"Lets have a bit of a chinwagger..."

G’day!

Things have been going well down under. I am sitting on the balcony across the hall from my room in the 75 degree weather with a view of Manly Beach. Classes are underway and for the part are pretty boring. To all those of you who know of my experience as a server, you will find it interesting to know that the book for my Hospitality and Venue Operations class is called “Professional Waiter.” In the class we are tested on making coffee and spend two weeks (four classes) discussing and doing wine tastings. You’d think I was joking, but really I am not. In my marketing class we are in groups and doing things similar to the show the Apprentice by Donald Trump. Our professor takes activities from the show and we do them weekly with the group. This week we had to design a toy to market for Mattel. Our final project is doing a full Marketing plan for a popular bar connected to the number one hostel in Sydney that we have to try to sell to the owners. It should be interesting. I am not sure how I feel about my whole group… half is not bad, but we are having a bit of a language barrier issue with the others (from Japan and China).
The technology here is so different. We are limited with our internet time, and it seems to be slow (especially when I try to put my pictures online. So I am working on getting many of them up for all of you to see. We have taken some really beautiful ones so far! Along with limited internet time, its also been a bit difficult being without a cell phone… or as they call it here… a mobile. I have group projects in all of my classes and I have a hard time connecting with my groups because I do not have a mobile for them to contact me. I do have a room phone that we can easily call room to room with the few other residential students, but it doesn’t do me too much good since I am not in my room very often. People can leave me messages on that number but I really am not able to call them back. I am starting to give away some of my friends numbers when I go out and make friends! It makes communicating quite difficult with many of the friends I have made here. Lastly along the technology line it has been interesting that we do not watch TV at all here. The only time we have watched anything is when we watched a movie in one of the Australian resident’s rooms because they have a TV in their dorm room. I really don’t miss it, but it is strange to think we can’t just go and turn on the TV when we are bored in the evening or cannot sleep.
On a damper note, I have slightly sprained my ankle. I am not quite sure how I did it, but I think it is from a mixture of things. It has been swollen and has been bothering me for about a week. I had to go buy some different shoes to try to help. It is also making my back quite a bit sore and giving me trouble when I try to sleep. I am trying to not let the pain of it stop me from enjoying myself. It just makes me a bit slower at times since we walk everywhere and its usually uphill and we also seem to take a lot of stairs since I live on the third floor. I’d say we are going to be in great shape by the time we get back here, but the eating habits aren’t really helping with that! The food for on-campus residents is not too bad, but very boring … and all carbs. Noodles and bread is my usual meal, and we only have certain meal times so we eat a lot at a time so we don’t starve later, so we often end up getting hungry and walking down to the corso and get ice cream. We usually go to a place called Copenhagen and it is delicious! It is pretty reasonably priced unlike so many other things around here. I always am sneaking extra fruit up to my room after meals for my midnight, or early morning, snack.
I have made so many different great friends since I have been here. Not only have I met a few Australians, there are actually a lot of Americans here this term from all over the States that I have become very close with since we all live on campus together. I have been very surprised how many people there are from Michigan at ICMS… it is quite odd that we had to come all the way to the other side of the world to become friends. I could not have asked for a greater group of people to have this experience this with. Everyone gets along very well and brings a little something different to the group. Everyone is so different and come from such different backgrounds that I have learned so much from them already. Each time I right I will try to tell you about a different person. I will start this time with an Australian. He is 19 and in his first term (after taking a year off after finishing his HSC (high school curriculum). He grew up in a country home about two hours south of Sydney but also has an apartment just about 30 minutes from Manly. He has traveled to every country you can imagine and has been in boarding schools since he was eight years old. One was in England when he lived there for five years. He went to the same school that Prince William and Prince Harry went to and the first year he was there was Prince Harry’s last year there so he has met him and used to play squash and cricket with him sometimes while he was there. There is a lot more about him that I have learned… but I will save the time. Stay tuned for the story of a different friend.
There are some interesting things about the area that we have discovered. The birds are SO loud and obnoxious it is ridiculous. I am almost getting used to them, but you cannot even believe what they sound like. Some of them sound like monkeys, but they keep telling me that there are no monkeys here and they really are birds. Also the possums look nothing like the possums in America. They are actually cute and friendly. They are not scared of people at all and at times you can pet them. They also have Bandicoots that look like big rats to me, but some people think that they are cute. They are endangered, yet are everywhere around here. I have a couple pictures of them, so stay tuned and I will post one. The beaches here are absolutely beautiful as well. They sand is very soft and while and the water is not too chilly, at first it may be a bit, but you get used to it fast. One of these days I am going to learn to surf from a couple of locals we have met. We also met a couple locals at a pub the other day and played a few rounds of pool with them. It was interesting because they only have red and yellow balls (plus the black eight ball and the white cue ball). The balls are a little bit smaller then ours and the pockets are a bit narrower. It was a fun evening getting to know them.
Friday night we had a party at the school called the Ice Breaker with all of the students. It was a lot of fun and was the perfect weather out for it. We were able to get to know some of the other students that we have not yet met. On Sunday we went on a sunset cruise of Sydney Harbor that was very pretty, but a quite a bit long. We went back and forth across the harbor 3 or 4 times, but were able to get some great pictures.
We’ve been wanting to do some shopping, but everything thing here is very expensive. For those of you college students: be thankful for your alcohol prices! Everything here seems almost double, weather buying from the Bottle Shop or from the bar. This weekend we are going to go see the ship the QE2 for its last sail before it becomes a hotel. They will set off fireworks when it leaves Sydney Harbor and is supposed to be a cool display. We are also going to try to go have Pancakes on the Rocks in the part of Sydney called the Rocks and hopefully explore the city a bit more. I am also very excited because we are going to be going to a Maroon 5 and One Republic concert in Sydney in a few weeks. Jack Johnson is also coming here and we are deciding whether or not to attend that one too. We booked our plane tickets and boat for the Whitsunday Islands, so I will be heading to the Great Barrier Reef a week from tomorrow (Thursday for us… Wednesday for those of you in the States)
Overall I am loving it here. Australia really could not be much more beautiful. I am in love with Sydney and even more-so Manly. I wish you could be here to experience this with me. I should have pictures up soon, even though they cannot do this place justice. Keep checking in and I will be updating y’all again soon!

HAPPY DAYS