Back To Civilization

First post since having arrived in Australia, I'm currently sitting in the Sydney airport waiting for our flight to Brisbane and to my new home for the next five months. We've had a disappointing lack of internet. We've stayed the past couple days in a town just outside of Sydney, Narrabeen, at the Sydney Academy of Sports. It's come with the most healthy food I've eaten since I can remember, lots of activities, and many many new people.

Six of us got flown into LA a day earlier because of the snowfall and the worry that we wouldn't be able to make it to orientation for another week if we didn't, so we got the chance to meet each other then, in addition to having some time to get to know each other.

There are about eighty kids or so in our group, going to Macquarie, Griffith, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Cairns, so there's an interesting mix of all the people studying abroad right now. We've had activities like going to the Taronga Zoo and having a tour around the Sydney harbor on a catamaran, and other things like seeing and dancing with an Australian bush band, and getting the opportunity to see some of the Aboriginals (from Queensland, not Sydney though) and seeing them perform in dance and play didgeridoos for us, which was absolutely fantastic. It's been crazy so far, and I think I have about 400+ pictures, and that was just at orientation.

It doesn't really feel like I'm going to be starting classes in two weeks. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Sydney (after the 15 hour flight) I think just about every person who wasn't wearing short shorts and a tank top was sweating like no other. It feels more like summer vacation right now, and it still hasn't really hit me that I'm here for another five months. Driving down the left side of the road is indeed odd, but everything here is just so fantastic, from being able to take a picture in front of the Sydney Opera house to petting kangaroos and wombats, and seeing the absolutely breathtaking views available just about every time you look out the window.

Can't write too much more, running out of battery on the laptop and running out of internet time. Will post more once I can get internet access (may be another day or two).