Sometimes you just know you’re going to like it. Ever since I received my offer, I have been like a kid waiting for Christmas, counting down the days and having ridiculously high expectations. And after the first week, Perth has not disappointed. It truly is an awesome place.

Our first four days by Scarborough consisted of sunbathing on the sand, taking a dip, eating and relaxing. Upon realising that we were actually going to university, us four Durham kids ventured towards campus to have a sneak peak of where we were going to be living and studying.

I’ve been told people don’t get bored of sunset pictures

So this year, I’m staying at Trinity, one of the colleges of the University of Western Australia (UWA). A bit of background – they have a college system similar to Durham, but you don’t have to be part of a college, a lot of students live at home in Perth. Trinity has around 300 residents, comprising of quite a few international students, but mostly students from little towns in Western Australia. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love St. John’s in Durham (and I miss everyone there loads), but Trinity is something else. They have unlimited ice cream for dessert every day.

College Quad – it’s nice

Ok, there are other things too. The common room has a badminton court, 2 pool tables, an air hockey table, table football, two table tennis tables, and a massive TV to watch Aussie Rules (or anything else). There is also a basketball and tennis court, and a half court basketball court where I seem to always be before and after mealtimes, pretending I’m Stephen Curry. The grounds are gorgeous too, a frisbee, volleyball or football always seem to be getting in the way of a sunbathing international student. A sidenote, the aussies think us ‘whinging poms’ are crazy sunbathing, going to the beach and swimming in this ‘winter’ weather (it’s 20 degrees), this is coat weather for them. It gets hot in summer here if you didn’t know. Like up to 40 degrees hot. Like hot as in you can fry an egg in a pan on the pavement. I can’t wait to try this, it’s on my bucket list.

My walk to campus

Food is great in college too, make your own pizzas, pancakes, waffles, doughnuts, more ice cream, tacos, fish etc. We get three meals a day, something I’m truly thankful for – Tesco may no longer be underneath where I live, but I can deal with that. College is also in a great location, within the ‘golden triangle’ of Perth, a step away from King’s Park (an inner city park bigger than New York’s central park), right next to the Swan River (where you regularly see dolphins), ten minutes from the b-word (see first post) and conveniently, one minute from campus.

Right by this gem

Which brings me on to UWA. It doesn’t really feel like a campus. It feels more like a tropical getaway. The buildings are gorgeous (although compared to Durham’s Elvet and science site I guess anything is) and colourful parrots are always squeaking amongst the palm trees. It’s also modern – there is a UWA app where you can see a map of campus, uni news, how many computers are free and where in particular; there’s a ticket system at the Study Central office (the staff are so helpful); and, most importantly, all my lectures are filmed online. If you know me, you’ll know I find this a God-send. It will also come in useful as Monday and Tuesday I only have a couple lectures, so I can watch these another day and have a four day weekend. I’m not sure if I’m should be writing this though… Actually, I’ll end here before I get into trouble.

I don’t mind going to uni when it looks like this