One Month Later...

Well I have now been here over a month. I am more than ¼ of my way through the semester here. Wow, there is so much to say, but so little time to write it all down. Since my last update, the two weekends prior to Canberra have been spent camping on the different beaches and backpacking through various towns. Sydney is a nice city, but once you get outside of it, the country is absolutely beautiful. We slept and swam on beaches that had brilliantly white sand, turquoise water, and were practically empty. Many people have asked if I’ve been getting homesick, but so far I’m doing very well. That’s not to say that I don’t miss home and all of you, I do, I miss you a lot, but I love being here while I have the opportunity. I think a big contributing factor to not being homesick is having a great group of friends here, the group that I go on these weekend adventures with. There are 6 of us and when we go, we really don’t have a plan, we just go and see where we wind up, what we experience, and then make our way back home. These have been by far some of my favorite times down here.

In fact, 5 of the 6 of us are going on Spring Break together. Our plan is to fly from Sydney to Cairns on April 3rd, go to the Great Barrier Reef, the Rainforest, and then hop on a Greyhound bus and make our way back down to Sydney, making numerous stops along the way, and ultimately winding up back here before class starts at 8:45 on Monday the 20th. I’m really excited for this trip; I think it will be an amazing experience!

<--- See how studious we are in class?
As for classes, they are all going well. In Australia, they do not have many assignments due throughout the semester; rather they have 3-4 major assignments that decide your grade. Unfortunately two of these assignments are due right after I get back from spring break, so I’m trying to finish those before I leave. In my Romans class, there is a student who is from Ireland and grew up there, but has lived in Australia the past 20 years of his life. He has by far the coolest accent I have ever heard in my entire life. He is incredibly hard to understand, especially when he gets excited, but an Irish/Aussie accent is quite interesting to hear.

This weekend we went down to the capital of Australia, Canberra (pronounced Canbra). It is about a four hour drive south-west of Sydney. Our house parents dropped us off at school at 5:30 on Friday morning and the 30 of us departed by bus for Canberra at 6:00. As with any road trip, we had to stop at McDonald’s on the way and use the bathroom. We spent Friday going to the New Parliament House where we saw the Senate, the Great Britain High Commission, eating lunch at a park, and going to the Indonesian Embassy. The design of the city is quite interesting and very symbolic; the New Parliament House has grass on its roof, accessible to all visitors, to show that the people are above the government. Also, the War Memorial is located directly out the front door of the parliament house so that the government will realize the decisions it makes can cost somebody their life. We arrived at our Youth Hostile about 5, ate pizza, debriefed for an hour and a half, and then had free time. Many of us went swimming, sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, the water was nice; it was the size that was a problem. The “pool” was a little bigger than a wading a pool, but not much. We spent the rest of the night playing cards and then retired for the night. Saturday was a whirlwind tour through all the hot spots we missed the previous day. We saw the Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery, the National Museum, and the War Memorial. Although all these were interesting, the War Memorial was exceptionally fascinating. The exhibits were very intricate and detailed and seemed to make it come to life. We then got back on the bus, and headed back to Sydney, after a required stop at McDonald's for dinner of course.

Here is some more Aussie slang for those interested:

Click – Kilometer
Op Shop – Thrift store
Togs – swim suit
Ute – truck
Arvo – afternoon

As I told you in the last blog, Aussie’s don’t pronounce the “R” at the end of a word and instead make it an “A”. Well, just to confuse you a little, if a word ends in an “A” you add an “R”. For example, “The other day I came up with the idear to go to the park.” To give you a real life example, my Roman’s lecturer was talking the other day about Priscillar and Aquillar.

Well, I think that is all for now. Just to put all your minds to rest, I’m still alive and kicking, have not fallen in love, and I don’t have any piercings or tattoos, but yes, my hair is still bleached.

Love to all!

-Ben