So it's been some time since my last post, but I wanted to properly settle down first before writing down the story. 1,5 weeks ago, I finally arrived in Australia! The journey went fine, no troubles whatsoever. My first hostel seemed more like a nightclub than a hostel, however (not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you're also expected to attend orientation activities, including catching up on things because of my delay, it's a bit too much). Furthermore, it was quite far from uni, so after 2 days we changed hostels, to the Back of Chapel hostel where some other exchange students resided as well. It's near Chapel Street, an amazing street with tons of restaurants, shops, bars and what not. Living there wouldn't be that much of a punishment either.
My delay hasn't caused me much troubles. On my first day of orientation I could immediately enroll for my courses and enter my preferences regarding my timetable. I actually got all my first preferences, which means that I have 4 days of weekend! On Friday, the last day of exchange orientation, there was (supposed to be...) an amazing party to celebrate the ending of orientation. Tickets were only 25$...! It turned out to be a really lousy party, with the bar closing at 23:00 and the party ending at 23.30 or so, so that was a waste of time and money, unfortunately.
In the weekend I tried to get a bank account and a cellphone number sorted, things that make life over here a lot easier. Prepaid cards over here can be charged with a "plan" that includes internet as well, so that's really convenient as I don't have to get any membership or anything. During the week there was faculty orientation as well, but that turned out to be mainly for first-year students, so we skipped that after the first day.
Last Friday we went on a trip for exchange students. We went to the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary that takes care of all sorts of innate Australian animals. Here we finally saw our first koalas, kangaroos and tasmanian devils! (to name just a couple of the animals that you feel like you should really see when you're in Australia) it was a bit cold and the animals weren't very active, but there was a really awesome bird show and it was good to see a kangaroo :)
This weekend, Melbourne hosted the Melbourne Open House, an event in which big landmarks and important buildings open their doors to the public. Hence, I've completely acted the tourist this weekend. On Saturday, I went to the National gallery of Victoria (with some really creative exhibitions but also quite a lot of boring ones, at least to me), St. Patrick's Cathedral, Federation Square and a boat tour through the docklands. At night, we went to a rooftop bar, a great invention, despite the cold!
On Sunday, there were tours at the National Tennis Centre that I really wanted to attend. I was convinced that it would be a tour through the tennis arenas (including the Rod Laver Arena!). However, this was not the case. The National Tennis Centre serves as a training centre for Australia's future tennis stars. Not quite what I expected, but interesting nonetheless. After the tennis tour I joined a tour around the Olympic Park (it's really amazing, all the big stadiums are packed together in one area), guided by the engineers of some of these buildings. After that I just strolled around the city, followed by St. Kilda beach (which is really small compared to home, surprisingly).
During all these fun activities there was one thing that really got onto my nerves: I still didn't have a permanent place to stay! The hostel was fine and all, but I really just wanted to unpack my suitcase properly. During the week we had some viewings, had a look at tonnes of advertisements, called what felt like dozens of people, but it was hard to find something decent. However, i found a room! It's in a sharehouse with 5 other people, but there are 2 people moving in later this week. The location is right between uni and the city, so that's perfect. At the moment it's still a bit messy, but that should be fixed by the end of this week hopefully. Pictures will follow soon.
All in all, I love Melbourne already. It's vibrant, diverse, buzzing, clean, everything! There are so many things happening over here, I think it'll be really difficult to get bored!
Next time I'll post a few pictures of the house and the things I've seen. I'll spend this week trying to figure out what clubs and associations I want to join and with trying to find my classes :)
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