Welcome to Brisbane!

05/21/11 (lack of internet access made this post a bit delayed!!)

G’day Mates!

So far it’s the 1^st day in Australia and it’s simply fantastic. The plane ride itself here though felt like forever though, especially from Logan to LA. American Airlines is simply the worst I’m pretty sure. I liked Qantas though, which was the flight from LA to Brisbane. The food was great mmm…. Mahi-mahi. The seats were really comfy complete with their little tvs, headphones, blankets and pillows. I had window seats both times. Tough to get up and walk around, but what a view! I was gorgeous. I watched a bunch of tv shows like How I Met Your Mother simply because I don’t know what I do without Barney on my plane ride. Then I watched No Strings Attached, which was this new Ashton flick that was pretty terrible. So after doing 15 hours on the previously listen along with listening to Aussie music and watching the flight path on a monitor, we finally arrived in Australia!

So today 5:52 am on Saturday ( a day ahead on y’all) we arrived in Brisbane. Horary! We had a program orientation where we played Aussie Slang Bingo for minties, which are these Australian candies. Then we had a fabulous lunch of fruit and sandwiches. I ate this bizarre purple pomegranate looking fruit with yellow and green seeds inside. It was scrumptiously eccentric. It had a little mint spring on top. How cute?

Then I headed out with one of my new friends Melissa. We traveled all over Brisbane. Our teachers Glenn and Doug drew us a nifty little map.

So we walked around and found all sorts of amazing stuff like this science museum with free admission. There were two dinos out front which instantly drew me in and then there were even MORE dinos inside in a fossilized form of course! J There was a ton of stuff on Darwinism and zoology in general. I saw these great hands on exhibits about bat wings and exoskeletons. For the exoskeleton one you actually put your arm inside this mold of an exoskeleton and you had to try and move it up and down like you were walking. In the bat wing exhibit you put yourself in pseudo bat wings to simulate the propulsion of their wing flapping. It was a fantabulous museum.

We walked across 2 bridges: the Goodwill and the Victoria. We also trekked beneath this beautiful flower terrace walkway. It was so stunning. I saw this kind of bird there called an ibis, which I never saw before. There was also this mini beach along the path along with little patches of rainforest!!!!!

I saw a ferris wheel too. We walked along the river on the wharf. We also stopped by the Queensland Mall, which is basically like this collection of shops that resembles a miniature NYC.

We finished off our  jet lagged day at 8:57pm following a stuffing 5 course meal of Thai food. Not to shabby for our first day down under. Till next time!