Hello! I've never had a blog before and frankly, I don't like them. One, because I automatically relate blogs to tumblr. And I don't get tumblr. I sort of had on in high school specifically to look at high-quality pictures of food and puppies. But I never met people because (and trying to be as diplomatic as possible) I wasn't into Dr. Who and Anime and politically charged debates about gender identity, nor did I go to art school and smoke cigarettes outside my favorite coffee shop. Which I guess makes me sound really close-minded and ignorant, but honestly, I was more in it for food and puppy pics and had no patience for anything distracting me from that. Two, some people with blogs shamelessly self-promote his/her screenplays or poems that are trying too hard or his/her awkwardly self-orchestrated "model" shoots. Or three, they're a study abroad blog. Now, I understand this is glaringly hypocritical because this is a study aboard blog, but I'll explain. I didn't like reading study abroad blogs because I didn't like being reminded how boring my life was by scrolling through exotic pictures of friends taking trips to African safaris, or drinking delicious tea in some beautiful pub in England, or hiking ice cliffs in Iceland. But now the tables have turned and I'm supposed to be the one having a good time (so if you're curmudgeon like me and don't want to read this blog, I will not be offended).

Anyway, so I am keeping a blog to keep track of my travels in Australia via pictures and writing that I'm publishing on a blog in the rare event someone is keen/bored enough to stumble upon it (or my mother who will remember more details from this blog than I ever will).

So, in sum, I am a rising junior at Gettysburg College currently studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia. I'm studying English and Philosophy at the University of Melbourne and am currently living off-campus in St. Kilda (96 Barkly Street, St. Kilda VIC 3182 to be exact, for those of you that would like to drop $50+ sending me goodies. No? Okay, I think it's $1.25 to send a postcard if you wanna be pen-pals) a suburb of Melbourne that's about a 25-30 minute tram ride from downtown. It's right next to the beach, has tons of pubs, cafes, boutiques, and more. Overall, you can get every kind of useful and useless thing your heart desires.

One thing I did not anticipate was the cost of living. I knew vaguely that living in Australia  was expensive, but I just assumed as a study abroad student, I was immune the causes of high-priced living and that everything would be easy and cheap because I wasn't a real resident...I don't know why.

And I was quite wrong. The cheapest meal seems to be some sort of pasta dish, which is around $10. A typical beer will cost between $6-10. If you wanna get fancy with it by going to fancy bars, be prepared to dent your budget big time (apparently a male living in Australia for a year will spend upwards of $10k on alcohol alone...not so much for females because a good chunk of that $10k is men paying for womens' drinks).

But, other than that, Australia is incredible. The coffee here is subtlety different, yet amazing, there are infinite things to do, traveling in the country is pretty doable, and the places to travel to are the stuff out of National Geographic magazines. I'm pretty pumped.

Anyway, below are some pictures of the past few days from my Arcadia orientation (the program I'm with). Tomorrow will be my first AFL (Australian Football League) match. Then, I start my formal University of Melbourne orientation on Monday...and I will not be watching the World Cup Final because it's on at 5 a.m. Monday here. So that is a no-go, unfortunately. But, I'm pretty excited to get my semester here going!