I said goodbye to my parents at
Logan Airport on September 5th before boarding a plane to fly across
the globe. I had booked the flights out with Tim Bolick and Courtney O’Regan
and it just happened that another girl from Bentley, Julia Kenney, had the same
flights. We flew from Boston to LAX, to Sydney, to Brisbane. The four of us met
up with a fifth weary traveler in Los Angeles, a certain Matt Lawrence. The
squad had begun to form. After a rather long 26 hours of traveling, a
conversation with a pleasant Australian farmer on the plane, and almost losing
Tim on the way to Brisbane, we made it to Bond University on the Gold Coast of
Australia.
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| Bond University |
So, as a group of supremely jet lagged 20 year
olds in a brand new country we did the most logical thing in our situation: go
to a bar. Now Don’s is the pub right on campus and it is run by one of our
favorite people to date: Sarah. She is the bartender/bar manager and she was
able to give some insider knowledge to help us figure out what the hell what
we’re doing. It became quite clear straight off the bat that the alcohol in
Australia is EXPENSIVE. Like $40 for a liter of cheap liquor. Everything was
inflated except for a few cheap Australian beers (Not Foster’s. Foster’s
doesn’t exist here) and a magical nectar lovingly known as goon. Goon is the
cheapest boxed wine on the planet. About $10 AUD ($7USD) for 4 liters of wine. A
broke college kid’s dream. You will notice that goon will be a very recurring
theme. Stay tuned. Anyways, after chatting with Sarah and playing some pool, we
began to sort out our university affairs. We got ID cards, moved into our
rooms, attended a few seminars, and started meeting some of the strangers
around us. Because we moved in early as abroad students, most of the people we
met first week were also internationals. In the midst of the hustle and bustle,
we made our first big impulsive decision and signed up to go surfing in Byron
Bay for the weekend after the next. More on that later.
The jet
lag was rough for the first couple days but I was surprised at how quickly my
internal clock began ticking properly. After a few days of settling in and
exploring Bond and Robina, the surrounding town, we decided to brave the harsh
wilds of suburbia and do the unthinkable: go to the beach. Our main way of
getting around is by public transport but on this particularly sunny day, we
decided to just walk to the beach. At this point, we had gained another member
in our group, Anna Hajec, and she, like the rest of us, hailed from the faraway
land of “Bentley.” A 45 minute walk brought us to Miami Beach where we
frolicked amongst the waves, tried not to get blown away by the easterly winds,
and dug a really big hole… Because we are adults and adults are still allowed
to dig holes in the sand. The beaches on the Gold Coast are massive and
beautiful with never ending white sand that squeaks when you walk in it.
However, as a scuba diver/snorkeler, the sandy bottoms and big waves don’t make
for good underwater exploring. Yet I digress, beach was wicked sick. Had oodles
of fun. Moving on.
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| Miami Beach with the Surfer's Paradise skyline |
Thursday,
we went to the Corrumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. The group had picked up another
member too, Liam Dunn. We spent the entire day holding koalas, feeding
wallabies, getting hit on by emus, cheering on random iguana fights, spooning
kangaroos, and taking far too many selfies with all of the aforementioned
animals. It was truly an amazing place. We were pleasantly surprised at how close
we could get to the animals and it will most certainly be a place we will
revisit at some point.
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The Goon Squad: Back: Tim, Me, Liam, Anna, Matt
Front: Courtney, Julia, Parley the Koala |
That
night was our first club experience in Australia, and it certainly did not
disappoint. As it turns out, Bond is actually sponsored by various nightclubs
in Surfer’s Paradise, which is the nearby city. The city’s actual name is
Surfer’s Paradise. This country is awesome. The theme for the night was “tight
and bright.” Seeing as we all had limited packing space, we went to K-Mart and
Target at the local mall to find the most obnoxiously bright (and cheap)
clothes possible. The night started at Don’s before we were bussed to a club
called Shooter’s. Since Shooter’s sponsored the night, the busses were free,
the cover charge was waived, and we were given free drinks every hour. It was a
blast. Side note, it seems like the music in Australia is like 4-5 years behind
what we usually hear in the US. It’s honestly pretty cool because the music is
like a constant throwback playlist and who doesn’t love belting out throwbacks
the entire night?
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| The dudes being tight and bright |
Our
first weekend took us to a beautiful beach called Burleigh as per advice from
the travel agency on campus. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, there’s a travel
agency on campus that will handle transport, lodging, and activities for trips
across Australia and the surrounding countries. They will make it extremely
easy to plan out our semester. Back to Burleigh, it’s a classic beach town with
some pretty rad surfing. Not that we could surf yet, we wouldn’t learn until the
next weekend. We did take a nice walk up a small mountain right on the beach
that gave us some spectacular views of the coast with the Surfer’s skyline in
the background. On the other side of the hill we found a nicely secluded beach
that was sheltered from the waves and offered a prime place to relax.
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| Burleigh Beach |
That
night we went to another small city called Broadbeach. Being college kids on a
budget, we looked for places that didn’t have a cover charge. That’s when we
found Onyx. It was a bumping outside bar that looked like there was no one
there below 35. Perfect. Remember when I talked about how much fun
singing/screaming throwbacks was? Well now imagine doing that with a group of
40something year old Australian women. They were wicked nice and it was just a
hilariously fun night. When in Australia, am I right?
At some
point during week 1, another friend joined the crew, Monika Nowak. With her
welcome addition, the group stands at eight members; four guys: Myself, Tim,
Matt, and Liam; and four girls: Julia, Court, Anna, and Monika. It was sometime
on Saturday that we came up with our lovely group title of Goon Squad, which
was fitting for both our overall goofiness as well as our unwillingness to buy
any alcoholic beverages other than the dirt cheap boxed wine. The Goon Squad
ended our incredible first week in Australia at Waxy’s, an Irish bar deep in
the heart of Surfer’s Paradise. Waxy’s offers $2 steaks (That’s an Australian
$2, so like $1.40 in American) and live music every Sunday which made us
quickly realize that it was going to be a staple dining experience for the rest
of the semester. The steaks were actually really good too! They were decently
sized and the sauces and gravy they had were delicious. I mean, a $2 steak will pretty much taste good no matter what.
All
in all it was a fantastic first week. We did so much stuff in such a short time
span that it’s insane to think that we’re going to be here for four more
months. Needless to say, I’m pumped.
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| Bonus selfie with a croc |
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