Day 13: Orientating

Orientations are lame. I feel like I'm a freshman again, being told a lot of really useless information in really corny ways designed to try to make it sound interesting. On the bright side, though, getting lumped in with a bunch of other equally bored students is a great way to bond and make friends.

I got to campus around 11.15, which had me there in plenty of time for the 11.30 lunch. I spotted Emil entirely by accident across the field (his hair is hard to miss), so I joined him and some German girls hanging out on the lawn. This is when I discovered that there had actually been an earlier orientation session as well as the one we were about to go in to, which I had apparently totally missed the memo on. Scarlett (from Winnipeg, Canada) assured me that they hadn't said anything useful at all, and this turned out to be the theme for the day.

We went in to the session, which lasted an hour and a half. The most useful thing I learned there? If you bite off both ends of a TimTam chocolate bar and use it as a straw in your coffee, the chocolate inside will melt and then you can eat it all really fast and it's delicious and they call it a TimTam Orgasm (or, for the more PC crowd, a TimTam Slam). Although I did learn that they have a student blogging position specifically for international students that I may volunteer for (haven't decided yet), and I did meet a pretty cool dude named Gavin, from Toronto, Canada, with whom I traded phone numbers before heading off to the student welcome session for the English, Media Studies and Art History department.

I arrived at the session about five minutes early and struck up a conversation with a girl from Perth named Simone, and a guy from Edinburgh named Aran. Fifteen minutes later, the lecturer still hadn't shown up, so I went to the front office on behalf of everybody waiting patiently in that room and asked what the heck was going on. Turned out, they hadn't told anybody in the department that the welcome was happening. The lady at the desk made some frantic phone calls, and the vice-dean of the department came huffing into the room twenty minutes late and apologizing profusely. We got no useful information from her, either, but she was really cool and chill anyway.

Once she'd finished her hurried presentation, Aran mentioned that he was going to an information session for Arts students in general, so I tagged along because I had nothing better to do. It was also pretty useless, but the lady running it was nice and gave us chips (I'm sorry--she gave us crisps), and I met a dude named Richard from China.

I traded facebook information with Richard and Aran, then headed out to West End to wander about for a while in search of things to cover my blank walls. I had little success, though, because most of the shops were closed. I'll have to go back earlier tomorrow, which should be easy enough, especially if the library tour turns out to be as useless and dull as the rest of the orientating has been thus far.

Just as I arrived home, I got a call from Gavin inviting me over for a beer. He lives about a 1/2 hour walk away, so I went over and hung out with him and his roommate Nick for about three hours, during which time we talked about a million things and watched an episode of Top Gear. Gavin expressed great disappointment with the fact that I have a boyfriend (something I made very clear before agreeing to the beer), so I said better luck next time, and gave him a statistic I heard recently that says that Brisbane has one of the highest female-to-male ratios in the world. I have no idea if it's true or not, having heard it second hand, but either way it seemed to cheer him up.

The route to Gavin's house is creepy, by the way. Especially in the dark, like when I was walking home. It's creepy because the main landmark necessary for navigating it is a cemetery. A huge, dark, old cemetery. I found it delightfully inspiring. Perhaps I'll try my hand at supernatural horror fiction. It would be something new for me.

Just before I arrived home, a sudden movement in the bushes startled me. I turned to look, expecting a bird or maybe a squirrel (what it would have been if I were at UW), and instead I saw what looked like a bush baby. Having googled it, I now realize that it was actually a brush-tailed possum. It stared me down. The experience was rather unnerving (though I still snapped a picture), so I hurried away down the street to my house, where I discovered that my key didn't seem to like the lock on the front door much. Luckily, Troy, my basement-living Aussie roommate, was still up and he helped me get it open.


And now that it's midnight, I'm going to sleep. It's been a loooooong day. Hopefully tomorrow I'll find something to make my blank walls less bleak.

Much love,
Morgan

Day 12: Nightlife, Baby

Alright, it's official. Brisbane is the most gorgeous city ever. Seattle, eat your heart out:



That bridge is called "the Story Bridge." I don't know if that's the official name for it, but that's what I'm told it's called. We drove across it at night on the way home from Ngungun a few days ago, and when he saw the city lights through the beams of the bridge, Emil exclaimed, "it looks just like Star Wars! All you need is some flying sausages!" Of course, I laughed hysterically, and he couldn't figure out what was so funny until I finally regained my composure enough to explain. "Saucers, dear. It's flying saucers."



Spent the day/night with Emil, traipsing around Brisbane, taking gorgeous pictures (as you can probably tell). We went to a bar for a little while, where Emil was delighted to realize that he had the opportunity to buy me my first legal drink.



I then introduced him to the concept of light graffiti, which he had never heard of, but wanted to try immediately. Luckily my new phone has a flashlight mode, so we spent about an hour in a dark park, drawing things in the bushes. Unfortunately, all of the pictures are on his camera. So, once again, you'll all have to wait on those. :)

All the best,
Morgan

P.S. New pictures on the photodump.

Pictures.

I've created a couple public albums where I can dump photos for you all to look at. I'll also add whatever photos I collect from other people that you might not be able to see on Facebook or elsewhere. It's entirely possible that I could run out of room in these albums before the end of my trip, but I'll worry about that when I get there.

Click here to see pictures!!!! :D

Check back regularly to see if I've added any new ones. This way you can see more than just the few I choose to put into my actual blog. :)

Today was/is a lazy day. I might go out and find something to do tonight, but more likely I'm just going to chill out until bedtime. First day of orientation week is tomorrow. See you on the flip side. :)

Much love,
Morgan

P.S. I just bought a bike, lock and helmet from the girl who's moving out of my room for $40 ($35). I love getting cheap shit. It's pretty great.

Day 10: "Mountains" and the Beach

Today was a day of gorgeousness and pictures. I checked out of my hostel early this morning, met up with Emil and got picked up by Joe, and after a quick stop by the house, we headed out to Glasshouse Mountains to meet up with Joe's friends. The "mountain" we ended up climbing was called Ngungun, and it only took about twenty minutes to get to the top. Call that a mountain???

It was one of those hikes where you have to put in very little effort for a big payoff (the best kind). Halfway up, we found a pseudo-cave, which I assume was some sort of lava tube, and of course I climbed into it. So did Emil. We were the only ones in our group.

Then we went on to the "summit", which can hardly be called a summit because never should it take twenty minutes to get to the top of a mountain. The view was absolutely spectacular, though, since the surrounding country is so flat, and I took about a million pictures. We spent an hour at the top, just delighting in the scenery and finding cool places to take even more pictures. The best ones are on Emil's camera, though. I'll try to steal them from him later to share with you.


Once we'd finished with the mountains, the whole group stopped for lunch at a tavern/bar, and then we went out to Bribie Island to see the Pacific Ocean. It was absolutely gorgeous, and it was kind of nice to know that all you lovely folks were on the other side of it.


Oh, and there were some ninjas.


And a car.

:) Love you all!
Morgan

Day 9: The Oath

Look at that, people. This blog post gets its very own title. Whoa, man.

I don't know how many of you have noticed, but I have a countdown on my blog. Those numbers are clicking down to the very moment that I step off the plane in SeaTac airport in December (in a perfect world, where there are no delays). That means that, from this moment, I have approximately 156 days to see and experience as much of Australia as I possibly can.

Additionally, now that I've found all-inclusive housing at a screamingly low price where I won't even need to pay for transportation on a daily basis, I can live on the housing allowance my parents gave me (including food) without tapping into my inheritance money. This means that I have a rather large sum of money to spend on said experiences and traveling opportunities without a whole lot of worry about running out too soon.

Of course, I'll have to save a large portion of that money for the final 4 weeks Russell and I plan to spend traveling around, and I'll need to set aside a sizable amount for my mid-semester trip to visit him in Perth, but I'm still left with more spare funds than I'm use to having. This means, essentially, that I can afford to do whatever I want.

So here's the plan: from now on, I say yes. Yes to everything that anybody suggests that I do, anywhere anybody invites me to go, anything that anybody wants me to try. If I'm invited to a concert, I say yes. If someone suggests surfing lessons, I say yes. If somebody wants to go watch a lecture from some obscure professor I've never heard of, I say yes. If I'm invited bungee jumping or sky diving or on a four-day trek out into the middle of the outback in a rented Winnebago, I say yes. Because I can afford the price, but I can't afford to miss the opportunity.

There are some obvious exceptions to this rule. No drugs, nothing that would betray my relationship status, and nothing that will get me killed. But everything else is on the table.

Additionally, I have to seek out at least one thing to do every week that is worth blogging about. So far that hasn't been a problem, and hopefully it won't become one, but just in case. :) And you all can hold me to that.

That's my plan, and I'm sticking with it, starting yesterday, when my new roommate invited me to go bushwalking (read: hiking) with him and some of his QUT friends in the Glasshouse Mountains. So that's what I'll be doing tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have some lovely pictures for you all.

Much love,
Morgan

Day 7

Greetings strangers! I have wonderful news. I believe I've found a place to live. I'm not 100% sure, because there's another place I have to go see tomorrow, but I visited it today and it's fantastic.

The guy I'd be renting it from is a guy named Joe, who's a Chinese immigrant who's now a student at QUT working toward his doctorate. He's quiet, but very nice and easy going and fun to talk to. The other roommate I didn't get to meet, but she's a German girl who goes to UQ. The room is medium sized and cozy, and comes with more drawer/shelf space than I could possibly fill considering that I have to bring everything back home in a suitcase, and a single bed next to a window. It has this huge basement/garage where there's a bunch of other furniture, blankets, electronics, bikes, balls, tennis rackets—all of which I'm free to use whenever I feel like it. I don't even have to buy linens. Just take my pick of what's in the basement, wash it, and settle right in. The internet is wireless with unlimited downloads (because, as I just discovered today, in Australia they limit how many MB you're allowed to download per month, just like minutes in a cell phone plan), so I don't have to worry about overusing it. The living/dining room/kitchen (it's all one big room) is small, but very cozy, and the decorations are simple but colorful, just the way I like it. The bathroom is clean. There's a rudimentary basketball court outside and a washing machine downstairs, as well as a pool table. The spare beds/couches stored down there also mean that I can have people sleep over without worrying about having enough space for them (I'm looking at you, Russell). It's about a 15 minute walk from campus over the “Green Bridge,” which means I'm guaranteed to see the river every day but I won't have to spend a ton of money paying to take the CityCat, and rent is A$140 with everything included.

So I have to go see this other place tomorrow, since I've already arranged it, but I think this is what I'm going to stick with. Right now the previous tennant still has her stuff in the room, but Joe says that he'll make her move it all out before Saturday, when I have to leave the hostel, and he'll even pick me up and drive me over so I don't have to haul my suitcase across Highgate Hill. He even gave me a ride back to my hostel so that I wouldn't have to walk in the dark. How awesome is that?

I'm feeling very optimistic about this, as you can clearly tell. I'm going to sleep on it, because I don't want to jump too quickly, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to sleep much better than I have been. Excellent.

And now, because my last post was so short and I'm bored, a few observations I've made since arriving here:

1. In Australia, they do not believe in roads that make sense. At all. Not only are the roads twisty and strange and going off in directions that no road has any business going, but they are only very rarely labeled, so it's quite easy to wander along the wrong street for a mile before coming across a road sign and discovering that it's not the road you thought it was. This goes doubly for intersections. Rather than simply having a post at each corner clearly labeling the roads, they might, if you're very, very lucky, have a single sign in the middle of one of the roads, strategically placed so that you cannot tell if it's talking about the road it's parallel to or the one it's perpendicular to. Your only option, as far as I can tell, is to be psychic and already know which road it's referring to. Thus, the road sign is rendered effectively useless, serving only as a smug reassurance to those who already know where they're going.

2. In Australia, doctor's offices have to advertise. With billboards. I can't count the number of signs I've seen that say something like, “Sick? Come see Dr. Anderson! He's a trained physician!” Seriously, guys? You're going to base your medical care on advertising? The same goes for dentists and optometrists. Additionally, they don't have pharmacies around here. They have “chemists.” It took me a good four or five days to figure out that's what they are. They're often located right next door to the doctor's or dentist's, usually with the exact same style of sign, as though they went into business together, which they probably did.

3. Finally, in Australia, they don't believe in dryers. Everything is hang dry. Sure, you can find dryers if you go into a laundromat where the tourists wash their clothes, but I've seen a lot of private residences in the last few days and not one of them had a dryer. Instead, they all have these metal contraptions in the back yard that look sort of like a sideways windmill, with the pole in the middle and the arms spinning about a few feet off the ground, and between them are these wires that you hang your clothes on. I find it hard to believe that people don't simply waltz into strangers' back yards and take whatever they think looks good, because it would be incredibly easy to do. I find it a bit distressing that they don't believe in dryers here. It may sound weird, but I can already tell I'm going to miss the warmth & smell of clothes fresh out of the dryer. Plus, if anybody's ever tried wearing jeans that were hung dry, you'll understand my concerns in that department. So not comfortable.

Well, that's all I've got. Hopefully the search for housing is over, and now I can settle in, relax and prepare for the real adventure.

Love,
Morgan

P.S. Now, as I'm posting this, the following day, I would like to report that I decided to get the place. Yay for having somewhere to live!

Day 6

Hello! Today was a day filled with many exciting things. As you may remember, I was going to go to the beach today. That did not happen. Instead, Emil called up and suggested that we go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary instead. So, I met up with him and some of his hostel friends and we bussed it out there, and spent the day chilling with some kangaroos.

Emil spent most of the day taking pictures of them with his fancy camera.


I thought that this post would be more exciting. As it turns out, going to the sanctuary doesn't make for a very good story. We wandered about, saw some emus, some dingos, some koalas, some birds, some wombats. Then we went to the gift shop and Emil put on a funny hat.


Then we trekked back to campus and have spent the last couple hours looking for housing. I have another place to see tonight, possibly two, and another on Friday, assuming the ones I'm trying to line up for tomorrow don't work out. I'm suppose to be out of my hostel by Saturday morning. Wish me luck!

All the best,
Morgan