Week 1

Hello, All! Sorry to anyone who checked my page yesterday. I meant to make the first posting, but I got caught up in trying to register for classes. My plan is to write at least once a week on Wednesdays. Because we're 17 hours ahead of Bowling Green, you all should be able to wake up and check my blog first thing in the morning. I'm sure Karl and I will be the first things on your mind that early:)

Here's a hopefully brief summary of what Karl and I have been up to. We arrived Friday the 12th at 10 pm. Darrel, my host counselor, picked us and up took us to his home to stay that night. His wife, Karen, greeted us with a "beautiful" spread of treats. I will definitely be bringing back tim tams (chocolate cookies) and milo (chocolate drink mix similar to Nestle's powder.) The next day Darrel took us to the Graduate House where we live, and we were pleasantly surprised by the size of our dorm room and its cleanliness. It was on to the supermarket next, and while things are similar it is still very different. For example, they call ketchup tomato sauce and tomato sauce something like Napoleon sauce. Darrel dropped us back off at the GH, so we could pack, but we ended up going out to buy phone cards instead. You cannot use any phone in Australia without paying for it first, and it is expensive! Once we got the card, Karl rang Leo, his American football (gridiron) contact. Leo was on his way to pick us up before we could think about unpacking. We actually didn't get to packing until Sunday afternoon because Leo kept picking us up to take us to a pub, to meet other gridiron people, and to go to gridiron practice. Karl wasn't in the country 48 hours before he was coaching!

During the next week (last week) Karl and I attended my International Welcome Festival for school. Well, I should say that Karl started and by Tuesday he was sleeping in the room with headaches and a fever. It was several days later, after a struggle with the health insurance company, that we learned Karl had shingles. By the time the blisters showed up, the headaches and fever had mostly subsided. Today the blisters looks like a big scab--which will look lovely at the Rotary dinner-dance we are attending tonight:) Besides getting acquainted with campus and winning two free movie passes, the major positive from the Welcome Festival week was the fact that I got to meet a lot of people.

In our dorm we have Canadians, Chinese, French, Japanese, and several other nationalities living. Everyone's really friendly, and the kitchen is the major social spot. Karl and I have also gone to the Melbourne museum, attended the welcome BBQ, watched movies, and organized trips to McDonald's for $0.50 AU ice cream cones with our dorm mates. I also went downtown on Sunday with a Canadian friend, Christine, that I met the first day of the Welcome Festival. It's quite a laugh watching me figure out how the public transportation works here. There are trains, trams (trolleys), and busses that are all a part of the Met system. One card buys you access to any of them, but the city is divided into three different zones, so you have to know where you are going to know which ticket to buy.

Over the last week and a half, Karl and I have come to notice that while we're half a world away, things are not that much different. Sure, people talk differently and don't always use the same words, but it all very similar (except for me being an international student. I have so much respect for students at WKU trying to navigate through all the red tape.) It's not really cheap to live here as some people told us before we left, but the people are as nice as they were said to be. The individuals associated with the gridiron team have been the most helpful, picking Karl up for practice, getting us both mobile phones, and generally just taking care of us. We're in good hands. While I'm sure the year will fly by once school has started, it now seems to be running in slow motion. We'll keep you updated. Pictures will come once I have get a student password, and I can use the library computers.

Much love,
Britt