I am having a great time so far at Bond! The school is beautiful! For classes, I am taking Sales Management, Advertising Principles and Practices, Internet Advertising, and Psych: Love, Sex, and Relationships.  In most of my classes there's students from all over the world- U.S., China, Indonesia, Africa, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Canada, New Zealand and Australia! In between classes and studying, I've been going to the pool, gym, beach, and doing fun things with my friends! There's always something going on here on campus like BBQ's, dinner parties, beach vollyball, and we just started Res Wars which is an on going competition between all of the residental buildings! There's dodgeball, trivia, footie, soccer, etc. and my building- Accomodation- is the Red Devils.  Last Wednesday, the first game was dosgeball and my team beat all the other girl's teams!...until the final round which we lost : (

  Tuesday was Australia Day! Everyone was celebrating and the Australians wear green and gold and have barbies on the beach all day and fireworks at night! (just like our 4th of July).
   I've been here for about 3 weeks and Wednesday was the first time it rained since I've been here! It's always sunny and hot! (but don't worry Dad I have been putting on A LOT of sunscreen every day and wearing my Ray Bans!) 8-)

I had a surfing lesson at Burleigh Heads beach with 3 of my friends on Saturday! There were about 12 people in the group lesson and the taught us how to paddle out and ride in with the waves the first part and then how to stand up for the second half of the lesson. I finally stood up and got to ride a wave and it was so much fun!! The waves were about 4 ft, not too high that day but it was good for beginners. Luckily, I didn't get stung by any blue bottle jellyfish.
In the picture are my friends Michelle, Tara, and Bonnie at Burleigh Heads Beach at the Surf Club.

Aussie words:
arvo: afternoon
mate: friend
barbie: barbeque
short/long black: my favorite coffee (expresso and milk). If you ask for an ice coffee in Australia you'll get a large drink filled with ice cream, expresso, mocha, milk, whip cream, and chocolate sauce...very sweet.
goon: boxed wine
Tim Tams: the best chocolate biscuits in the world! The Aussies bite them and then use them as a straw when drinking coffee so the chocolate melts
Vegemite = disgusting
Toilet: Restroom
Lift: elevator

Sushi at Teryaki Mate!

Today I arrived in San Francisco International Airport around 11:00 am and headed on the BART and then the F line street car into the city!
I saw the Golden Gate bridge from Pier 39 in Fisherman's Warf and walked around to a bunch of neat restaurants and stores. San Francisco is awesome! It's currently 4:45 pm here in CA and my plane to Sydney doesn't leave till 10pm so I have a while to wait in the airport.
I met a guy from Israel on the bus today who has been traveling around the United States for 2 months now.

I arrived in Sydney with a bunch of students also going to Bond. I met a few people on the long plane ride, which I slept most of the way. It was about 15 hours and I slept for most of the time and then watched the movie Public Enemies which was good! Finally I arrived in Sydney then we all got on a plane to Melbourne, the city where the Australian Open is! We then drove to Sorrento, an hour South to Oceanic Sorrento - Whitehall Guesthouse on the Mornington Peninsula, which was a 5 minute walk to the beach town down the road. One night we went on a boat ride and saw seals and kangaroos (they're everywhere) and got fish and chips :-/  for dinner. They call Ketchup tomato sauce here and they served sodas and waters on the boat, and gin and tonic bottles or Jim Beam cola cans.

The next day, we went to Melbourne to our next hotel, The Mantra, which was in the city closer to the airport. Our Arcadia guides, Cat and Mazz gave us a walking tour around the city, then we were free to explore on our own. The Mantra hotel was great...i shared a room with Steph, and 2 other girls shared another, and we had 2 bathrooms, a little kitchen, living room area and a balcony overlooking the city!

This picture is of the "Australian Open" flags and the arena where thy play!

We finally got to Brisbane and drove and hour south to Bond!! It's a little more hot and humid here, and it's soo pretty! The campus is gorgeous and it's a ten minute drive to the beach! My friend met an Australian from Byron Bay who drove us to the beach on Tuesday in Coolangatta, which is south of here, near the border of New South Wales. On one street, one side is NSW and the other side is Queensland and NSW doesn't use daylight savings time, so on one side of the street it was 12:00 and on the other it was 1:00! people get very annoyed with that. The beach we went to in Rainbow Bay was soo nice! It's home to the Quicksilver Pro and Roxy Pro/Pipeline masters. The waves were huge and everyone was either surfing or swimming!

That night we went to the International Dinner which was at Don's Tavern on campus with about 100 other students, outside, white table clothes, salad and different Indian and Mexican meals. It was so nice!

Jan 6 Boston to San Francisco

I will be spending 4 months in Australia, January 6th to April 25th at Bond University in Queensland.
I am currently packing and getting very excited!


I leave Wednesday Jan 6 from Boston to San Francisco where I spend 9 hours then fly to Sydney!
From Sydney, I go to south to Mebourne for orientation, "Bond Week". Then after three days of orientation I fly back up to Brisbane to Bond University.