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