G'day mates!

It's Thursday morning and already the weekend for me! Today, I am going to lunch with friends Jessie and Ashley, and then we are going to the beach and into the town for awhile.

Yesterday, I skyped with my parents for the first time. After about 20 minutes they actually got the web cam to work and being able to see them was great!! Oh, the joys of technology. I can't imagine studying abroad years ago before computers and cell phones, just sending letters back and forth. Being able to see people from home while chatting makes it much easier when it comes to missing everyone - this way I know nothing has really changed!

Obviously it's a tough life when your weekend begins at noon on Wednesday. After lunch and skyping, I went down to the beach with friends to lay out and enjoy the sun. It was a beautiful day out! Around five I came back for dinner. The meals here are made and served by hospitality students, and since it's the beginning of the term it's either a hit or miss it seems. Most of the recipes are good, but sometimes I don't know if the meal is made the correct way - ex: we had steak sandwiches for lunch a few days ago, and you had to kind of bite, rip, and tear to eat it... needless to say I ate a lot of fruit and salad at that meal.

Every Wednesday night there is pick up soccer on the tennis courts, so I went out last night to play. It is set up so the tennis net is taken down, and hockey net sized goals are on each far end of the court. The court is also very sandy, so it was a bit slippery at first. I went with Mary and Jessa, and we were the only girls that were playing. A game of 4 on 4 had already started, so we watched until they called another team onto the field. I hoped on with three guys, and you could tell that at first they didn't think I would be any good, since I'm a girl. I was very happy to prove them wrong. Soon the older men that were there were putting one girl on each team, which wasn't really necessary since we could hold our own against the guys. By the end most of the guys knew my name and realized that they couldn't score on me very easily when I was playing defense or blocking the goal. It was so much fun, and I can't wait to go back every Wednesday.

It is interesting going to class here in Australia; obviously, it is a lot easier than going to a country that speaks a different language and trying to take classes in that language. However, there are still words are phrases that my Australian lecturers say and I have no idea what they are talking about. For instance, in my service management class, Juliet held up two different bags (which honestly seemed very similar to me) and said which one would you carry? And everyone was like "oh yes the country road one - everyone has one of those!" But I am the only American, so I just smiled and nodded. Later I googled "country road" and it is indeed a popular bag company. Who knew? Apparently all of the Australians. Another example of the culture barrier in class is when Mike and I were working on an exercise in class for Hospitality. There was a list of all different kinds of places you would get hospitality and we had to give examples of what they would have. Who knew there was a wine bar and an alcohol bar? What is a "takeaway shop?" And a "canteen" here is a cafeteria. So many things to learn!!

When we were in Cairns they gave us a presentation on "culture shock." Here a couple of interesting facts: it is not uncommon for Australians to be "partnered" instead of married. People could have been "partnered" for 20 years, have a couple of kids, and not be married. So strange.. but I think it goes along with their "no worries" philosophy. You don't really date here, you just become partnered. So a girl could be like "oh he is my partner" but then when you ask how long they have been together "oh three weeks." Again, weird. One other thing, Australians take their studies very seriously, but they never talk about it. Unlike in America when we say "I stayed up all night studying and all weekend!" They would just be like "really? I was at the beach all weekend." When in fact they were studying as well.

And yet again, I've written another very long post, but once you start blogging it's hard to stop!!