With the exception of my very first semester at Rollins in the fall of 2019, it\u2019s safe to say my experience thus far has been a bit unorthodox. For the past year and a half, I\u2019ve been trying to get abroad. My hopes have been shot up and crushed a number of times due to acceptances and then closed borders and empty promises. So, there I was, in the weeks leading up to my officially official departure to another country, and quite honestly, none of it felt the slightest bit real to me. There was no mental preparation, very little packing up until the day before my departure, no plans made except for a plane ticket\u2026 and it wasn\u2019t until I was landing in Cairns, Queensland, Australia, that any ounce of the change I am about to go through set in. In typical Southern American fashion, I was being my overly apologetic and overly polite self, and began chatting up with two lovely local Australian women, Catherine and Louise, headed into Cairns for a music performance. I sat next to Catherine, who was struggling with the change in pressure as the aircraft made its descent, and tentatively offered a few tips that help me with the sinus pressure. Upon learning I was new to the area, and didn\u2019t know if Uber was even a thing or what my plans to get to my hotel were, Catherine kindly offered for me to join herself and Louise in their Uber or Taxi, just because I was kind enough to ask if she was okay. Now, I could not imagine this situation playing out the same way in America. Catherine and Louise\u2019s kindness and welcome to me as a stranger was overwhelming, and it wasn\u2019t the same kind of polite-just-because type of nice I\u2019m used to in Tennessee; it was something else entirely! I had heard from many people that Australians were so friendly, and Catherine and Louise really did confirm that with their warmest welcome. While I ultimately declined to join them in their taxi as I didn\u2019t want to trouble them with having to order a larger vehicle to accommodate my absurd amount of luggage, I don\u2019t think I ever would have even considered catching a ride with strangers here in America in the first place, and reflecting on that caught me off guard a little bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, while Catherine and Louise confirmed some of my preexisting notions of Aussies, the days that followed debunked many other ones that I held. The biggest one was that I had this idea that all Aussies were kind of a rugged, outback, Irwin family type, and even in just the short time that I\u2019ve been here, I\u2019ve come to realize just how diverse the culture and people are across this country-continent. I learned that 1 in 4 Australian citizens are immigrants, and that was a way higher statistic than I\u2019d imagined. Additionally, my biggest concern about Australia so far seems to now be a little ridiculous; I figured there would be giant spiders everywhere. Almost a week in, and I have yet to see a single spider, and been reassured by many Aussies that there really isn\u2019t much to fear in that department!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One last thing I want to add on this first-glance at studying abroad post, is how I currently feel as an American in another country. Just as I have my preconceived ideas about Aussies, they have the same about Americans. Sometimes I will catch people looking at my group of Americans in annoyance, because we are talking or laughing at a tone that I would guess is considered to be very loud. I also find myself drifting to the right side of the street when walking in the airports or the towns, and bumping into people. It\u2019s also a lot harder than I thought it would be to understand the English language in thick Australian accents! While looking at the surface, Australia looks and dresses and seems like it would be similar enough to America, however now that I am truly standing here, I see that it is so, so much deeper and different than I ever could have imagined, and I have a lot of adjusting, listening, and learning to do as I move forward in experiencing all of the wonderful adventures and culture this country has to offer me over the next four and a half months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the exception of my very first semester at Rollins in the fall of 2019, it\u2019s safe to say my experience thus far has been a bit unorthodox. For the past year and a half, I\u2019ve been trying to get abroad. My hopes have been shot up and crushed a number of times due…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":694,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[369,87,398,320],"class_list":["post-20862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newcastle","tag-rollinsabroad","tag-australia","tag-newcastle","tag-tean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/694"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20864,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20862\/revisions\/20864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}