Lauren and Adri's Semester in Australia : Week One Down!

We have officially made it one week down under!

If feels like a month though! I think y’all can tell through our blog that we have had quiet the adventures! Lauren and I have been setting off exploring all we can! We had a little bit of school stuff to this week but a ton of free time! Two days we just got on the tram and jumped off when it looked like an area we wanted to explore! The city is beautiful! We don’t have many pictures of that yet but we will soon! On both days we spent hours roaming around! The main roads are packed with shops and cafes and sporadically down these roads there are small alleys that really expose the Melbourne culture! In these alleys we have found shops that exclusively feature clothes made my designers in Melbourne and cafes that only brew organic coffee that was grown in the area! It’s rich in culture! (Sorry for the cliché)

A big transition when leaving Texas it seems is adjusting to the people! I was raised with southern hospitality and have come to almost expect it. In Europe people would push and shove if we were near where they desired to stand! Here it is like home! People are so nice and accommodating! Just today we were eating desert and coffee at a café and a seemingly Italian lady leaned over and asked us what we were eating and told us about the different things she had tried and liked!

I think we both pride ourselves in how we have learned our way around! We gave in and bought a tram and bus card and have very successfully used both! We only got on the wrong tram twice!

We are getting a whole lot of attention for being Americans! Apparently Melbourne doesn’t get a lot of Americans! The older men especially love it! We got group hugged by an older man on the beach the other day just because we were Americans!

We love the beach! We have spent three of eight days there! It is beautiful! And on Fridays we can get two-dollar oysters on the half shell! I love oysters so yesterday I was especially excited for our beach trip! Lauren had never tried raw oysters and I knew that she would love them! I ordered four oysters for two dollars each and they were served on the half shell on a bed of ice! The only doctoring we could do to it was squeezing a lemon! No crackers, no tobacco, no cocktail, no nothing! We held the shell up to our mouths and pushed the boogers in! It was different! Fresh, a little fishy, but good! I don’t think that I am going to carry this home with me but we will partake in two-dollar oysters again soon!

Last night our dorms were having “scribble parties” we were told to wear white shirts and prepare to get drawn on! It was a ton of fun! We met some people in my dorm and had a great time! We got tons of signatures on our shirts and even picked up the nickname, “Texas”!