Leaving Home

Days 1-3: 2/1-2/3

I spent my first day prior to departure at the parents’ house. We celebrated my birthday (1/28) on Saturday and the first leg of my flight to Australia bound for LAX left at 5pm Sunday. After a couple drinks & appetizers at Houlihan’s in the Minneapolis airport with my Dad & brother, I went through security and boarded my plane. The four hour flight landed in LA just in time to see Santonio Holmes catch the game-winning touchdown to give the Steelers a victory in Superbowl XLIII over the Arizona Cardinals. I proceeded to my terminal where I would spend five hours in anticipation of my 14 hour flight to Brisbane, AU. Here, I was able to meet many other students in my program, including one of my friends and neighbors in Sydney (University of Technology – Sydney = UTS), Chuck Hansen (fellow Mechanical Engineer from Michigan Tech) as well as a young lady named Ellen, whom I met first. Coincidentally, they, along with the rest of the group, were all taking the same flight as me even though I booked my flights independently. AustraLearn (the name of the program sponsoring my trip) is partners with a company called STA Travels, which arranged group flights for those who were interested. I opted out to save some money and turned out to be the only one. The flight to Brisbane was long but surprisingly bearable. We were on a Qantas Boeing 747 which is probably the largest plane I have ever ridden. Small TV monitors were built into the back of the headrest that were connected to an entertainment center with games, newly released movies, and TV shows. I spent most of the flight trying to sleep & taking advantage of the free drinks. Afterwards, I watched “The Wrestler” starring Mickey Rourke, which was an awesome film, but sad (definitely recommended). We landed at 8am on February 3rd…in addition to the 14 hour flight, we had also travelled 17 hours ahead in time zones, so we effectively skipped February 2nd, but we weren’t done yet. We had a little over an hour to clear customs, catch a shuttle to the domestic airport, pass through security, and board our plane to Cairns (where we spent our first three days in AU for our “program introduction”). This is when the problems started. The shuttle scheduled to take us to the domestic airport didn’t show for one of its regular stops, so we had to wait another 15 minutes for the next one leaving us with five minutes to clear security and run to our terminal. At security, the scissors I’ve had since elementary school (with a piece of masking tape that my Mom wrote my name on that was still on the handle) along with my needle nose pliers were confiscated from my bag even though they were okayed through security in both Minneapolis and Los Angeles. Since I had no time to argue, I sprinted to my terminal and made it just in time, because they fortunately held the flight past the scheduled departure time for us. At this point I was drenched in sweat, but I was happy we made the flight. The last leg to Cairns lasted two and a half hours so we made it by around noon and were greeted by three of our program leaders: Russell, Jess, and another Australian lady whose name I can’t recall. We were immediately notified that although we had made it, our luggage hadn’t, and that we could expect it to arrive at our Backpackers by about 6pm that night. This was awful news, especially since I was still soaked in my own perspiration and amidst the tropical 90oF+ conditions. We hopped a bus and were taken to our accommodation called Gilligan’s Backpackers. It was a very uncomfortable stay…five of us crammed into a stinky, damp room with separate closet-sized shower & toilet rooms and four bunks (pictured left). My first goal was to get out of my wet clothes, so I walked with Kirkland (one of my roommates) to the local Billabong retailer where I purchased board shorts, a tank top, and some flip flops. I quickly scurried back to my room and changed because I had to meet our group in the lobby for our first information session. Of course I was a minute late (literally) and the group was gone. A little worried (because I had no idea what we were doing and for how long), I asked the front desk to contact my group leaders and the desk fortunately was able to get a hold of one. It turned out they were only in a building just across the street, but needless to say, I didn’t feel very welcome at this point (mainly since they had seen me walk right passed them waiting in the lobby when I was running up to change). The first session was a little boring, but informative. I was in a bad mood by now, but after our free buffet dinner, a Corona (which I discovered are REALLY expensive here since it’s imported overseas), and seeing that our luggage had finally arrived at Gilligan’s, I was feeling much better. I decided to go out that evening and take advantage of the drink special at the bar downstairs with three other students where I got my first taste of Australian beer. I tried Vincent Bitter (Australia’s Budweiser or Miller) as well as Draught beer called Touhey’s New. They’re both pretty decent for the price (albeit more expensive than back home) and I have recently started up a bottle collection and am trying to sample as many Australian beers as possible during my stay. During the program introduction, we had AustraLearn students who are studying at two different universities (not called “college” here by the way): Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia and University of Technology – Sydney (or UTS) where I will be studying. Gilligan’s isn’t the classiest of places and it turned out that Tuesday night involved a wet t-shirt contest. I really wanted to go to bed by now, but the girl we were with (who scared the crap out of me and resembled…something…) decided to participate as one of the three contestants and forced me and Chris (the only other two of us downstairs still) to support her. The show started much later than expected and was extremely awkward. The room was half empty and surprisingly quiet during the 15 second performances. It was kind of funny though, especially with Australia’s version of “Girls Gone Wild” called “Wild Girlz” recording the whole thing. After it was done I shook her hand, said goodnight to here and Chris and finally went to bed at about Midnight. I was in Australia!