Well its been a busy few weeks and I've now been in Adelaide for a month and a week but time has flown by. It truly feels like much longer. Now that school is in session things are busy but fun. I am taking statistics, accounting, economics, and australian culture. Never would I have taken these back at home at the same time. Which I was extremely nervous to take here also. However, so far it is going well. There are assignments due every week and some due every other week. It's weird not to have several exams on top of that though. I think so far I enjoy that factor a lot. But the finals are worth more than 50% of your final grade! which is insane! so when that time comes things will get scary. The classes meet in lectures, tutorials, seminars, and practicals. My stats class meets about 5 times a week which is a lot! but I think I'm still attending the same amount of lectures as I was back home just in different settings.

Two weekends ago I went to Morialta Conservation park and took a hike among some wildlife and some koalas. The koalas were so cute but they were wild so everyone says do not approach a sleeping wild koala (they will claw you and it will hurt). But they are still adorable to admire from afar. I also took a hike up Mt. Lofty. It was definitely the hardest hike I've probably ever done in my life. It was 4 km down and 4 km up (2.5 miles each way). It was a 45 degree angle so going up was horrible. I was huffing and puffing and man did the legs burn. But reaching the top was such an accomplishment for me. I had never done anything like it and I was just immensely proud of myself. The view was also spectacular of the whole city as well as the ocean. Then I went to the Adelaide Cup! It was a public holiday and luckily I got a free ticket thanks to Unilodge. I was so excited to attend, so yet I bought a fancy hat, to take in the whole experience. It was so fun to be there and even bet on a horse (although I lost) but it was amazing to see all the woman in their amazing dresses and hats. Some women really went all out! On fridays I've been going to the language and cultural events held by the Uni (university for short, they shorten everythign here). Every friday they host an event of a specific culture and first was a welcome party then Aussie night. It's fun to go and just be among friends as well as meet new friends.

Next Friday is Pub Crawl! This is basically the biggest Uni event in the entire city for the whole year. You'd never guess who its hosted by... none other than the engineering club (the biggest and most popular club on campus). More than 5,000 students are signed up, including myself. There will be more than 5,000 students spending the afternoon/night going from pub/bar to the next and partaking in all the drink specials. I've literally done nothing like this before (mostly because I couldn't first of all back in the states, so it'll be quite unique). It'll be a huge event so I'm pretty excited for it.

So far things are going great! I do miss home, my family, and my friends, and yes.... my cats. But having new friends and new experiences here really helps with homesickness. My favorite experience here so far is all the international students and meeting people from all over the world. I love learning about different cultures and peoples homes. Everyone has a story to tell and I love listening and telling those stories.

Until next time!