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!