First 24 Hours.

Despite its lack of Halloween spirit, I can already tell I’m going to like Australia. I arrived in Brisbane at 6:48am on October 31st. In EST, that would have been 4:48pm on the 30th. “Goodbye Sarah!” the flight attendants waved at me. The whole flight, one of them thought it was hilarious to call me Sarah Palin, on account of my frameless glasses. And it was funny. Kind of. JC picked me up and right away I of course made the mistake of trying to get in on the right side of the car, instead of the left.

The FIRST THING I saw when I left the airport:

Crikey. After several roundabouts and a quick stop to his parents’ home, we arrived at Justin’s house. Its inhabitants have lovingly dubbed it as the “Bamboo Banga,” on account of the large amounts of trees, bamboo, and all-around vegetation that surrounds the house. It’s one of the coolest houses I’ve ever seen, as far as student housing goes. I’ll try to post a picture later, if I can get one that I believe captures the essence.

The people living here are just as wonderful. Other than JC, there is Caitlin, Andy, Steve, Brie, Dan (from New Zealand), Tom (from Zimbabwe), Shannon (also from Zimbabwe) and Ramon (nicknamed “Gringo,” even though he’s from France). And now there’s me (for now). It’s good timing, seeing as how someone (I forgot his name), a Maori backpacker from New Zealand, just left.

After setting down my bags, Justin and I got fish and chips (upon my request) and walked around the University of Queensland campus. All around the campus (and Brisbane in general), there were beautiful purple trees, called jacarandas. My inquisitiveness got the best of me, seeing as how I asked about the names of every foreign bird, plant and giant lizard we passed (most of which Justin made up names for, because he didn’t know).

After unpacking (it didn’t take long at all—I brought a lot less than I had thought), I sat down for a cup of tea with Shannon, Caitlin and Dan.

EDIT:
...Sorry. I started writing this when I woke up at 4:30am but then I got distracted. It's the afternoon now and I've lost my train of thought. I think the important highlights, however, are that I ate a Kangaroo for dinner and fell asleep by 9pm. I didn't plan to eat the Kangaroo, it's just that people were already cooking it and they offered it to me. When in Rome, right?

It tasted a whole lot better than live squid, although that's mostly because it didn't move in my mouth. Tender. Juicy. Slightly bitter. I like marsupial.