Entertainment News: Don't Feed The Birds

As I promised, I will now tell you about the new wonderful city I call home.

We flew from Cairns (pronounced Cans) to Brisbane on Thursday February 17th. We arrived at Urbanest, the apartment complex for students in South Bank to find that Australearn told the staff we weren't arriving until the 18th so our flats weren't ready. We sat around for about an hour and were then placed in our rooms.

I walked into my room and was immediately happy. I have my own space away from everyone, which is something I definitely needed in London. I even have my own BATHROOM! Check below...

Along with the picture of my bathroom I have to deliver some bad news. The water doesn't flush the other way here in Aussieland. It doesn't even spin. The toilets flush the water straight down. My astronomy professor from last spring broke the news to me about the toilets so I was prepared for the heartbreak.

As I was unpacking from my journey of epic proportions, I had to open the drawer to my desk to place some of my crap in it to make the room look neater. When I opened the drawer, to my horrified surprise, a MASSIVE cockroach crawled out to greet me to my new room which I apparently was sharing with him. I screamed but was too panicked to immediately kill him, so it decided to crawl behind the desk where I couldn't reach him. There was nothing I could do about it except let it be and hope to find him later to murder the poor bastard.

I went to lunch with my new best friend, Rachel, down by the river at subway. They have $10.00 footlongs here, I laughed and was sad that nothing was going to be cheap here for the next few months. As I got my sandwich, we decided to sit on cute little tables outside in the sunshine (it's summer here, are you jealous? good.) that was out in the park area.

As we were about to sit, I put my sandwich down to look at a very interesting bird. It was quite large with a white body and a black head with a very long beak. It saw me staring at him, so it stared back. All of a sudden, it flew at my face which made me put my sandwich down in the table, scream like a little girl, and run the other way. I then watched in horror as I realized the bird didn't actually want little old me, it wanted the 7 dollar 6 inch subway sandwich I had just bought and was dying to eat. After waiting for an hour for my apartment to be ready and after realizing I was sharing my new room with a 1.5 inch long cockroach I was not about to let an evil bird take away my lunch. I screamed in its face and let it fly away. Only problem was it didn't leave me alone so I had to move inside to another restaurant because the waiter felt bad for me.

This was all 3 hours into living in Brisbane.

Evil, Evil Bird.

So, today is Tuesday which means I've been in Brisbane for about 5 or 6 days now and it already feels like home. I met some nice guys on the elevator and they invited me and Rachel over for dinner on Thursday. We've become a group since then and it's been really great to hang out with awesome guys who actually cook dinner. That first night they gave us gin and tonics along with a gourmet salmon dinner with mashed potatoes and asparagus. I plan on cooking for them this week to repay the favor.

I've been out on the town a few times since arriving. The hot places to go are the main city and a place called fortitude valley. The "valley" is just bar after bar with 20 somethings lining the streets dancing and having a good time. I love it. Only problem is the price of alcohol. To give you an idea, a 6 pack of Corona is 20.00. A 6 pack of Becks is 23 dollars. A normal sized bottle of Jack Daniels is 65 dollars. The cheapest thing to drink is boxed wine, which is anywhere from 10 to 17 dollars.

Yesterday was orientation which was as boring as you can imagine. UQ is full of international students, with 107 countries represented during orientation. They were naming countries I had never heard of. There was a barbeque after which was good but it was so painfully hot I couldn't stay outside. The heat was making me feel like I was either going to throw up or faint. Hopefully the head today won't be as bad.

So, that's my update for now! Here are some other pictures of Brisbane!