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Published: July 12th 2006
melbourne city view
A cloudy day, but it doesn't take away the beauty of this city.G'day Mate 😉
Since the day I was accepted into the Study Abroad program to Australia, I have been so excited to go. I never thought the day would come and sure enough, July 5th, 2006 rolled around.
After packing up all of my clothes and important items we rushed to the airport (because I always wait until the last minute). As I hugged my mom I could tell she was holding back her tears. I hugged my dad, gave him the "Secret Hand Shake" (A few of you lucky ones there know how to do that), and then left for my gate. I arrived as they were boarding the plane, I didn't even have any time to call the people I wanted to call and just relax. I boarded my first flight, which would take me chicago. I hate getting on the plane and making the isle person stand up so I can get in. I just feel bad...and apparently the person who had to move for me was rather upset at that as well. Then shortly after I sat down, the window seat guy showed up. Sorry Isle man =/. So there I was...sitting between a large
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Another great view of Melbourne. lumberjack look-a-like, and a very unpleasant person. I honestly could not tell if it was a femenine male or a woman with a hairy chest...eitherway..."he" was unpleasent. I tried to ignore the random hacking noise that person made and just played my iPod. (Thanks Mom!)
Alas! The windy city! It didn't seem all that windy when I got there...*shrug* after getting off the plane and taking a quick look around for Oprah, I took a seat on the floor. The airport was so crowded..and hot. Middle of summer and they don't even have the AC working. Craziness! I just sat on the floor with my iPod, listened to the shuffling songs and people watched. My flight ended up being delayed an hour, which I didn't mind because it shortened my layover in San Fransisco. It made sense to me =) So, eventually when they called for the boarding I got to my seat quickly and realized I had a young blonde guy, maybe 25 or so that works in Consulting, at the window seat, a jolly old Australian man who works for Hallmark cards in the middle and me on the end. I spent half of my flight talking
train station
Central Station- always a busy place...i love the design. with the australian man, seems he has stayed in my hotel branch in Las Vegas, Salt Lake City (I think that was the one), and Chicago. That made good conversation, we talked about schooling, the weather in OZ and found out that he will be on my next 2 flights. The inflight movie began after about an hour; "She's The Man" starring Amanda Bines.........let me tell you...us three in that row laughed as hard as ever. We were causing a stir on the plane. That movie is possibly one of the funniest movies i've seen in a very long time. After the movie, I enjoyed an episode of Deal or No Deal, which I had already seen 3 times...it was still good though.
Rice-A-Roni....you know, that's the San Fransisco treat.
Anyways...I landed in Cali! I was kind of excited, but kind of confused in the head as far as what time it was and what time it REALLY was...stupid time zones! I found out that this airport = confusing. I ended up lost...my gate number was 64, so I followed the signs that were going up in order....58...59...60..............*eerrrrrr!* Where's the rest? So I found out that I had
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1st day of class, first 1/3 of the class.... to take some shuttle, that was less stable than the shaky trollies we have in Providence. So I ended up finding the sign for international travels (makes sense eh?), walked down the steps and got on the bus...a bus crowded with Aussies, 1 American, and a thick-accented Asian bus driver. I was shortly dropped off by my airline section and made my way to my gate.
Once again, I had a very short wait at my gate and I made my way onto the biggest plane I have ever seen. It was a double decker!! When I saw the stairs to the 2nd floor, all I thought of was the movie Air Force 1, and Flight Plan...it was crazy. I looked down at my boarding pass stub and was disapointed to see I had to walk back 58 rows. I found myself sitting next to a english/math teacher for elementary gifted children. I found it interesting... We talked for a while about chicago (that's where she's from) and how she was going to Australia to visit her pregnant daughter. Later, she gave me her name and number so when I get to Chicago, after my trip, I could give
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1st day of class, second 1/3 of the class.... her a call and she'd give me location recommendations.
So there I sat...mentally and physically trying to prepare myself for my 14 hour flight...and all the shitty plane food. I was amazed a plane so big could fly in the air...we experienced slight turbulance but nothing terrible.....a girl in my group had her plane struck my lightning when flying to L.A. ...scary eh? She was actually fearing for her life as the plane was dropping and shaking...but thankfully everything worked out...Stories like those make me not want to fly again. I saw the movie line up for the flight and honestly I was disapointed from the 1st title to the 4th. I managed to fall asleep after about 3 cups of coffee, which i convinced was decaf....I honestly don't know how long I slept for, I reckon 4-6 hours? I slept through "Sea Biscuit" and "Something New"...sounds like 6ish...the lady next to me said I did pretty good on the sleep thing...I was just trying to avoid those gormet meals. Just kidding =/ I was hungry. I liked how they had a big screen projection on the wall infront of us with the distance traveled and a picture of
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1st day of class, last 1/3 of the class.... the world map and our plane, where we were. We were going about 650 mph. I asked the stewardess if we could up it up to 700. She didn't go for that at all.... (jk)
14 hours...soon past. No, really. It "flew" by (yea, pun intended). I was honestly shocked, I had arrived in Sydney! I was in Australia! I couldn't believe it! I had a smile on my groggy face that I could not wipe off. I tried, and my cheeks would just return the way they were. I had to asure people around me I didn't receive any Botox. I walked into the airport and was just amazed. It was set up so confusing but it was beautiful. Everything was so clean and bright. I walked to the gift shop and bought a calling card and made my way to the gate. I tried to find a phone but that was a task all on its own.I didn't have time to call anyone by the time I found one. So, I entered my gate asured them I had no matches or lighters. By that time it was 7 am...the sun shined through the windows over my next
bridge
some random cool bridge over the Yarra River :) jumbo plane and hit my face. I smiled. Again. No Botox!!! jk jk I checked to make sure I had my customs ticket and just paced back and forth around the seats. I was too excited, feeling the warm australian sun, and hearing their attractive accents. A girl asked me if I would like to sit down next to her, I smiled and declined. She thought I hadn't a place to sit. But there was plenty of seats, I was just too excited I told her. Turns out she's also on a term abroad program with her school. We talked for about 20 minutes and boarded the plane together. I was happy to find out I was 20 rows up and got to sit in the 34th row! Woohoo! And--no one was in my row, so I kicked my legs across those seats and started to circle the hiddle objects in this booklet my dad gave me.... I'm sure you all know those booklets, they were in those Highlights magazines...yea I know...it's for kids about 10 years old. But let me tell you...some of those are hard! Maybe it's just me... =o) Anyways- the short 1 hour flight soon came
flying pigs
Australia has wild Kangaroos, koalas, dingos and flying pigs :) to a very smooth landing in beautiful Melbourne!!
After getting off the plane, I swapped emails with the girl from Ohio that I had met in Sydney and continued on to customs. I always get nervous at customs...even though i'm not smuggling over any illegal immigrants or atom bombs. We were all separated into 2 groups- Aussies/New Zealanders to the left, and any other ethnicity to the right. The line was so long...my ohio friend was about 20 people behind me and to my surprize I saw one of my professors about 15 people behind me in line. We greeted each other and conversed each time we passed one another through the winding line. The room reeked of 2 day unshowered bodies...either that or someone through Fritos in the airvents and that nasty smell was floating around. I thought it was funny how the TV monitors above the customs kiosks had flashing pictures of items that were prohibited to enter the country...examples: Chinese Stars, Angry Cheetas, Tazers, and my personal favorite...the Electric Fly Swatter.
I was highly upset by all of this, because I had at least 1 of each of those....but I had 2 of the fly swatters.... *sigh*
After spending about an hour in the customs line, I made my way down to the baggage claim to get my luggage and crossed through quarentine to the main pick up area. There I met about 10 of the other students. After shaking hands, buying another phone card and taking money out, I made a call to my mother and one of my friends, but of course no one picks up because everyone has that same reaction when I show up on the caller ID "WHo the hell is this?" So if any of you receive a call from some strange number with a + sign infront, it's me!! ANSWER!
After waiting about 35-40 minutes for the remaining people, we walked out of the airport into the 48 degree weather (brrr!!!) and hopped on a bus and met the head of management training, Tim. As we drove to our hotel, I got a feel for some of the kids on the bus. Unfortunately I am critical when it comes to first impressions....it's really not a good thing. Well, we finally got to our hotel and unloaded into our slightly cramped rooms. Our teachers told us that the Victorian Market was right down the street from the hotel, and sure enough, it was. So myself, Katie, Jamille (he's from Jordan--so cool), and Michelle walked around the market and I bought myself a nice jacket. We soon after met up with the other kids and went to the Market Food Court, where I got some damn good Indian food.
Let me take a moment to let you know that Melbourne has a extremely large Indian and Asian population here. And it is EXTREMELY confusing but very amusing when you watch an idian or asian open their mouth and an australian accent comes out. But it's a hybrid accent of both ethnicities. It's awesome!
We had to get back to the hotel by 6 so we could have a first day "meet the group" type of meeting. So there we all were, 25 of us- 19 girls, 6 guys.....in Australia...ahhh! I can't believe it! We played a stupid bingo game to get to know each other and I was one of the 3 winners- the prize? A boxing Kangaroo pen. It's Glorious. After the meeting we all walked about 30 minutes to get to our restaurant for the evening, 20 minutes of that was our professor being lost and dragging us along with him. We all sat down to a really nice Italian meal, but 80% of us were so jet lagged we could barely enjoy it....some of us left early. I was one of them =) As me and a few others were walking to catch up with others, I saw that 3 of the kids were walking with 2 local homeless drunks with 40's. I immediately had a bad feeling...I don't want to be around people who are doing stupid things...A.) Drinking in Public B.) Taking drinks from strangers (can we say Roofie?) C.) Just plain idiocy in a different country.
I kept my distance with a few others and walked back to the hotel to plan our outting for hte night. Myself and 5 others walked down Swanson St. which is one of the main streets here in Melbourne, to a club/bar called Transport. A great place- but way too crowded. I found out they don't have Crown Royal here, or black label. A lot of the stuff here is imported in though, which leads to high prices...a whiskey and coke = 8 bucks, and it was small...I decided thats all i was going to spend there...But aside from the high prices, the people were great, the music was okay, and the scene was very chill. I ended up meeting a guy born in Signapore but was Indian and lived in Sydney. Very confusing, I know. He was such a cool guy. He ended up giving us his number and we are all going to call him when we reach Sydney so he can show us around. He said when he visited the states the people there took him around and really showed him a good time, so he likes to return the favor and do it for Americans, or anyone else that he meets. I have a good judge of character, at least I think I do; but he seems like a cool guy....
After hanging out there for a bit, I walked back to the hotel with a few other people and went to bed. It was a fun time, but I definately needed my sleep! Jet Lag is NOT FUN!!
But yea--Day one in Australia....amazing. This city is so beautiful I can't take it all in yet.
I'll update you guys soon.
Keep Safe Everyone!!
P.S. Pictures will come very soon!!!
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Jennifer Becker
non-member comment
Hey Anthony!
HAHAHAHA How funny that I thought you were Eli. After I posted a comment I quickly realized Eli couldn't be in Australia studying abroad! hahahahahaha! I'm glad I got it mixed up though because I've been wondering how you are! I miss chatting with you and hanging out! Let me know how you are doing at Gkkicks1@aol.com