On Friday: After saying a tearful goodbye to my parents and younger brother, Cody (who was moving into UC Santa Cruz that afternoon...big day for the Freemans) in the parking lot of Tressider at Stanford, I lugged my obnoxiously large and yellow bag and carry-on into the Coffee House to have lunch with my best friend Jeff before he took me to the airport. Turns out, he had a meeting to run to so I got to spend some time with some other friends before leaving. Following Jeff's meeting, we hopped in the car and sped as quickly as possible to the airport (through painfully slow traffic that was in danger of giving me an aneurysm). However, I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare so all was good. I shall skip the details of the long flights that then ensued and instead plow right on ahead to our arrival in Brisbane.
Saturday: Lost to the universe until some time in December...thank you International Date Line.
Sunday: We arrived very early on Sunday morning into the Brisbane Airport. About twelve of us were all on the same flight so we moved en masse to customs. Customs was cleared without a hitch and was punctuated by my bag being sniffed by an impossibly cute beagle. We were met by a very nice bus driver and he loaded us up and we made a heading for the Benson Court Motel. All of us were quite excited, albeit suffering from jetlag. Chatty and giggly, we arrived at our motel and dropped bags and all grabbed much needed showers.
My friend Tess and I decided we weren't going to sit around all day and decided to trek into Brisbane proper from our motel...a quite substantial walk that I would not recommend doing in flip-flops. We discovered that many of the stores were closed for Sunday, but eventually found our way to Adelaide Street. We meandered about, people watching and enjoying the sights, including a massive ferris wheel on the other side of the river.
Tess and I then braved the Brisbane transit system for the first time, and thanks to some nice and not-so-nice people, we found our way back to the motel without a hitch. Reuniting with our other compadre, Ana, we proceeded to catch up with each other and went out and enjoyed a shared pizza for dinner just down the road from the motel.
Fading fast, I made sure to get in bed early...so I didn't just keel over and slept well until about 6 in the morning.
Monday: Our first day of orientation saw us meeting our program staff, getting acquainted with The University of Queensland campus and other generalities. Pictures will come soon, I promise!
Tuesday: Our first day of lectures began today and we were introduced to the Coral Reef Ecosystems and Terrestrial Ecology units and I've come to the conclusion that the prof teaching us in Far North Queensland is perhaps one of the coolest women ever! She's an entomologist but also does lots of wildlife rescue so we may end up meeting some of the joeys that she's nursing back to health. we also got a lecture on all of the dangerous animals we might see on the reef on Heron Island...even angry turtles!
Tuesday night: My homestay partners Sam, Chris, and I were picked up by our host mother, Carol yesterday evening and were delivered at her awesome home in Kenmore Hills. We met her dog, Lucy, her cat, Eva, and her other tenant Aaron, who was quite welcoming. A dinner of some extremely tasty taco-nachos and a nice bed made for restful sleep.
Wednesday: Woke up this morning and managed to figure out the public transit system enough to get Sam, Chris, and I to the UQ campus about an hour early. So class is about to start and I'm looking forward to learning more about all manner of things. I'll post pictures soon and have more interesting things to write about, I promise!
Cheers mates!
Patrick
Great posts Bub! Love the latest on the Cattle Ranch adventures.
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