O-Week

With another week until school begins, my university decided to host tons of events for Orientation Week (O-Week). With everything from signing up for clubs, outdoor movies, foam parties, and a cruise through the harbor, I knew my week was going to be jam packed. Monday started off with free pancakes at 10 am and the rest of the day filled with visiting tons of club's tables and getting free stuff. I even got to take a picture with Ryan Gosling! Throughout the day, the main walkway of campus was completely filled with students. It was almost like going through a maze to get from place to place. I'm pretty sure I've never seen so many people in one place before! After signing up for the wakeboard and waterski club and the outdoors club, we headed off to a free tour of the Human Diseases museum which was really interesting but also made us lose our apetites. Monday night we finally went downtown to a club called SideBar where we had a blast and of course ended up meeting more American exchange students. I'm continually asking myself, where are all of the Australians here? On Tuesday a big group of us took the bus to Bondi Beach which is a very famous tourist spot. The water was blue, the sand was white, and the sky was sunny. The water was pretty shallow so we could walk really far out and still stand. It was so much fun diving into waves...and being knocked over by them. All of the girls and I had quite a few attempts at taking a group photo in the water with a waterproof camera, but this seems to be the best one because we kept getting swallowed by waves from behind right as the camera flashed.

After an amazing day of tanning and swimming we headed off to our first try of Australian mexican food and a place called Beach Burritos! Considering they used white rice in their food, I'm not sure I can say it lived up to anything I've tried in California, but it will just have to do for now. On Wednesday we walked to Coogee Beach for yet another day of tanning and swimming. Are you starting to see a trend here? I feel like I end up at the beach almost every other day! Sleeping in the sand that day proved to be a bit difficult because we were all so excited for that night. We were going to be taking a cruise through the harbor downtown! The cruise was set up by my apartment complex so it was full of students and free booze. So far I have to admit that this night was one of the coolest things I've done here so far! We stood outside on the boat as we sailed right under the Harbor Bridge and past the Opera House. It was breathtaking and so surreal! 

The night was amazing, especially because we had originally been expecting rain all week! We all "skulled" our drinks, as they call it here which means to finish our drinks, as we went under the bridge, and then danced the rest of the night away inside with good friends and good music. Unfortunately it rained on Thursday and Friday, which did keep us from going to the zoo as originally planned, but didn't stop us from trying to go out both nights. The on campus bar, the Roundhouse, was hosting a foam party on Thursday night, so all of my girlfriends and I went shopping to find cheap dresses that we didn't mind getting ruined by the foam. #matching! 

However the party was full by about 8 pm, way before we had planned on going, so we ended up just running around in the rain trying to find a place to spend the rest of the night. Friday night was a paint party hosted by my apartment complex downtown! Again we had to go out and buy clothes we didn't mind getting ruined by paint, but this time we actually put them to good use. The party was so much fun and by the time we left I had paint in my eyes, my mouth, my ears, up my nose, and pretty much everywhere else on my body. Here's a before and after photo so that you get the gist.

Saturday night there was a Mardi Gras parade downtown however we didn't get there early enough to actually see anything. We spent most of the time wandering the streets hoping to find an opening in the huge mass of people but we ended up unlucky. This is the only photo I have, and I only got it by standing on my tip toes trying to let the camera see over the crowd in front of me. 

O-Week was so much fun and I was so sad to see it end because that meant school was beginning. I haven't been in a classroom since the end of December so I was definitely not excited to be ending my "summer/winter" break now. However, it turned out to be a very easy transition week back to school because all of my classes were canceled except two! So again I spent the week at the beach almost every other day, celebrating a friend's 21st birthday downtown, and going to a Circus themed party hosted by the on campus bar. Sounds like a good week to me! Today (Friday) I leave for a weekend-long surfing trip! We're going to camp out on the beach for two nights and surf all day long, while of course pausing occasionally to feed kangaroos and pet sting rays. Hopefully when I get back I'll actually know a thing or two about surfing and can maybe go out at the local beaches! Cross your fingers for me!