If you're from Australia/Georgia/Hong Kong/New Zealand...

[Mr. Morden]

How much world traveling have you already done in your life?  And where have you gone?  Because that might help in terms of trying to put things in context.

Because I can tell you that Australia reminds me very much of the USA (though I can get into the differences if you want, but that won't necessarily help you if you haven't really traveled in the US either).  It didn't take me very long after moving here before I was barely conscious of the fact that I was in a foreign country.

[Mr. Morden]

I have been to Atlanta a couple of times, going to a professional conference in both cases.  Actually, there were a couple of additional times that I've been to Georgia, when I went through the Atlanta airport, but then drove to Athens, GA from there.  I didn't really see enough of Atlanta to comment much on it, except that, at one of the meetings I was at, there were a lot of homeless people in the immediate vicinity around where the conference was being held.  Seemed kind of weird for the conference to be held in a seemingly poor area, but alas....

I have been living in a suburb of Sydney since September.  I've only been to the U. of Sydney campus once, and it looked like a decent enough place.  I can give you more information about Sydney, but I'm not sure exactly what kind of information you're most interested in.  One question for you is "Would you be finding your own housing, or would the university arrange something for you?"  Because the system for finding apartment rentals in Australia is completely f'ed up....a couple of orders of magnitude more complicated than necessary.

One thing I'll say is that it's extremely easy for a foreigner to get along here without any problems.  No one ever comes up to me and says "Go home foreign scum" or "How long until Bush faces justice at the Hague?" or anything like that.  It took me almost no time before I became nearly oblivious to the fact that I was in a foreign country.  As I said before, I'm not so familiar with U. of Syndey itself, but I live less than a block away from Macquarie U., and there seem to be quite a few international students there.  I assume U. of Sydney is pretty similar in that respect.