Week 1 - Townsville

After three days of orientation, the group split up to travel to our new cities/universities. There are about 20-30 students travelling to James Cook University in Townsville. We arrived in Townsville after a beautiful plane ride over the east coast of Australia with a stop in Brisbane (note-I got a sub from Subway in the Brisbane airport, and they still sell 6 inch and foot long subs- no metric!) and moved into our new rooms.

I am staying in University hall which is 75% Australian residents. I have a single room with an awesome balcony overlooking palm trees and a mountain in the distance. There is a bird that likes to perch on my balcony railing - he is sitting there right now as I type this. He is a little noisy in the morning though... I have a full meal plan so I can eat every meal in a dining hall connected to my building. The food isn't that great here - makes me miss Usdan!


My Room
View from my balcony

My bird friend!

We took the bus into town - about a 20 minute ride - and explored busy downtown Townsville. It is a medium sized city and seems like it will be pretty fun. The bus is pretty cheap and brings us right to campus. In the next few days we explored other hotspots - "Stockies," the shopping center with Woolworths (grocery store) and Big W (Walmart like) where we got supplies, and "the strand," the Townsville beach/grassy running path. The beach was really nice but it was slightly chilly when we went - it is winter here after all. The weather has been beautiful the rest of the time - shorts and tshirt weather! There is still a lot to explore, but JCU's orientation week is coming up and they are going to take us to some of Townsville's attractions.

The Strand

I am still mostly hanging out with other Americans I met through Butler, but most of the Australians aren't on campus yet (it is there winter break). I have met a few at meals and they seem pretty nice.

We are in the process of choosing classes. The classes I am taking (hopefully) are: Marine Ecology and Environmental Assessment, Applied Soil Science, Biodiversity of Tropical Australia, and The Land and Its Legends in Australian Cinema. Classes start the 26th.