It took about 20-30 minutes to get from the airport to the city. Sandra drove me around the University and around the city a bit to show me the general ‘lay of the land’. A few things struck me during this trip. First, Melbourne appears to have a lot of parks – and many of them are within walking distance of where I am living. In general, it appears to be a very ‘green’ city with lots of trees and plants. I look forward to exploring the parks more in the coming days. Second, there were tons of people walking all over the city. Everything seemed very full of life. Finally, there are a lot of fun looking restaurants and other places to explore all within walking distance of where I am living. We drove past the area of the city that was the 1956 Olympic Village. This area has been upgraded since then and includes a few large stadiums for rugby, cricket, and Australian Rules football. Also, there is a tennis facility that will play host to the Australian Open over the next few weeks. After this quick tour of the city by car, Sandra dropped me off at the Graduate House and I checked-in to the room where I will be living for the next several weeks.
The Graduate House is very nice and has many communal areas on the ground floor including a bar and restaurant that will open back up on the 18th of January (right now Australian students are on their summer holiday). As such, there aren’t many people around here right at the moment. My room reminds me very much of Eastview Terrace at Penn State. The room is a bit bigger, but still only enough room for a bed, desk, chair, and closet. I have a small bathroom as well. The construction is rather new and everything seems very nice. However, I think I will need to buy at least another pillow for the bed since they only provide a small pillow…The first order of business was to establish an internet connection so that I could let people back home know that I had arrived safely. This was pretty easy to do and I also checked the progress of the BCS National Championship game to learn that Colt McCoy had been injured and was out of the game. Alabama led Texas at that point, a fact that would unfortunately remain for the rest of the game. It is interesting to note that, here, www.google.com redirects to the Australian version of Google. This makes searching for things here much easier (though there is still the option of searching the American version). It appears to me that several major US websites have similar redirecting algorithms based on the IP address of the user.
Once I was done sending a few e-mails and taking what seemed like the best shower of my life (i.e. the first shower I had since about 7am in Austin on the 6th of January), I decided to go out and explore a little bit. The time was approximately 1pm local time and I was hungry for some lunch. There is a rather large mall just a few blocks from where I am staying and I figured this would be a good place to start. I quickly drew a map on a sheet of paper (referencing Google Maps) to make sure I’d be able to find the place and then get home. I easily made my way to the mall through the mid-90s heat of the Australian summer (apparently it is abnormally hot here right at the moment – possibly linked to the current abnormally low temperatures in the U.S.?). The mall was impressive. It is perhaps not quite as big as the King of Prussia mall, but it must be close. There were about 5 levels of stores/restaurants and several department stores at the mall. The place was bustling with people. This was nice since I probably walked around for about an hour before deciding on something to eat for lunch. As I have observed to be the case for many of the places I have seen around Melbourne so far, the mall had a very relaxed and (what I believe to be) ‘nouveau-chic’ European style (though I have not been to Europe to compare).
I found an ATM and got some Australian cash. I figured that it was worth the bank fee to make sure that I had some cash just in case my Visa card was declined when I attempted to make a purchase. This was easy and the money looks pretty cool.
I wanted to choose something good for my first Australian meal, but I am not entirely sure what would classify as uniquely Australian. The food court at the mall was very similar to those in the U.S. There were Asian food options, Italian options, burger places, sandwich places, a Greek place, a sushi place, etc. I finally decided to go to what appeared to be an Australian fast food chain called Oporto. I ordered a ‘Bondi Burger’ (essentially a chili chicken sandwich) and fries with a Coke – it was really good. My Capital One Visa card (featuring no international usage fees) worked just fine (as it should have) indicating that, according to the old Visa slogan, I am where I want to be. It was great to finally have some food – I think with all of the adrenalin associated with arriving and exploring, I had forgotten how hungry I was!
I walked around the mall a bit more, checking out pre-paid cell phone options. They all seem to be convoluted and cryptic (no surprise there), but I’ll figure something out in the next few days. In any case, it was good to identify what the Australian cell phone brands are. Finally, I decided to make my way back to my place.
I came back to find that Texas had indeed not been able to overcome the loss of their two-time Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback. It is unfortunate for UT, but in some ways, I am glad that I won’t miss the celebration festivities in Austin. I did some unpacking, sent a few e-mails, and tried to look further into the cell phone options. I was trying as hard as I could to stay awake for as long as possible to help get adjusted to the new time zone. By about 6pm local time (about 43 hours in absolute time since I had woken up (from the last decent sleep I had been able to get) in Austin on the morning of the 6th), I couldn’t take it any longer and I decided to head to bed. I fell asleep almost instantly and woke up at 6am the next morning. I think with 12 hours of sleep and waking up in the morning here, I should be more or less adjusted to the new time zone now.
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