April 2, 2006

Hello,

Another week has passed in Sydney and for the second straight week I do not have much to tell. However, I don’t want anyone to think this is a trend that will be continuing. I will be travel most of the next three weeks and after that I plan to be traveling two weekends every month.

This week went by pretty typical for life here at the University of Sydney and at St. John’s. Had Formal Dinner on Monday and did work all day since I have no classes. Tuesday was full of classes and work. While Wednesday had some classes, it is really the end of a work week for me. As well, on Wednesday night we had a very special Formal Dinner. An Alumnus of St. John’s, an Old Johnsman, had come to visit and be honored, because he is now worth some ridiculous amount of millions of dollars and donated a couple million to the University and a couple million to the College. So we had every important person from the University at the dinner, which meant us lowly students got shoved in the back. However, it was the best Formal Dinner so far. The food was excellent, lox and these pancake things for a starter. Then terrific lamb and the best sweet potatoes for the main course, with a nice lemon tart for dessert. The Alumnus speech was quite weird, mostly a bunch of rambles about his life and how he failed most of University but still is rich; not very inspirational, but interesting. The Rector also gave a short speech, which was much more coherent and very insightful and funny. All and all the dinner went well, even if it did run late and seriously delay all of our Wednesday night plans. Thursday was a relaxed day; I went to my two tutorials, which were good, and then relaxed for the day. Until night when I spent four hours trying to plan my trip to Asia and ended with more confusion and questions then when I started (I will talk more about that below). Then Friday and Saturday consisted of some serious time at the library doing research and working on my first assignments, all of which are preparing for the large papers I must write in my classes. The most exciting thing on Friday was registering for classes for GW in the fall. It was weird registering for classes for my senior year. It sure has gone by very quickly.

As for my travel plans, I still have not made any definite plans to places in Australia; though I will be doing that very soon. As I have mentioned before my parents and siblings are coming on the 5^th of April (except Sarah, she will be coming on the 8^th). So I am of course very excited for them to come. They will be attending Formal Dinner on Wednesday night, after a day full of exploring Sydney. Then on Friday we are all heading up to Cairns in the North (very tropical and hot), and will be there for the weekend. Next they will be going to Melbourne, while I come back to Sydney to go to class. Finally, we all will be flying to New Zealand and we will be traveling around the South Island for a week. Then, unfortunately, they have to leave and once again will leave me in Australia.

As for my own travels, I have mostly been working on planning my trip to Asia after classes are down. I should have from about July 1^st to July 24^th to travel and am trying to get the most out of my time and money. So far I have three options on the table, and will take any advice or thoughts. 1.) I can travel throughout Vietnam and Cambodia for about 15 days and then travel in Thailand for the next 8 days or so. There are a bunch of combinations of trips that I can do, so I won’t even start trying to explain that, but that is the basic travel plan. 2.) I can go to Beijing and the Great Wall for 5 days, then Vietnam for 10 days and then Thailand (either to the beaches or to the North) for 5 days. 3.) I can just visit China, going all around from Beijing to Shanghai to Hong Kong to Three River Gorges to the Terracotta Warriors etc., and maybe if I choose a shorter trip I could visit Thailand for 5 days or the temples in Cambodia, Angkor Wat, for 4 days.

These all sound great to me and I cannot decide yet; maybe when I see the price tags that will help me. But I was all set to go see Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, was getting very excited and worked up. Then my father brought to my attention beautiful China and all it has to offer, as well as the benefit I would for Political Science and History purposes from visiting one of the great powers in the World, one that will be effecting things greatly soon, and are already doing so now. So now I am even more undecided and in addition each option has at least six or seven variations to it depending on how comfortable I want to travel or to what cities or at what times; it is all very confusing and time consuming. However, I hope to have to set within the next week or so, so that I do not have to worry about it. And now that I think about it, I also have to find out where I am staying and what I will be doing when I stop over in Hawaii for five days after Asia, on the way back to the USA.

That is all for this week, I will have much more interesting things for next week. I hope that all is well at home and that everyone is keeping safe and happy. As usual, any communication is welcome and I always appreciate being kept up to date. Being so far away I feel as though I am, or am going to, be missing something big.

Best Wishes,

Jon

P.S. Sorry there are no new pictures for this week. Nothing photo worthy occurred this week and I still haven’t got pictures from past weeks from my friends yet. But I will have plenty of photos for next week.