I'm writing first about what everything is like here in Australia because that's what a lot of people have been asking about. New Zealand was amazing as you've all seen from the pictures and I'm looking forward to writing about it in detail as soon as possible.
So I arrived in Australia with the picture in my head that I
would be greeted by my new roommates in my great new apartment who were excited
to meet me and have a great time this semester. The reality was that there was
no one in the apartment when I showed up, all the lights were off, and the RA
who brought me to my room had a terrible lisp and I couldn’t understand a word
she was telling me about the Village where I would be living for the next four
months. I did a little bit of investigating to find out who my roommates were
or at least what they were like, and with a few pieces of evidence, immediately
determined that they were some sort of Asian.
I was able to figure this out because most of the food in the cabinets
and in the refrigerator had only some kind of Asian writing on it, there were
more chopsticks in the sink drainer than regular cutlery, and there were shoes
outside of almost every door. By now I’ve met all of my roommates and I’m
wondering what exactly I put down in my housing application that got me into
this situation. I live with one guy from Rutgers (I flew halfway around the
world to live with a random Rutgers guy), two girls from Honk Kong, and I think
the last guy is from South Korea. The Korean guy and one of the Chinese girls
don’t speak English very well and I’ve only seen the other girl twice in the
last week and a half. Otherwise, the housing situation is GREAT! I have my own
room with my own bathroom and shower which is really nice and convenient. The
house we live in is modern and clean. Downstairs, there’s a kitchen, a sort of
dining room, and a living room with a few couches and a television with about
five channels (I’ve been watching a lot of cricket). There’s one bedroom
downstairs and four upstairs. The house/apartment is in a village of about 170
of these houses that’s at least a 10 minute walk from the main area of the
campus. There’s a small wooded area on one side of the village that is home to
some of the funkiest birds I’ve ever seen. The birds that walk around here,
like pigeons or little boring brown ones at home, are the kind of birds that
you would only see in America in a zoo or in a cage as someone’s pet. I wake up
to their loud unique noises and there’s one that I swear sounds like a crying
baby which really confuses me while I’m laying in bed half-conscious.
The campus itself is nice. There are a lot of grassy areas
around the campus and all of the lecture halls are clean and modern and all of
the high-tech things that the teachers use for their presentations actually
work which I’ve never seen at Rutgers. I’m taking three courses right now,
geology and biology for my natural science requirements, and Australian Media
as an elective. They’re all 100 level classes but they’re a little bit harder
than the 100 level classes that I’m used to at home. I have to write two essays
for each during the semester but I can’t complain about the 55 minute lectures.
I’ll be honest, everything kind of reminds me of Rutgers besides the fact that
people are a little bit friendlier in classes. I was able to introduce myself
to the people sitting next to me in most of my classes last week (the first
week of classes) and a random guy and his girlfriend who I’ve never met offered
me a ride from the Village to my class this morning because it was hot outside.
(I was already in the car when I thought, “wait a second, he’s a stranger”, but
I made it). I feel kind of busy during the days with classes and having to
prepare all of my meals for myself but I signed up for the gym and there might
be a baseball/softball club that I could play in.
The school is also pretty far outside of the city and it
takes at least an hour to get there by public transportation so it’s pretty
hard to be a tourist, but I’ve made the trip several times already and I’m
pretty familiar with the trains and buses around here. I’ve only seen the
famous Opera House in brief glimpses from the bus but my plan is to do as much
sightseeing as possible on Thursdays since I don’t have class that day. My
friends Taryn and Dani, are at a different school in Sydney and they live right
next to Bondi Beach which is one of the most popular beaches in Sydney. They’re
also right next to a bunch of Kosher restaurants and there’s a supermarket with
Kosher food near there that I stop in on my way back to school. I’ve been to
their apartment a couple of times already and on Shabbos we walked for about
four hours back and forth along the coastline to another beach which was all
just beautiful. I also met a family who’s a relative of a relative at home and
they took me out for dinner last week. Then the Mother got me in touch with her
brother who took me to see the Sydney Kings basketball team. (They’re a
professional team and I saw them in the league semifinals. It was a great game,
they won the series and now they’re in the finals).
So overall, despite the weird living situation, I feel like
things are going pretty well. I was really banking on the fact that my new
roommates would be the key to new friendships here, but that’s obviously not
happening and the Village is not the wonderful funland that I had pictured
before I arrived. Despite that, I’m trying to build whatever relationships I
can through people in class and this weekend I’m attending a sort-of shabbaton
put together by AUJS, the Australian version of Hillel (It stands for
Australasian Union of Jewish Students) which should be awesome. The weekend is
meant for meeting people and having fun and is not like NCSY shabbatons with
tons of D’var Torahs. From what I’ve read, AUJS replaces D’var Torahs with
alcohol. So like I said, I’m pretty busy with school and I’ve been going to the
gym and trying to enjoy the warm weather because I don’t know how long it will
last. I’m going to try to be as creative as possible with my free Thursdays and
see as much as I can. So things are good, I miss everybody, and hopefully I’ll
have some exciting pictures from Australia to show everyone soon. Byeeee
