G’Day from Oz

So far Perth has been great! It is EXTREMELY hot here, and always sunny. I haven’t seen a cloud since I’ve been here. The sun is super strong-everyone got a really bad burn on the first day. I even got burned wearing SPF50. I’m in a flat with 4 other people- so far I’ve met 3 of them. One girl is from Malawi, one from Malaysia, and I’m not sure about the other two. Its nice having a single in a suite!

Friday, the day after I arrived, was a basic orientation day. At night a big group of the early arrivers went to the Mexican Kitchen in Fremantle for dinner- really good! Especially suddenly being able to order drinks at dinner :) The next day we had a “discover your campus race” which was cool to see the campus but very long and hot. Then the shopping trip to Kardy’s shopping center- things are so much more expensive here. For example, a box of Froot Loops was about 8 or 9 dollars…2 boxes of Coke were about $30. Apparently the state of WA is doing really well right now, and minimum wage here is wayyy higher- I think its $20/hr if you’re 20. I’ll definitely be looking around for a job soon!

We went out to Outback Jack’s that night with the study abroad group. I just got a veggie burger but you could get things like kangaroo meatballs, crocodile, and camel burgers! After that we were able to go to Little Creatures, a really popular brewery in Fremantle. I didn’t get any pictures but it was a really cool place, with glass side walls to see the huge vats where the beer’s made.

Sunday was our trip to Cottesloe beach, a bus and train ride away along Fremantle. It was gorgeous there- the water was so clear, it was really hot, and there was some great gelato across the street.


Monday we had another day of orientation stuff, then went to King’s Park in the afternoon in Perth. You just take a bus, then a train to get there from Fremantle. The whole TransPerth system is kind of like the Charlie card system in Boston. We only got to see a small part of King’s Park but it was beautiful. It’s bigger than Central Park so I definitely want to go and spend a whole day there! The birds you see here are so different from back at home- its weird not knowng the names of any of the wildlife or plants or anything. The crows are massive and all of the birds make bizarre calls- I even saw a green parrot-like bird flying overhead. There are a lot of quendas on campus, which are like larger, cuter rats. I’ve seen a few scurrying along towards bushes.

We also had a day trip of surfing and sandboarding at Lancelin beach. We left at 6:45 am on Wednesday, and split into two groups once we got there. We went surfing first- the beach was huge, the water was really clear, and the waves were just pretty normal sized in the morning. It was awesome- so much fun. I stood up a couple of times (only to come crashing down) and I definitely want to do it again!

Post-Surfing.

After that we went and ate lunch, then my group went sandboarding. We took a short bus trip away from the beach to these massive dunes- climbing to the top of one took a while and it looked like a dessert. I wish I could have brought my camera but we were warned not to because of the sand. There were these small snowboard like things that you sit on and slide down really fast- it was so cool and I was expecting much smaller beach dunes- it actually was a lot like the video in the last post but with whiter sand.

The dunes were much bigger than the ones behind us in these pictures.

In the water at Lancelin after sandboarding.

I’ll try to keep up more with these posts so I don’t have to put up such long entries next time. :)

Slang:

Rashies- the swim shirts (we're wearing over the wetsuits)

Sandgropers- Western Australians

Goon- boxed wine, the only thing we can afford over here ;)

Trolley- shopping cart