My Life in Oz So Far

Whoa, where to begin! I promise this will be the only long post of the semester! I’ve done so much in the last few days, it’s hard to even wrap my head around it. It took a day and a half to get here, but it went by freakishly fast. The 15-hour flight to Sydney was overnight, so it felt like one long night that I dozed in and out of. Of course I got put in the ONE seat on the plane with a broken entertainment system. It was really unfortunate, but now I think of it as a positive thing: at least I got my bad travel luck out of the way already! Maybe I’ll be saved from more disasters because of those boring 15 hours.
When I got to Sydney, instead of lounging around a beautiful city for a few hours, I was ushered through endless “queues” of customs, baggage, ticketing, security, etc. It took 2 and a half hours of standing in line with millions of Asians who didn’t speak English before I got to my gate to catch my flight to Cairns. That flight was pretty fun, since I was with other study abroad kids. They made fun of my Minnesoooohhhh-ta accent the whole way.
I arrived in Cairns to find it completely different than I’d imagined. For one, it’s very mountainous. Think Lost. That’s what it looks like, only the mountains ring the city on three sides with the ocean on the other side. Cairns is a total tourist town. It’s all trashy motels with a very cheap tropical architecture (a.k.a. where I’m staying right now). Palm trees are thick here, and the weather is perfection. I mean, it’s the kind of weather you don’t notice at all because it is absolutely flawless. I can see myself getting exhausted by the endless beautiful days. The esplanade, or beach-side street, looks very different from the rest of the town. Think Miami Beach. It’s gorgeous and bustling and full of boutiques and restaurants. I can’t wait to spend my weekend evenings walking the esplanades.
The Program Introduction has been a whirlwind three days that I found out is costing me $600! But wow, it has been amazing. We snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef yesterday. It was a day-long trip on a big diving boat. It took over 2 hours to get to the reef, then we snorkeled for an hour (lots of people went scuba diving, but not me), ate a huge lunch, then moved to a beach where we snorkeled more. It was a pretty amazing experience. The colors of the reef are so not as bright as Pixar led me to believe, but the reef is just as intricate as in Finding Nemo. There are giant clams that look like they could swallow you whole, huge schools of fish to swim through, and big colorful tropical fish. You could snorkel there all day and never get bored. I hear it’s much, much better than any of the snorkeling people have done in other places, so I guess I’ve done the best and never need to snorkel anywhere else!
Today was more up my alley; we went to a place called RainForeStation. It’s a very entertaining tourist spot in the middle of the Kuranda rainforest. We got our pictures taken with a koala, hung out with kangaroos (who sleep pretty much constantly), saw Aboriginal dancing, threw boomerangs (which I’m actually pretty good at), got a Duck Boat tour of the rainforest, and ate another huge buffet lunch. It was soooo fun. If Animal Kingdom at Disney World was more like this place, it would be so much better. I’ve always wanted to see a rainforest, and it was really great.
I guess the bad side of my time here has been the stress of meeting people. There’s about 65 of us at the Program Introduction, and for some reason our leaders didn’t have us play icebreaker games. So the whole time, I’ve been introducing myself to everyone and having the same conversations over and over again (Name? Home town? University? Major? Townsville or Cairns?). Only about a dozen of us are studying at Cairns, and the rest are leaving for Townsville tomorrow, so that’s made it harder to make friends. Everyone wants to make friends with people for the whole semester, so I’m at a disadvantage. But I’ve met tons of people and I like them a lot. So far no BFFs, but I suppose those will be my roommates at JCU.
We have the evening off, which is crazy since we’ve been go-go-go for two days. In two hours, I’m going to see Harry Potter! Right now, Minnesotans are in the midnight showing, so I’m only a couple hours behind. What a relief! Thought I’d have to wait even longer, but thankfully there are lots of other HP fans here J
Well, I’ll try and post this ASAP, when I get internet tomorrow at my new apartment. Just thought everyone would like an update, though I know reading long posts is a drag. Love you all and g’day! (Wow that was cheesy. Funny side note: I’m already thinking in an Australian accent, and I’m often surprised that I still speak with a Minnesota accent. I can’t let myself get an accent or the Australians will hate me!)