Week 1 - Brisbane!

Hello from down under!

I just wanted to write a quick first post in case some of you were interested in what I have been up to since coming to Australia four days ago. I arrived at 7:17am in Brisbane (pronounced “Brisbin”, if you say it differently you will be harassed) and was immediately hit with a wave of thick heat – yes even in the airport!

I was lucky enough that on the airplane I had no one sitting to my left and I was on the aisle – so I found the 14 hours very comfortable. I watched a movie and slept for the rest, which made the flight bearable.

Once off the flight we were all ushered to large (air conditioned!) coach buses that drove us to our hostel about an hour and a half away. The hostel itself is actually really nice – there is a pool on the roof and a café with giant TV rooms. We are all bunking up in six person rooms which can be a little crowded but I really like my roommates and lucked out.

The first day here we had a BBQ on the roof and went swimming then all went out for dinner at a nice restaurant down the street. I had charred chicken with rice, olives and asparagus – an awesome start to my experience with Australian cuisine!

On Saturday we woke up bright and early and all met in what is called the “Rainforest Room” for breakfast. They had all these weird kinds of cereal but I found one that looked the most like Raisin Brand and ate that along with some toast – had to look but I found some Fiber induced wheat bread! I was very pleased J.

After breakfast we were shuffled onto giant buses again and drove about an hour and a half away to the rainforest. Oh, did I mention they drive on the other side of the road here? It is potentially the weirdest thing to look at – it makes crossing the street a life threatening activity for me personally! Anyway, the rainforest was absolutely amazing. We went on a two hour hike and saw a ton of different water falls and the most breathtaking views. As soon as I get to school I’ll upload the pictures so you can check them out if you’re so inclined. It was also nice because we split into two groups for the tour and I ended up being in a small group of about 30 people so we had a chance to get to know one another (the whole group is about 100 people).

The rainforest walk ended with a bunch of us heading to dinner down the street at this place called Queen Street – which is almost like an outdoor mall but not quite as busy. They had a lot of outdoor bars, small shops and restaurants. We ended up going to this place called JoJo’s. The funny thing about going to eat in Australia is that you don’t really get a waitress assigned to your table, in fact you have to go up to the kitchen and order your food yourself! So trying to blend in we all decide what we want and head up to the kitchen to order. After we order we come back to the table and there is a group of Australian men sitting there! We find the waitresses who had seated us and she seemed extremely confused and flustered. She ended up seating us someone different which actually turned out to be a better spot on the deck with a nice breeze. Did I mention it’s unbelievably hot here? The air is so thick!

Anyway – Sunday was our free day and a bunch of us decided to get a cruise to this island about an hour away. Fully stocked with SPF 70 (there’s a hole in the Ozone layer right above Australia! Or atleast that’s what they keep telling me) a hat and bathing suits we all headed out to meet our bus that drove us to the dock. The cruise itself was a bit touristy (but that’s to be expected) and we found some great seats at the top of the boat and enjoyed the breeze and soaked up the vitamin D! When we finally got to the beach it was absolutely gorgeous! We bought some lunch (did I mention the RIDICULOUS prices of everything here?!?! I wont even start..) and laid on the beach. The water was so clear and the beach was basically empty. The beach itself was surrounded by beautiful trees and almost yellow sand that was so soft and smooth. It was the first time I truly felt like I was in Australia – and don’t you worry I applied my sunscreen every hour on the dot and did not get burned! Actually, that’s a lie… I did get burned – on my CHIN! How funny! It was because I was wearing my hat and that’s the only place I didn’t put sunscreen – I have to say I look pretty silly!

After the beach we headed back to the hostel and after discussing the fact none of us wanted to spent insane amounts of money on dinner we decided to stop by a 7 Eleven and grab some pasta and sauce to cook back at the hostel. I was tempted to get some Subway (they have them on like every corner!) but there is absolutely no such thing as a 5 dollar foot long – more like 10 bucks! What is this!! I paid 4 dollars for a bottle of water (never again!) and that was how much it was everywhere! If you’re buying lunch – expect to pay a good $20+ for anything (including a simple salad!)

But enough about how completely insane the pricing is here, today was our community service day which consisted of us planting small trees in a forest about a half hour away from the hostel. We were again split into two smaller groups and the planting of the trees actually wasn’t bad at all – I really enjoyed myself. We did have this horribly long ecowalk thing that actually went throughout a cemetery because apparently that’s where the best foliage grows – go figure.

We got back from the community service at around 2:00pm and had a information session about academics and just general stuff about Australia. I pretty much had a heart attack when they were going over the academics here – so completely different than the United States! The final is at least 60% of your grade, participation is about 20% and the rest is a final paper that is often more than 60 pages! Also the grading system boggled my mind – apparently anything from an 85% to 100% is an A+ but don’t get too excited because it’s almost IMPOSSIBLE to get above a 70% on anything because that’s what they consider good here. I’ll be calling Quinnipiac ASAP to find out about converting grades because it looks like QU is one of the ONLY schools that doesn’t do pass/fail and actually factors our abroad grades into our GPA… I’ve gotten quite a bit of crap for that already!

Anyway – tonight I’m just hanging low, we had a pizza dinner and I’m so exhausted. I just wanted to get my first post out there because it has been virtually impossible to communicate since I’ve been here. Hopefully (everyone PLEASE cross your fingers) there will be wireless internet at JCU otherwise I’ll talk to you all  in five months! I know for a fact that there isn’t wireless in the dorms – you have to plug your computers in but there is a limit to the amount of internet you can use and amount you can download – Oh how spoiled I now realized I am! Another thing – high speed internet, not so much here!

Well – I’m off to get some sleep. I’ll write again when I get to JCU because tomorrow and Wednesday will most likely be very busy. Tomorrow we are going kayaking and heading to the zoo to hold koalas and pet kangaroos! Yay! OH, I forgot to mention – I tried kangaroo steak and it was actually very good!

Sending my love from down under,

CHEERS!

<3 Sara