Travel Plans!

Alright, we've set up just about all our travelling plans for the semester, with the exception of the outback. Here's what we're doing and when:

Moreton Bay: Had a day trip to Moreton Bay on Saturday, and it was absolutely amazing! Took a 4WD bus (there are no roads on the island, just cut sand paths) to the ferry, got to the island, and immediately started getting ready to snorkel. We snorkeled for about a half an hour in the shipwrecks on the beach that we landed on, then hung out and played volleyball while the other group snorkeled. After that we got back in the 4WD and drove across the island to the desert, and we spent the rest of the day sand boarding (similar to snow boarding, but on sand and you can't carve) and sand tobaggoning.

1-5 April: Fraser Island
Five day research trip with my terrestrial environment class. Staying in a research station away from all the tourists. A few days studying, and the rest of the time playing on the beach and in the water.

6-12 April: NZ
Drive along the coast, go hiking, sky diving, visit Christchurch, Queenstown, etc. Rent two cars and stay in hostels.

23-26 April: Whitsunday Islands
Fly in the Friday night, stay in a hostel, get on a boat Saturday morning. Overnight on the boat for two days with twenty others (between 20 and 28 yrs) and get a tour of the islands and other activities, fly back to Brisbane Monday.

29 April - 3 May: Cairns
Just three of us going on this trip, as everyone else will have gone with family. Staying in the Cairns Girls Hostel (awesome hostel, highly recommended by our program director, and yes the name means only girls are allowed to stay.) We set up a day tour of the barrier reef for the 30th, in which they provide us four meals, transportation, a glass bottom boat tour, one scuba dive, and endless snorkelling. On Saturday we're going on a sea kayaking/snorkelling trip all day with Raging Thunder Adventures, in which we also get provided food, and we kayak and snorkel along the coast of Cairns. Sunday we've left open so far, because we may do a day tour of the Atherton Tablelands, but we're not sure.

Byron Bay (No date yet)
We'll get a bus to Byron, do an entire day tour (Jim's Alternative Tour), and probably wander around the area for three days. Some of the other girls have already made the trip so we'll be staying in the same place (Aquarius hostel) they did and they highly recommended the tour.

We're working on planning a trip to the outback for the week break we have before exams start.

O Week Ends, Semester Begins

O week has officially ended, with many stories and eventful happenings: we've had toga parties, pub crawls, city crawls, many ghosting stories, visits to the beach and markets at South Bank, the college talent show, and tons of other things.

The city crawl was basically us running around and being obnoxious while trying to finish a list of tasks that we were supposed to do (things like get a piggy back ride from a rando, take pics with the metal kangaroos, etc) that would lead up to the beginning of the pub crawl. The pub crawl basically involved us visiting three different pubs for a limited amount of time (about a half hour or so), also with tasks that we were supposed to do before we left.

Ghosting is something we did during the city crawl, and it is one of the most entertaining things I've tried before. Essentially, you have to be really quiet and sneaky and walk behind someone, mirroring their movements for as long as you can without them noticing, and if you have more than one person, one has to get in line behind the other, so eventually you have a long trail after the person you're ghosting.

South Bank is beautiful. It's Brisbane's man-made beach, with a beautiful walkway called via arbour, with artistic metal designs with vines and flowers growing all over them. I've been there a couple times already, once with some of the other seppos, and again most of the day yesterday with my wing, Hendo, and some of the exec members.

I think one of the things I love most so far about Brisbane is that it's so easy to get anywhere. The bus system is fantastic, in addition to the City Cat, the ferry that runs up and down the Brisbane River, starting at the uni and ending in the city. The Queens St mall is huge, and we've been to Indooropilly once so far to get fabric for the toga party, but everything seems easily accessible.

Classes are starting on Monday, but for the first week it's only lectures so students can come to uni and see how they like a class, giving them the opportunity to drop the class if they don't like it. Uni also has 'come and try week,' which allows students to come to all the sports and fitness classes in the first week for free to see what they want to do and choose what they'd rather not.

Aussie Confusion: Thongs are flip flops, not the underwear.

Back To Civilization

First post since having arrived in Australia, I'm currently sitting in the Sydney airport waiting for our flight to Brisbane and to my new home for the next five months. We've had a disappointing lack of internet. We've stayed the past couple days in a town just outside of Sydney, Narrabeen, at the Sydney Academy of Sports. It's come with the most healthy food I've eaten since I can remember, lots of activities, and many many new people.

Six of us got flown into LA a day earlier because of the snowfall and the worry that we wouldn't be able to make it to orientation for another week if we didn't, so we got the chance to meet each other then, in addition to having some time to get to know each other.

There are about eighty kids or so in our group, going to Macquarie, Griffith, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Cairns, so there's an interesting mix of all the people studying abroad right now. We've had activities like going to the Taronga Zoo and having a tour around the Sydney harbor on a catamaran, and other things like seeing and dancing with an Australian bush band, and getting the opportunity to see some of the Aboriginals (from Queensland, not Sydney though) and seeing them perform in dance and play didgeridoos for us, which was absolutely fantastic. It's been crazy so far, and I think I have about 400+ pictures, and that was just at orientation.

It doesn't really feel like I'm going to be starting classes in two weeks. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Sydney (after the 15 hour flight) I think just about every person who wasn't wearing short shorts and a tank top was sweating like no other. It feels more like summer vacation right now, and it still hasn't really hit me that I'm here for another five months. Driving down the left side of the road is indeed odd, but everything here is just so fantastic, from being able to take a picture in front of the Sydney Opera house to petting kangaroos and wombats, and seeing the absolutely breathtaking views available just about every time you look out the window.

Can't write too much more, running out of battery on the laptop and running out of internet time. Will post more once I can get internet access (may be another day or two).

Housing Acceptance

I received my housing notification from Shelby, my program advisor, letting me know that I got accepted into Emmanuel College, one of the residential buildings near campus. This is great because it's one of the only options for study abroad students where you can live with the locals, as all the other options are apartment style housing about a half hour away from campus.

The way Australian dorms are set up, they're called colleges and they're essentially a community in and of itself, or so Kelly (St. Joe's study abroad advisor) tells me. Looking through the website for Emmanuel, it looks fantastic and it's only increasing my excitement to be there. The college seems like they're trying to be a home away from home, almost, with laundry service and meals three times a day for all the residents, and even a required dinner, for everyone in the college, once a week. I won't have a roommate, but that's OK with me, since I feel like I might need some alone time when I first get there to help absorb the culture shock, and it seems like the college organizes so many things where you meet the other residents.

Feelings right now? Excitement is still building up, without the sense of reality.

Aussie Confusion of the Post: a person's 'partner' is their spouse, while their 'mate' is a term for a friend.

My address: Emmanuel College
Sir William MacGregor Drive
St. Lucia, QLD 4067

Preparations

This is the start of the blog I'll be keeping up for the semester that I'm studying abroad in Brisbane, in the state of Queensland in Australia, at the University of Queensland (UQ).

Nothing too exciting going on yet, but final preparations are under way, with the last of the forms getting sent into IFSA-Butler, making sure my VISA and passport are up-to-date, and making sure I say goodbye to all my friends before they leave for their second semester: UQ is on their summer break right now, so I'll be studying there during their fall semester, which means their classes don't start until the end of February. I've been approved for nine different classes, but I'm planning on taking four (max requirement for study abroad students): Belief and Unbelief (THE), Australia's Marine Environment (NATSCI), World Music (ART/LIT), and Intro to Psych (SOC).

My feeling about going abroad as of right now? I feel like it isn't actually real, like it's not happening, and it won't actually hit me until I'm there and unable to come back. I'm nervous because of that, since I won't exactly be able to come home for a weekend if I need a break: once I'm there, I'm there. It'll be a great new opportunity, though, with the chance to start completely fresh with a completely new set of faces (not to mention new slang), with all of the past semester's drama left behind. My semester studying abroad couldn't come at a better time, since it's right in the middle of what I've come to know as the stressful year of college, and I'm ready for something new to experience that I don't think St. Joe's could offer to me at this point.