One Week Down

So it's Sunday night and we have officially been in Australia for a full week...now seems like a good time to catch everyone (anyone) up on how the first week went.

-The dorm: Port Lodge supposedly used to a brothel and has a ghost (apparently a girl was murdered here a long time ago?).  I haven't seen any sign of one yet, but if I do, I'll definitely let y'all know lol.  I somehow wound up with one of the bigger rooms, and I'm really happy with it.  And now that I've got pictures and maps up on the wall, it feels like my actual room for the semester.  The dorm itself isn't heated, so we've all been piling on clothes when we're inside, but overall it's not too bad.  The building is located right next to a really nice park called The Esplanade, and on the other side is a harbor with some restaurants and the Indian Ocean (!!!).  There are some really noisy birds that sound like babies/lambs that keep waking a lot of us up in the morning, but after the first day I've been sleeping through them.  We have 2 RA's, Kate and Will.  Kate seems more like the disciplinarian, but really we don't see either of them too much.  The campus (and dorm) is dry, and our dorm is just the ND group plus 4 girls from Sacred Heart.

-The town: Fremantle is a fairly small but cosmopolitan town, with a lot of cute shops and cafes/restaurants.  So far, we've seen Chinese, Mexican, seafood, and Turkish restaurants.  We also tried a place called Angel's Cafe where I had a really great salmon, avocado, and spinach sandwich...mmm.  There's also some fast food (Burger King is apparently called Hungry Jack's here) and NDA students get a 20% discount at Subway, yay.  I'm getting more comfortable with finding my way around, and I think after another week I should be pretty much set.  The nightlife is great, and what Fremantle lacks on any given night of the week is made up for by Perth or one of its suburbs.  So far we've been to Cottesloe one night and stayed in Fremantle to go to a bar called Newport and a club called Metropolis two of the other nights.  Some of the other kids have gone out a lot more, but my wallet just can't really handle that.  It's been fun though and I'm looking forward to trying more places.  We went into Perth on Wednesday for an orientation activity (a scavenger hunt) but it was pouring rain so we didn't really get to enjoy it.  Perth seems like an awesome city though and I can't wait to go back and check it out again.  The train system is great here; getting from Fremantle to Perth and the surrounding areas is easy enough.  Favorite part so far = the Fremantle Markets.  They have tons of awesome stands with souvenirs/food, and on Sundays you can get some really good deals on produce.  

- Travel/sightseeing:  A bunch of us bought a discounted sightseeing package offered through the school, which includes admission and transportation to the Fremantle Prison night tour, Caversham Wildlife Park, AQWA (Western Australia Aquarium), day trip to Rottnest Island, a Halloween dinner, and participation in the school's pool/ping-pong tournament.  The prison night tour is up first (this Wednesday) and it's supposed to be really cool and pretty scary.  We also want to book cabins for the weekend of the Rotto Island trip so we can stay longer, and we're talking about trying to get down to Margaret River for a weekend to visit the wineries and see the wildflowers that Western Australia is famous for. We're also going to try to get tickets to see the Fremantle Dockers (Freo's Australian rules football team) play St. Kilda in Perth on August 17th.  AND we're supposed to be getting vouchers for a free flight from Qantas for all the delays during our flight down here, so the plan is to use them either during mid-semester break (if our trip to Broome isn't scheduled for them) to try to get to Thailand, or to save them for traveling after the semester is over.  Oh, and we're going to Singapore on August 12th.  Whew.

- Everything else that I don't feel like putting into categories:  Australia is very laid back.  So far hardly anything has started on time, and everyone is pretty chill (except Sunday afternoons at the markets lol).  They shorten almost every word it seems like: Rottnest Island = Rotto, Australian Rules Football = Footy, Fremantle = Freo, etc.  Love love love their accents.  It looks like mass here is Sunday nights at 6, and the chapel is literally 10 steps from our dorm.  They don't get too many people going, and tonight I actually did the readings at mass for the first time in my life.  I miss Basilica and Alumni mass a lot though.  I've been getting to know the people from ND, and most of them are awesome.  I'm in a cooking group with about 5 other girls and so far we've made some pretty good dinners if I do say so myself :)  This week community dinners start though, which will be really nice.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have a chef come in and make us dinner.  Apparently we're the only dorm that gets to do that, though I'm not sure why.  

I guess that's about it for now; I should probably get to bed since classes start tomorrow.  I only have once class tomorrow (Asia: Culture, Environment, and Development) and it's at 1:30, so no early Monday mornings for me :)  Most of us have Tuesdays off, and some of us are going to try to go see Dark Knight since Tuesdays are half price admission, so only $8 (oh yeah, everything's pretty much really expensive here). 

I'll probably post again soon, so bye until then!

<3