Wow. I definitely didn’t expect to be writing my first post for this blog while sitting in the San Francisco airport on a layover back to Kansas City, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.

That’s right, my semester in Sydney is over after just a month. Well, five weeks to be exact. But they were without a doubt the best five weeks of my life, which I think is the only reason I can still even write this post.

I feel like this is a unique opportunity to explain to whoever reads this that you absolutely can — and will — fall in love with Australia in the blink of an eye. If you do things the way I did (but hopefully for a whole semester), then you’d spend your first week in Sydney going on a hike in the Blue Mountains, getting lost and taking the bus to Bondi, touring one of the most beautiful campuses you’ve ever seen (sorry, I said it) and strolling through the Rocks weekend market (which is the best one by the way) buying way too many souvenirs considering you’ve only been there for six days.

Week two, you would start classes, then plan a weekend trip to Melbourne with your new best friends because you don’t actually have class Thursdays or Fridays where your main goal is to find the Baby Yoda mural and see the fairy penguins in St. Kilda (check and check). The next couple of weeks would be a blur of classes, beaches, searching for the best banana bread in town (Hoochie Mamma’s toasted with butter), rugby matches and hikes in the Royal National Park.

Hopefully this is where your time in Sydney is different from mine, even though being personally told by one of the Bondi Rescue lifeguards that Bondi was closed the last time I wen there with my friends was a beautiful experience.

I can still give you tips though, but with the intent that you spread the, out a little more than I could: Take a trip to Cairns, but go for at least three days so you can go to the rainforest (it’s the oldest in the world), see the Great Barrier Reef and find somewhere to hold a koala (you absolutely have to hold one); head to Coogee to see the sunrise, but do it from the top of the hill and make sure you actually get there before the sun starts to come up; support your local Ezy Mart by using them for your supply of TimTams; and take as many pictures as you possibly can.

You have no idea how many things I wish I could go back and take a picture of just so I could remember every little detail. I could talk for days and days (and I will if anyone gives me the opportunity about all the amazing things I did in Oz that I didn’t even mention here, but I’ll save it for another post.