Oz

After about 24 hours of traveling, including a stop over in Los Angeles, I finally made it to Sydney, Australia on August 3rd, 2006, which marked the beginning of an unforgettable month in the Land Down Under.

With the help of my wonderful friend Toni and the staff of Arcadia University's Center for Education Abroad, I was able to find a place to live for the month (thank you T. Lenoah!) - at 49-53 Regent Street, an apartment building for study-abroad students in Sydney. Initially, I was supposed to live in a single but Andy Franks, Arcadia's Residential Advisor, figured that I'd get lonely, and placed me in an apartment with three roomies...and I'm so glad that she did - my roommates, Madison Wood, Jessie Sommers, and Kate Sauerwein, turned out to be three of the sweetest girls that I've ever met.

My time in Oz was BUSY but isn't that the story of my life? In addition to my Watson research, I was trying to study for the LSAT (not fun), AND spend time being a tourist in Sydney! Splitting my time between the three wasn't easy, especially since there was so much to do and see in Sydney, but I did the best I could with the time that I had... I must admit, when I got to Sydney, I really had no idea of where to start with my research. I knew that I wanted to focus on salons, because I figured that braided styles in Oz would be more of a popular culture thing rather than a traditional practice, but didn't have the chance to contact any salons before I left Toronto. So I turned to my good ol' friend Google for help...and discovered that most of the "ethnic" salons in Sydney were located in a neighborhood called Newtown, and Newtown is where I ended up spending most of the month.