Before this week, I had a feeling that I would be returning home within a week or so. This week, it finally hit me... I won't be going home for five months. This left me with a feeling of homesickness. hit me like a ton of bricks. My advisor told us international students that we would have good days and bad days and this week definitely had a lot of bad days. Luckily, my friends decided to go to the beach on Sunday and so I thought, why not go. After a day in the sun and a bowl of chips and gravy later, I felt much better. Although there are a lot of things that I miss from home. For instance, I miss my car. The transportation in Townsville are the world's most expensive, unreliable, crappiest buses. The bus drivers are the only angry people I have met in Australia. The bus driver's are constantly angry and very weird. They drive drunk. A lot of times they will slam on the breaks so hard that everyone in the bus flies forward. Other times, they will just not show up to the bus stop. There was even one bus driver who had flies just flying around his head and he didn't even notice. I'm more afraid by being kidnapped and killed by the erratic bus drivers than I am of strangers. Another thing I miss from home is the food. In Australia, they don't use spice in ANY food. I thought since they have so much influence from India here, that their food would be like very flavorful. No. Instead it feels like your eating tasteless mush. The only thing I can say for sure that is delicious is the fish and chips. I am for Townsville and not the rest of Australia. I am craving Cane's and Olive Garden and REALLY good pizza. I even miss the weather from home. I live in a very dry climate and just a couple weeks ago, my town broke a national record for the amount of snow fall in one weekend. I miss this. Not because I like the snow but because the heat is really getting to me. The heat in Australia penetrates my insides. The heat is exhausting. It is so hot that if you go outside to do something, your tired for the rest of the day. Also the humidity makes me feel sticky EVERYDAY. Despite missing my car, food and the weather, the thing I miss the most are the people. My family and my friends. Knowing that I won't see my family for another four months makes me very sad. But despite all this homesickness, I love being in Australia and experiencing new things and I am really excited for my upcoming trip down the coast. Here are a couple pictures of some weird animals and pretty views from this week.
You can't see it well but that is an Australian bat. They are about 3x the size of an American bat.