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| Blue Mountains |
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| Sky Diving |
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| Bogey Hole |
I guess I’ve been in Australia for over a month now. It’s crazy how fast time flies. I’m so used to my life here. I’m starting to feel like more and more of a local.
Classes are going well. Project Management has been extremely interesting for me. It reminds me of a class I took last semester called Systems Engineering and Management. It’s funny how I can be on the complete other side of the globe and find similarities in our curriculum and classes. I’m enjoying my business classes too. The workload is starting to pickup as the semester goes on. I have assignments and quizzes every week just like back home. The closer we get to mid-semester break the more tests and essays I have. In a few short weeks my friends and I are heading to New Zealand. We’ll rent a camper van and closest friends came to visit me for her spring break and I got to act as her tour guide.
Last Saturday I went on a Sydney harbor cruise along with about 100+ exchange students. We got to view the Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera house as the sun set on the water. On Monday I went to Hunter Valley vineyards. While I was there I (finally) saw a wild Kangaroo. The vineyards were lovely and so was the wine. On Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday I went to my classes and got to show Michelle around my new city of Newcastle. On Thursday afternoon I did something I never thought I would do, I went skydiving. And holy cow it was insane… Freefalling through the sky is the most wild feeling. On Friday I went to Blue Mountains for the first time. It was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking at sunset. My friends and I are planning a trip to go back and I’ll be able to hike the waterfalls more. This week has been crazy busy between my classes, acting as both a tour guide and tourist in my new country. Learning the public transportation schedule can be a struggle some times. Some days it’s on your side and other days, well it’s not. After I dropped off Michelle at the airport the other day I decided to catch a the train back to Newcastle and not stay in Sydney for another day. I missed the first train by about 3 minutes so I waited for an hour for the next one. A storm rolled in which caused major delays on the trip and turned a 2 hour and 20 minute train ride into 3 and a half hours. The trains also couldn’t run all the way into Newcastle because of the weather so I was dropped off at a station a little farther from campus as normal. On a normal day this wouldn’t be so bad but because of the delays I ended up missing the last bus from Broadmeadow Station to campus. I ended up having to call an uber even though the prices spiked up to be way more expensive than what I wanted to pay. You win some, you lose some. I can’t complain too much because I’m still having so much fun living and learning in Australia.
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Junior Donna Quedens is spending the spring 2019 term in Australia through our U of A Exchange program at the University of Newcastle.
Read more from Donna at https://lifedownunder.blog/
Don't miss your opportunity to study or intern abroad! Start your search at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/
