I've arrived!

Internet here is pretty scanty so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to update throughout the trip. I'm currently at the University of Queensland (where I am technically enrolled as a student, even though I don't take classes with the students or really take any classes on campus at all). Funnily enough, UQ looks a lot like Stanford in that there's a huge quad with arcs. It seems like a really nice place to go to school - there's tons of grass and a huge lake with lots of funny-looking birds. I'm sure they look completely normal to people here, probably like the local brand of pigeons and seagulls, but to us, we're all just like, "what are these things?!"

I got in yesterday morning. About 7 people from the program were on the same flight as me from SFO. We're staying at a small motel a short bus ride away from the university, where we'll be staying for the week. This week will be full of introductory lectures in the morning at the university, but we have a lot of free time in the evenings. Today, we had class at 9am and finished around 2pm. I'm not sure what we'll be doing on our free time, but there's a koala preserve I want to check out and there are apparently a lot of cool things to do in Brisbane.

I am pretty jetlagged. The flight was nice, but while I slept for probably 10 hours, it didn't feel like much. Yesterday, I fell asleep at 9pm, after forcing myself to stay up an extra few hours and napping for 2 hours in the afternoon. I haven't really done much except explore the area around our hotel. There's a shopping center with everything I need, but everything here is really expensive! and closes really early... Also, people drive on the wrong side of the road here, so I'm still getting used to that. When we got picked up at the airport, one of the guys in my group got into the drivers' seat thinking it was the front passenger seat. Pretty funny!

Apparently, I am in the sunshine state (according to the Queensland license plates), but it's been pretty gloomy since I got here. It's winter here, but according to the locals, rain like this is pretty rare. I'm excited for the sun to come out.