Before this trip, not only had I never been out of the country, but I also had never even been on an airplane! I was so nervous to take my first flight: alone, across the globe, and for nearly a full 24 hours. Luckily, I broke up the flight and departed on my first leg of the trip early to spend time with cousins in San Francisco. The weekend went by quickly and soon enough they were dropping me off at the airport on Monday night. My adventure was really beginning!

The plane went smoothly, I spent all of Tuesday entirely off the earth, and I arrived in Sydney bright and early Wednesday morning. I found some fellow classmates in the airport and we took a (majorly expensive) cab to our new home for the next six weeks.

My program, CAPA, is housing us in an Urbanest (483 Wattle Street, Ultimo, NSW 2007 – there’s still time to mail me a package before I have to leave), a large apartment complex for student accommodations.

All of the students in my program are Americans, from various colleges across the country. There are 4 bedrooms and 8 girls in my apartment. My direct roommate is actually also a rising senior at Pitt from the Philadelphia area, but we had never met before this trip! My other suitemates are from University of Miami, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Colorado Boulder, and University of Minnesota. It’s been awesome to meet people from all across the country and hear about differences among our areas and accents. Before getting here, I was pretty nervous about living with 7 other girls but this really has been great. There’s always someone around to hang out and talk with! We’re all pretty laid back so we haven’t had any trouble living together and get along pretty well.

Ultimo (where our Urbanest is located) is a really cool area of the city. There are a few Uni’s around and so many students everywhere. Our apartment complex is between two giant malls – convenient for grocery shopping – and about one block away from the CAPA center, which is perfect for me since I roll out of bed and head right over to class.

I am taking a Sports Marketing class with an Australian professor, which is very interesting because he is able to give us a different perspective on marketing principals. The class is really nice because it applies all that I’ve learned in my previous marketing and business classes to the sports world, the industry in which I hope to work someday. So far, I’ve enjoyed this class very much and am looking forward to continuing in the next few weeks. Andy, the professor, is super laid back which is cool because he knows that we want time to explore the city and culture around us. He has taken us on a field trip to the practice facility and back offices of the GWS Giants, an Aussie Rules Football team in Western Sydney. Then, the following weekend he brought us to an actual game, so we could get the full experience. We got the full fan package and even got to walk on the field! During the game I had no idea what was happening on the field, but it looked so fun and the atmosphere was great.

So far, I am loving everything about my roommates and classmates and this whole entire city and I can’t wait to get out and explore some more!