The First Week

I've been in Australia one full week and so far it's been amazing! Here is the break down of everything I've done so far:

-Actually getting to Australia
This is me on the plane. Clearly you can see I WAS SO EXCITED!

The flight was 15 hours, but it wasn't too horrible. I watched a few movies and slept a bit. Mark was actually the lucky one. He was sitting right behind me and apparently the woman sitting next to him got sick and needed oxygen, and he was moved to business class. Lucky lucky..

-Arriving at the Village and the first day.
I was finally at my home for the next five months. The pictures on the website really do give this place justice. It's fun to just sit out on your balcony and meet everyone. The rooms are a bit small, but not horrible. I could definitely get used to being here.

The first day here was an adventure. After putting our stuff down, we were out exploring. Melbourne is nothing like any city I have been to in the US. You can walk or take the tram everywhere in the city. It almost seems like freeways don't exist.

One of the first things we did was go to set up cell phones. At the store, there was the coolest guy every working there. His name was Tristan and he helped us with everything. We literally went into the store 6 times in one hour for him to show us how to make calls and he didn't mind helping us one bit. If you ever need a phone in Melbourne, go see Tristan at Crazy John's, he'll hook you up.

-Exploring
We had a few days before our Melbourne Welcome program, so we set out on foot to explore the city. Here are some highlights:

Queen Victoria Market

You can literally get anything here, and it's only 4 blocks away from the Village. This open air market sells fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as meat and souvenirs. I definitely plan on shopping here 3 times a week.

BUY IN BULK SAVE MONEY

Fitzroy Gardens

Flinder's Street Station

Parliament

Funny story here, as we were taking pictures and looking around, a guy who passed by us on the street said "that's the Melbourne Liars Club." It didn't seem like he was a fan of politics.

They also love bro tanks here, or "chesties" and "singlets" as the locals call them. I'm so excited to buy a few more and rock them around the city.

-Melbourne Welcome!

This was a welcome program geared for international students. They took us around the city and showed us lots of cool things to do. Here is my host Gracia and I, she was awesome.

On the first day of the program, we toured around the city and hit up all the places we went earlier in the week, but on the second day, we went SURFING! I wasn't very good at it, but it was SURFING!

The next day we went to the zoo and I pet a kangaroo!

We went and toured the Melbourne Cricket Grounds.

We went to the skydeck, which is the highest point in the southern hemisphere.

Melbourne has a big alley culture, and our hosts took us around to see them. This is Degraves Street, where you can get some of the best coffee in Melbourne.

Union Street is covered in grafitti.

Our hosts also took us out every night and showed us some of the fun pubs and clubs around campus. I'll have to snag some pictures from Mark's camera, but it was good times. I wish I had more pictures with everyone I've met so far.

I'm also starting a collection of funny signs here. Here are a couple of examples that made me chuckle.

I'll end with this funny picture. It was at the Cricket Grounds in the locker room to motivate the players, LOL.

Hopefully this inspires everyone..