studyabroad – 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

21st Birthday

I could not have imagined having such a great birthday away from home, but it was perfect. I am blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful people. The only thing that could have made it better was if my family was here.

On Monday (the night before my birthday) we went to the escape room that I wrote about.It was a lot of fun and basically like being in a puzzle. We weren’t very good at it though and didn’t get out of the room. After we finished up it was around 10:30pm and they wanted to bring me to a pub in the city to wait until midnight. When we got there the rest of the group was there hanging out. We didn’t actually end up staying until midnight, but I was happy everyone came out for my birthday. I didn’t expect everyone to come out on a Monday night.

The next morning, on my actual birthday, I woke up and went to the gym as usual before showering and heading to work. When I walked into the office, this is what I saw!

They decorated my entire area in balloons and streamers and everyone was there waiting and singing happy birthday. They got me a nice card and a pin to wear – Queen For A Day.

Then they took it a step further and had a party pie lunch for the entire office and a cake complete with 21 birthday candles. My group helped them plan the whole thing, I couldn’t believe they kept it a secret from me.

As the work day died down, my group told me that they wanted to take me to pub to buy me a drink for my birthday. We left work around 5:30 and headed over to a place called ABC.

When we walked in everyone else that we are here in Australia with was waiting to surprise me!

I had no idea that everyone was coming and they actually told me that they had been planning it since last week. We stayed there for about four hours and had a blast 😊

Shannon surprised me with a chocolate covered waffle from a little cafe that we had been talking about and my group members bought me dinner.

Of course, everyone else just kept buying me drinks that we all ended up sharing. One of my group members tried to one up everyone and came back to the table with an entire bottle of moscato on ice with only one glass.

It was really funny!

Everyone was very very sweet and we joked that it was like a group 21st birthday… It actually was though. I will definitely remember this birthday for a very long time!

I can’t express how grateful I am to be in such a beautiful place surrounded by amazing people. I’m so sad that my time here is coming to an end in only two weeks, because it truly has been the time of my life so far.

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

Australian Rules Football

This weekend has been very relaxed after all of the excitement of last.

Yesterday, we bought tickets for a pro Australian football game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

If you have never seen this sport played, I encourage you to search it on YouTube. It was nuts! The field is enormous and the players wear little to no gear, but spend the entire time violently tackling each other!

It was a beautiful day to watch a game with friends.

On a side note, I only have 3 more weekends left in Melbourne. I can’t believe how fast this time has gone by! While I am trying to take in every last moment, I am excited to see me family and friends again. I really miss all of them and wish they could be here to experience this beautiful place with me. I especially know my cousin Joey would love it 😉 (He may or may not have been waiting for me to mention him on here… Lol).

xo,

Jaclyn

Cairnes Recap: ATV Tour

We had an awesome long weekend in Cairnes! It was exactly what we needed to relax and step away from our projects a bit.

Thursday night was pretty low key, as we weren’t able to check in until around 9:30. After that we pretty much just had dinner and went to bed.

On Friday morning, we woke up and headed to what we thought would be the beach. Unfortunately there was no beach in the area, but there was this beautiful lagoon.

We spent the morning here until the rest of the group arrived. Around one o’clock we packed up our stuff and got ready for our first adventure of the weekend – an ATV tour through the rainforest!

I was a little skeptical at first, but it was a blast!! We rode for about 2 hours straight down windy trails, through rivers, and basically all over the forest.

The company that put on this tour, Down and Dirty Quad Tours, was awesome. They joked with us the whole time and made it really enjoyable! They even let me use their go pro helmet mount for the tour.. I got some great footage of all of us.

By the end of the tour, we were all tired out. The last ten minutes of the trail were really wet and tough. Everyone kept getting stuck and kicking up mud at the person behind them, so we were all covered.

We rinsed off and had some Tim Tams and other treats with the tour guides before heading back to our hotel for the night. Overall, we had an awesome first day!

There was so much that happened on this trip that I want to split it up among a few posts so I don’t forget anything. I will be writing about our day at the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow 🙂

xo,

Jaclyn