Greetings from Australia

Joe Bushman, Verrazano Class of 2014, checks in from Australia.

Before going to Geelong for my actual class, I flew down to Sydney with LisaMarie for New Years and did what tourists do best, touring! The city was beautiful, and we tried to see as much of the city as we possibly could in two days. Sydney was cleaner than New York, for the most part, besides all of the New Years Eve trash. We stayed just a short train ride outside of Sydney in Parramatta. Besides the mall and our hotel, that part of town was fairly dead and had huge cockroaches.  We took a train out to the Blue Mountains for a day. We hiked for an hour and did some more - you called it - touring.  We took a ride down the world's steepest train tracks, at an angle of 52º, down to the bottom of the valley. That whole day was an experience I will never forget.

Upon arrival in Geelong I was stuck outside of my room because I was never given the key. My roommate had arrived earlier in the day and was now out walking around in town, with the key. Luckily he returned not terribly long after I arrived. We met up with the rest of the students doing the Australia Today program and took a short walking tour of the local area in Geelong. After realizing the super market was closing in five minutes we ran over to get some supplies and half of the group wasn’t allowed inside the store because they didn’t make it in time. They stood outside the door and shouted inside, to the students, for supplies they would need for their apartments. This was definitely a good way to aggravate the locals the first day we arrived.

Joe Bushman (second from left), Lisa Migliorisi (third from left)

Over the next few days we all traveled around Geelong and Melbourne and started our geography class. Our first essay is due this Thursday, and our second one next week. There is definitely a lot more work than I expected but it still doesn’t make me any less excited about being in Australia.