Submitted by Brittany Catalina on the 2018 winter session program in Australia sponsored by the Department of Hospitality Business Management…
It has officially been a week since I have arrived in Australia. I love to travel but I was definitely more nervous than excited because I haven’t been this far from home before. I was especially nervous because of the long flight. The flight was about 18 hours. The flight actually surprised me. It was definitely not as bad as I anticipated. They fed us really well and I even actually got some sleep! Before I knew it, I was landing in Sydney. Once I landed, I felt a little weird. Apart from the huge time difference (I just jumped 2 days ahead), I didn’t feel like I even left America. It reminded me a lot of California. We then made our way to the college, and the building is a huge castle up on a hill overlooking the beach. It seemed so surreal. After getting settled in my room, my roommate and I went down to explore the town. We walked along the beach and decided to find some lunch. It was quite hard to find something to eat for cheap. Australia is very, very, very expensive. Meals started at like $20, which was super weird for us. We’re so used to being able to eat for $5 in the US. However, the exchange rate works in our favor. Since the American dollar is so strong, we get a little more. For example, if I were to buy a $15 hamburger, it would probably be around $11 or so. Also, another hard adjustment was the weather. We had come from snow to 90 degree weather. So, it definitely took me some time to adjust to the climate. A few days into our program, we took our first trip into the city. We took the ferry in, so we got a beautiful view on the way. Once I saw the harbor bridge and the opera house, I was so ecstatic. Like I said, I love to travel and Sydney was always a place I wanted to see, so once I saw the Harbour, I fell in love. Everything about this place is absolutely beautiful. As much as I said it reminded me of America, it is quite different. Besides driving on the left side of the road, the culture itself is so different. Everyone here enjoys life and is relaxed. In America, we are so rushed and kind of just forget to enjoy ourselves. I’m one of the people that does that. I get so caught up in school and work and forget to just take a second and breathe. For the most part, everyone here is very friendly and are quite interested in Americans. We have gotten to do so much in just the short time we have been here. Since we are a hospitality program, we have been having lots of different meals. We even had come cooking classes were we even cooked kangaroo! I wasn’t too happy about that. We had a tour of the Sydney Opera House which was amazing of course. I just bought a ticket for a show coming up at the Opera House so I’m very excited. We have so much fun stuff coming up soon and I can’t wait. I am having the best time in Australia and I don’t wanna leave. I am so happy my major is in Hospitality so I definitely have the opportunity to come back to Australia 🙂
