It's Friday!

Well, it is sunny today, with blue skies, which makes me happy. Still cold, but not too bad. Yesterday was pretty nice too.

Yesterday we got to work a little early, because most of us had to call our bank and reassure them we didn't all have identity theft by someone in Australia using our bank accounts. I tried to get my webcam up and running, but it confused me so I gave up after a while. At lunch, we finished our first cryptic crossword! Sort of- we did have to look up the last word, but we essentially finished it =D. That was exciting. (I took a look at today's crossword and it looks impossibly hard!) After lunch there was a lot of computer/internet set-up stuff going on, which made my head hurt lol. I don't like how long setting stuff up works, and how many passwords and usernames there are for everything. And I HATE proxies- they make my life miserable.

Anyways, once we left the office, we went straight to downtown Melbourne, and we had a ton of fun! Which made me feel a lot better. We got off the train at Flinder's street, right next to a museum which just had a PIXAR exhibit open!! We definitely want to go back and see that sometime soon. Then we walked to my new favorite restaurant called...

STALACTITES!!!

Yes, my friends, that's right, a restaurant called Stalactites. And yes, they are talking about the cave formations that hang from the ceiling. It was awesome!! It was a Greek place, and inside it was decorated like a cave! Stalactites hanging everywhere. I was SO excited. Brought back fond memories of splunking at Hume Lake. We all ordered pita bread, hummus, and slavakia (or something like that) which is basically what we call a gyro back at home. Lamb meat with lettuce and tomato all covered in tzatziki sauce and wrapped in a pita. YUMMM! But it was so much food I couldn't finish it all. Definitely going back there! Michelle and Stephany took some pics since my camera died so check their blogs for those soon.

Speaking of, I now have pics to post! Enjoy:

Liz and Michelle at Nando's (Portuguese food) in downtown Melbourne on Wednesday night.Stephany, Michelle, and Liz standing next to a big football cup.

A mural of PIXAR Finding Nemo fish.

Michelle behind a mysterious curtain of fog...Break through the curtain!Monash UniversityAlso known as "The Uni"

The train station in South Yarra we take every morning to get to the Uni.

Stephany and Michelle riding the train.

Liz and me riding the train.Another station pic.The girls trying to figure out the train schedule.Our office at Monash! (I sit in the bottom right corner-where the empty chair is)

My room before unpacking.

The other side of my room.

Me and Michelle at "Fiesta's" where we ate in South Yarra on Tuesday night (our first day).

All of us on the plane together, leaving from LAX!

My first "Australian" beverage- Bundaberg Ginger Beer.

Stephany and Liz pushing their carts at the airport in Melbourne.

Sitting in Our Cubicle

Well, it is the morning of my second day here! I survived one night. It wasn't bad at all- my bed was comfy, I got a nice warm shower this morning, I'm not tired right now (although that may be because I had some weird energy chocolate drink called "Milo" by Nestle), and I got my phone activated so I could call home. Breakfast is complimentary where we are staying, so we all went down together and I had some toast. It is certainly nice to have free breakfast, but they dont have much to choose from- it's just slices of bread, or cereal. They also had some fruit in a bowl, but it looked like canned fruit because it was in a syrup- I didn't try it yet.

I will post up some pictures later- they are on my laptop, which doesn't have wireless internet yet. Then I can show yall my room and our little workspace, and some pictures of the city!

Last night we had Mexican food! Haha, go figure, we leave the country to have Mexican food. Actually, thewre isn't really any "Australian" food to eat- all the eating places are a huge variety of nationalities ranging from Greek to Sri Lankan to Chinese to Indian. There is a lot more Asian influence here than I expected, although it makes sense now that I think about it. South Yarra is nice to walk around, as we did last night, although the shops are all pretty expensive. While we were exploring a bit last night, exhaustion hit us. After all, we never got to take any naps or anything after our plane landed- we went pretty much straight to Monash Uni. We all got really tired, and when we saw "Fiesta" the mexican place we thought "I just want to eat so I can go to sleep!" lol

Right now I am in our office (I am going to call it our office for now because it sounds impressive hehe) and we are waiting to get internet set up on our laptops and to be taught about Nimrod (their computing system). Not much to do yet... hence to obsessive blogging lol. It is rainging today, and kinda gloomy- made me miss San Diego and Yorba Linda a lot. Oh! And we had our first public transportation experience on the train (it's kinda like the EL in Chicago, or however you spell the el, but a lot nicer). It went well, and we didn't get lost!

I will update more later! Cheers!

I Arrived in Australia!

Hey everyone! This is my official blog for this summer (technically, this winter, as I am below the equator right now) while I am in Australia for PRIME! I am not very good at blogging, but I will do my best to keep you all updated. Plus, I will be able to put up pictures on here! For your viewing pleasure.

So far, I have been in Australia for 8 hours and have already paid and moved into my hotel room, bought a train monthly pass, gone to Monash University, set up a workspace and a computer, and had lunch with the lab guys. And my body thinks it is 11:30 pm yesterday... a very interesting feeling indeed.

I am very excited for what will happen this summer! I am not sure exactly what I will be doing for my research project even still, so I hope that gets figured out soon. I'm not sure if I will get much done this week lol.

Well, I will write more later, and wish the best for all of the summers for whoever is reading this! (or your winters if you are south of the equator too)

Cheers,
Heather