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