Reflection

Before you start reading this I want to warn you I sort of used it as a way to get some thoughts out of my head and to recap on the past few days. If it makes no sense I apologise I did not double check anything I just sort of wrote whatever my fingers wanted to...

I don't even know where to start at what I have experienced in the past couple of days. Maybe I can start with Sunday since it is about as far back as I can clearly remember =) (Yes, due to all the drugs and alcohol I have been consuming my memory is foggy). A group of us girls went into Sydney to do some exploring/shopping. What all of you back home should know is how freakin' stylish Aussies are. It is ridiculous. They all (not even exaggerating) look as if they stepped out of the page of a magazine. The clothes they have in stores here are so different from home (not necessarily surprising) but I feel that I need to take notes on learning how to pull an outfit together. Just in case you are wondering, which I know you all are, what seems to be the style over here are skinny jeans (for both guys and girls) with boots or ballet flats (but not the sort you would see in the states) with some sort of sweater or leather jacket. Layering is a big one, but in a soft of "pokey-outey" style, once again very different from anyone you would see walking down the streets in the states. Also when people ask you where your from saying America is very misleading because foreigners group North/South America together and don't really know the difference. Interesting.

Ok so back to Sunday. Pretty much all the American girls are on a mission to find boots and leather jackets, not necessarily to be trendy but because the ones over here are so much more unique than anything you can find back home. Some of my friends had luck but I had none because I am waiting for items I really love, and not settling just to have them. Ok so enough about clothes, I am a girl so you need to cut me some slack.

After we got done shopping we realized food was the next step. Have I mentioned how much more expensive things are over here? Some examples would be candy bars are 2 for $5, mascara is 18$ for the cheapy stuff, Payless Shoes cheap shoes are 40$, eating out (OH MY GOSH) so expensive - salads/sandwiches $17ish, Starbucks Grande sized drinks $5/$6... I could honestly go on and on but that gives you an idea of the ridiculousness. So we ended up at pizza hut (pathetic I know) getting the 3 for $5 medium pizzas (which are about half the size of an american medium pizza) and sat outside of a Krispy Kreme to eat them because if we wanted them for cheap we could not eat in the restaurant....weird.

Well after our down town adventure we decided to head to a Hillsong service, which getting to was an experience in itself. Hillsong has courtesy shuttles going to a down town train station to pick people up who don't have cars. Since I am destined to public transportation for the majority of this trip the courtesy shuttle was where I needed to be! It took 8 (?) of us an hour of running around a train station (that honestly looked like it was from a movie....so cool!!!) to figure out where the shuttle picked us up. When finally a random man actually had an Internet phone looking up the web page figuring out where we needed to be and realizing we have 5 minutes to get back into the station cross all the trains and be on the street on the other side. He was so nice and completely volunteered to show us where we needed to be. We all said it wasn't necessary but he insisted and literally ran us through the station up and down escalators getting us exactly where we needed to be in the nick of time. People in this country are so friendly and so willing to help each other out it is amazing!

So cutting out more details we finally got to Hillsong (not the main campus but the branch in the city). It was a very umm "charismatic" experience. Everyone there had so much energy and their worship style was very rock concert Esq with bright lights and (I kid you not) a fog machine. Now I know what a couple of you may be thinking, "Laura, you go to Mars Hill." And yes you would be right, but I would like to say number one we do not have a fog machine. That is really my only level of defense, because our music was just as loud, I would say it is much less showy but I am sure others would argue the opposite. This brings me to a big lesson that seems to be very repetitious in the past few days, "Who is to say anything is the right or wrong way of doing something?" Now I could elaborate on this for hours, but I am trying to stick to my story. Needless to say I was quick to judge based on my initial impression, but despite my already bitter taste of church I quickly prayed for an open mind and asked for forgiveness for being quick to hop to a conclusion. After all nothing had even started yet.

Their worship band was huge and everyone in it seemed to be having their our religious experience, which on one hand weirds me out, but on the other if these people are actually up there feeling God's love then more power to them! In the words of my friend Lindsey - I have not been to a church service with so much positive energy in a very long time. And that in itself is a pretty cool thing. The sermon was preached by a woman (controversy? I think so) and had to do with the fear of man, which was the most perfect sermon and of us ASCers could have possibly heard coming into a new country. Once again reminding me God can use anyone anywhere who is willing to seek him and as long as we remember God makes the rules anyway why not sit back and take what you can from an experience with elements you may not agree with or even support? Interesting. It is not a church I would choose to be a part of if I lived here, however my roomie and I are checking out their Wednesday night service for college aged folk to see if we can further our microscopic Sydney social circles.

Moving on, Monday morning was the first day of classes. All the ASCers start of together in a class called "The view from Aussie". Basically all we did in class was play a game where we split into 2 groups and were instruct how to simulate a made up culture. It sounded absolutely cheesy, but opened the door to what we would all be experiencing the second that class was over. It surprised me how intimidated I was when interacting with my peers/friends who I have been around for days now when I knew they would be acting out the rules and customs associated with their made up culture. This really made this entire trip real to me. In a couple hours I would be thrown outside with all these people who have grown up so different from myself, and despite the semi-common language I could so easily say or do something out of habit that could be very offensive to one of them. I instantly started feeling like an elephant in a heard of sheep. Not only did I look nothing like these people but I started feeling like I would stand out and sort of lost all hope of fitting in (over reactionnnn!). Sadly I did not get to realize my craziness that day because my next class was once again full of americans. Which leads me down a mini rabbit trail of how different language is from culture to culture. I loved that class. Our prof is a professional photographer, introducing us to Aussie terms and phrases but based off the blank looks on our faces taking time to explain what all these phrases meant. Thankfully everyone at the school is pretty excited and enjoys having Americans. Any who I am going to fast forward to Tuesday when I had my first really Aussie class experience.

I met up with some ASCers and walked into a nice morning session of "Faith and the Contemporary Artist" not really knowing what to expect. Well I get into class, on time might I add, and the class room has about the 7 of us americans and maybe 7 Aussies. So I start thinking to myself "ok, small class, I can deal with this" HA! Well within the next half hour our class ends up filling to about 50 people who chat among themselves, even over the teacher at times, crack jokes and all seem to be on their own agenda despite the fact a class is going on (can you say overwhelming?). As soon as the prof, who is hilarious, has sworn more than all other profs I have had combined, and has the most amazingly articulated expression of his faith I have ever heard, presented us with the question of the day everything started to make sense. The question was "If you had to argue the existence/non-existence of God, what would you say?" This sparked a sort of debate I have never seen before. Immediately about 15 hands shot up in the air and this 3 hour class flew by with expressions of faith, theology, homosexuality, atheism, who says what is right or wrong, what makes you good or bad, is it better to live your life believing there is a God and finding out there isn't or visa versa? Way too many topics for me to begin to describe. In a class full of people, some Christians, Catholics, homosexuals, and agnostics I began to realize who cares what we look like, how we act, and what we come across as, we are all made in the image of Christ. Suddenly these people who all look nothing a like start sharing their hearts, their faith, their experiences of God's grace. Suddenly at this crazy art school in a foreign country, where people use their clothes as canvases we were all brought to the same level, fellowshipping and explaining our perception of salvation. Despite our differences in the details of faith we could all agree on one thing, that God sent his son to die for us and regardless of if one of us believe in predestination or not, we all share this unique bond giving us common ground.

I know this post is massive and if anyone actually read the whole thing let me know because I will definitely shake your hand. I just wanted to get some of my jumbled thoughts out and this is a good way for me to do it. I will try to make these a little more straight forward in the future =)

A little glimpse of Sydney

On Thursday we had to do a photo scavenger hunt in downtown Sydney and were basically let loose with a map, a list, and 2 hours to get as many pictures as we could. This is our group in Hyde Park in front of Saint Mary's Cathedral and the Archibald Fountain. This park and all the structures were absolutely gorgeous! The scavenger hunt helped us to scout out places in the city we are all dying to go back to when we are not frantically running around taking pictures.

The above photo is a picture of the heart of our Uni (university). The small building in the front is the student center, not exactly the same as student centers in the US, basically it is a room with tables, chairs, a kitchen and two vending machines. However, it has already introduced us to many different Australian traditions such as 2 of the 6 meals of the day. (They apparently have 6 meals a day here: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and supper). My two favorite things so far are wedges with chili sauce and sour cream (mixed together of course) and scones drizzled with cream and jelly. Also, I got to try Vegemite, the Aussie & Kiwi staple, and it was very... interesting. It is basically this really dark salty paste which all Aussies would sware by. My goal is to like it by the time I leave!


I am sure you all know what this is, but just in case you don't it is most definitely the Sydney opera house and Harbor bridge taken from a ferry cruising around the harbor. Our group got to go on an hour long cruise around the harbor, and it was amazing considering it was sunset, however it was freezing and super windy. You could tell who the dedicated photographers were, they were about the 9 of us who stayed up on the observation deck through the rain and wind to get the good photos =) I know this one is not amazing by any means, and it really is not one of my favorites, but the internet here is terribly slow and I wanted to post a picture which had both the bridge and the opera house!

First day in Sydney

Oh my goodness traveling was traumatic! It all started at 315 am Monday morning when my mom and I got up to drive to the airport. She was so sweet to do it, despite the fact her and I were walking zombies... I guess zombies walk but that is beside the point. Anywho long story short, my connecting flight to San Jose was a disaster as someone guided me to the wrong flight so I ended up missing my flight to LAX (where my Aussie group was meeting to travel together), however a really nice American Airlines worker hooked me up with a ticket only 2 hours later than I was suppose to depart, which gave me a little time to nap. Anywho I will save you lots of boring details of my trip to let you know Australia is amazing so far! Even though they tell you it will be until the newness rubs off, but lets just say it has not rubbed off yet! Yesterday was all orientation stuff, we received our public transportation passes (to use for buses, trains, and ferries!) and other info on classes and international health stuff. Nothing too exciting there. At the end of the day yesterday our (myself and my 3 roomies) home stay mom (Gail) picked us up from school, we were all absolutely exhausted, and tried to show us the bus routes we would have to take Thursday morning to get back to school. Thankfully it worked because we got here on time today! Gail is so sweet, she lives in this apartment building which looks more like a resort. She bought us pizza hut and we sat around the dinner table talking about our families and experiencing our first authentic Australian cuisine - Vegemite. Which is pretty much a pasty form of salt and yeast Aussie's love and put on everything! Interesting. Well hopefully in the next few days I will be able to give you more details but as for now I am off to a scavenger hunt in Sydney, a Cruise, and dinner at a Mongolian grill! G-day!

My last week in America

Exactly one week from today I will be on one of four planes heading to Sydney. I am so excited and nervous all at the same time, thankfully I am much more excited than nervous! I just received an email from the woman I will be living with (along with 3 other study abroad students) letting us know a little bit about where we will be living, the weather, and what to expect. She seems really sweet, her name is Gail and she is a doctor of some sort. Apparently right now it is rainy and cool, but she said by October we will all be in jeans and tee shirts. She also mentioned if we like sweets (candy) to bring it with because apparently their candy is strange and very unlike american candy, haha, I really don't understand what could possibly be so different however I am sure it will soon make sense! Other than that I have been warned about vegimite and kangaroo meat... I will let you know how that goes. As for now I must pack and stock up on other random necessities of which the Aussies do not have, also I ned to hunt for a wattage converter for my hairdryer and such.... this should be exciting!