Don't forget your sunnies!

1:37PM Monday

The sun is so intense here. You can feel it as soon as you walk outside. Also, there are skin cancer clinics on nearly every corner, that and Baskin Robins. haha

I've spent the last few days meeting people and exploring the town and buying necessities. I've met quite a few awesome people. Sarah, Noelle and Jenny have adopted me as a roommate, since I still have no new flat-mates. Although, on that subject, I am working on that, I went to the main office today to inquire about moving into an apartment with more students and they're trying to find something for me today or tomorrow- so lets all keep our fingers crossed.

On Saturday night I went out on the "pub crawl" and I mentioned to ONE PERSON that I had never drank before and soon the ENTIRE BUS was offering to buy me drinks and/or take care of me if I got wasted. It was pretty hilarious. Drinking is a really big part of the youth culture here, more so even than in the U.S. because the drinking age is only 18, but it's more about going out to bars than it is about having house parties. Boxed wine is really popular among college kids, mostly because it's cheap (and alcohol is EXPENSIVE here), but boxed wine is called "Goon" and the thing to do is drink Goon before you go out then just have a few cocktails at the bar. For those of you who are wondering, I did NOT get "wasted" lol. With the tour I was on I got one free drink at each bar we went to and I drank less than half of each drink. Also, shots are half the size here that they are in the U.S. I had a really great time though, the clubs play mostly American dance music and Sufers Paradise (the big club/tourist district here) has a really big international population. I had a funny moment though, when I was standing in the bathroom talking to Sarah and Jenny, and this girls comes out and goes "WOAH! You all have accents! Weird... where are you from?" Another guy came over and asked us if we were Canadian, because we sounded like we had Canadian accents. I told him I was from Ohio, so it's close enough. Overall, I had a blast, let me tell you- you haven't partied until you've partied in Australia. :P

Yesterday, I spent most of the day at the beach- loving my SPF 50. My adoptive roommates and I went down to Main Beach, it's less tourist-y than Surfers, and laid out. Australian people are SO friendly, everyone who walked by said hello to us and wanted to know where we were from. Australian guys are also really competitive with each other. There was a wooden platform that hung over one of the sand dunes and one guy was doing back-flips off of it and soon enough there were seven of them up there all trying to show each other up. It was rather interesting, Noelle has a picture that I'll try to steal so you can see what I'm talking about.

((MAGDA- Sarah, Noelle and Jenny have a roommate from Germany named Nieko and he and I were talking about how Germany has American T.V. shows but they get them a few seasons behind and he told me that in Germany they are only on season 4 of House! So he hasn't seen the finale yet! ))

Today I got my Griffith I.D. and a GOCARD for the bus, I also joined the student guild so I can get discounts on my books and such. I'm not sure what is going on tonight, I know that the village is having an orientation BBQ around 5PM. I'm going to head back over to Sarah, Jenny and Noelle's apt soon.

One more observation- very few things are taboo here. For example, in the U.S. adult stores are kept off main streets and have no windows and require ID to get in- they're really shady, right? Well here it's a big market and they're just open stores on the streets or in the mall anyone can come or go and people carry around shopping bags clearly marked "Condom Kingdom" and such- there is no discretion. Which I found interesting. It's just a cultural difference.

But anyway, that's all for now! :)