I wasn't too worried about making friends abroad. I knew there was going to be many study abroad students that were going to be in the same situation as me and that would want to make new friends. I knew I would have at least one friend in Becca who was going to be my roomate for the semester so I wasn't too nervous. As I've mentioned, Becca and I hit it off really well and ended up doing almost everything together. We made a pact that we would include each other in everything we did and we stuck to that. The first day I met Becca, she invited me to meet a kid named Joe at the beach. Joe had already been in Sydney for a month because he did the summer term. Becca and Joe weren't friends, but Joe was from Arizona and they had a mutual friend that put them in contact. Joe introduced Becca and I to his friend group that he already had from the summer term. The group included Madi and Rachel who went to Arizona State, McKenna and Hannah who were from Canada, and Billy who went to Penn State. I ended up meeting a lot of people, but this group ended up being my closest friends abroad. I expected to make friends with Australians, but it was harder than it seemed. Almost everyone I met was a study abroad student or a resident of Sydney but not Australian. Even though I did not meet as many Australians (and mostly met people from Arizona), I am so grateful for the people I met and the memories that we created.
