Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't written much - things have been crazy since I got here.

Jet-lag and grumpy, I spent my first week in Sydney at my friend's James' house. I did the tourist stuff such as art galleries and museums during the day and going out to the pub with James' friends at night. Sydney is an amazing green city with lots of history. Beer is an everyday thing here and I can't keep up - nor do I neccessarily want to.

Last week I made my way to Canberra where I'm staying in residence. Canberra has been the capitol city for roughly twenty-five years so everything is incredibly organized and beautiful to the extent of feeling unnatural or part of a Tim Burton movie like Edward Scissorhands. In this case, I'm just waiting for something extraordinarily unusual to suddenly happen.

I've met some really nice people, one I would call my long lost brother - Andrew from Toronto. There have been lots of Frosh parties though they aren't generally my thing, I've been eating for free and meeting lots of people.

The art school looks so good I nearly pissed myself when I saw it. The classes are small and therefore the facilities are more spacious than I'm used to. I love the building. So far it seems like the art school is sort of its own little world separate from the uni.

Sorry this one is bland not very interesting. I'll try to write more frequently as things happen now that I'm settling in.

Though I've made some really nice friends, I miss all of you crazy people back home!

Hey everyone!
Where to start? My journey began waiting in the airport for my flight to Honolulu holding the tears back after saying goodbye to Neal and Natasha. Sitting across from me was an Australian couple with the worst eating manner I ever heard/seen. I decided then that I hated Australia.
I arrive eighteen hours later in Sydney to humidity so thick I thought that I couldn't breath. The clerk at the hotel said I couldn't check in till one and it was nine-thirty. Leaving my bags at his desk I meandered around the airport area and ended up finding car sale lots and an itchy, uninteresting park. Suburbia surrounded me and I sat under a tree in fear that this was Australia.
The next day I called up my friend James and bused my way to his place in a beautiful neighborhood called Balmain with architecture resonating that of Louisiana's French Corner (based on what I've seen in movies). I decided right then that I love Australia.
James took me around the city and I felt at ease knowing that the sushi is as abundant in Sydney as it is in Vancouver. James watched as I wolfed down raw fish and wasabi.
We walked around the tourist areas of Sydney, just looking at stuff before James had to go to work. He treated me to my first aussie beer and we chatted a bit.
After parting I meandered into a small protest in an unpopulated tourist area. With black balloons and blue shirts, children and adults held signs that said, "The psychiatrists are coming! Hide your children!" One wore a 'parade of the dead' type of mask that said "psychiatrist expert."
I chose a direction and decided to walk and found myself in Chinatown. Unfortunately, after an hour, I could not find a way out of Chinatown.
That night I went to the pub with James' roomates and friends. They're spontaneous, fun people who later took me to the wharf to view the cityscape. Sydney's nightscape is gorgeous.
That's just my first two days, but I'm tired of writing so I'll fill in more later.
Love Sharon

this is sharon's blog. she should update it.