February 26

I have officially moved into my own place and it is such a relief! I have a share room but my roommate doesn’t come for another few days. I’m back to having a twin bed which I thought I left back in the dorms but oh well. There isn’t a lot of storage space, so my stuff is inevitably all over the floor. (some things never change). The place I’m living is kind of like an international or boarding house. It has about 15 rooms filled with 1, 2 or 3 people. The kitchen, lounge, deck, bathrooms, etc are all communal. Everyone is students between 20 and 30 years old. I’ve noticed how common it is here to be a student in your 30s or 40s. I’ve only been here 2 nights but so far the people seem really cool. It’s located on cute street called Glebe Point Rd and it’s filled with restaurants, fruit markets, book shops, and anything else you can think of. It’s a cute area but just like everywhere else, difficult to get around.

The traveling has been especially hard on me because Jenna and I spend so much time together. She is staying with her cousins right now and is going to another Uni (university). To get to her it will take me and hour and a half at least. It’s very time consuming and eats up a lot of energy figuring out how to get around. Yesterday, we were trying to figure out which bus line to take and we asked a police officer. He told us where to go and then offered us a ride as well. So I experienced my FIRST ride in the back of a cop car. They don’t have bars separating the front from the back and you can open the doors from the inside. It’s amazing how much safer this country is than America. In fact, mace, pocket knives and anything else is illegal here. So that was a different experience. Everyone is so nice here and goes out of their way for you, it’s really cool.

Today, I went to the zoo with one of my Canadian friends. We took the ferry there and spent the day with the kangaroos, pandas, and koalas. It was great and I have tons of pictures! Then I went to the beach because it’s so hard to resist here. It was hard to get used to all the topless women and tight Speedos.

The nightlife has been great. There are so many areas to go out and I’ve made sure to try them all. The other night, we attended a film festival with around 10,000 people. It’s held in a huge park and it reminded me of 4th of July fireworks at Gilson Park. Everyone sets up picnics and watches 16 independent short films on these huge screens. The tradition started at a local bar where they had contents for the best short film. And over the years, it has become super popular. It was really neat.

That’s been all that’s going on these days. I start school in a week so I have to get as much in before then as possible! Until next time…