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!
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