Bond Uni

Had some free time today (no classes on Tuesdays!) so I figured I'd keep this blog moving. This post is going to revolve around an attempt to describe the campus and surrounding areas that I have visited. First of all, the suburb of Gold Coast that Bond resides in is called Robina. From Robina, the beaches and suburbs of Broadbeach, Burleigh Head, Main, and Surfers Paradise are all easily accessible from the bus. I've been taking the bus a lot to jump from place to place whether we have been going to the beach or buying groceries for the room. So far, my favorite beach has been Burleigh Head which appears to be the quietest with the best waves and cheapest surf boards. Broadbeach is full of shopping centers and nightclubs and has been the area I have been to the most, however (our University Beach Day was held here as well).
As for campus, I live in a 4 story dorm with mostly other American exchange students. I believe there are about 15 SLU kids, but I have met lots of people from schools in the NorthEast such as Bentley, SUNY, Qunnipiac, and Fordham. My room looks like a hotel room. When my roommate Adam and I first walked in we we're overjoyed to see that our beds were made for us already and we had a full bathroom which we had not anticipated. Even better, we found out that we have a housekeeping crew that cleans our room and bathroom every Tuesday. They even stock us up on toilet paper, change our sheets and make our beds, its insane. If they did our laundry I would never be able to leave this place. As it is, I'm already behind on laundry with the added issue that everything I've worn is sandy (not really an issue in Cincy or Stl.)
All four of my classes are in the same building which is easy enough. I have only had one so far which was Australian Popular Culture. The class is held in an auditorium which was pretty full. As I found out after a few minutes almost every single person taking the class is American. I guess we Americans share a desire for knowledge about what Australians watch on tv. The class looks pretty cool from what we heard on the first day. The class is about 3 hours long and each day starts with an hour lecture and then a viewing of a movie or show. We then meet in smaller tutorial sections later in the week to discuss what we saw. Tomorrow I have Crime and Deviance in Australia, and the rest of the week I am taking an Aussie Lit class and an Aussie Media class, which sounds interesting since we are required to read the local newspaper daily. I'm interested to see how the Australian teaching system differs from the American college experience.
The on campus food options have been very good so far. There aren't too many items on the menu but I have not been disappointed with anything I have tried. A couple things are recognizably different here than back home. To begin with, forget about free refills, (but water is free), french fries are called chips and they like to serve them with a type of garlic sauce which is actually really good. Most of the options on the menu are more fancy than what you would expect for a college cafeteria. It's definitely not just hamburgers and chicken strips. Other than that, most of the food is not too different than what you could get in a restaurant in America.
Anyway, this was my first attempt at giving my beloved readers a glimpse into college life at Bond. I appreciate that you care about me (or are bored enough to) read about my semester. I'll try to keep the posts coming! - Jeff