Making the Adjustment

Yesterday marked a week since I have been here.  I can't believe it.  It seems like I have been here forever- and I mean that in a good way.  I feel pretty well adjusted to my family and my living situation, to my roomies and other ASC students, I even feel pretty well adjusted to using public transportation.  The weather is much cooler today which is actually really nice.  Yesterday it was about 100 degrees and very humid.  I love hot weather but when you have to walk everywhere and there is no AC to escape to, it gets a little intense.  We started classes yesterday and it was really fun.  Somehow I ended up with my 2 dance classes both on Monday so I had my hip hop and ballroom classes.  It was pretty intense though dancing it such heat.  Hopefully it will be a little cooler from now on.  I'm looking forward to Thursday because I don't have any classes and I can get some shopping done or go take a ferry out to a beach. 

I wanna tell you a little about my host family.  They are Neil and Michelle Townsend and they are amazing.  They have the best accents and sense of humor.  Like many Australians, their sense of humor is very cutting.  In Australian culture, if they make fun of you or cut you down, it means they like you.  Seems kinda backwards but I actually really like it.  They are a ton of fun. They are both chefs so the food we have is amazing.  Here is Neil cooking up one of our amazing dinners-

This is the house they live in, proudly boasting the Australian flag-

Our own house is located in their backyard where my 3 roomies and I live.  It’s so cute, they have a little hammock and everything out there for us-

This is their dog Mollie, she is a maltese/ shitzu mix and completely adorable.  However, she makes me miss Kato more than ever-

On Sunday, Neil was completely gracious and spent the whole day driving my roomies and I around Sydney to see the sights.  We saw all of the very very rich eastern suburbs and all of the beaches on the eastern coast like Bondi and all of the ones connected to it.  The highlight for sure was when we got out at a place called The Gap and walked around.  There is a gap in the shoreline so it is mostly cliffs and rocks.  It is in a spot called the heads which is the channel that goes to the ocean from the Sydney harbor.  My words and pictures cannot do this place justice.  It is the most gorgeous place I have ever seen in my life.  You can see in this picture that the harbor is on the left and then it goes out to the ocean on the right (PS-  you can click on the pics to make them bigger)

 

I have some photos from when we went on the harbor cruise around Sydney and when we did our scavenger hunt around the city.  This is my group mimicking the Sydney Opera house-

This pic is for Grant.  On our first date when he was talking about me being in Australia, he said he wanted me to take a picture of the Opera house for him.  I took many but here is the best one-