Aussie Froshie

Well, I am officially living in Australia.  The remainder of my flight from Auckland wasn't too painful, but I was greeted by a very long customs line when I landed.  They gave me a scare when the lady behind the counter looked at me and said, "Some of your information isn't coming up in our system, so I am going to have to ask you to go with one of the immigration officers."  Nothing came of it, but after 19 hours of traveling, that was not something that I was really ready to deal with.  After customs came baggage claim, which was yet another adventure.  It was a very extensive process to get and check out my bags, not to mention that I had a lot of trouble trying to carry everything that I had.  Part of me felt bad about bumping into people with my bags, but the other part of me was too tired to care or control where they were going.

After waiting for a little bit, I was taken to my apartment complex.  The drive there was interesting, and I definitely tried to get in on the wrong side of the vehicle at first.  Making a left hand turn on a red light really threw me for a loop, but it's something that I'm going to have to get used to.  My apartment building is located right across the street from the university, which I have found to be more than convenient.  I checked in by signing some papers and then hauled my stuff up to my room.  Afterward I made my way to the bank, but not without accidentally walking around the entire perimeter of the campus.  It was a great way to see things, but my trip took me a lot longer than anticipated.  I got back to my room after getting some food, and passed out at a very early hour.

The entrance to the university.

 This morning I woke up feeling a bit better.  I think it's going to take another solid night of sleep before I am really feeling like myself, but I'm definitely on my way.  I got breakfast on campus and went over the the Engineering Student Centre (not Center).  They were able to lift the overseas sanction on my student account, and I was able to sign up for classes!  I am going to be taking four of them, and switching to the semester system is going to be interesting.  At 10 weeks I am going to want new classes, but I will still have a solid month and a half with the ones I have.  Oh well, what's one more adjustment?  After enroling (yep, with one "l"), I had a program orientation.  I walked into the room to find that my program consists of about 15 people.  Sometimes I forget how spoiled I was at Stanford, because the other people in my presence got really excited at the opportunity to have small class sizes, but that is what I have come accustomed to.

The hallways kind of remind me of Stanford  :)

 The late afternoon consisted of catching up with some of my friends, as well as my mom.  It is great to be able to talk to them online, but I would really like to be able to set up my phone.  This is proving to be difficult, but will hopefully be resolved soon.  Before dinner, I set off on my first real adventure;  I took the tram downtown to the grocery store.  It took me awhile to find it because it is actually underground, where the train runs.  The train station is actually like a mall; there are so many stores there, and then you turn around and you can see the train going by.  It's kind of an interesting concept.  I was also able to see just how expensive groceries are here and I found Vegemite!!  It's going to be fun to see how my eating habits change in the next couple of weeks.  Needless to say, I made it back safely to my apartment and cooked my first meal.  I have also just finished "decorating" with all of the pictures that I brought from home.  It is starting to look more and more like a room that I will like living in.