PERTH!! We finally made it to where we will be staying for the next 4 and ½ months! We arrived late morning on February 4th and were met at the airport by a representative from Murdoch University who drove us to Murdoch! We were directed right to the admissions office where we were greeted by our RA's and they took us to our rooms and showed us how everything worked in the village (dorm). I live in a five person flat with 4 other roommates. Two of them are guys (Ryan and Shaun) from somewhere in AU about 3 hours from Murdoch and they are freshman and were friends before coming here. Another roommate, Emily, is 20 and she is also from AU. My fourth roommate is a 24 year old from Scotland. Her name is Robyn. They all have very thick accents and I have a pretty difficult time understanding them when trying to have a conversation. I always have to ask them to slow down or repeat themselves, especially Robyn. Hopefully this will get easier as time passes. I was the first one who moved into my flat and no one else moved in until 2 days later. I spent the whole first day unpacking and getting things I needed. Me and 3 other girls I came with went to the shopping center nearby called the Kardinya. It is about a 15 minute walk from campus or a 4 minute bus ride. At that point, we didn't know about the bus routes so we decided to walk. We got TONS of groceries and many other basics that were not provided for us. We didn't realize until we were all checked out that we had bought WAY to much stuff to carry back by ourselves. We saw some other people taking the carts back to campus with them and found out that lots of students do it. So the four of us filled up our carts and walked back along the busy 4 lane highway. Cars were honking at us and tons of people were whistling. We looked and felt absolutely ridiculous. It was a memory that I will NEVER forget and hopefully never have to experience again. The worst part is that there is not a sidewalk that leads back up to the actual campus. We had to ditch our carts at the edge of campus and take turns helping each other carry our things through the sand/desert back to our flats. It was an experience to say the least. Not to mention is was about 95 degrees outside! I went to bed very early that first night!!

The next day (Saturday) we went to check out the local beach, Cottesloe! It is absolutely beautiful! All of us could not believe that this is where we would be spending the next 4 months. There are some pictures of it that I have included.

We got to Murdoch a week and a half early for orientation and classes didn't actually start until Feb. 14th. So from Feb 7th-11th, we attending many informational sessions about campus, signing up for classes, and anything else we could possibly need to know in the next 4 months. We were all crammed in a small recreation room with no AC and no fans. It was HOT HOT HOT!! But luckily, most of the sessions weren't more than an hour and a half. The weekend right before classes started, we went on a day trip to Caversham Wildlife Park. There, we got to pet koalas and feed kangaroos for as long as we wanted. It was such a nice day and we saw so many different animals that were native to AU. When we were in with the Koalas, we were told to only pet them on their backs with the backs of our hands. One guy didn't listen very well and decided to rub the stomach of one of the koalas. The little guy actually looked like he was enjoying it for awhile, but all of a sudden he leaned over and bit the guys hand. It broke the skin and everything, but I guess he deserved it! Unfortunately, my camera died about 10 minutes after getting there so I didn't get pictures of everything I wanted, but other people in my group were nice enough to take pictures of me with their camera. So I did get pictures with the koalas, the kangaroos and a wombat! More to come!!