Location, location, location

Deary me friends and familia, it has been a while. Sorry, but the Australian higher education system is C.R.A.Z.Y! They give you spontaneous tests and assignments due for the following week. Forgive me please xx

In between my academia-filled days, I have been exploring a little of what Sydney has to offer. First let me acquaint you with my local area. Here's where I live:

Here is where I hang out in between lectures...

I visit my friends from uni at their homes too....

Dyou know, I think part of me really did think it was going to be like this. Bliss. Home from home. Ah.

Wakey wakey, here's where I really live... at the roundabout turn left:

Go all the way down and turn right until you see my distinct yellow door...

Isn't it a sight to behold? So there you have it folks, my digs. Enough of that, here is some of the real beauty of Sydney...

Oh sorry wrong snap, I mean this...

and this...

And one that is particularly dear to my heart....

;) xx

Jollofing it up in Aus

I imagine every parent is worried when their child leaves home for the first time and goes to university, albeit across the globe. My mumma gave me strong words before I left: 'Eat well and don't come back looking worse than you left. If you come back with an accent I will shoot you'. You'll be happy to know that everyone here thinks I'm very 'english' so there is no danger of me picking up an accent.
I know that the burning question everybody has is, 'If you can't eat oreos to survive, what on earth are you eating?!' Put simply, you can take the girl out of Accra but you can't take Accra out of the girl! Well not quite, I won't pretend that I was born and bred in Ghana but we all know that I love it dearly ;)
Yesterday I had a craving for jollof rice so set about making some.

Side note and background information: Scientists may be intrigued to know that I have discovered a new gene and am yet to publicise it, but you, my friends and family, get first dibs. It's called the rice gene. It has run in my family for a couple of generations, passed down from my grandmother, to my father and now to me. Having the gene means that you have no rational sense of the correct amount of rice to cook at any one time. You consequently cook double or more the amount of rice needed for the occasion. Put another way, if we were in a similar position to Jesus, we would have used rice instead of fish and bread to feed the 5,000. In fact, even though we have never been anywhere near the position Jesus was in, we still insist on cooking enough rice for 5,000 people. As I have this gene, I cooked enough jollof for a small village instead of one person. I froze some and gave some away and am still enjoying it from two days ago.

Since I've been here I haven't had fast food once, and am proud to say I have cooked every meal from scratch. See the complete meal below ;)

Breakfast

I Kid You Not!

Was up at 7.20am in order to leave plenty of time to get ready, have a good breakfast and walk to uni for my 9am lecture -
Shower
Breakfast
Bag/Notepad
Arrive at the right lecture room
Lecturer...
Lecture...
Lect...
No? ok.

Apparently we (2 more + me) were a week early for the lecture. They don't start until week 2. Thanks guys for letting us know ;)

No probs, still had some things to do around campus, pick up my ID card, hand in some forms etc.

After the admin was done, I got back home and decided to do a spot of cleaning. My room needed hoovering, however the hoover didn't have much suction. Side note: I love the way how 98% of people are bemused when the hoover loses suction. I don't think that my housemates ever dreamed that a hoover is like an electronic bin that needs emptying... ah... Fast forward the hoovering and cleaning of the entire communal area, I went back to my room and started on my bathroom. I was very much looking forward to this bout of cleaning as I bought a massive bottle of bleach which was going to do wonders. It did.

The bleach spilt on my hand.

My hand with no glove.

My hand with eczema. *pause for shock* ARRRGGGHHH!!!!!

The bleach I bought was not like Parazone, it was laundry bleach and so was a thin liquid that subsequently sloshed onto my hand when I opened it! It was more than salt to a wound, it was bleach to wounded eczema! As I am typing, my right hand is still irritated from the incident. Of all the places for bleach to spill...

On my eczema ;(

The Most Important Thing - Oreos in Aus

A lot of lies in a small box

Deary me, I'm writing this with a heavy heart and horrible after taste in my mouth... Oreos in Australia are VILE! I thought, "why not treat myself" to the popular cookie/biscuit lovechild which turned out to be a waste of 1.89 AUD. I don't know exactly what they taste of, it's almost like they put too much vanilla essence and not enough chocolate in... I think... They just taste wrong and the sad thing is, they look the same, therefore it's blatant deception!

Anyway, long and short of it is, don't ask me to bring you any back...

Woohoo, we're on! I'm not going to start this with a "G'Day mate" as if it's funny because it's not! ;)

All jokes... haha... *tumbleweed* aside, thank God He brought me safely here to Australia. 10 hours to Bangkok, a quick search and fumble to the next gate, 10 or so hours later, I arrived. Bleary eyed at 5.30am Sydney time, sailed through customs and onto baggage collection where I again laid eyes on the superstar that is Brian McFadden! Ah Brian, he's actually a lot taller than I expected him to be, actually I didn't expect anything because he has never once crossed my mind... No no  he has, because every time I see Kerry Katona, I think 'but he looks like a decent guy, how did they end up together?' Anyway, him and Kerry aside, he's quite tall!

We did make eye contact though, not only in Sydney but in Heathrow too... who cares!!! Oh, Lydia does...

Having collected my things, I entered the main body of the airport expecting to see a friendly face with a 'Macquarie' plaque ready to whisk me away in a comfortable vehicle straight to my luxury accomodation. The different time zones had obviously affected my rationale, as this was not the case. An hour later than expected, a bleary eyed, over- weight, older man meandered over and casually said "Macquarie?" that was my ride!

Fast forward 45 minutes more students joined the meeting area and we were en route to our respective lodgings... Here beginneth the adrenaline rush ;)