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Published: February 18th 2008
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My room
Here is looking from the door of my room at Mandelbaum House. As you can see I haven't unpacked much yet. The much anticipated arrival in Sydney
After waking up early at the gorgeous downtown Melbourne hotel where we were staying I enjoyed a hot breakfast in the hotel’s fancy restaurant. I had fruit salad, Aussie bacon (undercooked so it was really more like ham), sausage, a poached egg, and some apple juice. The interesting foods served for breakfast that I was not adventurous enough to try were baked beans, scrambled eggs and velveeta, roasted tomatoes, peeled plums, and of course vegemite.
After breakfast we all dragged all of ourselves and our luggage onto the bus to go to the Melbourne airport. The time of orientation was officially over the students headed off to UQ headed off to Brisbane. At the airport we had to line all of our checked luggage up in rows of two and have all the tags put on them. They were all marked as part of the group flight so we didn’t have to check-in individually.
Going through Security for the domestic terminal of Qantas airlines brought back so many memories of yesteryear. I had to take my laptop out of my bag and put it in a separate tray. But I
My room in an alternate view
Here is a view of my room from the bookshelf above my bed. My closet has two full mirror sliding doors and a sink. the toilet and showers are across the hall. didn’t have to take off my shoes, I didn’t have to empty my water bottle, I didn’t have to show my ID or even my ticket. It was so much more relaxed and not as hurried of an experience. The cool thing about this also (as I noticed waiting at the gait for our flight to take off) is that people can come and meet you at the gate when your flight gets in. Because you don’t need to show your boarding pass at security the gates are not restricted to passengers only. I remember meeting family at the gate when they would come to visit. It was such a fun competition to see who could spot the relative coming up the jet bridge first.
The flight was mostly uneventful and smooth except near the landing the air got choppy and we had a little turbulence. When we arrived in the Sydney airport it didn’t take long to get all of our bags but it did take some time figuring how to move all of the bags. I hooked my rolling duffle onto my rolling suitcase and rested my packing backpack on top of them. I could wheel them along just fine but it was hard to turn and impossible to make sharp turns. Then we loaded the bus and had a short drive to the campus area. Mandelbaum house was the first stop.
Brittany and I were the first ones off the bus and it was awkward because we didn’t know how to contact anyone in the future. My new cell phone wasn’t charged and the sim card was not put in it yet and neither were Sam or Sarah’s phones set up. But also none of us knew what room number or what have you we were staying in. So there was talk of getting online in our rooms to be able to connect and solidify plans.
Emily (our Arcadia person) helped Brittany and I wheel our luggage over to the house and we carried them inside. An RA named Stewart met us at the door and gave us some packets of info. There was where Emily said goodbye and ran back to the bus to take the other students to their homes. Stewart and a guy from Jersey (Max) helped Brittany and I carry our bags upstairs. Brittany and I practically just dropped our bags in our rooms and set of to explore a little of the house. It is rather small and much dingier than the pictures that I saw online. But it was nice. On a whim we looked outside and set off down the street we just wanted to get some bearings and see where campus was. We ended up touring the gym facility and walking a loop around the entire campus. It was smaller than we expected from the maps and a little confusing in the passageways between areas but very beautiful. Some buildings were magnificent and near them we saw two weddings one was themed around some Harleys and the other a traditional red black and white wedding. From The Great Hall we saw a park and walked down to it where they were setting up for a huge mardi gras festival tomorrow which we decided we are totally going to. We walked to the other places that Arcadia students are staying but didn’t know where they specifically were and so we didn’t get to see inside those yet.
When we finally made it back to the house we got to meet the girl who lives between us. Her name is Michelle and she is from Hong Kong (although she has lived the last 3 or 4 years in Melbourne). She told us about a bunch of hidden fees that we did not know about. Including internet, you have to pay to have it in your room and it’s atleast $30 per month. Otherwise you can use 6mb per day on a computer at the library. I don’t know what I’m gonna do but I’m guessing you can’t expect me online until I figure it out. Michelle did tell us about a close free hotspot. So we took our computers and walked half a block to a local Hotel/pub and bought a coke so we could use their free WiFi. Not the most convienent and could get expensive but that’s what I’ll have to do until atleast Monday.
After interneting it up for a bit we dropped our computers back off and headed down a nearby street to find some thai for dinner. I had Coconut Milk and Chicken and Mushroom soup and a salad with peanut sauce. It was great and not too expensive. Then we decided to walk further down the street to see what was there and we decided this is the most eclectic area of food we had ever seen. There was everything from Australian, American, Thai, Indian, Lebanese, Nepalese, African, Italian, Greek and many more that I can’t remember. We decided we are going to have to check it out. Brittany has traveled a lot and is pretty worldly in her pallet and she seems happy to help me develop mine. She is also going to help me learn about Judaism because I’m now living in a Jewish based house. She isn’t Jewish but has a lot of friends who are and grew up in a big community of Jews.
My legs and feet are exhausted from all of the walking and I’m very excited not to have to wake up early tomorrow. Brittany has made some awesome plans for what we are going to do and I’m really excited!!!!!!!!!
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