O'week!

It has been hot hot hot! 85 Degrees and sunny with a humidity of around 65%. I don't have air in my apartment so after walking to and from Macquarie everyday I usually have to take a cold shower to cool off. Its quite miserable BUT today is the last day (hopefully) of this heat. The next week or so should be about a nice cool 75. Overall I cant complain when everyone at home is having a snow storm! 
SO, the things I have been up to the last few days. I found out that I did not get the RA position that I wanted for next year, but I am on the alternative list. Which means that if someone declines their position then they take someone out of the pool I'm in to take their spot. It was disappointing news but I'm sure everything will work out. I went to the Sydney wine tasting festival on sunday. It was a lot of fun. I made a pact with myself that every "fun" activity I do, I also need to make it educational. So when I was at the wine festival I learned more distinctly how wine is made. I took particular interest  in how desert wine is made (my favorite). They pull the grape really late so it is at the peak of sweetness. I also got to taste some grapes before they were even made into wine but still tasted like the wine which was pretty cool. Its so weird to be able to drink here and even when I get back I will still have about 11 months before I will be able to drink there. After the festival we walked on the street that Mardi Gras is going to be held the following weekend we went in all the shops that people pick their outfits out of for the festival it was interesting to say the least. I also got to meet "Ellen Degeneres's number one fan in Australia" by the festival. He was carrying around a cut out of Ellen and smiling and taking pictures with it. Ellen is in Australia and will be visiting Sydney in the next few weeks to film segments of her show. I really hope I get a chance to be in a segment! Any who I will be going downtown Sydney for the Mardi Gras festival this saturday so I am very excited for that!
Monday was the first day of classes at Macquarie they had music, food, and entertainment all throughout campus. I picked up a lot of free posters to fill my empty walls in my room! Then I went to manly beach which is another famous beach in Sydney with some friends and had some great food. To get to Manly beach we had to take one train and a ferry. The train costs 5 dollars and the ferry 14 dollars. Transportation can get a bit pricey, but now that I have my student ID card I get 50% off all transportation including buses, trains (main transportation), and ferries. This is definitely come in handy. Only exchange students get this discount because I am replacing a student here at Macquarie and they are at my University. So the Australian government favors that a lot more than people that are just studying abroad here with no exchange to their own country. 
Tuesday I had my first class it was a lecture of about 150+ people. It is a history class and my professor said he will be teaching big history which is different from normal but a lot of Universities in the U.S do big history, so I am not sure if it will be something new to me or not. 
Today I signed up for the Gym which is not included in our tuition it $190 per semester. After I attended a group fitness class that had an Asian australian high energy male instructor. He made me laugh a lot. The class consisted of bar weights, squats, lunges, arms, and abs. I really liked it. At one point the instructor yelled out " This class is making me hungry" I think I'm ready for LUNG time" I will definitely go to this class next week. Today I also got to Skype my beautiful roommate from last semester Jordyn! Tonight (Wednesday) is the biggest night to go out to the bars. Don't ask me because I have no idea.. I have 6 hours of class tomorrow too so Thursdays will not be fun for me. Everyone in the place I'm living goes to a bar called the ranch. They have shuttle buses that take you from our apartments to the bar all night. -- This should be fun. All my roommates are coming together and making a big dinner tonight too! I'm contributing cheep pasta (ramen) and frozen veggies. 
Few things
-Everybody on sidewalks walks on the other side, so I am always bumping into people. The cars are on the other side of the road so I always look the wrong way while crossing the street. 
-I need to set my Microsoft word to australian, because they spell curtain words differently then us. For example Mom here is Mum and a lot of other words.
-My address is 
Macquarie University Village
122 Culloden Road Apt. # 151.4
Marsfield NSW 2122 Sydney, Australia

- Im really excited for my aunt, mom, dad, and brother to come here and then go to new zealand!

Love you guys!
Ally 

Calm before the storm

It's raining it pouring! The winds are at about 50 miles an hour.. which here is about 80 km/h. Im kinda worried about using the metric system in all aspects of my classes. They also use celsius here which I'm not use to. Also my weather on my phone switched to celsius so I have no reference what so ever to how hot it is here compared to home. Today was a rainy day so I got to get some things done around the apartment. I also skyped my mom, dad, Courtney, Liz, & Randy. I am finally settled in my apartment. I have my own room with my own bathroom. Its really nice and I'm a bit spoiled, because I have never had a bathroom attached to my room before. I have officially been here a week long! It feels like alot longer than that. Since my last post I have been on two boat cruises being in two different harbors. One the Sydney harbor and the other was in the darling harbor. I also went on a beach day with my housing community. I got to swim in a ocean pool, which was so beautiful and not to mention FREE. Which makes it even better. Today I got a chance to put some photos up around my room and organize my life before I start school in a day or so. I have classes starting Tuesday starting at 2 pm and ending Friday around 1 pm. So I could take 4 day weekend trips around Australia which will be nice. Here for classes they have things called tutees and then lectures. Tutees are manditory with about 30 people in the class while lectures are not with about 300 people and all of the lectures are recorded and online for viewing. So really there is no reason to go to class. I always went to my classes at GV but I will not here. While scheduling they allow you to overlap your tutees with Lec because its not a big deal to never go which is weird to me but if my academic adviser says its alright I'll just go with it. I signed up for a surf camp for a weekend. That will be happening March 22nd. They take you to a "beginners beach" and you stay on the beach for two nights and two days. I am super excited! I surfed alittle bit while I was in Hawaii but nothing to the extent that I will be taught at the camp. Tomorrow I am off to a wine tasting festival in downtown Sydney with the uni. Hopefully after I will get a chance to shop a bit after. Its really going to be weird not having classes on monday but I'll take it! 
-I am litterally out of food I have been eatting french bread ($1) with peanut butter or jelly for the last 3 days. Hopefully I will have a chance to hit the grocery store tomorrow. 
-Not really sure how hard classes will be..?
-How much studying I will have to put in?
-I am keeping all the letter all of you wrote to me by my bedside.
LOVE YOU ALL
Ally

First 4 days complete !

Hello family and friends!
I am literally having the time of my life. Meeting so many new people and  learning new things. Its so weird to me that I get to experience all these AMAZING things but not with the people that mean the most to me. Which makes me sad, but I have met some really great people that I can share them with any way. I have been GO GO GO ever since I got here. I had to force myself to sit down and write this because I know how important it is to document! I have been pretty jet lagged the first two nights I got at most 5 hours of sleep. Then finally last night I got a full 8 hours. (MIchigan is 16 hours behind here) It was quite terrible that I was so tired because  I have fallen asleep when my roommate (Omar) drove me and few friend in and around Sydney. I was falling asleep as he was showing us good places in the city. Also I have fallen asleep on the beach and got burnt. SO my days have been fun filled. I am basically on vacation right now because I have arrived a little over a week before school starts so this is the time I just have to explore and its just lovely. The first day I got here (Saturday) my flight landed around 9a.m. and a Macquarie Uni driver came to pick us exchange students up to then go to our accommodations. I met a guy named Caleb in the airport and we have hung out ever since. He is from New Jersey and he is very nice. From there I was brought to Macquarie Village where I am staying. I have alittle mix up with my housing right now but hopefully by next week it will be sorted out. Either way I have my own room and bathroom connected to eachother.  I have two boy roommates named Omar, he is from Pakistan and he has lived here for a year and ahalf and has a car. He has drove me the the super market a couple of times and has been very helpful. The other boys name is Max (Maxamillion) he is 25 and from Germany. He is very funny and out going. My other two roommates I met yesterday. Both are girls one is from upper Australia and the other is from Austria. Both very nice also! On the first day, I found my way to the store and bought my first legal bottle of wine! It was an Australian wine and it was only $10, which is VERY cheep here. Then Omar took us into the city and showed us alot of cool things to do. Sunday I headed to Bondi beach. Which is world famous and very busy but absolutely stunning. I also saw a cricket field, got asked if I was from Ireland, and met some very nice guys from england on the beach that play rugby. Monday a girl named Gab that was an exchange student at Grand Valley last semester took me around Sydney and to her favorite beaches (south beaches). She was SO nice and open to helping me with everything I need. She helped me get a SIM card and taught me how to dive under the waves in the ocean :) she's great. She offered to have me over for dinner and give me a bike that I can use to ride on campus. She has lived in Sydney all her life.  Today I went on a tour around Sydney. We went to the gardens, Opera house, and waked the the Sydney harbor bridge. I also got to see a didgerioo being played. The Opera house up close is indescribable, it's architecture is impeccable. I will defiantly go back a lot more before I leave.  Tomorrow I have international orientation where I have to schedule my classes and get my student ID. Then from there I go on a Sydney Harbor boat cruise with my village then off to the city for a bit of clubbing. Macquarie is beautiful and you literally can talk to anyone. Everyone is so open and nice to help you out with anything you need. When I was leaving home people were telling me "Ally you know you need to come back right?" and I thought oh yeah of course I will come back but this is such a beautiful wonderful city, I am falling in love with this place more and more everyday. I am really taking in everyday with a very open mind. I have met so many people from all around the world. Sydney is a VERY multicultural place with many different types of cafes and shops. I feel more and more bless everyday and so thankful I have this opportunity. I can't wait for whats more to come! 
Thanks to all who made this possible and I WILL be coming back by the first of July :)
Love 
Ally

Few last things: I am very burnt, everything is VERY expensive, the birds make really weird noises over here (mostly sound like cats) and it makes me feel like I'm in the rainforest. 

Bucket list so far: Climb on top of the Sydney Harbor bridge ($200), Skydive in sydney($300), job shadow an Australian medical social worker (free?), go to surf camp for a weekend ($370).