The Start of Our Australian Adventure!

Hiii everyone! In case anyone cares about we're up to down under, keep checking our blog :) First of all, the plane ride here was AMAZING! Sarah ordered her first legal alcoholic beverage an hour into the flight. We only slept for half of the flight so we could play checkers, battleship, connect four, and tetris against each other on the screens in front of us. It was probably a bad idea to wear sweatshirts and uggs because when we got off the plane we were sweating trying to maneuver our huge bags through the airport. When we first got to the campus it wasn't really what we were expecting at all. Australia is in the middle of a drought right now so all of the grass is completely dead. The school did a good job marketing their school to us.

We happened to meet a really nice man who works for res life and he made sure we were put in the same building. Sarah lives on the first floor and Rebecca lives on the second floor. We ran into someone else who goes to Ithaca and we explored the campus. Then we took our first tram ride to the shopping. By the time we figured out how to pay with the Australian coins we had missed our stop and had to walk to the stores from one stop too far. We have to look both ways multiple times before crossing since we don't know which way the cars are coming from (Everything is opposite, from the side of the road you drive on to side you walk up stairs, not to mention distance, temperature, and measurements).

At night we hung out with some Australians who hold leadership positions on campus. We had our first taste of Australian wine and discovered we don't like red wine. The residence director and an RA told us this elaborate story about a "drop bear" that lives in trees and drops down to attack people for no reason. Apparently we looked scared so he told us that is was just a myth they make up and tell all international students.

Our second day here we went with all the international students to Frankston. The beach water was aqua, nothing like the east coast. We also went to a sand sculpture exhibit and saw amazing dinosaur sculptures made by the best sculptors in the world. When we came back we bought our first legal bottle of wine! We didn't do anything that night because we were so exhausted.

Today we got up early again and took a bus into the city of Melbourne. We went to the beach at St. Kilda and spent the day lounging around, taking pictures, and exploring the shops and restaurants. This beach was only 30 minutes away (unlike the 1.5 hour ride the day before) so we plan on visiting often.

So far we've met really friendly Australians, some annoying Americans, and some cool internationals from various countries.

If we aren't friends on Skype already, look us up so we can chat!

More to come. We miss everyone, sort of ;)