My first week of being in Australia and my experience has been wonderful. Last week was the first time I had traveled outside of the United States, especially without any of my family nearby. I knew I was going to love Australia as a country, but I did not how well I was going to adapt overall to the different people, environment, culture, and teaching environment. I knew there was going to be Bucknell students here with me but I thought that the overall new environment was going to overwhelm me for the first couple of weeks. But my expectations were completely wrong; I adapted extremely well and already feel comfortable with my new environment.
I met some amazing new people here since I’ve been in Australia. Most of the new people that I have met have been from the GAV program, with them being from different schools across America. We all feel the same way about coming to Australia and wanting to gain new experiences from this semester abroad. I want to connect with them more over the next 7 weeks we will have in Australia and hopefully gain those experiences with them together.
We went to on a tour of Australia’s first city and it was beautiful how many of the landmarks had existed from when Australia’s earliest days. It’s amazing how much care and appreciation Australians show for their history and culture.
We went to the Australian Wildlife Reservation last Sunday and I have never seen this much care taken for animals like this in America. The animals were able to be super comfortable with humans and sometimes wanted to be involved with us. It shows how much trust the animals at the reservation have with the staff there and shows how much the staff care for their animals.
I really loved my time in Australia and hope to make more memories in this week as well!