Upon rereading my pre-departure posts, there are a few points that are not exactly what I planned for/expected.

First, campus really isn't that huge at all. It seems that way, knowing that there are about 30,000 students studying here, but the train station is directly next to campus and most students commute. Those living on campus are generally international students and in the village (where I live) almost all students are international. The LONG walk to the mall became a brisk adventure very quickly, and the walk to classes is now a refreshing one (though the walk back, because of our giant hill, can sometimes be a struggle).

Second, my housing really isn't as great as advertised. It is definitely homey, and it was definitely built to house olympians during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, but other than that, the 10-year-old village apartments have quite apparently housed mostly drunk college students for almost their entire existence. This isn't a complaint, as I would live in a box if it meant living in Sydney, but in most apartments the carpets have been removed due to water damage and the ceilings have been excavated due to infestations of mold. Our oven lights on fire if we try to turn it on, and our living spaces never seem to stay clean. My house is one of the nicer standing ones in the village, though, so I definitely got lucky. Chessie, a friend here, arrived in her house to find food in her refrigerator from July... Maggots and all.

Third, the money provided by AIFS is not nearly enough for travel and food. The bus pass that we get has 10 trips a month, but the busses are rarely used due to their inconvenience and hella long trips. Instead, I take the train mostly everywhere and am thus forced to pay for it. Also, the $200 a month for food gets me through about 2.5 weeks due to everything being SO EXPENSIVE here. I heard that the minimum wage is somewhere near $15 an hour, meaning that the cost of living is more than I anticipated. Due to the exchange rate, though, it nearly evens out--but not quite. We've gotten to love our white-label "No Frills" everything, though, and are definitely surviving as international college kids should.

While a couple of these may seem like negative realizations, they are endearing in their own right. I really do LOVE it here. Everyone that I've met is amazing--I've made some great friends and talked with some pretty cool Aussies. I've seen brilliant beaches and sipped home brewed beer at some great pubs. I've seen Sydney Harbor during the day and at night, and experienced one of the world's biggest Mardi Gras celebrations in Sydney's Hyde Park. I've walked Bondi Beach's incredible cliffs and seen some views that I will not soon forget. At times I forget that I'm so far from home because I've grown so comfortable with where I am. All it takes for me to snap back into reality, though, is to hear an Aussie accent or to watch flocks of wild cockatoos flying overhead. I didn't realize coming in that I would be in a hilly city still full of green trees. The contrast between wildlife and concrete is perfect, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities that I could imagine. I'm excited to visit Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Cairns, Christchurch, and Auckland, to name a few, so that I can explore and compare and really understand the part of the world that I am living in.

What an adventure!