Sunday was our free day before classes and the day to day regimen set in. I got to sleep in a little bit before I met with two friends to go walk around campus to find our classes and explore the city more. We walked down Rundle Mall, an outside pedestrian mall with a variety of different shops, and then ventured to Victoria Square and down towards China Town. We had fun enjoying the nice sunny day, taking our time to really enjoy the city. (The weather here has actually been really nice, a lot warmer than I expected. It’s been probably 60-65 degrees every afternoon. Everyone here says it’s freezing, but not to me since I came from about the same temperature in Eugene.)
After our exploration we met up with most of the rest of the group to go to a Mexican restaurant on our street for dinner and some margaritas. (I am going to enjoy when I’m back in the states and everything will seem so cheap!)
So far I’ve had class Monday through Wednesday. I am taking Australian Politics as well as Indigenous Cultures and Histories. I’m pretty sure I picked two of the hardest classes here, and most Australian students think it’s crazy that we are taking two winter school classes. I have Australian Politics with Taylar from my group; good thing she is in this class with me or I think I would be overwhelmed out of my mind. I’m kind of wishing I actually knew more about American politics because that may be helping me, but so far I am pretty lost. It makes it difficult when they are taking about politicians or bills that we know absolutely nothing about. The class is actually pretty interesting despite not understanding a lot of it. This class is 3 hours long, plus a 1 hour tutorial for 3 days a week. We have 4 professors for this class and two of them have held major roles in the political scene here. Most of the students grew up watching these people on TV… so supposedly they are a very big deal. It’s good to be learning from the best.
Indigenous Cultures and Histories actually seems to be a pretty interesting class as well, but I’m struggling to get adjusted to it. It helps that there are like 8 from our group in this class though. This class is 2 hours long, plus a 1 hour tutorial for 3 days a week. I really like the professor so far and I think it will be a very interesting class because she is actually an Indigenous Australian. I follow the lectures, but then we have tutorials where we have discussions about readings and the lectures that are difficult to follow. I have to focus very hard on what people are saying in order to understand them and try to think of something intelligent to say that goes with the discussion. It’s sure a good thing that I don’t speak another language or I would be completely lost.
On Tuesday, it was Katie’s birthday so a few of us went out to a bar close to our apartment to celebrate. They had a live band playing that was actually really good, so we kept moving to tables that were closer to the stage whenever people left. We were entertained by some lady that was super drunk and dancing to the band. A couple of the girls got up and danced to a song they liked and then this old creeper guy came up and wanted to dance with all of us. It was all in good fun, but kind of weird.
I don’t have any classes tomorrow (Thursday) so I’m excited to have a day off just to take everything in and schedule out all the work I have to do while I’m here.
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