Darwin!

So today is the first day I have had computer acess to contribute to this blog so here it goes....I arrived in Darwin, Australia a couple days ago (6/14) & so far it's been incredible...I am staying in a hostel with my program right in the center of town & so far I have met so many people from all over. At my hostel, there are a bunch of young backpakers from all over the world & it's nice to talk to them & get to know their perspective on things. The first night in Darwin I went to the local markets here which is right by a beach. The beaches here are amazing; however, they warned us not to go swimming due to all the crocodiles here. They told us that they find 200-300 crocodiles in the Darwin harbor alone each year! The markets are awesome & they sell a variety of things; to hand-made jewlery, aboriginal art, food (kangaroo & crocodile), clothes, & so much more. Then yesterday I had orientation which was suprisingly a lot of fun. They gave us a quick glimpse into Australian history & how much they value the aboriginal culture here; they acutally had an aboriginal guest speaker come & say a few things to us to welcome us into Australia which I thought was really nice. Today, I had my first day of class which was also really interesting & they also had a guest speaker who worked in the territory wildlife management so I got to learn about how they deal with "wildlife welfare" which is basically how they deal with intruding animals who affect the populations of the native animals here. Well that's about it so far...I don't have very much time left, but I will be writing again soon!