melbourne – Jaclyn Grace

Last Day

I can’t believe that IQP is finally over and today is my last day in Australia! Yesterday, we finished up project presentations and wrapped up everything at the office. It was definitely a sad goodbye, but I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such an amazing group of people.

After final presentations, we came back to the apartments to pack before heading over to an old WPI Professor’s house for pizza and drinks in celebration of being done! He rented out the rooftop of his building and we had a blast.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving for New Zealand at 9AM. We will be spending 5 days traveling from Wellington to Auckland before heading off to Hawaii for 5 more days. I will try to update when I can!

xo,

Jaclyn

Minor Mishap

Last week on Thursday I left my cellphone in the back of a cab on my way home to my apartment. I usually do most of my posts on there because the internet is generally unable to connect with my laptop, so there may be a lack of posts over the next couple of weeks. 🙁

We spent the last few days in Sydney so I will definitely do a post about that within the next day or two once I upload all of my pictures. We are also getting very busy finishing up our projects since we are in the home stretch!

xo,

Jaclyn

Fire Station Overnight

Last night I stayed the night at a fire station in a suburb outside of Melbourne. This was incorporated into the project I am working on here so that my team could get a better idea of what happens with fire fighters when they are on the job.

I arrived at the station around 5:30 pm with dessert. Everyone told us that we should have some type of food for them. All of the firefighters were very welcoming and friendly. They showed me around the station and had me lay out my gear so that I would be ready to go.

Not five minutes after I arrived, the alarm started sounding and they all yelled at me to hurry up. As soon as I started running to the trucks the emergency speaker said “Welcome Jackie. Have a great night at the station.” They thought that it was the funniest joke. They even gave me a print out of the “incident” report that they made up for that to happen.

Around 6:30 we ordered fish and chips from a small place down the road and 3 of us set off in the rescue truck to pick it up. I had never actually ridden in a fire truck before so I thought it was pretty cool.

Over the rest of the evening we watched a footy game on TV – complete with a money pool on what the final score would be. By midnight, we had already responded to three calls. None of them were anything that exciting but it was very cool to be able to turn out with them!

Overall it was a great experience!

xo,

Jaclyn

Random Update

I am finally adjusting to the routine and starting to get used to everyday life here. Soon enough I am sure it will feel like home, though there are some major things I’m missing. I would give just about anything for a regular dunkin donuts coffee at this point! I have yet to come across any cafe, restaurant, or coffee shop here that prepares coffee like we do in the US. While I love the fancy lattes, lately I have been craving a regular coffee.

Here are a few things that I have been up to over the past few days…

Last night a few of us went to one of the first nights of the Melbourne Comedy Festival.It was a free show located at a little bar in the city.To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much out of this. It had been a long work day and I almost stayed home and went to bed early, but I’m so glad I didn’t. There were 11 comedians that performed for about 5 minutes each and they were hysterical. The purpose of this show was to advertise the rest of their performances throughout the festival, so they all highlighted some of their best jokes. This was the perfect week night activity for us and I’m hoping we can catch another show while we are here. Comedy

Today after work I had a few errands to run. First, I went to the post office as I had to get a passport photo taken for my internship. This is the building that it was in…

I am telling you that everything here is beautiful. I couldn’t help but compare this to the post office in my home town, which doesn’t quite measure up.

After that, I went to the library to send in my forms for work and was so surprised by all of the people sitting on the front lawn. People were eating, reading, and working on their computers. It felt like I was on a college campus.

One other thing that I have been doing is playing around with the GoPro that I brought. It is awesome! I have been taking tons of videos, but unfortunately I am having trouble downloading the software to edit/compile them. I can’t wait until I can do that and see the final product. 🙂 Here are a few random photos I have taken with it…

xo,

Jaclyn

Friday Favorites – Australia Style!

Here are a few of the things that I am loving most about Australia:

1. Greek Food

I neverhad true Greek Food before, and I am in love! One of my group partners was born in Greece, so we have had quite a few meals. One restaurant is right next to our work and we have made our way over twice. The first time I had “The Greek Burger.” It was a burger with eggplant, veggies, cheese, and an egg on it. It also had a Greek sauce called tzatziki on it, which is sort of like a mayo/sour cream mix.

This past Wednesday we went there and I had the “Open Souvlaki.”

It was chicken that came with pita bread, tzatziki, and a delicious Greek salad. I loved it. I am going to have to find a Greek restaurant back at home!

2. The night market

I talked about this before, but every Wednesday in the summer there is a night market full of food, music, and entertainment. We went again this week and I loved it just as much. Of course, I had another strawberry, nutella, and coconut crepe…

3. Artwork

The graffiti here is incredible.

We came upon these walking to dinner with one of our advisors the other night. I can’t imagine being able to paint something like this on such a large scale.

4. Tim Tams

I should probably be ashamed that three of my last four favorite things this week are related to food… But I’m not! These are delicious. Everyone who comes back to school from Australia raves about these and now I know why. They are chocolate dipped cookies with a chocolate filling inside. There are so many other flavors too- salted caramel, peanut butter, white chocolate, and so on. I am definitely bringing some of these home for my family to try.

5. Skyping with my best friend!

Victoria is in Santa Fe, NM studying abroad right now as well and we finally got to Skype on Tuesday! I’m so glad we picked the same term to go away and that we are going on another cruise together when we get back.. only 64 days until that vacation! I’m so glad you’re having a blast and I miss you tons!

I don’t know if this qualifies as a favorite per say, but tonight I went to an internet cafe down the road to catch up on some work and schedule my classes for next year. I ordered an iced coffee and a small pizza for dinner so that I could use their internet. This is what I received…

It had ice cream in it! I felt like I was drinking a root beer float rather than a coffee. You definitely couldn’t get one of these at Dunkin Donuts!

xo,

Jaclyn