Day 5 - February 7, 2008

Another early morning, waking up around 6:30 am. I can’t believe this is only the fifth day of the trip. Being so busy and switching time zones so often, it seems like it has been a lot longer. I looked out the window after getting up and noticed that the sun was beginning to rise. I thought that, being in Australia, this would be one of the first places that would see the sun rising today. I had to get to the airport for my 10:00 flight to Melbourne, and Steph was supposed to meet her group at the Sydney airport for her orientation. She had originally been told to meet at around 8:30 but the lady called this morning and said she could arrive later. We got ready and finished packing up our stuff. I think that for the first time in the trip, I was getting a little nervous today. It finally hit me that when I would be leaving the hotel, I would really be on my own, heading to Melbourne where I didn’t know anyone. Out our hotel window we noticed a car wash that also contained a café across the street, and since it seemed like the only thing around, we went there to eat. Surprisingly, the food did not taste like oil and we had a decent meal. Another observation about Australia is that here they sell drinks in containers much smaller than they do in the US. I don’t remember exactly how small my juice was, but it felt like I was taking a shot of OJ with my egg sandwich. After breakfast, we went back up to the room, got our stuff, and checked out. I was kinda sad to leave Steph. We had spent a lot of time together in the last few days, as we walked an exciting and unfamiliar path together, and now it was time to go our separate ways. When I got to the airport, I realized that it was not like airports at home. You have to get your boarding pass from an electronic kiosk, then stand in a different line to check your baggage. The line was really long, and I was glad I didn’t take the 8:50 shuttle as I had originally planned. After I finally got my bags checked, I walked to security. Since the long line is at the bag check here, I didn’t have any wait at all here. While Australian security checkpoints do allow you to keep your shoes on, they don’t let you have scissors in your carryon bags. They caught and threw out my haircut scissors, something that I have brought in carryons multiple times in the US. The ride to Melbourne was quicker than I had thought. We left a little late, but the flight time was only 1 hour and 4 minutes. I barely had any time to write this blog because by the time I could use my laptop, it was almost time to put it away again. We landed, I got my suitcases, and looked for the Allied Car service that had been arranged to pick me up. Monash University will pay for a car service to get you from the airport as long as you notify them in advance. I couldn’t find the guy anywhere, so I called the 1800 number they gave me, and they said someone would be right over. About 25 minutes later, a driver showed up and said that he had just been called to get me. They probably forgot about me, he remarked. The ride to Monash took longer than I had expected. I had hoped it wasn’t too far from the airport to make it easier for when I travel during the semester, but it took about 35 minutes. When I got here, I checked into my dorm and came to my room to drop everything off. The room is a lot smaller than I had expected, has a heater but no AC, and very little closet and drawer space. Luckily I could only bring 2 suitcases on the planes anyway. I wanted to activate my bank account and buy a prepaid cell phone while the places were still open, so I took a campus map and navigated my way to the Campus Center, the building that contained most stores at the University. I first saw Westpac, the bank I had opened an account at, and went inside to activate it so I could start transferring money over. After that, I went to the cell phone store and bought a cheap Samsung with Optus service, supposedly the most common cell provider here. I had no idea what was involved in getting a prepaid phone working, and the guy tried to help me, but we didn’t get very far. Even if I wanted to use my Verizon phone while in Australia and pay the international rates, the phone doesn’t even get any service at all. The Campus Center was under renovations, so a lot of the stores inside were closed. After exploring a little and grabbing some lunch, I went back to my dorm. On my way inside, I heard some voices inside the lounge area on the ground floor and went to check it out. (In Australia, they consider what Americans would call the first floor, the ground floor, and call what would be the second floor, the first floor. Also, elevators are lifts, and trash is rubbish. Crazy!) I was surprised to see four guys sitting on the couches, as I had no expected there to be pretty much anyone around yet. I checked in a few days earlier than most international students and regular students wouldn’t be coming for at least another week. I went in and started talking to them. It turned out that the reason they were there so early was because they were RAs, but they didn’t seem like typical RAs from home. They seemed pretty cool and gave me some info on what it’s like at Monash. I was glad that I found some other people who were around to talk to and after a few hours, I went to the dining hall for dinner. There’s only one dining hall on campus and it was pretty bad. It is right outside my dorm, but all the other residence halls are right there too. It isn’t buffet style like most college dining halls at home, and you just choose what you want and pay for each item. I came back up to my room and began unpacking. The guys I had met before came by to see if I wanted to go out to a bar with them and some other people, but with no internet, a useless phone, and clothes everywhere, I decided it would probably be a good idea to stay in tonight to get those things done. I first wanted to get my internet up and running, and that ended up taking a little while. I also had to call to activate my phone, and it was an ordeal. Every time I would call I would be on hold for a while. Twice after I had been on hold for 11 minutes and once when I was actually talking to someone in the middle of setting my phone up, the call dropped for no reason. Because my mailing address here doesn’t have a street number since all the mail is just sent to the University and then just distributed to where it needs to go from there, it became a huge problem for the idiots at customer service to get me past the address step. I eventually got some lady who was obviously reading her lines to me from a script, and she actually claimed that she put my activation through and that I would be expecting a text message with my number. The text never came. I eventually got pretty much all my stuff put away, and there are still a few things I’ll need to take care of, but I’m beginning to get settled.