So, I’ve been here for almost a week now, I think it’s about time I blog it up.  So, we got here Tuesday morning, at about 8 a.m.  The flight was really long, but sleeping and movies made it pass pretty quickly.  After we landed, Ann picked us up outside of customs and got a bus to bring us all to where we are staying.  We had an hour or so to settle in before heading in to Toowong Village to go shopping.  After a couple hours, most of us decided to come back to our colleges (Colleges here are like dorms that feed you here, and the University is mostly academics).  Coleman and I started wandering around King’s College, where we’re staying, and eventually got picked up by a security guard who showed us around.  We were brought up to some upper classmen’s room, and it was his birthday, so they were having a little party and they invited us to stay.  We stayed up there for pretty much the rest of the night, playing games, watching TV, and just hanging out.

            Day 2 (Wednesday) started early, with an information session led by Ann about life in Australia.  After that we took a bus to Southbank, where we had lunch (paid for by Dickinson) at a really good Italian restaurant.  After lunch we hopped on a bus tour around Brisbane, which was okay, it was pretty fast paced and mostly a blur.  After the tour I came back to King’s, had dinner, and called it a night. 

            Day 3 (Thursday) was probably my favorite day so far.  We had an early day again, and left campus at 8:30 to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where we could hold koalas, feed kangaroos and emus, and see all kinds of other Aussie animals like dingoes and wallabies.  That took up the morning, and we went back into the city for lunch.  We then had a scavenger hunt through the city, revisiting places we had seen on the bus tour yesterday.  This was really fun, but also really tiring.  We had to finish up at 4, and my team won, so we got some Tim-Tams, which are really good chocolate cookie things.  That night all of the colleges went into the city to The Chalk Hotel.  It was an okay time, big parties and loud music aren’t really my thing, but I met a lot of Aussies from other colleges. 

            Day 4 (Friday) was pretty laid back, with nothing scheduled.  A few of us went back to the Queen St. Mall in the city to get a couple things, but nothing that exciting happened during the day.  That night, there was another all college party at St. Leo’s.  Coleman and I found out that it was jungle themed on our way there, so we were given pieces of celery to put in our pocket as our “costume.” Pretty lame, but oh well.  I met a lot of other people there, including some other Americans, but Ben, Ben from Wash U, Olivia and I left early and went to some Kebab place in The Ville, a little shopping center like 2 seconds away from King’s.  The food was surprisingly good, so I definitely be going back again. 

            Today is the start of O-Week, supposedly the best week we’ll never want to have again.  I don’t know when I’ll be able to post again, but hopefully this week is as good as they claim it is.