Author: Allison Mascioli

G’Day Everyone!

It’s week 8 here for me in the Land Down Under and we’re half way through the semester at UNSW, which is crazy to think about.  Since we’re in the middle of midterms, I haven’t done too many travels and have kept my adventures to a lot of local places.  One of my more recent trips was actually for my Marine Environment class.  We got to go on a field trip to the beach and did a lab on wave patterns and rip currents.  It was cool because we were able to learn about the local beaches and could see for ourselves how to relate what we were learning in the classroom to the local environment.  

I’ve also had the opportunity to go on a day trip to a remote beach through my IFSA-Butler program.  They took us to Palm Beach, where we got to explore the local town, do some stand up paddle boarding, and some hiking.  It was great because we got to go on a free trip and see a new area of Sydney.

It’s a little crazy with midterm exams here, but hope you all are doing great back in the ‘burg.  Miss you all!

Allison Mascioli

G’day Everyone!

Greetings from the Land Down Under.  I have been in Australia for 7 weeks now and things have been flying by so fast it’s hard to believe that  I’ve been here for almost 2 months.  I am studying at the University of New South Wales in Sydney through IFSA-Butler’s program.  I am the only Bucknell student this semester in their UNSW program, but I have been able to make lots of friends who study at universities all over the US.

What’s great about my new university is that it’s not located right in the city, but instead it’s right next to the beach so that on nice days I’m only a 15 minute walk away.  I’ve had the opportunity to go on a coastal walk that connects my local beach, Coogee, to Bondi, which is famous in Australia for surfing.  The views are honestly so beautiful everything here feels unreal.

While I’ve been here, I’ve had the opportunity to travel to different territories.  I’ve visited Cairns, Queensland where I got to go snorkeling and scuba-diving in the Great Barrier Reef.  I got to see Nemo, Dori, and all sorts of marine life while I was there.  I also got to go Skydiving, which was one of the craziest experiences of my life, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.  I was the first one to go out of the plane and apparently I made all of my friends in the plane laugh because of my facial expressions.  I will show you all the video of my jump when I get back because it’s honestly hilarious.

One of my most recent adventures was a hike in the Royal National Park which is right outside of Sydney.  It was supposed to be a “day” hike, but instead it took me and my two friends a lot longer than expected and we were forced to camp out.  Since we thought that it was a day hike, we didn’t come with the resources one would need for camping out that night.  Luckily for us there were houses along the trail and we were able to knock on one of those doors and were able to get food, water, and bed to sleep in for the night.  We made some new friends on that trip and we finished the trail with an epic story to tell our grandkids about when we’re older.

In regards to training, I’ve been able to go out on the water with the local rowing club to get in some strokes.  But when I’m not able to join them, I have access to the erg and weights in the University’s gym.  I’ve also been able to take up on some opportunities of doing cross training while in Australia.  A couple weeks ago, I ran in my first 14k race, City2Surf, which started in Sydney and ended at Bondi Beach.  I enjoyed the race so much I signed up for another in late September.

Right now, I’m half way through the semester, which means it’s midterms time.  So my travels have been put on hold so that I can focus on my upcoming exams.  But don’t worry I’ll keep you all posted on what else is going on in the life of Big Red.  If you want more pictures/videos, add me on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook.

Hope you are all doing well in the ‘Burg! Can’t wait share my upcoming adventures with you all.

Allison Mascioli