Adrienne Wilson, 2011 South Queensland student blogger, writes:

Hello, world. I haven’t had a chance to go on the Internet almost at all since we’ve arrived, so here’s a mass update to make up for that.

May 20

I arrived in Brisbane on May 20^th, but it turned out that the rest of the class wasn’t arriving until the 21^st, so I took the chance to walk around Brisbane by myself and do some exploring. The people here are very down to earth and accommodating – I walked into a couple of shops and just had random conversations with the cashiers and employees. It was great! Two other students were here early and I met up with them after I walked through the city. Meet Hunter and Jake:
We hung out a bit and they’re pretty awesome. Both of them are in the program through University of Hawai’i-Hilo, like me, although only Jake is an actual student there. That night after checking in to a room for ourselves for the night we saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. It was just released and we not only got to watch it in 3D, but in fancy super comfy black chairs. The theater we went to, which is right across from the YHA (the hostel we stayed at – it stands for Youth Hostel Association), was quite classy. In fact, when you buy your movie ticket you can also order a drink at the counter (which also functions as the ticket counter) and there are even waiters.

Not going to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but the three of us thought it was really good. In any case, my first impression of Australia has been generally positive, except for two things: the lack of free Internet (come on, $6 AUD/hour?!), and how it’s so very expensive to do anything here (although that’s probably partly the fault of the US dollar…).

May 21

So the majority of the class arrived today! Professor Mautz apparently arrived last night, around the same time we came back from the movie. Margaux and Sarah, two more students registered through UH-Hilo joined us as well. A few hours later the students from the University of Montana and Wake Forest arrived at our hostel. We spent most of the day at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, playing with all sorts of Australian fauna like koalas, kangaroos, emus, birds, and dingoes.

Favorite pictures of the day:

After our visit to the sanctuary we had the rest of the day off to get oriented. For dinner, I went with three other people to check out the Pancake Manor where I ordered an amazing chicken crepe dinner.

It was a pretty good day. More to come…