Saturday
Busy doing last minute packing and saying 'see you later' to the loved ones at Changi Airport. On the plane to Sydney! (: Seven and a half hour flight with Nat to Sydney International.
Sunday
Landed at Sydney International. All the fun began. Pierre (Immigration and Customs Officer) decided to take a liking to Belle ( who together with Nat, Staz and myself loved the patrol dog). We ended up cutting most of the queue and cleared customs expediently. Woo! Walk out of customs and the smell of home hit, I felt like crying tears of joy. Off to the coach for the 3 hour trip up to Newy (Newcastle). Stopped at Mrs MacQuarie's Chair to take pictures of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. On the road again tillnon stop for lunch for Aussie tucker. On the road all the way to Newy. YHA was amazingly old-fashioned; complete with creaky stairs, floorboards that creaked under you and Christmassy colours. We (Stacie, Belle, Huda, Nat and myself)unpacked and headed off to the shops to do some grocery shopping. Headed back to YHA and had a meeting at 9pm. First time I saw Eric. :D
Monday
The whole lot of us took a train ride down to UON. We (Huda, Cheryl, Nat, myself and Suzanne) had a scheduled lecture for the day. We were to attend our journalism lecture on "A Word's Worth" which we had already done in the first trimester. Interestingly enough, I felt more interested in this lecture that I was in Singapore. Hmmm. We hit the uni shop first to get souvenirs and stuff before heading off for lecture. We were asked if we wanted to go on for tutorial too. We went. We met Georgie, Trant (Robert Pattinson lookalike) and Rachel (Vanessa Hudgens lookalike). We also went on a tour of the uni campus. They had barbers, candy stores, pubs etc.. W e made enquiries as to how we could get in touch with Matt and made our way to YHA.
Tuesday
Matt got back in touch with us later that night. We made plans to meet the next day. We had another tutorial scheduled for the day- PR. We had a differnt bunch of classmates this time. PR wasn't as fun but it was a learning experience. Matt met us (unplanned) when we were lazing around on the grass enjoying the sun ( I didn't realise how much I messed doing that). Matt took us back to his place where he made us lunch (sandwiches and milo) and drove us to Blackbutt Nature Reserve where we go tto see Koalas, Roos etc. We were almost late for the tea session with the staff but Matt's crazy driving (with me in the front passenger seat grining gleefully) got us to the Communications block. Daniel Conway (who according to Steve is also rich) brought us around. He's got the nicest blue eyes. Matt picked us up again (planned) after that and took us to this hillside high above Newy where we had a picnic. It was Huda's birthday so he brought along a 'birthday loaf' for her with sparklers. Matt took us down to the 'scary beach' and other beaches even though the signs specifically said 'no entry'. I gave up reading the signs to him everytime he asked. We got back pretty late to YHA that night.
The next part of the Oz trip will be in the next post. (: