Day 5

Exciting news, everybody! No, I didn't find housing, although that would be exciting. Rather, I made a friend! Like, a real, live, actual friend. He is from Denmark and his name is Emil and he is awesome.

Here's how it happened: I got up this morning and got ready to go to campus, and Ann told me that she was very sorry, but she couldn't make it because she had to go see another house right then. I shrugged it off, promised to tell her if I could get a card so that she would know before she made the trek, then headed out.

I arrived on campus and sort of meandered up to the student union building, passing a large group of kids all holding these white plastic bags, one of whom looked surprisingly similar to my friend Tanner. I arrived at the union building, and at first I was tempted to log on to the internet before I did anything else, just to check for messages from home, but I decided to exercise my willpower and instead went straight to the student services office. I had barely stepped in the door when the lady behind the counter was like, "are you a new student?" and I was like "...yeah." Then she shoved one of the white plastic bags into my hand and told me to follow the flock.

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I took my goodies and tracked down the group. By the time I found the correct room, most of the people were already there, and my choices in seating were either all the way at the back, or next to the Tanner lookalike. I chose the Tanner lookalike.

I know what you're thinking, but I did not speak to the Tanner lookalike. I thought about it, but we were being talked at by a nice lady, and it would have been rude. Instead, I just absorbed all the information I could, and once the session was over I headed back to my pizza cafe with the intention of logging on and continuing my search in earnest.

This plan was short-lived, however, as moments after I'd settled onto the couch, the Tanner lookalike came waltzing up the stairs from another part of the building, looking very much as though he wanted a plug. Figuring that the universe was trying to tell me something, I invited him to use the plug I was using and sit with me. We proceeded to spent the next couple hours talking and laughing and comparing housing listings. He even got to talk to my parents, because they logged on to skype while I was sitting there. In those two hours, I learned many things about him, but one thing more important than the others: he is the perfect friend for me.

His name is Emil. He is from Denmark. He's a physics/engineering student who's studying here for six months, with the plan to travel around more afterward before going home. He's really in to science fiction and fantasy, and one of his favorite books is Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. But, most importantly of all, he'd left his girlfriend behind in Denmark, and they'd broken up before he left, and he was still rather upset about it and feeling lonely with no one to hang out with. Seeing as that is basically exactly how I feel, although I didn't break up with my boyfriend, we ended up being able to sympathize with each other really well. It was nice to get to talk to someone face-to-face instead of over the Internet. We got lunch and made plans to go to the beach on Wednesday. I'm excited.

In the meantime (tomorrow), the quest for housing continues!

Much love,
Morgan

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.

Sunrise.

Day 3: Evening

Yet again, I'm writing a new blog before having posted the old ones. This shoddy internet stuff is getting really annoying. My latest dilemma is that, though I convinced the text to paste in Internet Explorer this time, when I clicked “post entry” the website was like “haha, wut? nah, man.”

So now you're getting three for the price of one. Let us hope that it does not become four, because then you might start to think that I'm spending all of my time in front of the computer, pretending to have back-logged posts so that you'll think I have more important things to do than hunt down functional internet connections.

But, to the contrary! I have been up to many things. Today was a particularly exciting day because I made it all the way out to UQ campus! Yay! It was quite a trek, mostly because I'd never been there before so it took me about 45 minutes to find the CityCat stop (read: ferry terminal, which is actually a dock no larger than the average private one), which I had been told was a 20 minute walk away. See, the only map that I have been able to find doesn't include UQ campus. In fact, it doesn't even include the side of West End (the neighborhood I'm in) that is directly across the river from UQ. The map barely even has my hostel on it—it's way down in the bottom left corner, and in order to get to the stop I had to go down and left, so I was completely off the map. Yes. Me. With my sense of direction. Without a map. Trying to navigate somewhere by my gut feelings and little else.

It can't be a surprise that I ended up panicking about halfway there and opted to just get down to the river and figure it out from there. While this took me considerably longer than it would have otherwise, it turned out to be a pretty great decision. I got a good sense of what life along the river is like, I found some funny looking birds, watched some kids having a birthday party, and saw a wedding procession.

I did notice a couple strange things, though. First of all, all along the bike path by the river, they have workout stations. I mean that in the very vaguest sense of the words. They were basically just really simplified metal structures that didn't make much sense until you looked at the post beside them, where there was a stick figure illustration of what you were suppose to be doing. I took pictures of a few of them, and of course I tested them out, but there were probably a dozen spread out over a few hundred meters and I tired of them quickly.

Additionally, every time I came across somebody going the opposite direction on the path, there was this super awkward moment where we almost ran into each other. I couldn't figure out what was happening for the longest time, because I was moving out of the way just like I always do, and yet I kept getting underfoot and tripping people up. Then I realized: I was moving right, and they were moving left. Because in Australia, they do things on the wrong side of the road. I spent the rest of the day having to consciously shift left every time someone was coming, which is far more mentally exhausting to remember than you might think. Weird.

Anyway, I did eventually make it to the CityCat stop without much incident, and I figured out how to read the schedule, and got on the boat going the right direction on the very first try. Yay me! The CityCats are really small, passenger-only boats with only one floor (there's a second one for the driver, though), that go ridiculously fast. I was trying to buy my ticket when it took off, and the gust of high-powered wind that came tearing through the open front door nearly blew my money away. The ticket seller lost some of his pamphlets, and he got really annoyed and went and slammed the thing closed, scaring the wits out of everyone on that side of the boat. The drivers on the CityCat drive the way metro bus drivers do in Seattle—quickly, recklessly, yet with a delicate sort of utter precision that you can't help but admire. As we approached the UQ dock (only one stop away, but on the other side of the river), he basically just slammed to a stop and the current swept us right up against it, soft and easy, without even bumping into it.

I thanked the worker as I got off, and he gave me a funny look. Apparently that isn't kosher here. I went up the ramp onto dry land, and there I was—UQ campus.

At first, it wasn't much to look at. I was on the outskirts, where the roads are, and the center of campus is a hill so I couldn't see much. The map didn't look too promising, either. Nevertheless, I trudged on, determined to at least get my bearings. I followed the signs to the UQ Center, which was closed, and then decided to try to find “the Great Court,” which I guessed (correctly) was their version of the Quad. I took a wrong turn in my quest, however, and ended up wandering into a section of campus that has no name on the map, but is dotted with three small bodies of water, all of which are labeled merely “Lake.” I came around the corner and found myself face-to-face with a fountain eerily similar to Drumheller, but instead of being in a small, toxic pool of vaguely water-like sludge, it was in the middle of a sizable lake, surrounded by other lakes and a ton of exotic foliage. Absolutely gorgeous.

Once I'd gotten my fill of the lakes, I continued to wander in search of the Great Court, and found instead the UQ Union Shopping Center. Yes, shopping center. There is a goddamn mall in the middle of UQ campus. Most of the shops were closed since it's Saturday during the mid-year break, but I could tell plainly what they were: candy shop, hairdresser, nail salon, book store, used book store, pizza place, Subway (hey UW kids, guess where I'm going to be eating :P), bar—and that was just the things on the ground floor that I could see. The building was locked up, but there were three floors. I can't wait to explore the place once it's open.

Now thoroughly impressed with campus, I continued on in my search, and went past a large group of kids wearing blue-and-yellow striped shirts who were having a barbeque. It smelled delicious. I think they were band kids, because some of them had instruments. I wandered past them, greatly distracted by their brightly colored garments, and found myself suddenly stumbling into the place I'd been seeking—the Great Court.

It was a lot like the quad, actually, except—bigger. A lot bigger. And there weren't any paths—just grass and trees, and all surrounded by these awesome brick buildings with hundreds of little archways, and I was the only one there. I strode right out into the center of it and plopped myself down under a tree, just like I would have in the quad, and spent about fifteen minutes just sitting there, enjoying the sunshine and writing in my journal. It was beautiful.

I also took the opportunity to check for free student wifi, and sure enough there it was. I didn't have my student ID with me, though, since I don't actually have a card yet, so I couldn't log on to it. Tomorrow, though, I'm going back, and this time I'm going to find a library or something so I can actually use Walter without having to strain to see the screen against the glare of the sun.

Reluctant to leave, I made my way back to the hostel, this time finding a far more efficient route, though I'm sure I could still find a better one. I stumbled across a small thrift store that I didn't go in to, but I'll probably go back tomorrow. I need a wallet. My envelope method of storing my money hasn't been particularly effective, and I'm gaining more cards than I can keep track of.

I also got a lucky break at the hostel, where the night manager, who I've actually become rather tight with (though I have no idea what his name is), gave me 5 hours of Internet access at the hostel for only $10, so I can sit in my room and skype now. Blogspot still doesn't work, though, so here's to hoping that it works better on campus.

Oh! I also met a dog. Very briefly, but it cheered me up a lot, especially since it was a happy little yellow lab who let me scratch her belly. Earlier today I wandered into the TV lounge while they were playing Marley & Me, and watching the dog die was just a little bit too upsetting for someone who's already in an emotionally unstable state from sheer stress, but getting to pet the happy little yellow lab fixed that problem quite handily. I think she was quite a bit happier for the encounter, too.

Much love to you all!
Morgan

P.S. I just overheard the guy next door have this conversation with his roommate:

Guy: Do you shut that door at night?
Roommate: Sometimes.
Guy: Sometimes? Man, it must get freezing at night then.

Right. Like this city has ever know a temperature that could reasonably be called “freezing.”

P.P.S. Now he's talking about gay bars. You!

P.P.P.S. I've just finished putting together all of the wideview pictures in this post, and the one immediately before it. I'll have you know that I'm pretty sure I have a contact high from the people on the other half of the balcony, and you likely have them to thank for my industriousness in this matter, because it took me about an hour to do all of them. Also, the Queen music currently playing on my iPod is way too interesting at the moment for me to be sober.

P.P.P.P.S. Yes, dad, I kept the originals of the photos so you can put them through your far superior photo-splicing program. No worries, mate.

Day 3: Morning

Alright, so I haven't actually posted the last blog I wrote yet, though I did try, because apparently blogspot is not okay with copy and pasting. Who'd have thought it, huh? But I'm going to type another one right now, and maybe later I will conquer the evil website that won't let me post and you will all get two posts for the price of one.

I just got back from taking Walter to the library, without his charge cable, where I used him to talk to Drew for approximately fifteen minutes. My battery died, of course, in the middle of the conversation, and now it's recharging, but also telling me that I should get a new battery. My computer is actually telling me that I have to replace the battery, even as it struggles to charge the piece of crap I currently have. Brilliant. I suppose I have to go in search of a computer shop now and hope that they have one that's compatible with my super old (read: 3 ½ years) laptop. Wish me luck?

Of course, even if I do find one, I'll probably have to have it mail-ordered in, and I don't yet have an address. That's what I'm going to be trying to do in earnest today, now that I'm quite a bit better rested and almost completely adjusted to the time difference—find housing. It's kind of hard without access to the internet, though. I've text messaged two people who posted ads, now that my phone is working again, but I haven't heard back from either of them. I think I'm just going to go to campus today and wander about and see what I find. I'll leave as soon as this crappy battery is fully charged, in the hopes that I can find a campus library that has free wifi for students where they won't get upset with me for using their plugs. Then maybe I can actually post these things I've been writing.

In other news, the birds around here make really strange noises. They have crows that look exactly the same as the ones in the states, but they sound completely different. More sort of warbly, or something. Hard to describe. There's also a bird somewhere out there that makes noises like two cats fighting. I have no idea what bird that might be, but I hear it a lot, especially right before bedtime and in the early morning. And because I know somebody is going to ask, no, I don't think I've heard a Kookaburra yet, though there was a bird call this morning that sounded a bit like maniacal laughter, so that may have been one. I don't know for sure.

I watched the sunrise again this morning, armed with my camera to take pictures for you guys, but it wasn't nearly as spectacular as last time. The clouds are out in force today, and so far it's only been about 60 degrees. I actually had to wear both my sweatshirt and my jacket, and I put on regular jeans. Shocker. This is so not winter.

And that's all from me. Let me know how things are going on the home front. I miss you all terribly.

Much love,
Morgan

Day 2: Evening

Greetings and salutations again! I will have you know that I'm currently writing this blog post from my hostel, on my laptop, where there is no (free) Internet connection, because it suddenly occurred to me that my laptop still works when there is no Internet, and I have word processing. I'm just brilliant like that, I suppose.

As I write this, it is 8 PM in Brisbane, which means that it's the middle of the night for you folks. I'm trying to stay awake until at least 9 PM, 10 if I'm feeling up to it, by reading (American Gods, which you should all read) and typing this post.

About fifteen minutes ago, there was a firework show. Just, you know, because. And I happen to be lucky enough that my room at the hostel faces front, toward downtown Brisbane, so I could see the show against the backdrop of the city lights, and it was pretty awesome. It reminded me of the 4^th of July, of course, and I had great fun explaining to the night watchman who wandered into my room that fireworks are only legal in the states on two days out of the year without special permits, and that you can only buy the really good ones on Indian reservations. He got a real kick out of that. Apparently, they happen here every few days—there's a festival or something going on currently, which explains tonight's show. He says he barely notices them anymore. I hope I'm never that jaded about fireworks.

My forward-facing window/balcony was also a boon this morning. I woke up around 7 AM and spent about an hour out there, reading and writing and watching the sun rise. It was warm enough that I had to take my sweatshirt off about half an hour in, around 7.30 AM. Call that winter???

In other news, I made a friend. Sort of. His name is John, and he's from Montreal, Canada, and he's been in Australia just sort of bumming around for five months now. We met in the common room where I went to read, and overheard him talking to his friend Martin about a racist dog he'd once met. It seemed like a good topic of conversation to jump in on, so I did, and then ended up watching Monsters, Inc. with him, then going to the grocery store (in the hostel van, which he explained how to use) where he helped me figure out the whole kilograms thing in the deli and we swapped some items to get better discounts.

Then on the way back I made a point of mentioning that I had a boyfriend, and he suddenly became a lot less interested, and therein lies the “sort of” mentioned above. Funny how that happens. But, it was fun nonetheless, and now I have all the makings for sandwiches and a few apples, so I have food-like substances that'll last me a little while. I was going to head out to campus today, but didn't make it because just as I was about to set out (on foot) it started raining, so I went on the previously mentioned adventure instead. I'm going to try to get to campus tomorrow and hopefully find housing, or at least a student library with wifi or something like that. There's a library near here that I've been using, but today I got the distinct feeling that the librarian was getting a little annoyed with my presence. Oops.

I've just realized that I neglected to say much about the flight over here, perhaps because my Internet time has been so limited and I've been reserving it mostly for skype conversations with Drew and my parents. The flight was relatively uneventful—a lot of sleeping and watching in-flight movies—but I sat next to a nice couple from South Africa, who now live in Brisbane. The woman was named Helen, and she gave me her business card and told me to call her up so she could feed me dinner some night. Her husband, Liz, looked so much like my Uncle Dusty it was uncanny. If he had told me that his name was, in fact, Dusty, I would have believed him.

Customs was super easy, because I just declared everything that I had. I got sniffed out by a beagle, but I'd already told them that I had an orange, so they confiscated that and I didn't get into any trouble. Then the customs lady had to take my hiking boots into a back room to clean them because I went hiking right before flying down here, which means that even though I've since laid them out to dry properly, they still sort of smell. Ew.

I also met a girl named Leslie at Brisbane International Airport, while we were waiting for our respective transportation. She was headed out to Perth to work at a wildlife rehabilitation center for a few months. Of course, I immediately demanded that she give me her full name so that I could find her on facebook and hook her up with Russell (who, for those of you who don't know, is going to be in Perth in just a few days and is intensely interested in all things animal-related). She was delighted with the suggestion, and I have since talked to her briefly over facebook to seal the deal. Perhaps when I head out to Perth for the mid-semester break, she will still be there and we can all go out for a drink.

The room next to mine is playing “Because I Got High” really loudly. It's nice to know that some things transcend cultural differences. Until next time, I bid you adieu.

Much love,
Morgan

P.S. I am also happy to report that my cell phone is now in working condition again, and the man at the phone store, who still remembered me from Thursday, had a hearty laugh at my expense. I guess utter fail is also culturally transcendent. :P

Greetings, from Down Under.

Well, here I am. Brisbane, Australia. This is actually the third time I've had internet access, but the first time it's been free and the first time blogspot has worked, since inexplicably different bits of my operating system keep deciding they don't like certain sites or wireless connections. For example, at the moment skype and internet explorer are working perfectly, but firefox has checked out for the play. Go figure.

So far, the trip hasn't been great. The combination of complete exhaustion, the overwhelming number of things I need to do and the shock of suddenly being away from everything I've ever known has been pretty depressing so far. But, I don't have much choice but to soldier on, so I'm just sort of hanging in there and hoping it gets better.

It's not all bad, though. The weather is nice. It's about 70 degrees, and it's the middle of winter. How counter-intuitive is that? And the sun set at 5.30, which totally surprised me, although it shouldn't have. It's really strange to go from longest days in the year to shortest in such a sort period of time. I imagine it's going to be even stranger going back to the states, when it not only goes from long to short, but unbearably hot to incredibly cold. Not looking forward to that.

The hostel I'm in is pretty shoddy, and they make us pay an insane amount for internet, so I've found a library nearby that has experimental free wifi. But the bed is comfortable enough and it's pretty close to a city-like area, so I can get things I need relatively easily.

I did, however, manage to break my phone within hours of getting it. Well done, me. XD So I have to go fix it today, and then I'm going to attempt my first trip to campus in search of housing. Wish me luck!

All the best,
Morgan