Week 5/6:
Tuesday June 24th:
Today was a typical day of work, not too much excitement! I
am still working on getting sponsors for our event, which is proving to be
extremely difficult! At night we had a research seminar, where we had to
discuss with our advisors about our research papers.
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| Feeding time!!! |
Wednesday June 25th:
We had an event today, so I got to go on-site with one of
the planners and help set up and take part in the event. It was a good
experience because I got to see how things come together on the day of the
event, and how organized you must be! The event was the Bing Ad’s 1 Year
Anniversary in Australia. I got to meet some really important people, I met the
head of Microsoft in Australia and the head of Microsoft in Singapore. That is
my favorite part of this whole experience, is getting to meet people from all
over the world!
Thursday June 26th:
Today was a good work day, I actually met the finance
director at Jack Morton, who happens to be from Boston! It turns out, she has a
lot of connections in New York, and said she may be able to help in the future
if I ever need! The second she heard me talk, she was like, “OH MY GOD YOU ARE
AMERICAN TOO!” Later that night, we went out for a fun night of dancing at this
really cool place called Ivy, which has an awesome outdoor pool!
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| The cutest animals to ever waddle the Earth! |
Friday June 27th:
I got to go Olympic Park today! This is the site where the
2000 Olympics were held! I saw the swimming pool where Michael Phelps swam,
which was really cool! I also got to see several other venues and got to watch
some live Badmitton happening. The event that my work is hosting is going to be
held at one of the venues that was used for the Olympics, which is awesome!
Later that night, we made dinner in the apartment and went for an hour-long
walk through the city!
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| Tasmanian Devil |
Saturday June 28th:
This morning we had to get up really early for our group
trip to the Blue Mountains! The Blue Mountains is this beautiful mountainous
region about an hour and a half from Sydney! They are called the Blue Mountains
because from the distance you can see the mountains and they appear blue. The
first stop was Featherdale Wildlife Park, which had all kinds of awesome
animals! We got to hold a baby kangaroo, feed other kangaroos, and see
penguins!!! Penguins are my favorite animal, they are so cute! We also saw
crocs, Tasmanian devils, wombats, koalas, and dingoes! We saw this bird called
the Cassowary, which is one of the deadliest birds with really sharp claws, and
has been known to chase humans off cliffs! Another scary creature we saw was
the flying foxes! They look like bats on steroids, massive creatures that
literally gave me the chills just looking at them! It was really cool to see
all of these Australian animals that you can’t find anywhere else! After this,
we headed to scenic world, and rode the world’s steepest railway through the
mountains! Then got to walk along side of the mountains and had some really
incredible views! It was very foggy, so the mountains were hard to see, but
view was still amazing. There were some points on the walk where there were no
railings and you were just on the side of the mountain! After this, we headed
back to the hostel. A hostel is a cheap place to stay and each room has several
beds, in which travelers from all over come and stay in. The hostels attract a
lot of young travelers, and it’s cool to meet all these people! It was
absolutely freezing in the mountains, as it was snowing!!! I felt like I was in
Vermont again. A bunch of girls and I spent the night by the fire, playing card
games! However, when I went to bed I was so cold, and was practically shivering
the whole night!
Sunday July 29th:
Today was a very adventurous day! We went to the Blue
Mountains again, and we went abseiling off a few cliffs in the mountains!
Abseiling is the same thing as repelling down the side of a rock. It was soo
cold, but soo much fun! Our instructors were really cool and taught us a lot of
cool tricks! After a couple rounds of abseiling normal, they showed us how to
abseil upside down! It was so awesome going down the side of the cliff upside
down! One boy in our group even did a 360, which was really cool! After this,
my friends and I warmed up at this little hole in the wall café and had some
lunch! After a good day of abseiling, we headed back to Sydney!
Monday June 30th:
Today we had class, which was thrilling….not really! The
first part of class was very boring, but the second half, we got to go to the
Jewish and Holocaust Museum, which was really interesting. It was very sad, but
the museum had some really cool artifacts and exhibits. My favorite exhibit was
these sketches an artist made that told the story of a 90 year-old Holocaust
survivor. The sketches were done beautifully, and really told the survivors
story. After class, we had the Arcadia 1st Annual Basketball Game!
There were two teams made up of Arcadia students, which were all guys and me!
My team was full of guys who had played in high school and they play college
intramurals at Indiana University. We played full court for two hours straight
(definitely a great workout)! It was so much fun, and my team is the undefeated
champs so far! I have to admit, I did get blocked a few times! After our game,
one of the locals was trash talking us and there was almost a fight, but thank
god everyone calmed down and no one got in a fight! Needless, to say it was a
really fun night!
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| Abseiling upside down! |
Tuesday July 1st:
I can’t believe its July already! Today was another day of
work, and I spent most of the day calling different people about sponsorship
opportunities. My boss took me out to lunch and we got Chinese, where he
insisted that I use my chopsticks to eat my meal! My boss is quite the character,
that’s for sure! Tonight, we tried to make chicken, but I burnt it so bad that
the fire alarm almost went off, but thankfully I called downstairs in time so I
wasn’t charged a $1,000 fine! Did I forget to mention that I am not the world’s
greatest cook?! Hahaha, well on that note I am heading to bed, as the US is
playing at 6am tomorrow our time! Goodnight America!:)
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| Steepest Railway in the World! |
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| Me getting screened haha |
