My first impressions of Australia as I got out of the airport in Sydney on Friday 8th were "wow, surely this is not winter weather" and "fuck me, I'm so tired." A group of international students who arrived at the the same time all piled our cases into the back of a minibus provided to us by the university and we were officially on the road to Wollongong! I arrived two hours later to an empty shell of a room. This would be my home until November.
After trying to make it my own, there was really nothing left to do apart from have an epic nap. Twenty five hours of plane travel really takes it out of you. Over the next few days, I didn't really know anyone apart from Matt - another English international student who came from Sheffield Uni. I spent some time chilling at his place, and kept myself busy by going on little walks around the area. One evening on a walk I found a field of horses next to Mount Keira with the sun setting behind the mountain. I thought it was gorgeous and I must have spent the best part of an hour taking it all in.
Over my first week, the international students from England who'd all connected over Facebook started arriving and by my first Wednesday we'd got our first sacks of goon and were drinking together! Goon is boxed wine in case you didn't know, and it's the only alcohol I can afford over here! The cheapest bottle of vodka works out to be about £20, and a cheap crate of beer would be about £25 !! So over the next year I'm going to have to adjust to being someone who once chundered at the smell of wine, to someone who drinks wine like water. Wish me luck?
The next few days were spent drinking, exploring and just getting to know each other. We'd taken to hanging out in one of the units downstairs from me which had one of the English international students and some Aussies in there for good measure too. There's another international student in there from Sri Lanka, but he needs a whole new blog post. Anyway, so as well as drinking, we took the time to venture into the town centre, up the beach, and took a day trip to Sydney. Unfortunately, when we went to Sydney it rained all day - and because flip flops have no grip whatsoever, I ended up walking around bare foot! That'll teach me not to check the weather forecast...
Well that's the end of my first blog... Hope you enjoyed it? That's only my first couple of weeks, I'll write about the second half of my time here after class. Miss you all! x
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