G’day from down under! Posted on July 22nd, 2004 by Jared Lee

I’m in Australia! I’ve been preparing for this trip for so long, it’s hard to believe that it’s here already! After saying goodbye to family and friends, I flew out of Minneapolis back on July 4th, and after a bit of a layover in Los Angeles, I arrived in Melbourne back on the morning of July 6th. It was a long 15-hour flight from LA-Melbourne, but I’d highly recommend Qantas Airlines to anyone flying between the US and Australia, it’s a very nice airline, and also the safest in the world.

There were quite a few of us from IFSA-Butler (Institute for Study Abroad at Butler University) that came down on the flight from LA, and there were eight of us going to Monash University in Melbourne, another seven going to Murdoch University in Perth, and the other twenty-plus going to University of Western Australia, also in Perth. Shortly after we landed all of us boarded a bus for IFSA orientation, near a small town called Buxton, in a forested and hilly area a couple hours northeast of Melbourne in rural Victoria. There we spent a few days relaxing (it took most of us a good three days to get over jet lag), and getting to know each other and Australia. IFSA planned some cool activities for us too, including bush walks and rock climbing in the neighbouring Cathedral Range State Park, an Aboriginal culture session (complete with demonstrations on the digeridoo and boomerang), and a bush dance.

On Friday morning we packed up at Buxton and were split up into small groups to go on our farm stays. The eight of us going to Monash (myself, CJ from St Thomas, JR from Brown University, Sharon from St Mary’s University of Texas, Caroline from Purdue, Meghan from Vanderbilt, and Vanessa and Krista, both from Pacific University) were all in the same group, and went to this really cool place called Holcombe Country Retreat, not too far from the spa resort town of Daylesford, about an hour north of Melbourne. It was a wonderfully relaxing weekend, and John & Annette (our hosts, who own Holcombe) showed us amazing hospitality, it was incredible.

They took us sightseeing around the area, and they also brought us to an animal park in Ballarat (a city of 90,000 about an hour northwest of Melbourne), where we got to see all sorts of cool animals, including kangaroos, wombats and koalas! John & Annette also introduced us to the game of “footy” (Australian rules football) on TV and taught us some of the rules of that awesome game.

On Sunday the 11th it was time to head down to Monash, for a week of Monash Abroad orientation, for international students like myself (it still feels strange saying that…). It was a bit of information overload, but still useful. There are so many people here from all around the world, it’s really amazing. I’ve met people from Sweden, Germany, Croatia, Kuwait, Japan, Maylasia, South Africa and more, it’s really cool.

In addition to being a very multicultural university, Monash is also quite large, with 22,000 students enrolled here at its main campus in Clayton (Monash also has four other campuses in Australia, plus campuses in Maylasia and South Africa). We also got registered for classes during orientation week. I had been registered for Contemporary Australia, Australia & Its Regions, Friends & Phobias: Australia, the USA, Europe & Asia at War, and Experiencing the Australian Landscape, but at the last minute I decided to totally change my schedule, to Large-Scale Weather & Climate, Climate Change & Variability, Fluid Dynamics, and Experiencing the Australian Landscape. My problem was having too many classes that I wanted to take, but I guess that’s a good problem to have. Considering I’m hoping to go into Meteorology for a career, I decided to jump at the chance to take almost an entire slate of weather-related classes (after all, it was part of the reason that I decided to study abroad at Monash, because they actually had an Atmospheric Science program).

Classes just started up on Monday the 19th, and I much prefer the smaller class sizes that I’m used to at Gustavus, but that’s part of the adventure of being in a different place. It’s really too early to have a good judgement on how easy or hard my classes will be yet, but they seem interesting at least. In an effort to get to know some more people, I’ve signed up for a few clubs/organizations this week, and I’ll probably try to get involved with a couple of sporting clubs (like intramural sports back at Gustavus), especially footy! I’m anxious to learn how to play that, and also to attend a few matches. Most people in this part of Australia are footy-mad, it’s as much of a religion to Victoria as the Packers are to Wisconsin. I’m either going to barrack for the Geelong Cats or the Melbourne Demons, as they’re two of the local teams that are doing well this season. There are several students from my dorm who are Geelong fans, so we might go to one of their games one of these weekends. (Today’s lesson in Aussie slang: you don’t “root” for a certain team, you “barrack” for them; “root” has a *very* different meaning down here. I’ll try to give a little tidbit about Australian culture or slang in each of my posts.)

I’ve been into Melbourne three times so far, and it’s a beautiful city. (Monash is a 10-minute bus ride and a 30-minute train ride from the city center. Melbourne has an outstanding public transit system.) There’s so much to do, see and eat, and there are so many people too (Melbourne has a population of 3.5 million)! Having lived in a small town my entire life, and since Gustavus is also a small college in a small town, it’s quite a change coming to such a huge university in an enormous city. I’m definitely enjoying being in the city right now, although I don’t know that I’d want to live in the city permanently. 🙂 Australia’s definitely a different place than the US, but apart from the accent, unfamiliar slang, and driving on the other side of the road, it doesn’t seem all that different from the States. But I’m really enjoying it here so far, I’m glad that I chose to come to Monash. Well, the weekend’s coming up, and I have so many options of what to do… should I go to a footy game at the MCG or Telstra Dome, or take a drive down the Great Ocean Road? Go out for a night on the town, or meet some more people in my dorm? Fun choices all. 🙂