Orientation Week!

So for some reason or another orientation is broken down into two weeks - one for international students, like myself, and one for the whole school.  I've become quite aware that most if not all of this is not really compulsory, although it seems the university wants you to think it is.  Don't get me wrong it's a great opprotunity to get out and meet people, but we haven't done anything that I think is overly helpful.

Anyway on to details about all the fun stuff that has gone on this week....
Day 1: Tuesday July 12th
We were welcomed to the campus by having to meet at an academic building on the other side of campus to stand in line and wait for pancakes!  Honestly it wasn't really that bad, I did get free pancakes, and we were given some time to socialize amongst ourselves (all the international students, which much be abou 200+ people if I have any skill for estimating people in large groups).  Then we had boring info sessions that I suppose were helpful, but like any univerisity info sessions were relatively boring!  A couple hours after the boring sessions (and a few hours to relax/finally set up the internet here) we had a social event for the foreign students!  We took a trip into the city using public transportation - buses and trains!  It was pretty fun to just get out, although the choice in venues was a bit dodgy.  We had dinner at a place called 'Shanghai Dumpling' in Chinatown which was a bit of a dive - it had some good food and some terrible food, plus it was $13 a meal!  Then we went to a bar called 'Eurotrash' which had some cheap-ish drinks.  It was fun, although I was terribly tired (jetlag is TERRIBLE).  I met a few cool international students there - Victoria (Norway), Shea (Korea), Janna (Sweden). 

Day 2: Wednesday July 13th

Had to get up early, which wasn't a problem due to the jet lag - waking up at 6AM for no reason is always fun!  We had orientation breakfast starting at 8:30AM and then a short meeting about how to sign up for classes.  I answered a question right about signing up for classes and got a cute little koala bear stuffed animal (the first decoration for my room!):

Thankfully the courses I want to take work out well and  none of the important parts of the classes clash!  Therefore I don't have to get any more courses approved to take!  I spent the majority of the afternoon working out a schedule (with no class on Fridays!) and then entering my preferences for tutorial times.  After that was all set, Eliza, Sean (the kid I met in the airport) walked down to a Cole's supermarket (about 20 minutes away) so that we don't have to starve while we are here! The craziest thing was just how much bananas were - $14/kg!  We then had to lug all our groceries back, which wasn't so much fun, but a good workout and saved us some bus money.  Unfortunately one of Eliza's bags broke and a jar of tomato sauce broke on the sidewalk.  Some nice Australians that were outside their business helped us clean it up - which was much appreciated!  The evening activity was a trip into the city to go to the Eureka Skydeck 88.  It's a tall building that has a viewing room on the 88th floor, it was really cool to see the city from so high up - see the pictures below:



Flinders Street Station (train station)

A cool building - perhaps a museum of some sort!

Melbourne Skyline!

 

 

Stadium (left), and I think a theatre on the right?



Day 3: Thursday July 14th

Again woke up at 7AM for no reason, when I only had to be ready for orientation events starting at 9AM.  The meetings were mostly boring and lasted the better part of the morning.  We then got a free lunch on the university (which is always appreciated). Afterwards we got to stand in a queue to get out student ids, and get some orientation information. The evening events (which I forgot to bring a camera to) were a trip into town to go to a bar/restaurant called Lucky Coq that had personal pizzas for $4 (a pretty good deal, and the pizza was pretty good).  Afterwards a couple guys from Australia that help out/hang out with the international students during our orientation week took us to a couple local places they like, including a small bar called 'Somewhere'.  It was nice to get a better understanding of the city and good places to go from people that actually live here.

Day 4: Friday July 15

I finally was able to sleep in a bit (I didn't get up until 8AM). We had a campus scavenger hunt in which we ran around like crazy to a bunch of different buildings (I still don't think I really know my way around, but I suppose that's ok). We were competing for a great prize - passes to Phillip Island and two camper vans to take there, but unfortunately we didn't win!  My team was made up of three Americans, three Swedes and four Malaysians (aka the 'Swedish States of Malaysia'). 

A spontaneous picture of the group - I don't have a posed one!

After the fun we had a barbecue which was pretty good and free!  Right after I decided it was high time to open a bank account and get a mobile handset (cell phone).  It took awhile to get it all sorted out but I got it done with plenty of time to get ready for the big welcome party at a bar called 'The Red Scooter' (although they didn't have a red scooter anywhere!).  It was a lot of fun to socialize with all the other international students, and we got 'free' food as well.  Below are a couple pictures from the event, most of the good ones are on other people's cameras :(!

That's all for now - it's already Saturday here, and I have some plans to hopefully head down to the beach and perhaps go see a movie!  I miss all of you, and I hope you enjoy my lengthy posts - I'll try to do one a week!