gold Coast this past weekend. We were all excited to spend our Valentine's Day there, as shockingly we haven't found Australian husbands yet. The Gold Coast is about an hour south of Brisbane. Most people from Australia prefer the Sunshine Coast, which is north of Brisbane. The Gold Coast is very touristy, especially now because it is the end of summer here. We stayed in a hotel/apartment complex that was a 5-10 minute walk to the beach. We were all super excited to see a real Australian beach because the beach near our apartment in Brisbane is man-made. On our way to the beach, a young girl stopped us and asked if we were planning on going out that night. She persuaded us to drop $50 and sign up for a pub crawl that night. If you're ever at the Gold Coast and someone tries to convince you to sign up for a pub crawl, here's some advice: DON'T DO IT. We had to start at 5:30 and it was awful. The "drinks" they promised us barely had any alcohol, which did not help when it came to having to tolerate the weird people on the crawl. When we got home, at like 11, stone cold sober, Shannon and I found a lizard in our apartment. A real lizard. He was harmless and just stayed on the ceiling, but it was not comforting to go to sleep knowing he was there. When we turned on the air conditioning, a huge bug fell out of it and I had to kill it with a spatula, guts flying everywhere. We were definitely homesick for Brisbane on Friday night.

On Saturday, ACU had arranged for us to go to an amusement park (which the Gold Coast is known for), but we decided to ditch and go to the beach instead. How often is it that you can swim in the massive waves of the South Pacific ocean?! Skipping the amusement park was a great call, as we had a really nice beach day. The waves here are really strong, and you have to swim in between the flags in order to stay safe. At first I was reluctant to go in the water as there are sharks everywhere, but I'm still alive so it was worth it! The ocean is basically turquoise here too, it's so beautiful. We also all got really tan. Australia's sun is so strong. Wanna know why? There is a hole in the ozone layer above Australia, which I did not know before coming here.

The city is literally right on the sand!

Saturday night we did our own thing and it was a million times more fun. Today we went to the beach again and left at 3. We were all really excited to leave the Gold Coast and get back to good old Brizzy. The beach at the Gold Coast was amazing, but that was pretty much it. I think we all had really high expectations and it was just too touristy for me. Plus, I really don't like the whole club scene, and that's what the Gold Coast is all about. I'm really happy to be back in Brisbane. We have this week off and start classes next Monday. I'm exhausted after taking a vacation from my vacation. I'm just going to lay low this week and try not to spend money. Everything is SO expensive here! Their minimum wage is a lot higher, and essentially everything is two and a half times as expensive as it is in America. Thinking about money is really overwhelming, so I've just accepted that I'm going to be poor. The only other negative about Australia is the time difference. Every time I want to talk to people from home, they're all sleeping. Being 15 hours ahead is really weird because it seems like I'm behind. I wake up in the morning and it's night time in America, but I'm actually a day ahead instead of behind. The whole time difference is annoying, but at least I'm tan now. I think that's all for now!

Is this real life?

It's currently Monday night... we've been here since Thursday morning but we left home Tuesday afternoon. If time was already a confusing concept it has reached a whole new level of confusion. We are 15 hours ahead of Boston and my whole mind has been out of whack since we left. The plane ride seems like a distant dream. It actually wasn't that bad considering the flight from Boston to Dallas was 4.5 hours, then a 3 hour layover, then a 16.5 hour flight from Dallas to Brisbane. I got to watch Modern Family and drink free wine on the longer flight and that's when I decided that I love Australia.

I never really prepared myself for the culture shock because I just assumed that Australia was going to be very similar to America. WRONG. This is my first time leaving the US and I feel like I am on Mars. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but still, there are a ton of differences. They have this crazy slang and it sounds like they're slurring their words all the time. We don't go to "school" or "college", we go to "uni". If you order a chocolate milkshake, you will just get a big cup of chocolate milk (we learned the hard way- you have to order a "thickshake" instead). Also, no one is fat here. Seriously, no one. And they're all beautiful. The men, the women, the kids, the old people- all gorgeous. And SO NICE. People actually look you in the eyes when they walk past you and smile. No one is just walking around with their face glued to their phone; it's so refreshing. 

The nightlife is totally different too. Instead of a townhouse party, we are at these crazy bars and clubs in the middle of the city. Having the city so close is awesome. We live in South Bank, which is the south part of Brisbane, but can easily walk 10 minutes and be in the middle of the city. Taking the train is quicker, but we have to pay. We have to pay for EVERYTHING. Luckily, we've already mastered the art of getting guys to pay for our drinks. 

To get to ACU (Australian Catholic University), we have to take the train and then a school shuttle. The whole process takes about an hour each way which is a pain in the ass. Luckily, I only have class on Mondays and Tuesdays. Caroline and I are both doing a marketing internship at ACU, so we'll have to be there other days of the week, too. We don't start class for another two weeks. We're going to the gold coast this weekend and have no idea what we're doing. We basically never have any idea what we're doing. It's terrifying and awesome at the same time.