How you going?!

Brisbane is known as the river city because the river winds right through the middle of the city. QUT’s Gardens Point Campus is right where the river bends and is in the main downtown district. Gardens Point also has a botanical garden right next to the campus with beautiful flowers and trees that makes the city and campus absolutely beautiful and unique. I’ve been taking a lot of time just walking around and exploring by myself. It’s been very nice to just take everything in while walking around listening to my ipod and taking lots of pictures (lol with no one in them).

My favorite place so far in the city is South Bank which is just across the river from Gardens Point Campus. Over on Southbank is the Queensland state library which is gorgeous and has great places that look out over the river and towards the city where I plan on doing a good deal of studying once school starts. Most of all the State Library has completely free internet!!! While only being here just under a week, I’ve realized how much our lives are run and entertained over the internet. In Brisbane you don’t have unlimited internet access. In my apartment and even on campus you are only allotted a certain amount of megabytes of downloads…which I’ve found is taken up extremely fast by using skype and watching shows online. So, I’m going to have to learn to use the internet sparingly during my time here…I went through $10 in 4 days which my Australian roommates found insane!!

The best part of Southbank is the architecture of flowers and plants, river walk, and cute shops and restaurants that line it. Southbank quickly has become one of my favorite places to walk around because of the awesome restaurants that are there all with individual patios and street tables that all overlook the city and river. If I could eat out at a different restaurant each night there I would. The people watching there is also great! They have a outdoor theater there too where different events take place but there’s always break dancers, bands, or other groups meeting there and I enjoy sitting and watching them practice their performances.

Saturday I slept in and then went for a run and grocery shopping at Woolworths just a block away from my apartment. I went there with an idea of what I wanted and what I thought would be a quick run to the store turned into an hour long event! Between finding where everything was in the store and deciding what I wanted and finding good deals I had probably circled the store 10 times! Ingredients for PB&J sandwiches, noodles and sauce, caesar dressing and lettuce, a pack of Oreos, milk, and yogurt, and $50 later I ventured home. Hopefully now I can start eating on a regular schedule.

Sunday I woke up and went to mass at the Catholic church about a 10min. walk from my apartment. St. Brigid’s in Red Hill is the coolest thing, it sits on top of a hill that overlooks the entire city and the big red brick building was built in 1912 and has a definite character to it. It was different from church back home on the U of M campus that’s for sure! There was a large amount of older people a few families but I was definitely one of the few if not the only single young adult in the place. Going to church felt really good but was also a little tough. It definitely made me miss home a bit, and I did catch myself a little teary eyed during mass, missing sitting next to family and friends at church. After church was done I spent the day reading out in the sun looking over the suburbs by my apartment. While spending a good chunk of the day alone I got a bit choked up thinking about home and missing people and things but, I think my time spent in church asking to find a community and a foundation in Australia to feel more comfortable was answered and my friend Brian from Florida called and wanted to meet up.

We met up on campus and took a walk through the old government house on Gardens Point Campus at QUT. It was a really cool building that in the middle had a small café serving tea and desserts so we grabbed a table and ordered some. We ordered an Australian dessert called Lamington which is a white cake with chocolate around the outside and coconut sprinkled around the whole thing. We also got a black tea that was amazing!! It was so good!! I plan on eating lots of it before coming home with a recipe for it hopefully!

After we finished tea and Lamington we headed over to Nicole(from NY) and Danielle’s (also a Florida gator) house. This was my favorite night in Australia so far! We just hung out made some pasta and got to know one another. Ben their other roommate from Germany I got to know very well also and he is one of the biggest sweethearts!! I also hit it off extremely well with their other roommate from Canada, Nick. Me and Nick gave each other crap all night long about being from MN and Canada and made one another laugh all night long. After heading to the bus stop at 9:30 and waiting 20min. for the last bus of the night to take me back home I found out that Nick “accidentally” gave me the wrong time for me to catch my last bus. Needless to say I spent the night there on the couch. Me and Nick stayed up until 4:00 talking about life, college, politics, home, and Australia. I got a little bit of sleep and in the morning we went downtown and got pancakes for breakfast, his treat!

Slowly I’m forming a group of great friends in Australia and I’ve only been here a week. I’m looking forward to starting school next week and getting into a bit more of a regular routine and hopefully meeting more people on campus. This week I have a river dinner cruise on Tuesday with all the international students which will be a blast and then Friday-Sunday I have a trip to North Stradbroke Island (Ben and Danielle are both going) and I’m excited to take my first surf lessons!!!
I hope everyone and everything back home is well!! I love you all, miss you all, and thanks so much for all of the love and support you’re showing me!

Cheers to a wonderful week!
Mallory

I have arrived!!!!!!

G’Day Mates!!

It’s official I’m in Australia!! The plane ride was pretty killer!! I was fine transferring from MN to Denver then to LA, but the last leg got really long!!! It was about 13 hours and I only slept for maybe 2 of the 13…could not sleep sitting up. The worst part was my butt and back started to kill and my back is still bugging me a bit. On my flight there was a huge group of high school athletes from all over the US that were coming to Australia to play football (American) against Aussies. The whole time in the LA airport and on the plane ride over I could tell they were keeping their eyes on me and surprisingly when we landed in Brisbane one of them approached me and asked me my name and talked to me for a while. Needless to say when he found out I was in collage he made sure to introduce me to the rest of his buddies as “this is Mallory she’s in college”.

I was so excited to find all of my bags had made it to Australia! I was picked up at the airport by someone from the university along with 5 other students attending universities in Brisbane. Two were Badgers that are attending a different “Uni” (that’s what they call universities) in the area but we had fun taunting each other and talking about missing the badger gopher game in the new stadium. I also met a girl from NY, Nicole, who was also going to QUT.

I was dropped off at my apartment at 7:15am and had a lot of time to kill before I could get my keys. Luckily, I ran into a maintenance person who then stored my bags for me in the reception area and I went out to find my first Australian Coffee. My apartment has a coffee shop built right in so I went there and a really nice guy gave me some of the low down about the area and made me my first Australian espresso which is served in a glass not a mug.

9:00am came quick and I checked in and got my keys. I knocked on the door and no one answered so I walked in to find no one. I opened my door and began to unpack when I heard the door next to me open and I met my first roommate Dyani (D-on-e) an Aussie who was here with her boyfriend Troy. I learned that the rest of my roommates also all Aussies were home for the break between semesters and would return soon. Lium, the single male roommate I met soon thereafter and a few days later I met Brittany and still have not met the 4^th, Michelle.

Dyani was great! She had to head to work in the city so she let me tag along to show me where the mall area was so I could go get a pillow, comforter, towels, etc. I went to “target” to get everything; which resembles our Targets in America by the bullseye and types of things they have, but that’s it. After a very long time in target trying to both figure out where everything was and make sure I was getting an ok deal I headed back home on the bus with the biggest reusable tote bag I’ve ever seen that I had to purchase for $2.00.

By the time I got home from Target it was around 4:00 and I was exhausted from Jet leg and starving. I went down the street to our “main street” type of thing and grabbed a Subway….which was interesting ordering. I got up to the counter and since there on metric I didn’t know if they call it a 6 inch or what!!!?? So I ordered a half sandwich to which the sandwich artist looked at me funny, and when I ordered oil on my sub she said ummm….we don’t have that! Oh and here they don’t have $5 footlongs, they have $7. I headed home to eat my sub and watch the Bachelorette in my room. I ended up falling asleep part way through between commercial breaks….5:00pm!!!

The next day I had orientation at 9:15 down on the Gardens Point Campus downtown. I quickly realized how stubborn I really am in being independent after I left at 8:30 to catch my 10 min. bus ride and got lost and arrived half hour late for orientation. I eventually made it there but I couldn’t find the bus stop I needed to go to and for the longest time refused to just ask someone where it was!! But once I arrived orientation went well. I ran into Nicole, the girl I met at the airport and a familiar face and also met Brian, a Florida Gator, who I quickly became close with. I was excited to get all the classes I wanted, a marketing research class, buyer behavior, global business, and an e-marketing class. After orientation me Brian and Nicole headed downtown for our first Australian dinner out at a place called Jo Jos…we got pizza!! Haha

Overall, I made it here safe and slowly I’m getting adjusted and settled. I miss some of the conveniences of home already, but otherwise Australia and Brisbane are gorgeous!

More to come soon!!

-Mallory

Gettin'Ready to go half way around the world!

It's official....I got the plane ticket, a place to live, and a Blog set up!!! Australia here I come!!!

The time I have left in the states is getting shorter and shorter but there's lots of exciting things happening before I leave. I wrapped up my internship at the Grand Avenue Business Association Tuesday and my last day working in the Carlson Undergrad Office is Wednesday. My good friend Nat gets back from Spain the 1st and is coming up to the cities to stay with me through the 4th. Then my other friends Rachel and Jordan (also my roommates when I get back on campus in the Spring) are coming up to the cities on Friday, also to stay through the 4th. Friday we're all going to move stuff into our brand new-never been lived in-apartment which will be awesome!!

For the 4th my family goes for our annual pontoon boat trip with the Elfstroms all day long. It will be a nice send off before I leave and is always hilarious! Nat will be joining us and so will some of the Elfstrom boy's gf's and friends!

Then after all that I need to pack and get everything ready to leave the Oakdale, MN, and the U.S. to go DOWN UNDER!!! The trip will take close to 24 hours to get there; I'll take a flight from Minneapolis to Denver, Denver to LA, and then the final leg....a 14 hour flight from LA to Brisbane!!

In Brisbane, I'll be attending the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and taking a lot of marketing classes as well as some international business. My residence will be just outside campus at the Kelvin Grove Urban Village where I'll be getting 4 random mixed gender roommates.

I hope you take a chance to follow me on my adventure while I'm abroad and share in the excitement and stories I'll have to share. Thanks for all of your pre-departure support and remember to keep me in your prayers during all of my travels.

Take Care!
Mallory