O week carries on

I've had a number of things on my plate (literally and figuratively, I ate fried octopus this week!) so I think I'll just start at the beginning

We rolled into Manly on Monday, got settled in our rooms with the help of Tony Henry, the director of student services here at ICMS.  He's been a big help and has a great attitude towards making everyone feel welcome here at the school.  Tuesday consisted of sessions almost all day.  We had an 8 am welcome meeting for international students (that's us now since we're over here), a learning strategies meeting, and a computer lab meeting.  After that, we had a college welcome ceremony in the gorgeous chapel, and then a cocktail party on campus.  Things are much different here in the the sense that alcohol is a very acceptable thing here on campus.  For example, the general manager (who would be the equivalent of the chancellor in the states) came to the cocktail party after he had just given us a speech welcoming us to Australia and shared a few drinks.  It was really cool to see him so professional in one instance and then come join us at the party and personally introduce him self to almost all of the Americans.  He's really laid back and took the time to shake all of our hands.  The party commenced and us loud, obnoxious Americans headed down to a local bar called the Shark Bar.  

Wednesday consisted of getting ourselves 'officially' enrolled, that means filling out big packets and countless signatures and dating.  I began to feel exhausted from the hustle and bustle that is Hogwarts *ahem* I mean ICMS.  I took a nap and got ready for the night.  Most of my American friends attended a wine and cheese party on the 2nd floor balcony overlooking Manly.  I'm not a huge fan of wine so I saved my $18 for later.  From what I hear, it was quite the show.  My buddy John simply said "you walk out onto the deck, they hand you some cheese and a bottle of wine and say 'don't break anything'.  It was quite humorous seeing them walk into the meeting that we had following the 'wine tasting' with our RA's in the Great Hall.  After that, I decided to lay low once again and stay in.  I'm currently working on a slide show of pictures that I will post on this site once I finish it, it's coming along nicely.

Thursday was a day of errands for me.  I woke up with a laundry list of things to do.

• Get fitted for suit
• Obtain scheme of works (a.k.a a syllabus) for my business finance class
• E-mail said scheme of works to professor Richard DeFusco at UNL
• Find out if the meeting later in the day were mandatory (they were)

I'm probably forgetting a thing or two.  

After all of that, John, Mike, and I decided to go exploring out east of the school.  By this I mean we wanted to go to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific.  We headed up the hill and came upon this sign.  You don't see this in America ever, so I took a picture of it.  

After that, we found our way through some bush before we came upon a lagoon.

 

The lagoon was sweet.  The stuff that looks like sand is actually sandstone rock.  We moved onward and I began snapping photos of the cliffs and Manly.

This cliff doesn't look tall, but it was at least 75 feet high.

We then headed back towards Manly on a scenic walk.  I found a few good spots to go do homework that have great views of the ocean.  

Last night we went to Warringah Mall, which is the largest mall in the Sydney area.  In typical Clay fashion, I didn't buy anything or see anything I like.  Pair of Dickies khaki shorts were $80!!  So we got back on the city bus and headed back to Manly Wharf bar where we met up with Laura and Yvonne, two German students that I had met on Tuesday.  After that, we headed over to Shark Bar because they had a band and a list of drinks that you could choose from, all being $5.  That is the cheapest I have paid for any drinks here, it's expensive to have fun here!  Anyways, I'll leave you with a photo of me, Frankie, and Will.

Frankie is the most interesting person I have ever met in my life.  He's one of my closest friends so far on the trip.  He's from South Africa and was picked up by the Australian Union Rugby team when they saw him play vs. China.  He's funny and has told me some amazing and shocking things about South Africa.  He said he hates it when stupid Americans come up to him and ask him if he has lions in his back yard.  He said it's hard to deal with such ignorant people.  Rightfully so, I mean, it's not hard to learn a little something about a few different countries.  At any rate, he's a really interesting guy.  He told me a story the first few minutes that we met.  He said that he's almost gotten into a few fights already.  Since I'm not a fighter, this sounded strange to me, and I asked him why?  He said "It's just about where I come from.  In South Africa, if you don't fight, you don't drink.  If you don't fight, you don't eat." And so on.  This was very eye-opening to me.  He basically laid it out, black and white, about what it's like to be where he's from, Cape Town.  

Not to sell Will short, but he's a cool kid from University of San Diego.  He's a Lambda Chi too.  It's just hard to top Frankie, haha.

That's all for now.  I've forgotten to mention this to everyone, but if you'd like to subscribe to my blog and get e-mail alerts every time I write a new story, that option can be found near the top of the page, I believe.  Thanks for all the comments on the blog, keep them coming!

Clay