First month on the Other Side

Well, it's been officially a month since my arrival here in Sydney ! I can't believe it.
 So there is not a lot to tell but here it goes...

The weather is crazy. I mean it goes from sunny and warm to rainy and cold. I wasn't shock at all because come on, in Naperville we get 4 seasons on the same day. Talking about Napertrhill one of the weirdest things happen. I was wearing my North Central sweatshirt to a free food event that happens where I live. A staff member comes and asks where I'm from and I tell her " I'm from Mexico but I study in the US." Someone heard me and saw my sweatshirt, she goes "I'm from Naperville too" *insert surprised emoji face here* I literally couldn't believe it. From all the suburbs in the area, it blew my mind.

Free pancakes event

Napervillians

TIME DIFFERENCE *insert annoyed emoji face here* Trying to FaceTime with friends and family it's so difficult. I can only call them either really late at night or really early in the morning. Whenever I do get to call them I drop whatever I'm doing just to get to talk to them. Hopefully, I'll get to call them more often in the next few months.

As I mentioned in my post last night I bought an Australian flag and at the moment is my decoration in my room with some pictures on the wall by my desk. I decided to keep the room decoration to a minimum because being here only 6 months it's just not enough to put so much work in my room.

My side of the room

                              

The last thing is that I  realized that I might have brought a lot of clothes with me. Thinking that I want to take my blanket and I had to buy some jeans plus the flag. I think I need to either mail something before I leave Australia or pay the overweight in my suitcases *insert a thinking face emoji here* I'll have to make a decision sooner or later about it.

Those are some of the things that happened since I arrived here. But before I end up this post you gotta see this strange map.

I'm not sure if it's made from a different perspective or just strange. What do you think ?

Stay tuned for more PamAdventures !

Bye Felicia

Ben & Jerry's

I speak... Whale (watching)

When you read about whale watching you picture yourself getting the best shots of the whales just jumping around and showing off.

FACT: You might be lucky enough and it will happen or not at all LIKE ME and just see them in the distance swimming away from you.

Anyways so I would take you back to the start of the day. It was a sunny day, so I decided to wear a sleeveless shirt, jeans and just a small and thin sweater. As usual, I had to take the train to the city and I was unsure on where should I get off near the harbour bridge or far away and have a walk.

The decision was made based on how much time I had before I needed to be on the boat so... WALKING was the winner. I hopped off the train at the town hall station, which is just under the QVB building.

So I walked all Pitt St. which is full of different stores and there is a Westfield mall, which I have to say it's pretty big. Anyways I did not buy anything, except an Australian flag  because I'M ON A BUDGET (and I don't have space in my suitcases *insert annoyed face emoji here*). As I walked I got to see a little bit more of the city. 

After just keep going straight down Pitt street I arrived at Circular Quay, where all the ferries and cruises arrive or depart, with an hour to kill before I had to be on the boat. As most of the time I was hungry and kinda forgot to pack other than snacks so I went to get so McDonalds. (FUN FACT: Australians call it Maccas) Well, I sat down around the little park they have there, ate my food, and still had like 40 mins !

I literally just walked around the place for around 20 min and the I decided to just sit on a bench and wait until the boat arrived. Eventually around 1:50 we boarded and 2:00 sharp we left. It wasn't too cold when we left and were around the opera house. As we got far from the harbour it got colder, and even though I was cold I was able to get a cool shot of the opera house and harbour bridge.

Okay, it could be better but I did not take my camera

Sydney from far away 

Leaving the harbour behind, you could see how the different beaches around Sydney and cool houses. Like the one that has a big AF pool that a friend told me, I should look for. (SHOUT OUT TO THE COOL IRISH I KNOW NIAMH !) I was way too distracted with the house that I forgot to take a picture, but take my word it was A DREAM HOUSE.

Eventually, we started to get to open ocean, it got so freaking cold but my dumb self did not think about that and was freezing, an you had a beautiful and peaceful sight of the ocean. (which at this point I was falling asleep all to the movement of the boat) 

After around a good hour of just sailing, we were told there were some whales around. We moved around the boat to be able to see them. As I mentioned before the whales did not jump or came  close to get a great picture. We only spotted a pod of 2 whales, that according to the guide were migrating to the north, they just swam and kept doing their thing. 

While we were all taking pictures and observing, I realized that my hands were frozen LITERALLY I couldn't move my fingers on my left hand from my phone and I have to say I WAS LEGIT SCARED. I ended up going inside as soon as we were told we had to head back. All I did in our ride back was trying to warm up, it kinda worked out.

After we arrived back to circular quay I had to speed walk to the train station to catch the train that would take me to the train station where I could get my usual train back home. I was able to catch both trains just in time to leave. I was back just in time to have dinner and then go out ! ;) <--- (But that's for another post)

Well that's mostly all from my whale watching adventure

I'll leave more pictures down 

Til then stay tuned for more

Bye Felicia

Trying to smile while freezing

First week in the Oz Classes

Well reality hit me when I realized it was the first day of school and I was not familiar with where to go, what was the classroom or lecture hall ( as the call them here) like or had my friends in class.

The system in school here is very different to the one I am used to but it's not hard to get a hang of it. This term/semester/ session I'm only taking 3 classes, and I only actually go to class 3 days of the week. That is one of the things that first stood out to me not having to go to the same class during more days.

As you can see in my schedule there is the lecture and the tutorial class. Well in the lecture is just the professor giving well dah the lecture and topic for the week. You're supposed to attend most of the lectures but if you miss any of them you don't have to worry because the are RECORDED ! so you can actually take your notes from the recording and is just like you didn't miss anything.
In the tutorials, you just basically discuss the lecture topic and have some other activity or homework around it.

The week is pretty simple with only having classes three days and so far the homework load is pretty low. I know now how many essays I have to write and when are they due so I have more than time to be ready.

Because this is winter/spring semester we have a middle of semester break or spring break which is just like in the US two weeks of freedom !

But until now I'm stuck in school, still in Australia tho ;)

There is no much to tell about classes so until then

Stay Tuned

Bye Felicia

Goofing around Sydney P. 2

On Saturday it was time to go and explore the city,  I have to say that I was pretty excited to see some of the cool places in town.
It was the same drill I took that train and all that jazz but this time Instead of hopping off the train in the center of the city I had to hop off at a stop that is right before the harbour bridge.
The Idea was to walk the whole bridge and take cool pictures from there.

Walking through the bridge was quite tiring but so worth it. After the agenda said we were visiting a neighbourhood called "The Rocks". We stopped at what it seem a small plaza with a market with food, clothes, and artsy stuff.

We had time to eat our lunch in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is a perfect stop for long distance pictures of the Opera House, and the Harbour where all the ferries and adventure boats are.

And now is when all got more real than ever! Seeing the Opera House from up close it was just AMAZING! I got a ton of awkward pictures. All because my arms are too short for me to have a decent selfie and I refuse to geta selfie stick thats just a NO NO. But despite that I loved it.

After that, we walked thru the botanic gardens which is just right next to the Opera House. In the botanic gardens, there is a place where they have a lot of lights and it's just beautiful but I haven't been there yet. After walking a longish distance we arrived at Hyde Park we just had a small break played some games with the group leaders and then head off to QVB (Queen Victoria Building). This building is super fancy, and I'm not just talking about the building itself, it has designer stores, expensive restaurants and a chocolate store that are just too much. It also connects to a train station on their 1 level where there are more affordable shops. 

                                       

That was most of what we did that day, tho it took a lot of time because we need it to walk it wasn't a lot.

Stay tuned for more updates

Bye Felicia 

Goofing around Sydney P. 1

     The weekend arrived here and my plans included finding Dory and take a very basic picture in the Opera house. I had the chance to visit the aquarium and sightseeing Sydney all to an event and program offered by my school.

First stop finding Dory. It all started on Friday around noon we had to take the train to the city, which for me was a first, the ride was quite interesting the trains are so fancy and cool. We arrived to our station and then had to walk just for a little while, but eventually got to the aquarium. 

The aquarium is not a big as others might be but it has most of what you would expect of an aquarium. My mission was to find dory, and I did there was a whole tank full of dory's but eventually just found one and decided to OBVIOUSLY snap a funny picture.

The rest of the aquarium was very cool they had a lot of different sharks. After being done with a successful mission I joined some friends for food and drinks. Before you go all cray cray the drinking age is 18 so everything is fine. Anyways they decided for a place where it was happy hour so beers were only $5AUD. That was our first and "last" stop. As we were walking towards the train station we came across a backpacker bar called "The Scary Canary", which also happen to have the happy hour deal so another beer for $5 ! the place was very crowded so we had to share the table with some random dudes that ended up being cool.
   *FUN FACT: they were from Chile and they did not know that I could understand all they were saying until one of them ask me where I was from.

To keep it short I'll share my sightseeing in another post,

So stay tuned

Bye Felicia

The Australian version of Welcome Week = O-week

  Orientation week, Welcome week or O-week is pretty much the same thing everywhere you go. An introduction for the new students on what to expect in the school. the thing about O-week here is that they actually offer it before every semester, not like in the US that most of the schools only have orientation week their fall semester. 

 O-week was pretty entertaining there was so much to do. Workshops, activities and tours around the school and the big library were some of the options of all you could do. One of the things I did on my first day of O-week was attending a big event of people that are part of the human sciences majors. In this event, I had to choose a mentor which I think most of us know what that is. Anyway, we had a tour around the school and got our school ID's. Big shocker, I found out id pictures ARE NOT MY THING.

   After that event around 2:00 all international, exchange, and study abroad students had a different introductory talk on how things work around here, our visa and all those shenanigans. At the end, there was a massive Zumba flash mob it was super awkward. Then we had a tour library but there is not so much to share about it (add thinking emoji).

Another thing that happens during O-week is that all clubs and societies set up different stalls so you can join or just ask about what they do. One big difference from the clubs and societies from NCC to here is that to join some clubs or societies you have to pay from 50c up to 5 AUD or more. This "payment" of course gives you different benefits, for example, if you join the food society and pay 5 dollars you will receive free food once a week from an event. Too bad I did not join, big surprise right ?! 

Well I hope you get an Idea of what O-week is here in Australia (or at least in the school I am at the moment ) *again thinking emoji here*

Stay tuned for more updates

BYE FELICIA