Friday: We got to Canberra around 5pm and got a free drive to Weeden Lodge with since we’re exchange students. When we arrived at Weeden, we got a bunch of paperwork to fill out. We got to our rooms and unpacked everything from our suitcases. I was surprised by some of the things I found in my suitcase since I had packed it so long ago, so that was nice. We also found out that our shower doesn’t drain. Next, we left for the mall nearby to get some snacks to celebrate that we finally got to Canberra. They have different things here, so we spent quite a bit of time exploring the options. We came back and watched the only movie Kiley has on her iTunes, Divergent, and ate our snacks. It was a good first day.
Saturday: We met my parents in the morning to go to the mall for essentials and groceries. We got a pillow, blanket, cleaning stuff, and school supplies before getting groceries. We also got prepaid phone plans at Telstra. They have Aldi here which is so great! It’s cheaper here than other stores just like in Iowa. After that, we went to Coles to get the rest of our groceries. We thought it was about time that we start celebrating, so we all got a bunch of delicious ice cream. We took everything back to our apartment and put it away after that. Then, we headed to my parents hotel to hangout since it was super nice. We watched some TV and ate some dinner and realized our phones still weren’t working. Kiley and I decided we would go back the next day to figure it out. We had a great evening, but it was also hard knowing that I wouldn’t see my parents again for 4 months. They drove us back and dropped us off. There were a few tears and several hugs. It was great that they could come and spend a little time with us to get us settled before leaving to go back. Sunday: We tried out a church nearby that morning. The service was pretty long, but it was nice to get to church again. After that, we left for the mall to use the Wi-Fi and get our phones fixed. We ate at a café there, and I got a new sim card for my phone that worked way faster than the last one. Kiley had to buy a new phone since hers was locked from her US carrier. She got a cheap phone, and we went back home to make dinner and go to bed early since we were still exhausted from New Zealand. Monday: We had orientation from 9-noon. We first met some of our closer friends on that first day. They threw a lot of information at us that first day. A lot of it was very informative and included important things that we had to do that week. It’s always hard to sit in a lecture room for 3 hours after summer, but they had free food which was really nice. All the exchange students got free entry into Sky Zone for unlimited jumping time. It was really fun to jump around and do flips into the foam pit and get to know other students better. Afterwards, some of us went to a chocolate café right next to it to talk a little, and some people got hot chocolate or shakes. Tuesday: We had orientation again from 9-noon that day. A surfer guy came in to talk about surf camp in October. He was really funny and a total surfer. It was pretty entertaining to watch him pretend surf up front. We signed up for surf camp that day because we knew we didn’t want to miss it. Wednesday: We worked on our checklist of things to get done that week for most of the day. We also got a membership for the gym we go to. That night, we went out to the Lighthouse bar. It was a big party for students since classes started the next week. There was some theme, but we didn’t have a lot of extra clothes to dress up with. We had to pay to get in which wasn’t very fun, but we danced a lot and talked with some of our new friends. Kiley, Nicola, and I left somewhat early because we were still super tired. Thursday: We went to the gym for the first time in forever (yes I sang that in my head like the Frozen song). It was pretty great to do Body Pump and swim in the morning. We worked on a lot of things on our list again. We got our student ID cards, figured out where our classes were, and more. Friday: I honestly don’t remember much about what we did this day because it was a while ago. I’m sure we went to the gym, did laundry, and packed for our trip to Syndey and the Blue Mountains the next day.
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AuthorA.J.Sporrer Archives
December 2016
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