Coming from the American culture, I am not used to the left hand traffic pattern. Thankfully there are signs written on the sidewalk to look the right direction for traffic.

I have never been to a city in the world where the populace follows the left hand traffic pattern so consistently. I have never even seen the right hand traffic pattern followed on the sidewalks the way it is here. However, I am quickly learning that walking to the left is what everyone here expects. Because I am studying multiculturalism, I wonder what would happen if I simply defied the order of the pattern. After all, the right hand pattern is just as legitimate of an idea. I think, for some reason that this would make the flow of people less efficient. By having a rule that everyone follows, society works together much better. People don’t crash into each other.

The city is beautiful and the house where I stay was built in the Georgian period (it’s really old) and is currently undergoing restoration. I will put up some photos of this soon. It’s gorgeous and it’s right in the middle of everywhere I want to be. The lights sparkle out on the water of the bay and just behind the house trains rumble across the iconic Sydney Harbor bridge to the north side of the city. These are the trains I will take to University when my orientation begins.

After wandering around for several hours, I finally found a place to buy some food and will probably be spending some money on sweaters and other warm things in the next couple of days. I have arrived on the coldest day in a long time (a nearby mountain received the most snow it has in the past 50 years!) so I will be waiting a couple days to judge the weather. Sadly, somewhere between the shopping mall and the train station my scarf slipped off and vanished into the city. Who knows what kind of adventures it will have.

If you want to give me a call here in Australia, send a message to my facebook account and I will give you my local number. Cheers!