Vivid Sydney (Sarah)

Hope you all are enjoying our pictures! For those of you who are also our Facebook friends, there are many more photos posted there (and hopefully, more videos soon).

Tonight, Cristina and I are meeting up with some people for the start of the Vivid Sydney Festival. Here's the URL: http://vividsydney.com/ We are meeting up with two other American interns and a Spanish PhD student. Should be fun to see the lighting of the opera house!

I have been working hard on finishing the first draft of the Life After Macquarie brochure. It went to the designers yesterday, so I'm looking forward to seeing the draft on Monday. It's been a great experience working on that because I've been able to look at it from the perspective of an international student - I can tell my input is valid and appreciated! Next up, I'm working with my supervisor to edit the "Pre-Departure" website. This is the site that incoming international students visit in order to prepare for their journey to Macquarie. Again, it REALLY helps that I am an international student myself; the ideas and suggestions are flowing!

This morning, Cristina came with me to the iClub Breakfast Club that my department hosts each week for international students. The special today was crumpets with honey. For those of you who don't know, crumpets look and feel like pancakes, but they are not sweet, more like a moist english muffin. Delicious. We are still hesitant to try VeggieMite, though, we have purchased a jar and will be sampling it at our house, on a weekend, when we have the alternative option of going out for breakfast :)

On another note, did we mention that we have no dryer in our house? We have a washer, but no dryer...and it's been raining every day. So, no dryer, mixed with damp air and bedroom, makes for a none too easy time of drying our freshly washed clothes. I don't know how these Sydneysiders do it! Luckily, we've met another American intern, Taylor, who has access to both a washer and a dryer. We only have to walk a mile to use it, so not bad!

This weekend we're going to Hunter Valley. It's basically the Napa Valley of Australia (or at least, eastern Australia), so wine/cheese tasting it is! Our new friends Taylor, Allen, and Ignacio will also be coming along, so it should be a great time. We'll be sure to post pics!

-Sarah