I managed to pack everything into two bags plus my violin case. I had one suitcase at 49 pounds that included my tent and Thermarest (yay! I was able fit both!); my backpacking backpack with a few clothes, my computer, music and various other miscellaneous things such as chords, adaptors, and toiletries; and lastly my violin case. I was pretty proud of my packing job because I only checked one bag and had two carry-ons until I had to gate check the backpack for every flight because it was either too big or too heavy.
The flights all went smoothly. I met another AustraLearn student at the Charlotte airport and every flight from there on out there were more and more students. The airplane to Brisbane from LA was kind of crazy. It was a double-decker plane. In the seating area I was in there were two isles separating groups of 3, 4, 3 seats. After finally arriving in Cairns (pronounced CANS), we were all bused over to the hotel and after mass chaos, given keys to our rooms. There are three other girls in my room that are also attending the University of Melbourne.
There are soooo many people here right now with AustraLearn that it is overwhelming. There are only about 20 students that are going to the University of Melbourne but there are about 130 students here for our orientation session and about 50 more at the hotel in an overlapping session. This makes for lots of cattle herding from place to place and a fair number of annoyingly loud drunken American kids who are overly excited about being legally allowed to drink. It is almost too many people to handle. I found a bunch of people who are going to be living at the same place in Melbourne that I have mostly been hanging out with.
Great Barrier Reef
I went SCUBA diving twice today! About half of the students at our orientation session got on a boat this morning to go out to the Great Barrier Reef for the whole day. The other half volunteered at a nature conservation place and we will swap tomorrow.
view from the dock
The uncertified divers got to go in groups of three or four. We started out with arms locked with the instructor and after a while got to swim on our own. The first dive was around 40 minutes including an introduction and practice session and the second was around 50. I saw sooo many fish and I got to pet some coral. We didn’t see any sea turtles, which was disappointing. I have a few pictures on a film underwater camera that I probably wont develop for a while. One of the girls in my dive group got a bunch of digital pictures though so I may be able to get some of those soon to share. We had the opportunity to go snorkeling as well. Snorkeling was pretty fun too but the weather was kinda rough and drizzly when I was snorkeling and I was pretty cold even in the wetsuit.
It has been funny weather since I arrived. So far it has been warm during the day and cool at night. The funny thing is it is sunny a lot but then all of the sudden it will be overcast and spit water at you for about 10 minutes. I haven’t seen much of the landscape yet but from what I could tell from our bus rides to and from the hotel, the trees here are very interesting and the hills surrounding Cairns are very bloppy (perhaps like the ones in the Dominican Republic?). The town/city of Cairns is very touristy. It reminds me a bit of Folly mixed with Myrtle Beach. The billboards, advertisements and general appearance of the buildings remind me a lot of Europe. Very bright and bold.
Anyway, I am looking forward to the adventures to come and getting to Melbourne; more to come when I get there! I am sure there will be stories to tell!
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