Though jetlag is still in full swing, I've barely had a moment to sit down and take a breath since I've been here. After three days of information sessions and free dinners at local bars (cherished moments for my starving stomach... and wallet), yesterday we broke into teams for a full on scavenger hunt accross the city. By scavenger hunt of course I mean a cardio-intensive trek featuring oddities like chanting with local aussies, eating gozelme, rubbing a boar statue, and sprinting through the Royal Gardens. It was an exhausting but surreal day. After ending our day on Bondi Beach, we even retreated to a local hot-spot called Bucket List and we're fortunate to meet a young couple that treated eleven of us to our first real "shout" (free round of drinks). Four bottles of champagne later, I can happily relay that we've made our first real Australian friends - conveniently, rich ones at that. Rounding out our first weekend in the city, a group of us went to see an Australian football game at the Olympic park stadium. Though it took us half of the game to realize we weren't watching a rugby game (typical yanks, we are), we had the best time afterwards charging onto the field with the rest of the crowd to run around and play some football of our own! Oh, and we stopped by a playground on the way back to the train... the kid in me is loving this city.
Updates to come.
Lyndsay
