After living here for a little over two weeks, I’m happy to say that so far Australia has lived up to the hype and even exceeded my sky-high expectations. The second I stepped foot off my 15 hour flight from LAX and saw the sun for the first time in nearly 24 hours, I knew immediately Sydney was going to be a great time.

I’m living in Ultimo on Wattle Street at Urbanest with a bunch of other students from Pitt, as well as students various other universities. Fortunately for me, everyone here has been really cool and they’ve made it easy for me to still feel comfortable even though I’m 10,000 miles away from home. Not only have the people on my trip been easy to get along with, but the Australians themselves have as well. They’re every bit as laid back as movies and tv would suggest. Anytime I’m in need of directions or information, the Aussies have been more than happy to help out and make sure I’m taken care of on their turf. They’ve made the transition to living in Sydney as smooth as can be.

As far as food goes, Sydney has not let me down in the slightest. Any kind of food I could ever want is no more than a 10 minute walk away. So for someone who has an appetite as big as mine, this is the closest thing to heaven as you’re going to find. They have burgers, pizza, subs, Asian food, Mexican food, ice cream, and even American chains like KFC and McDonalds, or as Australians call it, “Maccas”. What’s interesting about their American fast food places here though, is that the menus are much different. For example, the dollar menu pretty much is nonexistent here in Sydney. Also, they have things our menu does not have such as the Chicken Big Mac, loaded fries, and Chicken McBites. Basically, I’m a very happy camper out here in Sydney with all this food.

Work is going great as well. I’m interning at a relatively new startup called Fixit about a 20 minute walk away from Urbanest, which is very convenient. The app my bosses created provides a platform for people to report problems they detect in their physical surroundings. So instead of going through the hassle of figuring out which department or which person you have to contact in order to fix a pothole in a road, Fixit allows you to report it to the appropriate department in seconds. Like the rest of the people here, my coworkers are all really cool people and I’m learning quite a lot about the operations of business and what goes in to creating and maintaining a successful idea.

So far, Sydney has been great. My only complaint is the weather, which hasn’t necessarily been bad, however it could be a lot better, but not everything can be perfect. I’m happy with my decision to come here and I can’t wait to see what these next few weeks have in store for me, cheers!