Saturday, February 26, 2011

Sweet Home Brisbane

I have been moved into my apartment now for a week and it is starting to feel like home! I am finally starting to realize that this is not just a vacation and that I will actually be living here for the next 4 months, which is weird but very exciting. I am living in a 5 story apartment (with 2 units on each floor) and a rooftop that we are able to go up onto during the day and see a beautiful view of the city. The apartment is in a suburb of Brisbane called St. Lucia which is a 5 minute bus ride from campus and a 15 minute bus ride in the other direction to the city. We are also about a 10 minute walk from a shopping center called Toowong, where they have a grocery store, Kmart, many small shops, coffee shops, and a train station. We are very lucky to be so centrally located to all of these things because other students are much further from campus and the city.

It is also very lucky that I am paying such a low price for this apartment since I am splitting the rent with my roommate, so we are paying half of the price as everyone else. This is really exciting because I will love to have the extra money for traveling and maybe I will have some of my savings left over after this! Everything is very expensive here, which is frustrating but we are getting used to it.

There are 6 bedrooms in my unit, with 2 bathrooms, 2 balconies, and a kitchen-living room area. There are a total of 7 girls living in this unit, which is a bit overwhelming but nothing I haven’t dealt with before living in a house with 60 sorority girls for the past year and a half.

The other girls are from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vancouver, and my roommate is from Syracuse, New York. So far everyone is getting along very well, we have had a lot of laughs and already made some good memories. Since there are so many of us though it can be difficult to do things all together. So my roommate and I have been spending a lot of time together especially since we have similar interests. She and I are both very excited and eager to travel all over the country, so we have seen the travel agency on campus and have started to plan a few trips, the first one being Melbourne in 2 weeks.

The other girls don’t seem as eager to plan trips, they say they want to but when it comes down to it they don’t come to the travel agency with us and when we are booking flights they say they will think about it and do it later. This is fine I guess because it is always easier to plan things with less people, but its interesting to me that they are not as excited to see the rest of the country because that’s the main reason I came here. I feel very lucky though that my roommate feels the same way as I do so I do have at least one person to plan trips with and if other people want to hop on board that would be great too.

The travel agent gave us some good advice about this... she said that a lot of times people come in and plan trips but want to book them later when they have gotten all of their friends together. She said that if she could give us one piece of advice it would be to always book it as soon as possible without waiting for other people and hopefully they will join when they want to. She said that she sees so many students who end up disappointed because by the time they get everyone together the prices have gone way up or things have been completely booked. This makes a lot of sense and I’m glad she pointed it out to us. After the 2 of us booked our trip to Melbourne everyone said they wanted to come but we let them do it on their own, and the 2 girls downstairs (the ones also from U of I) ended up booking the same flight so we will be with them too.

The majority of students in the building are study abroad students. Most are also from the US. If you had told me this a few weeks ago I would have been disappointed, I was so eager to meet Australians and also people from other countries outside the US. Now that I have been here I realize that its helpful to be around other Americans because you cannot relate to others as easily.

This is such a new, scary, exciting adventure and it really helps to be around people who you can communicate with and relate to. We also have many chances to meet Australians when we go out at night and are traveling around the city, and I’m sure that when we start classes and are on campus more it will also be easier. The Australians are also very eager to meet us, they are extremely friendly and very helpful when we ask them questions (like a light bulb crisis my roommate and I had the other day at Kmart.. you would not believe how many different light bulbs they have here and of course none of them fit the desk lamp I bought at the same store). It makes me very happy with my decision to come here because it is such a friendly and laid-back country.

The weather has been very hot- mostly 80s and sunny and a few days got up to 90s last week. We do not have air conditioning in our apartment but we have 2 fans and my room has a large balcony off of it so we always leave that open. We have had some rain, a lot of drizzling and then a thunderstorm last week but the weather is so beautiful otherwise that we have not minded that too much.

We have been able to go out to the bars a lot this past week because classes have not started yet. That has been very fun and for the most part the bars are very similar to US and University of Illinois bars. There are a few that are within walking distance of our apartment and also many great ones downtown which is just a bus ride away.

Downtown Brisbane is absolutely gorgeous. To me it seems like a cleaner, prettier, happier, more laid-back version of downtown Chicago. Like Chicago, there is a multicultural vibe, and there are high-rises but still an amazing amount of parks and trees.

They also have some great shops and restaurants (although a bit expensive). It is a great place to spend the day in or even just stop by for a few hours to eat or do a little shopping. There is a main street called Queen Street that reminds me a little of Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado (which I have always loved). Brisbane also has the same laid-back (I’ve realized that I have used this phrase way too much, can you find me a good synonym please Molly?) and outdoor lifestyle that Boulder has, which is something I have always wanted in a city. The restaurants and cafes are all very open with massive windows looking onto the streets and many tables and chairs out by the sidewalks. The city has a large river running though it (contributing to some terrible floods last month) which is beautiful. The hostel that I stayed at for the first few days (before I found my apartment) was right in the heart of the city, less than a block from Queen Street so I was able to get a good chance to explore the city before most other people did (I’ve been showing off and acting like an expert, showing everyone which bus to take and how to get around the city. I have to get something good out of my terrible days of homelessness right?) It makes me very happy that I chose to study at a University so close to downtown Brisbane because I don’t have to travel far and long to experience such an amazing aspect of this country.

So far, my new housing and this city is more amazing than I could have ever imagined. Everyday my roommate and I tell each other that this is the most amazing place in the world and we will be devastated when we have to leave. And its only been 10 days!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Phew!

Thanks to the help and support of family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers I finally have a place to live for the next 5 months!! I cannot express how relieved and happy I am. It has been a very rough couple of days for me living out of a hostel and trying to find roommates and an apartment. I do consider myself an adventurous person, but I have learned that being homeless is NOT the kind of adventure I enjoy.

I woke up early on Friday (the morning after I arrived) and took the bus to campus (about a 20 min bus ride) with 3 of my hostel roommates from The Czech Republic to see campus for the first time and attend an Accommodation Information Session. I had a lot of hope tied to this information session- thinking that I would meet other people who are looking for housing that I would want to team up with and look for housing together. However, this was not that case. There weren’t many people at this session and most of them did not English (many were Asian) and they all seemed to already be sitting with people who they were already friends with. This made me a bit nervous at first, but I was still hopeful. The meeting pretty much just explained how you sign a lease and what your rights are and stuff like that (from what I gather, many landlords take advantage of international students and try to screw them out of money). The only information they gave us regarding finding housing was a website run by the University which has listings of rooms for rent. These listings however were not always students (for example: a couple looking to rent out a room in their apartment, a woman who has a young son and wants to rent a room in her house, Chinese students seeking roommate who is quiet and studies a lot…). Other than this website, this session gave me no information on how to actually find a place to live or people I may want to live with. I was immediately very nervous about this because I was banking on this session being helpful to me.

After this session, they held an optional “Getting Started Session” for international and study abroad students so I stayed for that, hoping that it would be helpful and I may meet people. This session gave me some valuable information about the bus systems and maps and stuff, but no help with housing. After this session I walked out onto campus and saw three students (2 girls and a boy) sitting on a bench who I recognized as sitting a few rows in front of me at the session. They looked very nice (and also American, which was comforting at this point) so I sat down and talked with them for a bit. It turns out they are from Austria and spoke English very well. They were also in the same housing situation I am, but they seemed less nervous and stressed about it (maybe because they had each other). We ended up spending the next few hours walking around campus- getting our bus cards, our student IDs, setting up our wireless internet, and just exploring campus together. It was very nice making friends and having people to figure out how to get around campus with. They were extremely nice and helpful to me and I wish we were able to join the housing search together, maybe trying to find a 4 person apartment, but after looking a bit on that website that seemed to be very difficult with our tight budgets and stuff. We parted ways and promised to keep in touch, and I hoped we would because they seemed like great people.

I spent the next few days very stressed and nervous, trying to look online for a housing option that would suit me but really getting nowhere. I spent sometime at the apartment that 4 students also studying abroad here from UofI are living at, which did help make me feel better. It was nice because I barely knew these people and they were doing a great job of helping me calm down and offered any information they had about housing. These students planned their semester through a company called Semester in Australia, which sets them up with a flight, an apartment, a phone, internet, and an optional trip to Sydney during the week before arriving to Brisbane. So, they all already knew a lot of people in their apartment building and also all over Brisbane so I was a bit jealous and wished that I had paid to have all of that set up for me so that I would not be in this situation (I did not know about this service when planning my semester, so instead did everything on my own).

After a few days of this, I got a message from one of the UofI boys saying he had ran into a girl at the store who lives in their building who mentioned that she is looking for her roommate because her room is set up for 2 people. This made me really excited and gave me the first glimpse of hope since I had arrived. Their apartment building is pretty nice and it is filled with a lot of study abroad and UQ students so they hve been having a lot of fun. The next day I went over to the apartment building to get more information. I stopped by this girls room and she was not there but I spoke with 2 of the roommates and they said she was definitely looking for someone to share the room and rent with. I left my name and number and left feeling the most hopeful I had in a few days.

Luckily, she called me the next morning. I talked to her for a bit and we really hit it off. I assumed that she would want to meet for lunch or coffee to see if we could work out as roommates, but after we spoke for just a few minutes she said I could move in that night! I cannot even describe my happiness and relief. I could not wait to get out of that hostel and unpack. So, after about 4 days of stressful searching, I have found a home in Brisbane, Australia and can finally begin the kind of adventure that actually enjoy.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

excited but homeless...

After a 4 hour flight from Chicago to LA and then a 14 hour flight from LA to Brisbane, I have arrived in Australia! Surprisingly, these 18 hours of flying was actually much less miserable than I had imagined. First of all, I was confused about the length of the flight beforehand and I had expected it to be 24 hours of flying instead of 18, so that was a bit of a relief. I also have to note the fact that even though it was only 14 hours, I left on Tuesday night and arrived on Thursday morning because of the time change, which I think is kind of cool and fun that I sort of skipped Wednesday. Anyway, the flight to LA was actually the more difficult one… I was exhausted but trying to stay awake so that I would sleep a lot on the next flight. I also sat next to a little old woman who was terrified of flying and a young professor who spent a majority of the flight explaining linguistics theories to me (he even went into the overhead bin and pulled out his laptop to show me the lecture he had just given on the evolution of the Midwest accents- no joke, maybe I should have been less polite and he would have stopped.. oh well at least it helped keep me awake). The next flight from LA to Brisbane gave me some better luck- we took off at about midnight so I was very ready to sleep. I ended up sitting right next to a girl from U of I who is also studying in Brisbane at University of Queensland (I have never met her, but we have been emailing each other since we found out we are both studying abroad at UQ). From our emails I knew that she was on my flight, but we had no idea we would be right next to each other! That was very comforting and helpful because we were able to get to know each other and leave the plane and go through customs together. Also, we were in the first row of economy class, meaning that we had a very luxurious amount of leg room (we could both straighten our legs out completely and not even touch the wall in front of us, which I did feel a little guilty about since we are both very close to 5 ft tall). So we really lucked out with that and it made for a surprisingly comfortable flight. We were given a meal within the first hour so I stayed up until I was done with that and then went to sleep for a good 8 hours. We also all had our own individual TVs to control with on-demand style movies and shows that you could choose. Once I woke up I watched The Social Network on the TV and shortly after that we were served breakfast and then it was time to land. Overall, the flight was much less painful than I expected!

After we landed and went through customs, we found the representative from University of Queensland who checked us in (there were about 40 other people from all different flights waiting/checking in by UQ also. We waited for about an hour at the airport until we were able to leave in our assigned cars. I was in a car with 3 other students, and we were all going to different locations (an apartment, and other hostels). So, I was dropped off in the middle of the city (looks and feels similar to Chicago so far, although I’ve only walked a few blocks and have only been here for an hour) on the corner where my “temporary accommodation” is.

This was at about 10:30 am and once I made it to the front desk to sign in (very difficult with 2 50lb and 1 smaller rolling suitcase) I found out that my room would not be ready until 1:30. So, I reluctantly “locked” my bags up in the baggage room (obviously made me a bit nervous- my whole life is in those bags) and ventured out into the city (with a map that the front desk gave me, don’t worry Mom). It was raining and I was a bit nervous to go too far, so I was drawn toward the comfort of a large green sign for Starbucks. This is were I got some caffeine, hoping to get on the correct sleep schedule since it is now 11:30am in Brisbane but 7:30pm in Chicago, and sat down for a bit to pass the time and write this. I was hoping that they would have wireless internet like they do in many coffee shops in the US, but they do not so I settled on writing it now and posting it later.

I am very excited to be here, but I

am still feeling nervous about the housing. There is an accommodation information session at 9:30am tomorrow where they will go over how to find long-term rental accommodation so I’m sure that will be helpful. Also, the girl who I sat with on the plane is living in an apartment with 3 other students from University of Illinois and 2 more from other universities in the US and she was very welcoming, giving me the address and saying that I can stop by any time if I need anything or want to hang out. That was very nice and comforting, but I still feel a bit nervous. I am so excited to explore this beautiful city and meet some wonderful people!