Sept 15th and 16th - Orientation

15th sept

So today we started out going to the botanical gardens in order to do the typical ice breakers as there are 46 students on the trip and it is a lot of new names to learn! So we learned names and interesting facts ranging from a hatred of buttons to having a snail as your high school mascot.  By the end I had a pretty good feeling of most people's names so that was great and (more importantly) we got some more tim tams and lemingtons (which are yummy sponge cake things covered in chocolate and coconut shavings) for tea.

After that we were sent off on a scavenger hunt across some of sydney important landmarks. Starting with the opera house and going to the national are museum, barracks, parliament house, fountain and masonic building we were rather exhausted! Along the way we had some laughs and figured out that we had managed to walk some 7 miles during the day. We came home and wrote a rap to the tune of "fresh prince of bell air" which was fun! And we learned how the city functioned and made some new friends =).

This is my scavenger hunt team (above)! We had chinese food for dinner and shared all our crazy performances ranging from a dramatic reading of a haiku to a song to the tune of raindrops on roses! It was a good first day.

16th Sept

Today we had a bus ride to a beautiful location for some introductory lectures. We covered the basics of each of the classes we will be teaching along with some normal paperwork etc. The pictures of what is coming up look absolutely fabulous and I'm so excited for the rest of the trip and also for the upcoming lectures on australia studies as well. We had lunch on the balcony and spotted a kookaburra in a gum tree! So we all started singing that childhood song and it is still stuck in my head lol. 

Then we went on a boat ride through the Sydney Harbour in order to see thing from a different perspective. We had an old opinionated and funny tour guide who discussed the local housing prices and told stories about funny phrases like "madder than a meat cleaver" and "busier than a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest." There were indeed some gorgeous views of the city and surrounding area and well it's always a good time to be on a boat!

We then headed home and decided to save food money by cooking in the hostel, so 3 friend made some spaghetti with chicken in an olive oil sauce and we have enough for tomorrow too. After that we were frustrated with the wifi in the hostel as too many people were trying to get on in so we headed to the bar next door to have some better access. So I'm currently sitting sipping a sydney sider (cider) with like 8 friends all on our laptops scrambling to do tomorrow's reading. And with that I will see you another day!