My First Post: This feels awkward

Hi everyone! So this is my inaugural blog post. I hope your expectations are not too high. I’ve never been much of a writer so please bear with me. I wanted to start this blog – hmm… I might call it a website instead; that sounds better to me – I wanted to start this website so I would have a way to share my time in Australia with people back home. The Internet usage here is a little different than in Canada so it may take me a couple of weeks to get used to it and develop a routine for updating the site, but my intentions are to post at least once a week. I will post some pictures here, but the bulk of my pictures will probably be uploaded to another site. I’ve yet to decide where (maybe Flickr, maybe Facebook. If you have any suggestions let me know!), but I will add a link on this site once I get that set up. One more administrative item before I move on to telling you about my trip so far: Please feel free to leave comments. I would love to hear from you. I don’t expect anything extensive, but there is a comment feature available if you feel so compelled.
Alright. So... I’m in Australia. Weird, eh? It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’m not sure if it will. But the journey here was pretty smooth. Lines were relatively quick in all airports and my baggage came out quickly and undamaged. I flew from Toronto to Los Angeles, leaving around 7pm and arriving around midnight (these times are all Ontario times – because that’s what time it felt like to me even if it wasn’t the actual time in my geographical location). Flying into LA at night was incredible. The lights seemed infinite, truly spanning as far as I could see. The number of highways weaving through the city is ridiculous, but quite beautiful from thousands of feet above. The stopover was only about two hours. We were not fed on the plane from Toronto, and food was my first priority. Unfortunately, my only food options in the area of my gate were Chili’s, some other Mexican restaurant, or Burger King. I decided Burger King to be the lesser of three evils.
It was around 2:30am when I got on my plane to Brisbane. I had been pretty wakeful throughout the process so far, but with a proposed 16 hours of flight ahead of me I started to get sleepy. Meals were presented pretty early on (I had chicken, which was gross, but I didn’t think I could stomach Mahi Mahi after the Whopper), so I was finally able to attempt sleep around 4:30am, and dozed off and on (peppered with occasional movie watching) until about 2pm. There was breakfast (frittata and fruit – much better than the chicken) and then it was time to land. I arrived a bit early in Australia, finally stepping off the plane (and into the humidity) by 4:30pm Tuesday (again that time is for Ontario, it was 7:30am Wednesday here).
About ten of us continued on from that flight to the same residence, so we rode the shuttle together (about an hour with twelve of us and all our luggage packed in a very hot van). The longest line I encountered was registering for my apartment (with three office employees, each restricted to certain tasks, they are not properly equipped for quick and easy processing of so many residents at once). Luckily I didn’t have far to bring my bags as my apartment is literally right above the office. One roommate was here when I arrived: another Canadian by the name of Riley. She didn’t stay long as she was just setting up her room amid vacationing the coast with her parents. There is another roommate here, Samantha who I think is from New Zealand, but I have yet to actually meet her as she works most of the day and came and went while I was in bed. Although I am not as tired as I expected to be, I did go to bed quite early last night. I think it’s the heat that wears me out more than the travel did.
So now I’m here. There is not much to report on that part yet. I’ve set up my room (which feels very impersonal. I wish I brought something to hang up: photos or posters or whatever else is used to make dorm rooms feel more like one’s own– feel free to send me anything you think might give the place some life!) and visited the local grocery store. I will try to keep my posts short and concise (but no promises), so I’ll save telling you about the shops and local area for another post. The same goes for campus. Orientation starts Monday, so I’ll have more to say after that. Until then…