First week in Sydney!

Hey everyone! Welcome to my Sydney blog. I’ll be posting updates for the next several months about my experiences in Sydney. So far, it’s been amazing! I love the city and I love where I live. I live in an international student hostel just outside of the city and in the heart of Little Italy. The hostel is basically a dorm for people who are traveling. Being a transfer student in college, I was never able to live in the dorms and I always felt like I missed a bit of the college experience. This is sure making up for it!

When I first got to the hostel I had a bit of trouble getting to know people. As far as I know, I’m the only American, and so a lot of people were intimidated that I speak fluent English and they are still learning. After a few days they got over that, so now it’s a lot of fun! I love learning about different cultures and learning new languages and this is the perfect place to do that. My best friends here so far are from Holland and Sweden. I’m trying really hard to stop saying dude because I don’t want it to rub off on them :).

It’s great that the hostel is in Little Italy, because we have amazing Italian restaurants and gelato all over the place. We’re also close to Thai, Indian, and Japanese restaurants. I’d say I lucked out there because I love to eat and there’s some good stuff here! It’s also cheaper than I expected, which is a nice surprise.

Unfortunately, dorm life does come with its downsides…It’s currently 11 pm and my next door neighbor is blasting cheesy Swedish music that sounds kind of like the Baywatch theme song over and over …I half expect David Hasslehoff to run out of the room in slow motion. Eh, could be worse.

I’ve been able to tour around a lot of the city already; here are some pictures that I’ve taken so far. It’s a beautiful city and it’s just about to be the beginning of spring so the weather here has been PERFECT. I was struggling with my allergies when I first got here since everything is blooming, but I found Claritin at one of the local drug stores so now I’m good to go. I also found peanut butter!

This is my bedroom. Yes Mom, it’s already dirty. What else did you expect? :) For some reason they gave me a bunk bed even though I’m living on my own. It’s actually a good thing because I can have friends stay over and it’ll be easy.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Opera House

Bondi Beach

Another Bondi Beach

Hyde Park

I can’t believe that I’ve only been here a week. I’ve done and seen so much already that I can’t imagine what life is going to be like for at least the next six months. I’m excited to find out! I’ll update my blog every few weeks, so stay tuned!