The Unexplored Path: First Weeks of Uni

My first few weeks at uni were great!

*side note: no one calls it college here, or even university. You simply say "uni."

I live in the East New Residence tower on campus, so through the activities that were held each day during orientation week (O week) I met more and more people from my tower. Monday was Australia Day, Tuesday was a jungle party, Wednesday was The Amazing Race scavenger hunt, Thursday was sex trivia, Friday was a lawn day party, Saturday was a pool party followed by a UV dance party, and Sunday was sports day followed by the goon case race (goon is boxed wine, which is VERY popular among college students because alcohol is quite expensive here). Needless to say, it was an exciting, fun, and exhausted week to kick off the semester!

The next week classes started up. We had International Orientation that Friday, which was a trip to Port Stephens. It is about an hour away from Newcastle. We started off the morning with a dolphin cruise around the harbor. Then we went to Irukandji Shark & Ray Encounter where we were able to feed and swim with rays, sting rays, and sharks. We ended the trip at Murray's Brewery, where we ate pizza and tasted several beers and wines. After arriving back at uni we headed out for the UNESN pub crawl. It was an eventful day!

University of Newcastle Exchange Student Network (UNESN) is a club I joined the first week of school. They plan events and trips throughout the semester for international students to attend. At the beginning of March we had a boat party around the Sydney Harbour, which was great! It was 4 hours long with pizza and an open bar, what more could you ask for!?

This being said, my time at The University of Newcastle has already been so SO much fun and I cannot wait for more adventures to come!