Life in Brisbane

Hi! It is now Monday evening and I have been in Brisbane for a full three days now. I’m going to try to do a recap of each day and then add a few comments on adjusting to life in a new country.

Day 1:

After the plane landed, we went through customs and picked up our luggage. There were little beagles all over with their handlers sniffing for fruit and other prohibited items. I met with the UQ arrival people just outside baggage claim and got a ride to my apartment complex.

The office was closed so I just went up to Jordan’s room to put down all of my bags. After everything was settled there, we went out for breakfast. Food is ridiculously expensive here. We finally found a little place and got breakfast sandwiches for about $5 each. After breakfast we just walked around the city a lot. Downtown is just across the bridge from our apartments, so it’s a pretty easy walk. The city is beautiful- lots of really interesting new plants and birds and a unique mix of architecture. After our walk we came back and just laid around for a while. I was pretty exhausted.

Later, we went to the library, which is just across the street, to use the internet. It’s about $70 a month for internet usage at the apartments, so we’ll be making a little trip to the library anytime we want to get online (free wi-fi there). We met up with Leslie and my new roommate Lauryn (also from DU) while we were there. More lying around at the apartment after the library. Australian commercials are weird! Some are pretty provocative, others are just plain odd.

It gets really dark very early here. Around 3 the sun starts to kind of go down and it just gets increasingly dark until about 6. So, it had been dark for a little while by the time we went to get dinner. We met up with Leslie and Lauryn at The Parklands, which is a stretch of restaurants, bars, and shops. It runs along the river and there’s a little man-made beach between all of the buildings and the sidewalk that runs by the river. The cheapest place we could find to eat was about $20 a plate, so that’s what we went with.

After dinner we came back to the apartments and hung out for a little while. I went to bed around 9, which I’ve been told is pretty good. Most everyone passed out by about 8 on the first night.

So, that’s about all for Day 1. My room is pretty small, but it’s nice that I don’t have to share it with anyone. Besides Lauryn, I have two other suitemates. Gavin is from England, but has lived in Brisbane for a while now and goes to Griffith U. and his girlfriend Chisa (not sure about spelling, sounds like Cheesuh) is from Tokyo and goes to UQ (University of Queensland) like me. They’re both pretty cool, but I don’t think they liked how loud we were being when we came back to the apartment after dinner.

Day 2:

Jordan’s window looks out onto the pool and gym area of the apartment, so after waking up around 7 I went outside to wake him up by throwing rocks on his window.

After breakfast we charged up my camera and got ready for the day. I took a few pictures and we did some more walking around. We brought our backpacks so we could go to the grocery store. The cheaper store is a little bit of a walk. I think next time we’ll bring a rolling suitcase. We got a lot of groceries though, which is a lot cheaper than eating out.

When we got back from grocery shopping we ate lunch and then went to take the bus over to UQ. The bus stop is just a couple blocks from the apartments and then it’s about a 10 minute bus ride to the Uni (as they like to call it here). The campus is just gorgeous. Lots of trees and buildings made out of sandstone. The law school seems to be the biggest building on campus, but I think it houses the arts building as well. The campus is just enormous. Turns out this school has 37,000 undergrad and 7,300 international students. If you’d like a comparison, DU is 5,000 undergrad. It’s a pretty big change for me. Classes should be interesting with that many students.

We took the City Cat ferry back to town. This ferry runs up and down the river that splits Brisbane in half. If you look at a map, you’ll see what I mean. The river runs in kind of an S-shape through the middle of the city.

When we got back to the apartments we had dinner and then it was another early night for me. Went to bed around 9:30 this time.

I keep getting messed up with the whole driving on the left side thing. I never really realized it at home, but when you are walking toward someone you always go right to move out of their way. Here, you are supposed to move to the left. I keep running into people. I’m sure they think I’m such an idiot. The escalators are also opposite. I think that’s pretty much it for Day 2.

Day 3:

Woke up around 7 again and left for orientation at UQ with James (one of Jordan’s suitemates) around 8. Orientation was pretty boring except for the speaker about Australian culture. He was pretty hilarious.

We broke for lunch around 1 pm. They served us hotdogs in white bread. No hotdog buns… Not really sure what’s up with that. Becca, Beth, Claire (All DU kids) and I were still hungry so we went to one of the cafes on campus and got milkshakes. The consistency of a milkshake here is like a melted one at home, or like chocolate milk. Kind of odd, tasted good though. After our snack, we headed back to the lecture hall for one more orientation thing. We met up with a couple other girls on our way over. One of whom is from Austin and goes to UT. She grew up with the Chapman brothers, who I went to high school with. Brian Chapman is dating one of my best friends’ cousins, who I also know well. Small world, indeed!

After orientation I came back to the apartments and got my phone line all set up. Jordan and I went over to the library to check email again and then went over to Big W (same thing as Wal-Mart) to look at camping stuff for when we make weekend trips to the beaches and islands.

So, now you’re all caught up. We had dinner and now I’m writing this post.

Other thoughts about Australia so far… Avocados are cheap. The bus drivers are super nice and friendly. Most Australians are also super nice. Accents are cool and it’s fun to hear little kids talk here. It’s about 50 to 60 degrees in the mornings and evening here (gets up to about 80 during the day) and everyone seems to think they’re going to die. We keep seeing all of these Australian people bundled up in winter coats and scarves. The lady on the ferry yesterday actually said to me, “It’s too cold out there to snow.” Anyway, apparently we would have a bunch of dead Australians if they visited Colorado in our winter. Oh, and it’s winter here, in case anyone was confused about that.

We’ll probably be going to the koala sanctuary on Wednesday as well as going on a weekend trip to the Sunshine Coast. Look forward to posts and pictures about that. I’ve also added pictures from this week to Flickr, so check that out.

E-mail is still a great way to keep in touch, but of you want to call me you need to dial 0011 61 7 30136850. The extension is 3103, but I’m not sure if you actually need that. My address here is:

310/7 Hope Street
South Brisbane 4101
QLD, Australia

Hope all is well with everyone.

Love,
Nicole