The Beginning in Brisbane

As I sat drinking a pint of “Fat Yak” with some fellow expatriate course mates it became clear that my Australian semester had begun. Perhaps I should back up a little. At the moment I find it pretty difficult to use words like “yesterday” or “last night” as the 16 hour flight and crossing of the international dateline have left my internal clock more than a little confused. All that to say if the time-line of this post doesn’t make sense... too bad cause it doesn’t make that much sense to me either.

I boarded my flight to Dallas around 7:10pm on Monday (Jan 30) night which brought me into Dallas around 9pm (still Monday night). I met with a conspicuously collegiately group twenty-somethings who, as I rightly guessed, turned out to be some of my new course mates. We began boarding our flight to Brisbane shortly there after. As all the passengers began shuffling along into the behemoth of a plane, several of the Australians in line started talking with one another. Now, there isn’t anything particularly out of the ordinary with Australians having casual conversations with one another; that is unless you are an American who desperately wants to have an Australian accent. I know that dwelling on how “cool” their accents are might be a tad stereotypical, but it really started to make the whole trip seem real to me. I was definitely getting more and more excited and less and less nervous, “How could a country full of people who sound like this be anything less than awesome?” I thought.

After spending 16hrs (it turns out that the flight from Dallas to Brisbane is only 16hrs and not the 22hrs that my plane ticket said it was) in close proximity with some Australians, I can safely say that they are as nice as they sound. I made fast friends with the two women who would be my neighbors for the day/night/really long flight. We started talking and didn’t stop until we were a good two hours or so into the flight. They were very helpful and informative, as well as just great to talk to. They made sure that I could properly pronounce Melbourne (“Mel-bin”) and Cairns (“Caans”). They were also the harbingers of some very good news, the drinking age on the plane was indeed 18 and more importantly the booze is free. Talk about a good way to get me excited about sitting in an airplane for more than half a day. As it turned out though I only ended up having one drink, but it was still free. I spent the rest of the flight watching “Reel Steal” and the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean.” “Reel Steel” was an obvious choice as Hugh Jackman is an Aussie and “Pirates” because....well just because. I managed to stay up as long as I could and only started to sleep when there was only 8hrs remaining till we reached Brisbane.

We ended up arriving early Wed (Feb 1^st) morning, like 5:30am early. Upon arrival we did the whole customs thing, which was way more intense than I was expecting. There were about four levels to whole process one of which involved a K9 unit and a physical inspection of all declared goods. They may be friendly, that doesn’t stop Australians from being pretty authoritative when the want to be. After the customs ordeal all there was to do was wait till 9am for our program advisor to meet us.

Peter and Dave met me and the now entire SIT crew at the aptly named “Meeting Point” in the airport. From here we loaded the bus, had a short orientation, and were then dropped off at our Hostel and left to our own devices till dinner at 5pm. Feeling gross and with some time to kill, I joined some classmates in taking a dip in the pool. I’m not sure if all Hostels in Australia are this cool, but “City Backpackers” in Brisbane was pretty neat indeed. I think you can get the idea of the place with just a few details, it is bright orange with dark blue accents, has a bar and patio that overlooks the Brisbane river, is entirely populated with attractive twenty-somethings from all over, and the swimming pool had a window in it. Still, I set out with some SIT-ers and we walked around Brisbane, grabbed some lunch, had a pint, did some bonding, walked through a farmer’s market, actually bought school supplies (an encouraging venture as it reminded us that we were actually going to school), and then headed back to Hostel to dress for dinner. As a group we met Dave and Peter, our pleasantly stereotypical chill Australians who looked like they surfed between conversations, at Vietnamese/Thai restaurant called “Huong’s.” After several variations of curry, rice, and meat or vegetable of some type, the gang headed back to the Hostel with not a little excitement. Tonight was Wednesday night, which at City Backpacker’s means Karaoke. After some “A for effort” renditions of songs that I used to like, I along with the majority of the crew finally gave in to the Jetlag exhaustion and collapsed on the cheap, plastic lined bunk bed.

 Packing action shot

 Packing, non-action shot

 Looking at maps in the airport

 The aptly named meeting point

Australian Farmers' Market (just like any other Farmers' Market)

Picture worthy building I walked by in Brisbane

The Gang on the way to dinner

Brisbane River

This morning (Thurs. Feb 2) we are taking a two hour bus ride to our orientation camp site near Byron Bay, Australia. It has already become apparent that the always-on-the-go itinerary and the constant packing, unpacking, then re-packing, then lugging of luggage it entails will be one of the semester’s biggest challenges. It is also unclear how much reliable access I will have to the internet. Once we leave the Hostel in a couple of hours we won’t have access to internet till Sunday at the earliest, as we will be camping. That is one of the reasons this post is such a doozy, as it will have to hold you over for at least a little while. On the bright side, part of our orientation entails surfing lessons, or so I hear. More news to follow, but for now that is your (rather) hearty helping of outback.