There! (And no where near back again!)

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Hey!

So I promised quite a few people I would be keeping a blog, and so I will try to keep that promise. I think some people (you know who you are) were already getting quite impatient. I was originally planning on doing this in both Dutch and English, and if the people who don't know english still really want me to I can. But to be honest it will take up quite a bit more time than I originally thought.

So the reason I haven't posted yet, is because there simply isn't much to tell yet. The flight was long.....very very long and I have discovered that even I can only sit through so much television in one sitting. Sadly I didn't get much sleep because of the turbulence.

By the time I arrived in Sydney I was so tired I just had enough energy left to be somewhat polite to my airbnb hosts (I hope) and plant mysef face first in on a bed.

The next day I figured I'd just go to the university campus ASAP, but that didn't quite go according to plan.

So I got an OPAL card, the general use public transport card in Sydney, and got to Sydney central. Now I had an e-mail from the campus telling me to "Just take the train to campus" and since the campus is called Hawkesbury I thought it couldn't possibly be wrong to take the train to Hawkesbury river.....I mean, it has the name in it and everything.

I was VERY wrong.

Turns out Hawkesbury river is quite a bit to the north of Sydney. So I had to go back to Sydney, take another train, and by the time I had lugged my 27 kg suitcase all the way to the university village it was 4 pm and they went: "Why didn't you take the shuttle bus?"



The best way I can discribe the university village is to say it reminds me rather strongly of center parcs, except you share your house with total strangers. Since then, my first few days have consisted mostly of running around campus, trying to make sure everything is sorted for me to start classes in a bit and me trying to find my way around.

Sydney is somehow much, much bigger than I was expecting it to be. (I thought things tend to look smaller when you return to them after having been there as a child?). I have only been in Richmond, the suburb where the village is, and Black town, the closest suburb with a large shopping centre, up till now.

I will be adding some random photo's of my trip here, and the village. Like I said, not much to show yet but hopefully there will be more next week!



Marieke

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Photos

Preparations
Getting all this stuff into my suitcase was a whole adventure on it's own! luckily i had my mom to help me. I just hope I'll get it all back in there in a few months.

Suitcase
Because everyone in the world needs to be able to guess where I am from!!

mom
We Always go drink coffee at the same place on the airport whenever someone is leaving :)

Ready...
....

seeeettttttt...
.....

GO!
.

Landing gear
We got some nice views from this thing.....untill it just showed static halfway through.

Oliver
I had my good friend Oliver to keep me company when movies got boring.

Hong Kong flight board
It's a good thing they at least put the flight numbers in normal letters, otherwise I would have been in trouble right there.

Hong Kong
At least the view was pretty during the 3 hours I had to wait here.

Hong Kong
.

AirBNB
The view from my airbnb on my very first morning in Sydney!!

Campus
The very first part of the campus I entered!

My house!!
At night, but still. will put a better picture up there at some point :)

BBQ
The closest BBQ near my house (you can actually see the back of it in the background)

More Campus
.

Train view
The view from the train to Black Town. I THINK those are the blue mountains in the background.....but the look kinda small :P

Room
My room as is looked when I first entered it. kinda......empty :P

Dr WHO
After three short days I decided I would go nuts if I had to look at 4 white walls for 5 months, so I bought the nerdiest poster I could find. I love it <3

media room
So this place has a full set of payview channels that all residents of the village are allowed to use.

F1
And luckily for me, it includes F1 :D

Comments

['Mum']

Het avontuur Is begonnen!
Leuk wat foto's te zien van daar... ziet er goed uit.

[Evelien]

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