My New Apartment

Just last week I moved out of my homestay accommodation and into my own apartment! My new apartment is right on the beach and in the heart of Surfers Paradise. Surfers is basically the city centre of the Gold Coast because it's where many of the restaurants, bars, and funky hangout spots are.  My apartment is a 2 bedroom, two bathroom space on the 23rd floor of a building equipped with an indoor and outdoor pool, indoor and outdoor hot tub, sauna, gym, and tennis court. I share the apartment with 3 other international students, which means that each of us shares a room with one other girl, but so far we are all getting along really well and our bedrooms are big enough that we still feel like we have our own personal space. We have a breath-taking view of the ocean from our living room, and I feel really happy and relaxed in my new space, and super lucky to be where I am. 

Here are some pictures of the apartment so you can picture where I'm at:

 The front entrance.Living Room -- note the view!

Built-in bar

 Kitchen

Dining Room

View from the balcony

 Night-time view from the kitchen window

My roommates! From left to right: Sonja (German), Anna (German), Tessa (Dutch)

This weekend was our first weekend all together, so I baked a chocolate layer cake with orange rind icing in the middle and covered in whipping cream. It was pretty yummy, if I do say so myself. There's another group of our friends who just moved onto the 12th floor of our building yesterday. Those girls haven't had their power turned on yet, so we're going to cook dinner all together at our place today, and then watch Australia's Next Top Model on T.V. while drinking sparkling wine. 

'Roo

Have yet to see a 'roo, but when I do I sure hope he's as ridiculously posed as this guy.

Doesn't he look like he's flexing for the camera?

Have a good day!

-Emily

First Impressions of Australia

Thought I'd share with you some of the first differences I noticed between Australia and Canada.

1. The Birds!
This really was the first difference that kind of hit me over the head when I arrived. In comparison to Canada, Australia seems to have many more birds hanging around. Each type of bird seems to make very loud, very cheery noises, and the birds here are all so different in shape, size, and colour from those in Canada. The birds that I've seen thus far (and been able to identify) include:

The Australian Magpie

Some sort of green-coloured bird that could either be these, the Rainbow Bee Eaters...

...or these, Scaley Breasted Lerikeet.

Australian Wood Duck

 Silver Gull

Australian White Ibis

Australia Pelican

And also, the house sparrow, which looks just like our sparrows in Canada.

I love waking up and hearing the birds talking to each other. It makes me feel like I'm in the middle of the rainforest.

2. Aussie Greetings:
Instead of asking "How are you?" or "How's it going?", Aussies ask "How you going?", which made me stutter and mumble a lot at first because I wasn't quite sure how to answer, but at least I've got it better than the Danish friends I've made. Apparenlty in Danish there is no phrase equivalent to "How are you?", and in the English culture we tend to ask "How's it going/How're you going?" A LOT. My poor friends finally asked me what the heck they were supposed to say in response to the random strangers who would ask them how they were.

3. Internet Use:
In Australia, when you get internet connection at your place, you're not just automatically allowed unlimited access to internet but rather you have to pay according to how many gigabytes you use. This is unendingly frustrating for me because I've never had to think about how much bandwidth I'm using, and my habit of watching movies or TV online has come to an abrupt end.

4. The Water:
The ocean waves here are unlike anything I've ever seen. Being a mountain girl, for the most part, oceans are a novelty to me, and the waves here are at least 10 times as big as the ones I ever saw in Nova Scotia or B.C.. Also, there's quite a substantial rip-tide to deal with here, which can be a little scary.

5. Other Animals that Have Been Hit with Some Kind of Augmenting Ray Gun

I'm pretty sure this is the kind of bat that I saw the other night. However, as far as I'm concerned this isn't a bat but rather a F*$%ING DOG WITH WINGS. These guys freak me out a little.

Also had the pleasure of making acquaintances with some kind of large (to me, small to Aussies) spider of which I am not going to try to find a picture because I'm just about to go to bed and would rather not feel like bugs are crawling all over me. 

Don't get me wrong, the meetings I've had with weird and ray-gun augmented animals have always been moderately pleasant, never too freaky, and my life has never been in danger, so no stress.

Also, what good is it if you're not pushed a little out of your comfort zone when you're travelling, eh?!

Finally! An Update!

Hi All,

I'm so sorry, I've totally sucked at keeping my blog up to date. My excuse is that I didn't have reliable access to internet connection while I was in Quebec, and then once back home was preoccupied with seeing family and getting ready to go to Australia. There is, however, an upside to me not having been a reliable blogger (besides the fact that you have had 2 months off from being jealous of my nomadic, sporadic life), and that's that I have lots of exciting stories and pictures to share with you!

I've been in Australia for nearly two weeks now, and just had my first day of classes today. I am attending Griffith University for a semester. Griffith is located on the Gold Coast about 1.5 hours south of Brisbane. Semesters in Australia run differently than those in Canada because our seasons are reversed, so that's why I've started my semester so early.

In my experience, the first month of exchange can be a little trying as you struggle to make good friends and find activities to participate in. I'm quite excited to have started school because a university campus is always choc-full of activities to participate in and people to make friends with. I'm doing well though, as far as making friends go. Luckily, within my first week in Oz I made friends with three girls who all came from the same uni in Denmark. The girls and I hit it off at the orientation session and have been hanging out every day or two since then. I have also been taken under the wing of an Aussie named Meri, who went to Ireland and Germany on exchange last year and is back at university on the Gold Coast this semester. She knows what it's like to be an exchange student, and has taken it upon herself to be my tour guide. So far she's given me a tour of the city, taken me on a wine-tasting tour on Mount Tambourine (not far out of the Gold Coast city), and helped me search for an apartment.

The Gold Coast is divided into a number of different large sections, which are called suburbs. I'm currently staying with a homestay family in the suburb of Benowa. Benowa is right in between the University and the beach, which sounds like it would be a perfect set-up, but it actually means that I have to take a bus no matter where I want to go. Ideally, I'd like to live in the suburb called Surfers Paradise, which is along the beach and has great bus access to the Griffith campus. My homestay placement hasn't been ideal and I'm currently searching for an apartment in Surfers Paradise to move into.

A full course-load in Australia is four courses and I'm quite excited about the courses I've selected. They are: Australian Literature and History, Contemporary Aboriginal Issues, Islam in the Modern World, and Fame and Celebrity (Sociology). All of these courses fit really well into my overall course requirements, and I will be graduating on-time from St. FX this May. My semester will finish mid-November, and after my exams I'll take about a month to backpack either around Australia, New Zealand, or perhaps Asia, before heading home for Christmas and then back to St. FX in January.

I'm off to a birthday party now, but you can expect to see some photos of Australia and many, many posts about my time in Quebec in the near future!

Summer Adventures

As far as I can remember, this is the first summer I have ever spent entirely away from home. As sad as I am to not have the opportunity to visit for very long with my family in Calgary, I have some amazing adventures in store for me. I’ve resuscitated my travel blog in order to keep all of you updated about my current and forthcoming adventures, so check back every once-in-a-while for updates.

My summer plans thus far include a trip to Montreal, QC to visit my cousin Sarah, five weeks in Trois-Pistoles, QC to participate in a French-immersion program called Explore, and a five month trip to Australia starting July 15^th. I’ll be completing the first semester of my last year of undergrad in Australia, and am really, really excited to be travelling foreign lands again.  

My time in Montreal with cousin Sarah was wonderful. I hadn’t been to Montreal in more than five years, and it was really nice to go back to the big city as an adult who could just roam as desired. While in Montreal I did a lot of biking around the city, caught up with some friends, and ate way more than my share of bagels. The second time I visited St. Viateur bagel shop, I met Wilson, who had been making bagels at St. Viateur for 25 years. When I asked Wilson if I could take some pictures of him making the bagels, he insisted that I get behind the counter and make some bagels myself while he took the photos, saying “I know all the good angles ‘ere”. Wilson was hilarious and as I was about to leave, gave me a t-shirt as a souvenir of our joking-around.

I ate a lot of really great food while in Montreal, including, of course, fabulous poutine. Sarah took me to a restaurant that serves more than 20 kinds of poutine. I ordered poutine with bacon, spicy sausage, and onion on it. Soooo yummy! I also cooked a good old fashioned Nova Scotian lobster dinner during my time with Sarah. I’ve definitely fallen in love with Montreal and will exercise any excuse to go back.

Pictures from Annie's Birthday

One of my best friends, Annie, turned 19 on Saturday. To celebrate we went for a walk around the marina, and then went out to dinner. Here are some pictures from the day:

Some Music Pictures

Here are some pictures from a night that Hillary, Decota and I played some music at an event called Friday Night Live. The last picture is of all my best girlfriends and I at a banquet we recently attended for the program we are all in, the Humanities Colloquium.