Sydney Adventures

For the first few blogs, I will be talking about my time with my family. Our route in Australia will start in Sydney then we will travel to Melbourne, Cairns and Brisbane where they will drop me off about an hour away from the city.

After a 7 hour delay at JFK, my mom, dad, brother and I made it to the beautiful city of Sydney! We stayed in a hotel right near the Sydney Harbor looking at the famous opera house. It was always a beautiful sight when we woke up in the morning. Because we lost a few hours from the delay, our first day consisted of finding a place to eat for dinner so there was no exploring.

For our first FULL day in Sydney, we did a bridge climb which took about 2 hours to the top and back. Though this seems like a typical tourist activity, it really is something I would recommend doing if you ever visit Sydney. You get an amazing view of the harbor and layout of the city. The weather that day however was a mix between sprinkles of rain and clear sky. This though worked to our advantage because a huge rainbow appeared in the sky as we hiked up the bridge. After that large amount of exercise, we took a ferry over to Manly Beach for lunch. Even with the weather being in the mid 50s, there were people surfing and swimming in the beautiful blue water. We sat down at the restaurant and got an amazing view of the beach as we ate our lunch. After, we all headed back to the hotel where the jet lag finally hit us. Getting to dinner at 7:00 pm was a huge challenge but eventually we were able to eat dinner then walk back to the hotel to pass out. 

During our final day in Sydney, I started the morning with dad taking an early jog around the opera house and throughout the Botanical Gardens. Though my legs were giving into the long run, it was a beautiful sight to see the sun come up as we jogged around the park. It was interesting seeing different kinds of birds wandering around freely. After breakfast, we got ready for our sea plane tour which flew us around Sydney and landed at Palm Beach where we had lunch overlooking the ocean. It was so beautiful that we ended up eating dessert outside in the sun. For winter, it was beautiful weather! After lunch, we jumped back on the seaplane and got to see a birds-eye-view of a bunch of humpback whales which were not far from the coast. We even got a beautiful birds-eye-view of the Sydney Harbor. All I can say is that I have plenty of amazing pictures from that adventure. Before dinner, we met with one of our friends Gianna Paganelli who was at her orientation in Sydney before heading down to Melbourne for her study abroad. She told us all about what she had been up to with her group from Emory the past few days and I wish her and her friends the best of luck with her time abroad!

birds-eye-view of the Sydney Harbor

If I can say overall about this city, I could see myself living here! Not only is this city a good size and clean, but it is surrounded by green and water. The main area of the city is actually not residential, which means many people commute to the south side of the city. When you walk around at night, you feel safe no matter how late you are out. I am a bit quick to jump in saying I want to live here but I really enjoyed this city. We did not stay here that long but I would love to come back here and explore more. Next stop, Melbourne!

The Free Time Schedule

This post is the schedule indicating when family and friends can contact me via Skype, iMessage, whatsapp, and FaceTime. Since I will be 14 hours ahead of NY, the schedule has been converted to NY time. Weekends might be more difficult since I do plan on traveling off campus. The weekends  really is the luck of the draw. My first week starts the week of July 27th and I will NOT have class Thursday and Friday for ONLY that week. Thursday and Friday of that week will be the weekend times instead.

Monday: 6am to 12pm

Tuesday: 8am to 12pm

Wednesday: 2am to 5:30am & 8am to 12pm

Thursday: 4am to 12pm

Friday: 1am to 2pm

Weekends: 12am to 2pm

As of now, I will be leaving July 5th with my family to make a few stops in Australia before I am dropped off at University of the Sunshine Coast. 

My class schedule (Australian time)

Reason and Overview for this blog

Hello family and friends,

I made this blog in order to keep everyone updated on my adventures in Australia! Since communication will be very limited (due to expenses), I felt this would be an easier way to give everyone an overview of what will be happening while I am away. This is my first time blogging so I am not sure if this form of communication will stay consistent. 

Most of you may know that it has been a goal of mine to study one semester in another country while I am in college. I did get the opportunity to spend a month in Europe visiting historical Holocaust sights with a group of Elon students, but that was only for a short amount of time. I will be spending my time in Australia for most of July to the mid November (about 5 months). This will be the longest I have been away from family and friends. Why would I pick Australia out of all countries? For my major and minor, I did not have an abundant amount of options when it came to study abroad. Australia was one of the options I had, but the biggest reason I decided on Australia compared to my other choices was because Australia is on my list of countries I want to visit. I have heard only amazing things about Australia (minus the large bugs and poisonous snakes). This includes how sunny and how beautiful the beaches are as well as the amazing people.

Here is a bit of information about where I will be. I will be living at the University of Sunshine Coast in off campus housing. Demographically, Sunshine Coast is located in northeast Queensland, a 14-hour drive north from Sydney, a 19-hour drive north from Melbourne and a 30-minute drive north from the Australian Zoo where Steve Irwin worked. The University of the Sunshine Coast is located fifteen minutes (driving) from Mooloolaba beach. The great barrier reef ends in Bundaberg Queensland which is North of the Sunshine coast, making the University of the Sunshine Coast only a four hour drive to the number 1 largest reef in the world. Since I will be there between July and November, this would be considered Australia’s winter. Temperatures will be between 45ºF and 72ºF, which is not to warm but not to cold. From the amount of research I have done on my location, University of the Sunshine Coast will be a bit like Elon University’s campus where it is not located in a city and driving and biking is the best way to get to places. I might be living in a similar life style to North Carolina, but I will still be in a different setting that will take a bit of time to get comfortable with.

There is a lot out of this experience that I would like to take but I have compiled a list of fun activities and tasks that I wish to complete while I am in Australia. This list is based off of priority!

·      Visit my cousin Lindsey in Melbourne

·      Scuba dive in the great barrier reef

·      Catch at least one wave surfing while I am there

·      Visit the Australian zoo and get a picture with the statue of Steve Irwin and his family (he was my childhood hero shut up!)

·      Take a trip to Fiji

·      Take a trip to New Zealand

·      Learn better eating habits

·      Try vegemite while I am there

·      See what different foods I can try while I am there

·      Hold a koala (yes I know they are a bit mean!)

·      Ride a sea turtle

·      Cage dive with sharks (because I am nuts!)

I might not be able to do everything on the list but it would be great to cross off some of these tasks while I am there. Some are more realistic than others but it does not hurt to throw in a few crazy tasks. Since I will be located in the Eastern Hemisphere, I want to take every travel opportunity I can get hence why I added traveling to Fiji and New Zealand to the list. Visiting my cousin is my number one priority because I never get to see her and would love to spend a longer amount of time with her than normal. For the scuba diving and surfing, I have a scuba certification and I know how to surf a little. My fascination with Australian surfing and the Great Barrier Reef are the reasons why I learned these skills. This opportunity might be my only chance to accomplish these tasks. I have a lot of reasons why some of these tasks are on my list but I would rather not go into that much detail.

I will add some times to when I am available to talk once I figure out what my schedule is. I will most likely use Skype and Facetime for video chatting, and iMessage, viber and whatsapp for messaging and calls when I have internet.

To end this, all I can say is, that I am excited and nervous to start a new adventure and meet new people. Though being this far away from home will be different than being in North Carolina, I think it will be an amazing experience. I hope to give a good description of my adventures to all my friends and family so I do not have to repeat myself when I come back 

Photo credit:

http://www.propertybusiness.com.au/sunshinecoast.html

http://www.envirodevelopment.com.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=58

http://www.best-beaches.com/south-pacific/australia/sunshine-coast/sunshine-coast-beaches