Day 2

Here I am, at day 2 of my Australia adventure. That sounds lame, but I like assonance so I’m going to let it pass. I suppose I should start from the beginning. This is going to be really long and, yes, that is what she said.

The flight was killer long, about 26 hours with 2 plane transfers. I was in the air for 24 hours total, which was fun. My first flight was from Chicago to LA, then from LA to Auckland, and finally to Brisbane. Side note: pronunciation is Bris-bun not Bris-bane.

The people I sat next to for my LA-Auckland flight were a really nice New Zealand couple. The woman told me that she knows the parents of one of the guys from Flight of the Concords really well and went to their wedding! Just a little fun fact for you.

Since I got to Auckland at like 4 in the morning, when I went into the air to go to Brisbane I got to watch the sun rise. It was drawn out due to the direction we were going and it looked like there was a rainbow stretched across the horizon. I’ve always loved watching things while flying but I will cut that out as this is already going to be a long post. Just know clouds are cool.

When I got to Brisbane I got picked up by some people from UQ. I narrowly missed the van they used to take people to campus so I had to sit around for nearly two hours until one got back. That stank. I did, however, meet a nice girl named Gloria. She was on the same flight as me from Auckland and we talked some, we both are staying at St Leo’s college (what they call dorms) for a few days, she is actually right across the hallway from me as I type this. We have spent a lot of time together but let’s keep it chronological here, folks. Don’t get ahead of yourselves.

My first impressions of Brisbane, and by extension Australia, are the colors. The sky seems bluer (pollution or imagination?), there is crazy amounts of foliage, and birds just everywhere. Absolutely beautiful. It’s more than colors though, there is just more. More colors, more sounds, more sky. That’s another thing, buildings are way more open. St Leo’s (the place I am staying) isn’t even closed off from the outside. This is probably due to the rain falling significantly less often and snow never.

I am staying at St Leo’s until Saturday when I can move into the apartment with Erin and Other-girl-who-I-can’t-recall-the-name-of. It’s actually an all boy college but during breaks they let women stay here, which is funny. The food is included and it is average, no Purdue food but not nearly as terrible as OSU’s. The room is decent sized and it’s a single, so that is very nice.

Its winter here now, but their winter is not at all like Ohio or Indiana winter. Its 16 C here, which is 60 F, jacket weather! It is going to be very not fun to go from beautiful Australia summer to freezing (literally) Indiana winter in December. If this is their winter, their summer is going to be so hot but in a fantastic way…because it’s Australia.

So I got in at 8:30 AM, and got to St Leo’s at around 11. After eating, I went and signed up for a bank account with Commonwealth back. The guy who helped me was so ridiculously unreasonably nice, offering suggestions on where to go and making jokes and just taking time to be nice. I think that is a running theme with people here, general niceness. With the exception of bus drivers.

After hitting the bank, Gloria and I decided to head to a mall to get cellular devices. Let me tell you, an engineer and a business grad student and we had severe difficulties with the bus system. It didn’t help that the bus driver we had to ask was very much not happy with us asking, but we got there. I also got towels; did you know that they charge for bags over here?! I didn’t. Nice cashier informed me of this. 2/3 nice people willing to help confused Americans. They also don’t have sales tax added here! I guess they do, the prices just account for it already. Crazy.

The cell phone plans are different here, no charge for incoming texts or calls! That’s pretty snazzy. I got a dirt cheap phone and also a SIM card, which is what keeps track of all the calls and such here. I thought mine was broken and it took me about an hour, Google, and finally Gloria to figure out it wasn’t. The slot was just confusing. And I’m jet lagged. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, I went to bed at like 8 and slept for 12 hours, but I’m surprisingly over jet lag pretty much. Still a little tired but one more night and I should be back to normal. Going back to the US is going to be the hard one. I spent a few hours emailing professors about doing research with them, as that is pretty much the only big thing left to take care of. I have a few leads so things should slide into place by the middle of next week.

After lunch Gloria and I went around campus some, got our student IDs, and met up with one of her friends from Canada (where she is from) that she went to high school with. Both are grad students here rather than exchange students like little old me. Her friend was extremely helpful, took us to a few buildings and showed us where to get bus passes! Yay, bus passes! It isn’t free here like Purdue…which sucks.

Mostly I’ve just been getting things in order. Yesterday I was too exhausted to see much. Tomorrow I am going to quest around campus, take a few paths less traveled hopefully, and take some sweet pictures. Gloria has to find a place to live so I will be on my own. Huzzah!

This post is ridiculously long. Sorry (but not really).