1 month!

Hi everyone!

I can’t believe it, but I’ve been in Australia for a month now! The time has completely flown by. I am still having a great time and learning lots of things. The weather here is still pretty hot, but thankfully it hasn’t been as humid. I know that as I’m writing this there’s about 2 feet of new snow at home! That part is still kind of weird. I feel like it should be July and not march!

My classes started last week and they have all been good so far. I basically have Mondays off for the semester because my scheduled tutorial only meets three times out of the whole semester. My coral reef geomorphology class seems really cool and we have a 4 day field trip at the end of May to Orpheus Island to study the reefs there. My photography class is fun so far, it feels more like a club than a class. I haven’t really had my other marine science class because my professor wasn’t back from a trip to the Galapagos as of last week, but from the course outline it seems like it will be good. And then my Australian Society class seems to be interesting. That class is huge compared to what I am used to, there are about 150 or 200 people in it! I haven’t really had too much work yet, just some reading. I’m still getting used to all of my free time. Without yearbook, apo, cab, and the other activities I usually do at Gettysburg I have afternoons and evenings to do work and just relax.

Last weekend a few of my friends and I went down to the beach here. Its only about 20 minutes away and it was really nice. Because of the reef there aren’t any waves where we are, but the water is really warm and not dangerous as long as you swim in the netted areas. The dangerous things in the water now are the jellyfish or stingers as they call them here. Next time I go I’ll bring my camera so I can post some pictures of what it’s like.

Every day I’m more and more thankful that I’m living where I am. Everyone here at John Flynn College is really nice and very helpful. I’ve met a whole bunch of Australian students who are so much fun to be around. Apparently the food on this college is the best out of the whole Uni, but every day I do really miss servo! They’re big into recycling food here, so a lot of time what was for lunch will be presented in another form for dinner. I miss the many forms of chicken cutlets that servo offers.

I hope that you are all doing well back in the states and that you’re keeping warm with all of the snow! Keep me posted on how things are back home!

Lots of love,

Jennie

Photo update!

A wallaby hanging out right outside of my dorm room.

I had to wear this hat around all of O Week since I was considered a "fresher" because i'm new to the college.

These next few photos are from Billabong Animal Sanctuary where I went on Friday through the student travel agencey at the university.

The first thing we saw when we walked in was a kangaroo with a joey in her pouch! It was so cute!
We got to see a crocodile feeding too. I would never want that as my job!

For 80 cents you could buy a bag of food and feed the kangaroos. They just hopped up to you and let you pet them.

I was brave enough to hold the baby croc, but not the snake. I might look a little scared here because i'm standing about 10 feet from the snake!!

Me with another little kangaroo.

A really big kangaroo just hanging out. He reminded me of Lily!

I got to hold a wombat too! She was really heavy and not as soft as I thought she would be.
The koala was my favorite thing I got to hold. He was really soft adn so cute. He just sat in your arms like a baby!

O Week

Hi everyone! I’ve been in Townsville for a little over a week now and everything is great so far. There wasn’t really anything planned for us last week so the other Americans and I spent a lot of time exploring the area. We went to the local shopping center a few times to pick up some things and set up bank accounts, we got a tour around Townsville with our study abroad program in a open air stretch Jeep, we went to the local town pool which is right on the river, walked around campus a bit, and have gone into town a few nights so far. The only bad thing about exploring is that the bus fair is getting a little much. But now that we have our student ID cards we can get 50% off all bus rides. All of the people I came with are really great and we have a lot of fun together.

This past weekend all of the first-years, or freshers, arrived at my college. Since we’re new to the college, the Americans are considered freshers too. It’s weird to be grouped with them since we’re all a lot older than them. A lot of the freshers are only 17! A little bit of hazing has gone on too haha. We have these gold, plastic roman helmets with our names on them that we have to wear around every where. And I really mean every where, around the college, over at the university, to the store, to dinner, we even wore them when we went out on Saturday night! The other night we had a scavenger hunt where a group of us were tied together and had to run around finding things while the student exec members and the RA’s sprayed us with water guns and hoses. And the yesterday morning we got woken up at 4:00 AM and had to walk around to the other colleges and try to wake them up. It’s all been pretty fun though, just gets a little much some times with the age difference.

Other than that we’ve had a bunch of other orientation things like meetings and lunches and ice breaker games. Last night my college went bowling together, but the catch was that it was drag bowling so you had to dress as the opposite gender. Everyone looked pretty funny, especially the guys. Tonight is toga night which is supposed to be a really big night here. My friend Anna and I went to a craft store yesterday with two Australian girls that we’ve met to get material to make our togas. There are a few other parties and info sessions throughout the week and then my college has a picnic at the beach on Sunday before classes start.

All of my classes are set now. I’ll be taking a marine biology class, a coral reef class, a class on Australian society, and a photography class. I’m actually excited for classes to start, I think I’m going to like the ones I’m enrolled in and it will be nice to have some kind of schedule.

I’m also excited for the upperclassmen to move in. Right now it’s only the freshers, exec members and RAs. But the other students move in tomorrow so hopefully I’ll get to meet some more people who are closer to my age.

Hope you’re all having fun back at home! Don’t get too cold J

Love,
Jennie

Hello from down under!

Hello everyone! I’ve decided to keep a blog about my semester down under to keep everyone back in the states updated on what I’ve been doing. I’ll try to post regularly and update with some pictures too.

I arrived in Sydney on Wednesday Feb 4th after a very long flight. I was traveling for almost 24 hours! It wasn’t too bad though, I slept a lot more than I thought I would. I cleared customs fine and the IFSA Butler (the program that I’m studying abroad with) staff met me right away. We then took about a half hour bus ride from the airport to Narrabeen Beach where we would be staying for the next few days. It’s kind of like a little suburb of Sydney. We were on a camp ground in little cabins right across from the beach. I lived with 5 other girls who all are at the same school as me. The beach was absolutely beautiful and really warm. It was over 100 F every day that we were there. It is also super easy to get sun burnt here since there’s almost no ozone layer over this part of the world.

The cabin where I stayed for my orientation in Sydney.

While we were in Sydney we had some time to just hang out and relax, we got our new cell phones or mobile phones as they call them here, we went to the Taronga zoo, took a harbor cruise around Sydney harbor, got surfing lessons, and had a presentation of a traditional smoking ceremony by aboriginal people. We also had some information sessions on life in Australia, traveling, and on the school we would be at. The last day we were in Sydney a bunch of us got up early to watch the sunrise and it was gorgeous.

My first kangaroo sighting! It was at the zoo, but still pretty cool. Koalas in the zoo. They sleep for about 20 hours a day!
Sydney Harbor from the boat we were on.

Me with the opera house and Sydney harbor bridge.

Me after surfing. I was able to get up once for about 2 seconds!

Me and a few other girls from my program with one of the aboriginal men.

Sunrise on the last morning in Sydney.

We then left our beach vacation to head up to Townsville where we would be living and studying for the next 5 months. We had to take a flight first to Brisbane and then to Townsville. The flights weren’t bad, but when we got here the weather was terrible! Townsville gets over 300 days of sunshine every year, but the remaining rainy days all seem to happen in a row! It had been raining for about 43 days when we got here! Luckily it has stopped, but now it is very humid. The good news is that the weather is just going to get better from here on out.

I am staying at John Flynn College at James Cook University. It is definitely the best place to live on campus and everyone is very nice. I have my own room and share a conjoining bathroom with the girl who will be living across the hall. She hasn’t moved in yet though. Right now I am the only one on my floor except for my RA. All of the RA’s are here for training now and they are really helpful. There are 3 other people from my program living at John Flynn too and our RA’s all took us out to the tavern our first night. A few days ago me and two of my friends saw 2 big and 2 little wallabies (joeys) walking around right next to our dorm! My room at JCU. The air conditioner is the best part!

Today we’re taking a tour of Townsville with our study abroad group. We’ve all been hanging out together and have gotten pretty close already. So far everything here is great. I’m trying to work out my classes now but it looks like I’m going to get to take everything that I wanted to.

Some of you may know that I’ve been having some trouble with my computer lately so I might not be able to post very often until I get that all settled out, but I will try to keep you as up to date as possible!

I miss you all a lot, but I am having a great time here. Keep me posted on what’s going on at home!

Lots of love,

Jennie