Brisbane!!!

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After four days of non-stop activities and seemingly endless flights and bus trips, we finally made it to our new home for the next five months, Brisbane. Also affectionately referred to as Brisvegas and Brisneyland because of the high rate of gambling as well as tourists making their way to the Gold Coast. Sounds like the perfect place to do a study abroad if you ask me!
Above everything, I was most excited to finally be able to settle in and stop living out of my luggage. However, I grew even more excited when I learned that we would be living in pretty luxurious apartments by Australian standards, and VERY luxurious apartments by student standards. Our apartment is pretty awesome because it is right across the street from the river, only a block from the City Cat stop (speed catamarans that travel up and down the river and my main mode of transportation. Yes, I take a boat to class!) and equally close to one of the most popular student bars, the Regatta. We also have a really nice patio on ground level that has a view of the river. Oh, and to top it off, we have a cleaning service! Once a week a team comes in and cleans our dishes, bathrooms, kitchen, vacuums the floors, and changes our sheets for us. We still get excited when cleaning day comes around, haha.
We had a little over a week before classes started so we decided to make the most of our time and explore the city. Our first big venture into downtown was to celebrate Chinese New Year down in Chinatown. We saw some Thai dancing, a karaoke competition, Dragon and Lion dancing, and the Premier of Queensland introduce the Dragon dances. We had a good laugh over lunch when we realized we were Americans in Brisbane, Australia at a Chinese New Year celebration eating Thai food. Since we're all on student budgets we tried to find as many free activities as possible. One of our best discoveries was the man-made beach/lagoon at Southbank. Since we're about an hour from the coast and there are Bull Sharks in the river, this is the best option for swimming and sunbathing outside of our apartment pool. Another of our favorite hangouts is Queen Street, a major shopping area in the center of the City and just one ferry stop away from us. We're very excited to try out the Bowling Bar there that has Ladies Night on Thursdays and offers complimentary massages and strawberries dipped in chocolate! Now that's my kind of bowling!
We also went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which was probably the highlight of the week. The koalas were adorable and looked just like stuffed animals tucked up in the eucalyptus trees. We learned that koalas are not so lazy because they are high from the eucalyptus but because there is so little sugar & starch in the food that they have to sleep 18-20 hours a day in order to conserve their energy. I think I only saw one of them move during the day and that was because he was forced to so his branch could be cleaned by the staff. The best part of the visit was actually getting to hold a koala. The first one I was given to hold was named Bailey and once he was in my arms it was like he finally came to, got spooked, and tried to scratch my face off (in slow motion though, remember they have very little energy). So, they took him away and gave me a much nicer and more docile koala named Violet. In addition to koalas the sanctuary also houses an assortment of birds, dingoes, wombats, wallabies, and kangaroos. The kangaroos were just out an about and you could go up to them and feed them from your hand or just hang out and sit beside them. There were also joeys riding around in their mother's pouches. It was amazing to see a kangaroo spring away from us with her joey hanging upside down and halfway out of her pocket!
But going shopping and taking too many pictures of koalas and kangaroos is not all that we do. There is also the nightlife! And boy do Australia's enjoy their nightlife that all too often turns into daylife. During "O" week, or Orientation Week, there were themed nights at the two bars near our apartment. The biggest night is the Toga Party - I've never seen so many people in Togas. You couldn't even get into the bar without them and the styles really ran the gamut, from full out Ceaser costumes to pink leopard print sheets, probably nicked from a little sister's bedroom. Or we hope! After a few hours at the local bar we decided to head into the city to yet another Toga Party. There are a couple of bars downtown that my girlfriends and I love because they play really great music (interesting combinations, such as techno, 90's, a few favs from the 80s, and then pop hits and rap) and the Australian guys actually dance! Not in the creepy American guy way,either (no offense boys, but...). So we just spent the rest of the night on the dancefloor, which is how most of our nights downtown end. The next day we needed to take it easy, recover, and do some errands. On the way to the grocery store we passed hordes of kids headed to the Regatta dressed in scrubs for that night's theme party. It was 11 am!! Apparently the party actually started at 9am, so these weren't even the early birds. I've decided that by the end of the semester I'm either going to be a social outcast because I can't keep up or I'll have a failing liver! Only time will tell.

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