First Student Entry

Dear family and friends, 

Here's our first student-written entry. Each of the 16 program participants will contribute 2 entries during our time in Australia. 

Enjoy!

Andy Bernstein, program leader

Author: Marni Bates

Hey, everyone!

So here we are in Sydney, Australia! Let me recap what we’ve been through, okay?

Well, by the time everyone arrived at Arundel house (this fantastic dorm-like place where everyone has their own room) the general mood was exhausted excitement. I think for a lot of people it was just starting to sink in that they were on a different continent where everything is expensive and the Internet sucks. Really. The Internet is shockingly bad in this country. They charge you by the megabyte. So don’t be offended if you don’t hear from children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews/friends as often as you would like—it’s not our fault! I think most of us were shocked by just how hooked in to the Internet we are. We kept trying to get our Macs to work and ended up staring at the screens and growling our frustration as we clenched our fists. Apparently, someone is going to give us a lecture that will explain why the Internet is so crappy here—I guess some businesses don’t want to lose their monopolies.

Sounds just like the U.S. right?

Anyhow, mainly we got the lay of the land, moved into our rooms and went grocery shopping. I’d like to take a moment to say how impressed I am with our food selections. I think if you handed the average American college student $100 and told them to make it last a week they would return loaded down with chips—of both the potato and chocolate variety. But a bunch of us decided to go communal so throughout the Coles (the Australian version of Fred Meyers) you could hear us calling out, “I’ve got the tomatoes! Hey, what about a cucumber?” and “Ooh, mushrooms.” Hopefully, we weren’t too annoying. The results have been delicious.

I think it’s surprising everyone how even the little tasks like going to a supermarket can be exhausting here. Not just because of the heat and humidity (although both have been pretty intense when we are accustomed to rainy Portland weather) but because the little things we took for granted are different here. People drive on the wrong side of the street. Don’t even get me started on the weird money here. While it’s cool that the bills are made out of plastic so that they are machine washable and super pretty (America, get on this!), the coinage is ridiculous! The twenty-cent coins are enormous and the two-dollar coins are tiny. I have definitely tried to pay for things only to discover I was offering five cents instead of five dollars. Embarrassing American moment for Marni.

There is also no tipping here—something that really confused us when we went out for Thai food. Of course then we learned how much people are paid here and that shut us up pretty quick. Even the worst of the jobs here rake in $15 an hour! One of the Australian students at the Arundel house said that she makes $25 an hour helping to manage the place. Amounts like that sound outrageous to us but it is an expensive country so I’m guessing it lives up to the phrase “easy come easy go.”

Anyhow, the next day was our first day of school. Rather a strange concept as we boarded a bus and got a tour of Sydney. It’s beautiful here.

This is the view from Arundel house. Spectacular. All photos in this blog entry are brought to you courtesy of Kathryn Wlodarczyk.

We passed a number of cool things—I don’t have the time or energy to describe each statue, park and building. But all of us were drooling over some of the houses here. Interesting architecture + incredible view of Sydney harbor = awesomeness. Even I can do that math.

One of the highlights was definitely the Sydney Opera House.

It was really neat to finally be able to experience this iconic place in person. I think it’s interesting that even though it has been open only since 1973, the Sydney Opera House represents Australia the same way that the pyramids represent Egypt and the Eiffel Tower represents France.

It also has over one million tiles on the roof.

Cool, right!

Our fearless leaders: Nat, Andy and Philip.

Another group shot. Expect a lot of these. The good news: our group is fantastic.

We also find time to have fun no matter where we are.

Then we hit up the beach!

Seriously. The beach. Bondi beach.

And this was the view we were met with:

I could definitely get used to this.

I would say that spending the first day of a new semester enjoying the tepid water of the ocean and the super soft texture of the sand sends this day in Australia right off the charts for awesomeness.

But for all of you academically minded individuals who are wondering why exactly we are receiving college credit, never fear! The next day we were in a classroom learning all about plate tectonics and the formation of Australia as a country. Did you know that all of Australia is safely on a plate? Neither did I. This means that Australia isn’t about to go crunching into another land mass on a plate and have to deal with mountain ranges springing up. No earthquake faults for Down Under. Cool, right!

We also listened to a fascinating talk about the migration of mankind to Australia. There are several theories as to how this happened, and let me tell you, the scientists take it seriously here. Much debate over how, when and where humans crossed into Australia. The one thing they can agree on is that they had to cross over somehow—which isn’t much as far as common ground goes. I’d tell you more but . . . I want to finish this entry and the best is yet to come!

We went to a performance by Anh Do (Wikipedia him. So freaking cool!), which really left an impression on us. He is a comedian who fled from Vietnam and moved to Australia with his family. His story is just insane—his dad pretended to be a guard in order to free his uncles from a prison camp. Then the family escaped on a tiny raft when they ran into pirates! Anh Do was not only hilarious (his story about showing up to his engagement party with a roasted pig had all of us cracking up) but his message was really inspiring. I think we all left with a few sayings spinning in our heads: Just take a crack at it and see what happens. And there are only two times: now and too late.

Now I have to turn in this blog before it’s too late!

Sincerely,

Marni