Student Bloggers

If you haven’t read my last blog post yet (which you should read now before you continue reading this one!!!), you’ll know that I’ve been in Australia for a couple of days now. My first few days were in Sydney for Arcadia’s orientation, but as of Thursday February 9^th, I am officially in my host city of Melbourne! My housing accommodation is in the Arcadia Student Centre in St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne that is very close to the beach. Once again it was no surprise that the temperature can make you melt and burn. I’m pretty sure it was 96­º around 11 am, but luckily we did not have a busy schedule planned for us.

The first few days after our arrival was kind of slow to be honest – unpacking, organizing my dressers and closet, cleaning my room, filling out the housing contract, struggling for wifi, and crying about the heat (at least I was internally crying – I’m a winter baby!). Our house is pretty big, and very comfortable and suitable for the twelve of us living here. I made the unfortunate mistake of buying all of my groceries at once and struggling to bring it back to the house in 90º weather since I’m just used to doing that and having my car to load it in. My first night, one of my housemates made homemade pasta with garlic bread and bought wine for dinner for the house to kickstart our semester living together and it was delicious! (Shout out to Raechyl!) After that, it was cereal, sandwiches, and boxed pasta for the next two days.

During those two days, I began to explore a little of St. Kilda which includes going to the beach that is ten minutes away. Yay for not getting sunburn! (I’m notorious for getting sunburned very easily). There are a lot of cute cafés, restaurants, and shops within walking distance and the sales are pretty awesome too. My housemates and I also went out one night to an outdoors “club” in Melbourne Central called Section 8, which was hosting an International Students Night with live music and a DJ. On our way back via tram, we saw a lot of firetrucks speeding past us and the tram had to reroute right before our stop. When we approached our house, we saw the firetrucks were stopped in front of our house, and we were greeted by nine firefighters who were dispatched to our house because an alarm went off. Turns out nothing was at fault or wrong, just a really sensitive smoke detector in one of the bedrooms triggered by a moth. 

On Sunday morning, I had orientation with the Melbourne Welcome Summer Program, which is a program only for study abroad and exchange students. They provided accommodations for us at Queens College in the University of Melbourne for the four nights of orientation. After check in, we had lunch and met our host and orientation group members (there were 19 groups of about ten students each). After an hour of icebreakers, we had our first group challenge – a timed scavenger hunt through the streets and laneways of of Melbourne! Some items on the list included buying a crazy souvenir, screaming like a rooster in Chinatown, eating a spoonful of Vegemite (EWW), speed eating a soft serve at Macca’s (Aussie slang for McDonald’s), and take a silly group photo at the rooftop bar (we had to climb nine flights of stairs!!!) After the scavenger hunt, we had dinner and downtime before our night event – salsa dancing! We had two instructors teach us how to dance salsa, merengue, and bachata. There was even a dancing competition and one of our housemates was crowned the Merengue King! (Go Kolton!)

On Monday, we had to wake up bright and early because we had to leave at 7:30am for our surfing lesson! The surfing instructors were really nice and helpful, though that didn’t stop me from going under for a few seconds and swallowing ocean water (again, EWW). I didn’t successful ride a wave, but at least I attempted. After that, we went to the Narana Aboriginal Cultural Centre, where we learned about Aboriginal art and history, learned about the plants (and tried one too), learned to throw a boomerang (did not succeed, but at least I tried), and fed an emu! For our night event, we went on a Night Spot Tour, where we went on a tour of some of Melbourne’s best secret hidden bars and ended at a club called Pulp and partied for a bit before heading back to campus. (Unluckily, the trams stopped running before we left so we had to walk the 30 minutes back, and then it started to rain a bit, but we had a lot of fun nonetheless).

Tuesday was no different. In the morning, there was yoga before we went to Melbourne Central and visited the Eureka Tower, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Royal Botanical Gardens. The Eureka Tower is Melbourne’s tallest building, and has residential apartments with an 360º panoramic observation deck on the 88^th floor. The elevators are so fast that it only takes 38 seconds to get to the top (talk about your ears popping). The view of Melbourne is beautiful, and the Vertigo Eureka photo booth is the best photo I have of my time there. At the National Gallery of Victoria, we did an art tour of Aboriginal and colonization paintings and learned a little more of Australia’s history. At night, we had a game of trivia and an Aussie film. 

Wednesday was our last full day, which started with an AFL (Australian Football League) Workshop, where we learned the basic skills of Aussie Footy, such as handball and kicking, with AFL representatives/coaches. We then did a campus tour (we have a lot of cafés on campus!) before going to Melbourne Central to find some gear for the night’s event. We had a formal dinner with the Master of Queens College and took a lot of group pictures (we looked very sharp). Our night event? The Aussie Down Under Party!!! Theme: Australia à Aussie-themed costume to celebrate the end of the program!! Let’s just say there was a lot of body paint, glitter, Australian flags, and dancing happening all night! (I would give a shout out to the DJ, but I never caught his name). 

Thursday morning was checkout time, as well as “recovery pancakes” for breakfast (Y-U-M!). After breakfast, I went home and I was upset that orientation was over. Friday was Study Abroad and Exchange Students Welcome Day with a briefing on important information such as our safety, visa, support services, and Australian culture. During the lunch BBQ, I signed up for MUSEX (Melbourne University Student Exchange Society) which is a social club the connects local students who have studied abroad before with incoming international students, and host a lot of events to socialize and meet other students. I met a lot of students who did not participate in the Melbourne Welcome Summer Program, some even very close to my hometown in NJ! I’m really excited to join more clubs and to begin this semester already!

I want to also give a special shout out to the student coordinators of the Melbourne Welcome Program: Jess B., Michael K., and Edwin K. Most of all, I want to give the biggest shout out to my host leader Sian A. for being an amazing, dope, and wonderful leader and making this orientation one of the best adventures of my life, and for having the best orientation group! To Group Three, the Kangaroos, you guys are AWESOME!

Here’s hoping for more adventure!