Ready to Go!

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I can’t sleep because I’m way too excited to leave tomorrow, so here goes my very first blog entry! I’ll be studying this semester at the University of Queensland in Australia with about 30 other students (half from my school and half from Union College). This program is biology/environmental based, which fits perfectly with my duel majors in Biology and Environmental Studies. Homestays are the only type of housing offered for this program, so my friend Alexa and I will be members of the Smith family for the next couple months! They sound like a great family and I can’t wait to meet them.

Everyone will be taking the same 4 classes together: Australian culture, Sustainability Down Under, Marine Biology and Terrestrial Ecology. In early November our classes at UQ end, we have a 10-day break, then we spend the next two weeks performing a field study as we travel around the north island of New Zealand. To top it all off, most of us are stopping in Fiji on the way home for a 6-day vacation! This is the life.

I’m all packed and ready to leave at 7am for the airport!! That leaves me about 3 hours to sleep tonight but I'll make up for it on the plane. The flight has layovers in both Chicago and LA before landing in Queensland for a whopping 22 (or maybe 23?) hours in the air. However many hours it is, I know it’ll be too long.

Right after landing we travel to Stradbroke Island for our first field trip (of 4 total) where we’ll have UQ Orientation and study at the biology station. Hopefully my next entry will have some pictures and more to share about that!

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