first few days!

What a whirlwind this has been! We arrived early Saturday and came straight to our hostel, which is amazing, but could not check in because it was so early. So we dropped our stuff off and set off to wander around town. Nothing opens on Satruday until like 10am, so we checked out the bridge and opera house before anyone was out and about besides the joggers (and there are a lot of them here!).

Then we found a hole in the wall sandwich shop that opened before anything else and ended up making friends with the workers, a Turkish family who was so sweet and friendly! We ended up naming the older man uncle Frankie and promised to come see him again soon.

We settled into our rooms later that day, took a short nap and rallied for a night out to get to know some people and to experience sydney nightlife. We ended up making our own sort of pub crawl with our German roommates, our English buddy Dan, and some weird but very nice dudes from amsterdam. Went to mostly touristy places but did get a feel for the famed Aussie hospitality and met a lot of really cool people.

Yesterday, Sunday, we checked out Sydney University and the surrounding area of Glebe, where we are going tomorrow to stay for about a week before we try to find a more permanent housing situation. The area was lovely, and had a very youthful, friendly vibe.

Today was had our program orientation, which helped us get a little better idea of what kind of accomodations and jobs we should be looking for. We are headed to the roof of our hostel in a bit for a kangaroo burger BBQ (dont worry, i thought they were endangered but there are 5 kangaroos to every person in this country, so as our program director said, they need our help 'getting rid of them as quickly as possible.') Then the bar next door is having crab races, which should be interesting, so we will check that out!

I love it here more than I imagined I could. I am excited beyond belief for this whole experience. Montana and I both have very open minds and are flexible and down for everything, which has already proven to be the best kind of attitude when trying to figure out a plan in a foreign country. I can't wait to get settled down, meet more locals, and also to travel around the country.

I will update soon, and I miss everyone from the states already!

Cheers,
mags