Day 1 Sydney

So after we got off the plane we had to go through customs, which was fine because I didn’t have any food or medications. They did ask me where I was staying that night which I couldn’t answer but that didn’t end up mattering. So after we got out of customs we saw butler people who started directing all of us. They put us on a bus with the kids who were going to the same school. It was really hot out btw. So there are 22 kids who are going to Melbourne with Butler. The butler person on our bus was Dara and she is our SSC or Student Service Coordinator. She is the one who looks after Melbourne kids and she lives in Melbourne. She is approximately 28.

So we drove to the Sydney Academy of Sport which was like an hour away and it took us right past the city so that was cool and we got to see some of the suburbs. It was weird to drive on the left haha. So by the time we got to the Academy, which is like a sports camp basically with all these fields and such and has a little motel kind of set up with a dining hall, it was time for lunch. I was rooming by the way with three other girls: one from Tufts, one from Brandeis, and one from Fordham. At lunch they gave us a little introduction talk. Then we had some free time before we had a meeting about our mobile phones.

They had a service company Global Gossip come in and gave us free phones. Its actually the same phone I got in Greece. Anyways, then they tried to get us to sign up for more money with their company because they gave us $10 free dollars on our phone. All the phones here are pretty much the pre paid version. Our SSC, Dara, hinted to us before hand that they were not necessarily the best deal. So I took the free phone and money because they had unlocked the phone so I could then take it to any other service provider to get a different sim card.

After that we had free time. You could choose to do a nature walk, play basketball, or watch a movie. I was pretty tired but I didn’t want to go to sleep so I went to see the movie with some of the girls in my program. It was also redic hot out at 38 degrees Celsius which is like over 100 degrees farenheight so I didn’t feel like hiking. And not that this would have stopped me from hiking but the long plane ride caused my ankles to swell. Haha I looked down at first and wondered when I had developed kankles. It took over two days for me to see my ankle bones again. The movie was somewhat about Australia but it was pretty bad but o well. Then we had dinner. Thankfully the food at this place was pretty good. After that we had a beach and bush safety demonstration. They pretty much told us that we could die in multiple ways. Australia is a pretty dangerous country. Out of the 700 most deadly animals they have something like 500 of them. They also have the most dangerous spider. You can also die from their sharks, snakes, and alligators, including freshwater alligators! I didn’t even know those existed. Then there is the rip tides and the bad surf etc.
That was pretty hard to sit through because it was long and we were all really tired. So after that we were all in bed before 9pm haha. I slept pretty much the entire night I woke up an hour before we needed to but it was not very bad jet lag at all.