Finals are finally over! I have loved every minute of this semester but it is so great to able to say that I am done with classes until January. It’s also crazy weird that my education in Australia is over. I’ve made some awesome friends through class and I hate that I’ve had to say goodbye to them. On the bright side, finals were not at as all as stressful as I initially feared, but this is probably because we got three weeks for finals which is a major change from St. Edward’s where we don’t get a study week. 

Finals at UNDA are broken up over a period of two weeks with a study week before, so students here are done with the semester by the third week of November. Although students here would tell you otherwise, it’s a really low-key affair compared to finals week madness at home. Case and point: I could always find an empty seat in the library and I witnessed no tears or major breakdowns anywhere.

All of the school and goodbyes behind me, I’ve been on a road trip around the east coast of Australia with a friend for the last few days. We’re going to end our trip in Sydney and I am flying home a day later. It’s interesting because at home I don’t know if people would be as supportive of two girls traveling alone together over 800 miles and setting up a tent in random places along the way. 

Here, people have been so helpful. The reaction we get as we chat with people as we go along is “good on ya” or “that’s a good way to wrap it up” usually followed by an offer to help in some way. My favorite example of this is the owner of a campsite insisting that we stay on a site that had power and that was relatively near a light during the night, things that normally cost extra, for free because he wanted us to have the best stop possible before continuing on our trip. He also spent time with us after his work shift had technically ended and highlighted which parts of the Great Ocean road, a popular tourist drive, were worth stopping for. I think this attitude is one of the ideas I had about Australia that has proven to be true. 

Australians definitely work hard and get stuff done, but there is a sense of adventure and just taking whatever happens in stride that I don’t think we have at home. It’s more than just being more relaxed. It’s about slowing down an actually enjoying what you’re doing.