Day 4

As I'm sure you all already noticed, I managed to actually post my blogs! Finally. Geeze.

I hope you all enjoyed my sunrise pictures. I drug myself out of a very cozy bed to get those for you, because the jet lag is starting to wear off and I'm finding it harder to get up in time to see the sun rise. I may not keep it up for many more days. Especially since I stayed up far too late last night watching A Very Potter Musical (which you should all see), since I remembered that I had the entire thing on my external hard drive and I wouldn't need an Internet connection for it.

So I woke up early, photographed the sunrise, then spliced all the pictures together for your enjoyment. :) Then I took a shower and got ready for my second venture out to UQ, this time to search for housing in earnest. On my way to the university, I found my first Australia four leaf clover. Huzzah!

I wish I could say that my first foray into house-hunting was successful, but I would be telling a big fat lie. I spent the first couple hours on campus sitting in a pizza shop where there were plugs available, and the store workers (also students) were more than happy to tolerate me. After I remembered how to navigate the housing website I'd been using, I lined up three places to go see.

I found place number one with little difficulty. The guy who lived there—Jag—texted me very clear directions (which he could do, because in Australia you're allowed 918 characters per message. Why 918? We may never know), and it was a pleasant 10-minute walk away. The outside of the building was super cute, so I had high hopes when I went up to the open door and shouted to see if anyone was home. Jag came right down and invited me in, and the first thing I noticed was the smell. The place smelled. Not, like, really horribly strongly, but the odor was distinct and I had to fight the urge to immediately walk out. Jag was nice enough, and he showed me the bedroom and the side room that was also available for my use. Interestingly enough, the side room was bigger than the bedroom. Considerably so. They really should have been renting that out instead. In addition to the smell, the kitchen and hallways and bathroom were all excessively filthy, and that's coming from me. I'm not exactly a neat freak, but that place was gross.

I politely told Jag that I would think about it, and high-tailed it away from there.

Next on my list, I had to walk back to campus, and then across the expressway bridge to the neighborhood across the water, where I was suppose to meet a guy named Ashok (the landlord) about renting a room in his place. On my way there, though, I got very lost, despite the meticulous directions that I had written out for myself before leaving campus. I sort of kept wandering around, hoping to come across a street name I recognized, when a lady pulled up in front of me with two other students (a french couple) in the car and asked me if I was looking for housing.

Why yes, I was, I told her, and she suggested that I hop in the car and look at the place she was taking the other two students to. I didn't have any better ideas, so I got in and headed over with her. Her places were really cute, but too expensive for me and also pretty far away from campus, so I told her that I wasn't going to be able to rent anything from her. She was totally chill about it, and took me back to a train station, where I called Ashok and told him what had happened, and he offered to pick me up and drive me to the house. While I was waiting, it started to rain a bit, which I actually enjoyed. It's too hot here.

The place Ashok was renting was also super cute, with this awesome pond/bridge in the back yard and fairly large rooms, but it was also far away and hard to get to, and the other three bedrooms were occupied by all guys, who were also all international students. One of them was in the kitchen when we walked in, and Ashok told me he was from Ghana, so of course I had to make the obligatory World Cup reference about them beating us and he sort of just rolled his eyes at me. Yeah. Hahaha. Very funny.

I told Ashok that I wasn't comfortable living with three guys I didn't know, and he said that he understood, and then proceeded to spend the next ten minutes showing me around the property even more and going on at length about what nice guys they all were, and how the house is really more like a family, and he wouldn't stand for any funny business on his property. I smiled politely and commented on his garden and then leaped at the chance to escape when his wife offered to drive me back to the end of the bridge, where I could find my way again.

The third place I was suppose to see, run by a guy named George, had some scheduling conflicts, so now I'm suppose to go back there tomorrow.

Now thoroughly discouraged, I headed back to campus and settled down in an offshoot of the same pizza cafe as before, though in a slightly more private area, and spent over an hour talking to Drew on skype and recharging my batteries for the long trek back to the hostel. The great thing about campus is that my internet connection there is both free and totally functional, and I'm not the only one taking advantage of it. It's hard to find open plugs there, even on a Sunday.

As I was leaving campus, I was rewarded with an absolutely gorgeous sunset. I took several pictures of it on the way home, both on campus and from the CityCat, but no panoramas this time. The CityCat moves too quickly for that.

In other news, I have three totally new roommates today, and one of them is a girl from France named Ann-something (she says to just call her Ann), who is also here to study at UQ, and is also looking for housing. She speaks English really well, though sometimes there's a little bit of confusion, but I'm starting to suspect that she's one of those people who is just so very, very nice that it's almost shocking. Not that I have a problem with that, or anything. :P I suggested that we head over to campus together tomorrow to get student ID cards and double-check administrative stuff. She said she wasn't planning to do it until next week, but agreed that it was a good idea to get it done early. We're heading out at 10.30 AM, so that I have time to check in on my bank account in the morning.

My other new roommate is a dude named Johnny who's about 40 years old and missing an arm. Hostels, huh? He had all sorts of advice about finding housing, most of which both Ann and I were already tapped in to, but the sentiment was appreciated.

The third one is a lady from Melbourne named Marie who's here for work. I haven't spoken to her much, though, so there isn't anything else to report.

Much love,
Morgan

P.S. So I have my US phone with me, on airplane mode, mostly just to use as an alarm. Originally I was going to shut it off after I got an Aussie phone, but it hasn't been charged since I left four days ago and the battery hasn't gone down at all. Now I kind of just want to leave it on to see how long it lasts. It's amazing how much power calling/texting can suck.