Vacation comes with the freedom of not having a routine, getting to choose whatever you want to do and at your own time. Although I personally love this lifestyle, I also really appreciate having a routine and after being in Melbourne for a little over a month, I have finally consolidated one for myself. With that being said, things change very quickly here, and although weeks flyby, they simultaneously feel long because there is always so much to do.
Mondays:
I do not have classes on Mondays, so I typically do not set an alarm and just wake up naturally after catching up on sleep. I take this day to go to the gym, to finish some of my homework, and to cook meals for the week ahead. One of my friends really loves to go rock climbing, and there are cheaper fees at the gyms on Mondays, so instead of paying the usual AU$18 to climb, we pay only AU$10. After a few hours of attempting and miserably failing at rock climbing, I return home in the afternoon and get ready to go out with my flatmates. On Mondays, a lot of people tend to go out, so it is always a fun time.
Tuesdays:
I wake up at around 8 am and bike half an hour to Swinburne University where my first class starts at 9:30 am. I have two lectures in the morning and then a long three-hour break before my last class of the day. In the meantime, I try to get work done in the library and take a nice break for lunch. After my last class of the day, I head back to the library with some friends and we wait for a club meeting at 7:30 pm. The club I have been attending on Tuesdays is called the Explorers club, which organizes camping trips and hikes around Melbourne. I have found this to be a great way of meeting people from Australia as well as from other parts of the world. As an international student, it is very easy to end up just hanging out with other international students, so clubs like this one are a good way to meet locals and to learn more about the local culture. After the club meeting, most members will head over to a bar to socialize and continue the conversation. Tuesdays are always a long day and I tend to leave my house early and come back fairly late, but luckily on Wednesdays, I only have classes at 10:30 am.
Wednesdays:
After my two classes in the morning, I have basically the entire day free to do homework, explore the city, and so on. The only “tradition” I have on Wednesdays is to have dinner with my flatmates and a few of our friends. This tradition began after one of my flatmates said that she wanted to improve her cooking skills and voweled to cook for us once a week. After the first dinner she prepared, we were all amazed by the production that was put on, a three-course meal with incredible flavor. Due to our amazement, we decided that every week we would rotate who was cooking and would try to cook a full meal with typical dishes from the countries we are from since we all come from different parts of the world. This has become of my favorite parts of the week because it is a great opportunity to sit, catch up, and slow down to actually enjoy a meal and nice company, something that we do not always take the time to do due to our busy schedules.
Thursdays:
Similarly to Tuesdays, this is another day that I spend many hours at university. I only have three classes on Thursdays, but I have a four-hour break in between. During that break, I do homework and hang out with some friends. Since the break is so long, we take some time in the middle to go have a nice lunch and an ice cream. Thursdays feel like Fridays to me because I do not have classes on Fridays, so I will typically take the opportunity to go out or do something fun at night.
Fridays:
Being abroad is a great opportunity to reinvent yourself and to try out new things. Besides rock climbing, another new thing that I decided to try while in Melbourne is to play tennis. I think I never would have signed up for tennis classes if I was still living in Boston, but here it seemed like a fun and exciting thing to do. I have only done three classes so far, but I love having something in the morning on Fridays to force me to get out of bed and start my day. In the afternoon I will take the time to do homework, walk around the city, visit a new park, and explore different events around.
Weekends:
There is always so much going on in Melbourne that it can be hard to choose what to do on the weekends. From music festivals, comedy shows, museums, to outdoor theatres, there is something happening. The only “routine” I have on the weekends is going out for dinner with friends. Melbourne has so many amazing restaurants to try, so we attempt to make it to a new one every week in order to try new things and not just always go to the same ones every time. Weekends are also a good opportunity to go on little weekend trips and short getaways.
While having a routine is good, it is also nice to break away from it. The best thing I have done here always says yes to different plans that people propose, which has to lead me to meet new people and explore new places that I would not have gone to otherwise and I challenge you to do the same while abroad.
