Room 10, 17 Coogee St

Welcome to 17 Coogee Street. Although it looks small, it goes on forever into the back, much like many DC townhouses. This will be home sweet home for me and 16 other study abroad students for the next 4 months. Yes, you read that right, 16 students. Luckily, all the roommates (thus far) are pretty awesome and easy going.

The accomodation is great, especially living upstairs as I do. The windows on the right of the building are directly above my bed. My roommate just arrived today. She is from New Jersey and it seems like we should get along well. Funnily, I am in the minority in the house in that I am neither Canadian (we have 3 Queens' students) nor a business major (all but one).

The first floor is kind of boarding house style, while the upstairs is more homey. They boys are downstairs while the girls are upstairs. Obviously, the boys are jealous of our digs upstairs and tend to hang out up there. There's no aircon in the house, but the fans do a good job so it's okay. There's also a guest house/love shack in the backyard with another girl and a house manager, Justin. He's the guy we go to to troubleshoot problems with the house. Basically, his story is exactly the story my parents don't want to tell about me; he was a study abroad student last year and fell in love with the place and transfered.

Front door from the top of the stairs; Upstairs kitchen; Upstairs common area

A picture of my room will be forthcoming, but it needs to be completely unpacked and cleaned first.

One of the things I'm most appreciative of (other than the lack of communication issues) is the general lack of culture shock. I am, however, enjoying discovering the differences between well known American items and their Australian counterparts; grocery shopping especially pointed these out to me. I debated, but finally bought the Rice Bubbles over the Frosties. I passed on Cheese Supreme Doritos. The 2 liter Coke bottles are kind of awesome because they look exactly like the one's you would get from a vending machine, except bigger.

Just to make you all jealous: I am simultaneously 15 minutes from the beach and 15 minutes from Uni (although there's a killer hill to get there). Some postcards have been bought and will hopefully be in the post shortly.

Key: aircon = a/c, air conditioning; Rice Bubbles = Rice Crispies; Frosties = Frosted Flakes; Uni = university (duh); post = mail

LAX

Thus far today I have survived not sleeping last night (so I'd be tired for the flights and avoid jet lag as much as possible), a 5:30 am cab ride to National, absolutely no difficulties in Denver, waiting in line twice for ticketing for Qantas (the Australian airline), and being on hold for more than an hour and a half with STA trying to get my Sydney ticket reissued because I'm an idiot...don't ask. I've been in an airport since 6 am this morning and have had 10+ hours of layover time thus far.

I met a ridiculous British woman who is on my flight at dinner. She moved over and sat near me and another guy also travelling to Sydney (not on our flight). Carole - with an "e" so I wouldn't forget - promptly invited me to stay at her house 3 hours north of Sydney. She's also let me in on the best white wine to buy. She was going to visit me on the plane when she got bored, but was surprised when I said I could, hypothetically, sleep 10 of the 14 hours the flight takes. She also told a couple of stories multiple times, but it was nice to have someone else to talk to after a day of travelling alone.

Finally, I exchanged the bulk of my cash in the airport tonight. First, the Australian dollar is finally worth more than the American dollar ($1.03 bought 1$AUD). Second, their bills are really really pretty. They get longer as they go up in denomination and they only have singles as coins, not bills. 5s are purple, 10s are blue, 20s are red, and 50s are yellow; they also all have a cutout with a plastic inlay that is kind of awesome.

T-Minus 2 Weeks

I have about two weeks left in the States and as my departure date looms I'm getting more and more ready to go.

3 = the number of different places I have lived thus far in DC
3 = the number of days until my parents and sister come to visit
1 = the number of places I have left to stay
2:3 = the ratio of futons to beds I have slept in
15 = the number of days I have worked...in a row
4 (+2 still to be done) = the number of times I have packed/repacked my bags for Sydney

Luckily, even though I have been dragging my life around with me in 3 suitcases for 3+ weeks now, I definitely made the right decision in coming back to DC. I feel like I'm going to be really prepared for Sydney without applications and other things like that (i.e. taxes) to worry about. Now to stop myself from starting a countdown...