My Life In Australia

Australia in General...
+ They drive on the left side of the road. Since I can't drive here, I didn't think it would be an issue, but I'm still getting used to which way to look when crossing the highway on the way to class (there were some close calls the first few days!) and walking on the left side of the sidewalk.
+ All the power outlets have switches on them, and they are on 240 volts here so lots of power comes out of my hair dryer!
+ They consider everyone on the same level here and never put anyone on a pedestal. So there are no titles for professors or priests or anything: you call everyone by their first name. One of my profs name is Luigi and I think I'd feel awkward calling him that. None of the buildings are named after people, so the Computer Science building just says "Computer Science" on it.
+ Phone numbers are different lengths throughout Australia depending on what city you are in and whether it is a land line or mobile.
+ Since it is winter here the sun doesn't rise until about 7 and the sun sets at 6PM.
+ Stuff is very expensive since the US Dollar isn't doing very well. The ratio is about 1:1. There aren't many generic brands for stuff, so we mostly need to buy name brands. A typical bottle of shampoo is like $6, but all that little stuff really adds up quick.

My residential college and university...
+ There are five residential colleges, each with their own common areas, dining rooms, laundry, etc. I live in Tommie More. We all have singles.
+ We are given three meals a day but they are only open for about an hour for each meal. So we have to be at breakfast before 9 (or 10 on weekends), eat lunch at 12, and eat dinner at the specified time for that particular day. There is no choice of food and it's not very good, but we are surviving.
+ Tommie More is right across the highway from the university, a little north of the campus, not too far from the building they show in all the brochures. It takes me about 10 min to walk to class. Kind of like living in Lewis.
+ The bus is within walking distance and it takes about 10 minutes to get to the main part of Perth, which is the biggest city in Western Australia. We can get to the beach in about 15 minutes on the bus.

Language: They speak English here, but random words and phrases are different, which throws me off sometimes. They shorted everything here, so breakfast is breakie and university is uni, etc.

Starting Spring Semester... In July?

I've now completed my third day of classes at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Western Australia.

Our week long orientation consisted of lots of sleeping (getting adjusted to the 12 hour time change and recovering from over 30 hours of traveling), getting to know the ND students and other international students, a ton of pretty boring academic stuff, trying to find money and stores, and doing some fun things in Perth and the surrounding area. The UWA Campus is beautiful, it has a clock tower, reflecting pool, a few green ovals that we've played frisbee on, beautiful buildings and a nice location about 10 minutes by bus to the main part of the city. The campus is on the Swan River, from which there is scenic view of the Perth skyline. My dorm, or residential college as they call it here, is right across the highway from the campus, so I don't have to walk too far to get to class. I live in a single, which is pretty nice. I have more space than I need though, since I didn't bring much stuff.

During orientation, we went on a bus tour of Frematle, which is a nice little port city about 10 miles away. We waded in the water a bit at the beach, even though its winter. I can't wait until Spring when we can go to the beach a lot. Then we saw a lot of Fremantle, it was raining but that is definitely someplace I'd like to spend some time on a nice day.

On another day, we went on this trip called Nearer to Nature. We were able to hold cute little joeys and see other native Australian animals. I held a huge snake and a few other reptiles, which was pretty interesting. We learned about some Aboriginal tools, made knives out of stones, charcoal, and kangaroo poo and then went on a walk through the bush.


During our residential college orientation, they gave us cheese and wine: it was a little odd drinking alcohol with our rector. On Wednesday night, we went out because apparently Wednesday the big night for going out. First, we went to a pub where we ran into the head duty tutor (adult RA), which still kind of weirds me out. Then we went to another pub that was a bit more fun: probably a place people will be going a lot.

So, overall things have been pretty good and I am excited to experience more of Australia!