Gday! Welcome to Brissie!

Well I’ve been down here almost a week now, and I must say that I could easily live here. The plane landed at 7:00 in the morning on July fourth — that’s 5:00 PM on July third for all you east coasters. We hopped off the plane, had to go through immigration, baggage claim, and finally customs. I was on the flight with atleast 30 other students from IFSA both going to UQ and USydney, which made the flight and the airport time more exciting and entertaining. We directly got on busses to take us an 1 ½ north of Brisbane to Noosa. We stayed at this resort in apartments of 6 people where the kangaroos lounged right outside and the kookaburras laughed all afternoon! A group of us went down to the beach for the first day and decided to play a game of tag footie (touch rugby) and to test the water for our surf lesson the next day. Rugby was absolutly hilarious because none of us had played before and our orientation leaders just laughed as they watched and tried to yell rules at us from the side. Oh, by the way, the beaches down here? They’re national highways. Yep. Highways. So if during our rugby game a FWD happened to come down the beach, WE needed to move. Just makes me think of that scene in Wayne’s World, “Car!”…“Game On!”

The beach was much wider than any I have seen in the states, and the water was that carribbean blue; it was breathtaking, especially when the sun started to set over the hills in the distance. That night we enjoyed taco dinner followed by some orientation presentations. We all passed out by about 9 that night. I mean we had been up since like 4 in the morning (atleast that’s the local time when I woke up on the plane).

The next morning we got a wake up call at 7:00 from Guy and Steve, two of our orientation leaders, to get brekkie and ready ourselves for surfing! I’ve never surfed before, and I’ve always wanted to so I was really excited along with everyone else. My surf instructor was from Brisie (Brisbane) in his mid 30’s and extremely funny. We had one guy in our group to learn, Joe, so he always gave Joe the hard time as we learned. I got up three times and rode all the way in! It was incredible. We had morning tea on the beach – they really take their tea seriously down here – before we left to go back to the resort.

The rest of the day was spent lounging at the pool, walking on the beach, and drinking tea. After dinner, we had a presentation of wildlife from Australia. Two different Pythons, a Red-bellied Black Snake, a Goanna, a Freshie Croc, and some marsupials and birds. All extremely cool and beautiful in their own way. I got to hold both pythons and pet the croc and a bird. Again after the presentation, we stayed up about an hour, then passed out to get sleep before the next day!

Friday morning, we woke up at 6:30 to get ready to go to Frasier Island for the day! It was a 3 hour bus ride there and back. I was getting tired of busses…but this one was totally worth it. Frasier Island is the longest sand island in the world, 120 km, and we took the beach highway all the way up to Lake McKensie. Lake McKensie is a natural freshwater white sand lake in the middle of this sand island surrounded by subtrobical forests. B-E-A-U-TIFUL. The lake was this Royal Blue color with a ring of white sand all the way around. Absolutely breath taking. Pictures will be up soon, but they won’t do it justice.

After spending an hour on the lake, we took a hike through the rainforest next to the fresh water sand bottom creek. The canopy above us was all of ferns and palms, and the floor was a silent sand bed creek. That night we had the indiginous people of the Brisbane area come dance and talk to us. They also taught us dances of their own, which was very hard but a lot of fun! That night we all stayed up and talked till the late hour of 11:30. Yep, we’re crazy.

Saturday morning we left for Brisbane and arrived in St. Lucia around lunch time. As the bus pulled up to my apartment complex, I saw the river directly behind the building and instantly got excited. My apartment is on the 6th floor with an amazing view of the river and the city right behind that. I’m looking at it now, and I still can’t believe I’m here. I am amazed that I get to wake up here every morning for till the end of November! Saturday night a groupd of us experienced the night life of Brisbane by checking out the different pubs and hotels. These past few days I’ve been getting life in order: buying groceries, enrolling in classes, getting ids, setting up phone lines, etc.

Tomorrow I'm getting ready to go to Airlie Beach up on the Whitsunday Islands. I've seen pictures and it's beautiful, so I'm ready to go! I'll update that when I return from the trip on Saturday, or whenever I make it back to the library. Internet is still in progress for the apartment.

That's all for now! See you guys in a week!