The last few weeks have been All American! I went to the US Open, Coney Island and the Stony Brook Seawolves football match. A trip to the Hamptons was planned, but we adjusted our plans once we realised it was going to take close to four hours on public transport and four hours back.

We just finished the Labor Day weekend. We had Friday through Tuesday off. A lot of students went home, so the campus was a ghost town. I didn’t realise until the last minute that we had a five-day weekend. Had I known, a trip somewhere would have been planned. Friday was the highlight of the weekend.

I must say the US Open blew my mind! Live tennis is absolutely amazing. We (Emma, Sarah, Sam, Ash and I) left Stony Brook on the 7:46 a.m. train on Friday and arrived at Flushing Meadows at 9:30 a.m. for tennis. Our tickets were for the Arthur Ashe Stadium and Stosur, Djokovic and Sharapova were playing! We were pretty stoked with that lineup.  I am not an avid tennis spectator at all, but seeing it live was amazing, and I will definitely be watching it more on TV.

The highlight was during Djokovic’s match when he realised a win was pretty much guaranteed. He started putting on a real show and at the end was dancing and singing to “Call me maybe.” There were a few blushing women in the audience, myself included!

It was an extremely hot and humid day at the tennis match, so I bought a US Open cap and Ash, Emma and I (the polar bears) moved into shaded seats. I watched five hours of tennis and escaped without sunburn; I hope you’re proud of me, Mum!

As we were leaving we saw Lleyton Hewitt playing. Lleyton Playing can only mean one thing: Bec Hewitt was in the audience! As an old “Home and Away” fan, that was pretty exciting. Hewitt won in the fifth set, and it was great to see an Aussie making a comeback.

After tennis, we caught the subway to Coney Island. Coney Island has a beach, boardwalk and Luna Park. It was the last night of the summer fireworks, and we were told it was a must see. The fireworks were beautiful and we had dinner at Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs—home of the biggest hot dog eating contest.

From Coney Island, we made our way back to Stony Brook—no small feat with three hours and five trains. We arrived back to campus at 1:30 a.m. After a 21-hour day, I was exhausted and vowed to never travel that much in one day again.

Saturday included having a rest (they are few and far between), taking a walk to campus to buy Seawolves merchandise and then getting ready for our first ever American College Football Game. Stony Brook has so much school spirit and put on a real show for its matches. The marching band is incredible and put on great entertainment throughout. It played One Direction and Lady Gaga songs.

The actual football part of it was confusing. All the players seem to do is run into each other and throw the ball around. I will have to do some research so I can understand the next one. We looked pretty great in our merchandise, though, and that’s half the battle, right? GO SEAWOLVES!

The party scene was a bit lacking over Labor Day weekend, so we spent some time at the mall, went grocery shopping and had Sunday brunch at the Cheesecake Factory. I had the most amazing lemon ricotta pancakes with strawberries and a decent cappuccino—hallelujah!

I’ve been cooking more this week and have enjoyed salmon and vegetables, garlic prawns and salad, steak and salad and a few chicken dishes. Finding groceries similar to home has made me extremely happy!

Tomorrow (Friday) includes a trip to New York City to watch the Mets team and then the weekend will be spent exploring the city.

I am hoping for better weather. This week has been extremely warm and humid; it rained and stormed and has been generally unpleasant. I never thought I would say this, but on the top of my shopping list is a rain jacket and gumboots.

Five things I like about America

You can wear gumboots and a rain jacket and it’s considered normal

They love Australians

There are so many amazing things to see and do

Things are generally cheaper than in Australia

The academic staff are friendly and helpful

Things that annoy me

The first amendment—It allows them to say and print completely ridiculous things and they can get away with it

The public transportation system. It absolutely sucks! I love Translink

The food

The coffee

The internet and phone plans

As you can see, all are quite trivial, so we are doing well!

Until next time.