Sydney

We landed in Sydney yesterday afternoon after the three hour flight south from Cairns. After a slight hitch with the housing (apparently Australearn had not told UTS that we would be arriving on a Saturday, so the Housing Office was closed and we had to call a few people in order to get them to send somebody to give us our keys, but it all worked out in the end), we put our luggage in our rooms and headed out for dinner before some shopping for things we needed (there is a mall right around the corner from our building). I am in an apartment complex called Gumal Ngurang (Aboriginal word for "friendly place") about a block away from campus; it's very convenient to everything.

the main building at UTS

Today, I got up and went for a run in a very nice park nearby; the weather was perfect (a bit chilly, but great). After that, I ran into some of the other Americans by accident, and eventually all of us had gathered so we got breakfast together before walking down to the harbor to see the Aroma Festival, a coffee and chocolate festival that some of our flatmates had told us about. It was full of people, with live musicians around every corner and all kinds of coffee and chocolate to sample (though it was $2 per taste, so we didn't really sample that much).

crowds at the Aroma Festival

From the festival site, we had a great view of the bridge and Opera House in the harbor... it was amazing.

After that we headed back to UTS to do some more shopping (this time for groceries and anything we forgot the first time around) and then back to the room to get some sleep before orientation tomorrow...