Hello from down under!
Lauren, Sara, and I have spent the past week settling into our new apartment and touring around the city. Other than a few bumps in the road (like locking ourselves out of the apartment), the transition to living in this city has been smooth. We were all lucky to sleep well on the flight, and we believe that this helped us avoid suffering from jet lag. It does feel quite weird to be one day ahead of everyone that is back in Calgary!
In our first week, we were given a warm welcome by our Australian liaisons at the Queensland University of Technology Kelvin Grove campus. We could tell that they were thrilled to have us, as we are some of the first international students to be here since the pandemic started. The campus is gorgeous – the entire campus looks like the University of Calgary Atrium with the amount of greenery both inside and outside. We also got to see a $400,000 BMW that is being hosted by the University through a partnership with BMW Group. Our teaching placement has been delayed until the beginning of October, so we will be attending some University classes in the meantime. We are looking forward to seeing how the education program here differs from ours.
We have seen lots over our first week here, and would love to share some highlights:
- Visiting the beautiful Botanical Gardens
- Walking along the (apparently shark-infested) river
- Watching a spectacular firework display to kick off the start of BrisFest, which is a festival that runs through September
- Getting free tickets from one of our university contacts to watch a Friendly match between the Australia and Canada women’s soccer teams
- Getting bragging rights after our team won the soccer game
- Meeting our first spider, which makes all Canadian spiders look tiny in comparison
- Having a home-cooked meal from our new Australian friends
- Taking cute photos at an art installation called “Ephemeral”
- Trying Australian snacks (we love Cornados and Shapes, but we are a bit divided on Vegemite!)
Although we are placed in an English-speaking country, we are learning that Australians can be hard to understand at times! One Australian that we met was talking about how she was coming to Canada in the winter and was wondering if she should hire some winter clothes. We had no clue what she meant, but we eventually figured out that Australians say “hire” when we would say “rent”. Australians also love to shorten their vocabulary. “Afternoon” becomes “arvo”, “chicken” becomes “chook”, “biscuit” becomes “biccy”, and “sick day” becomes “sickie”.
While Australia is famous for being extremely hot, we landed at the end of their winter. However, the temperature has been steady in the high teens and low twenties. We have enjoyed comparing the weather with the locals, explaining that what they consider cold is like a warm fall day for us! We have also been feeling the humidity here, and the Australians are quick to inform us that this level of humidity is nothing compared to what we would feel in the summer. One surprising thing is how early the sun sets. Sunset is more consistent year-round here than it is in Canada, and it is quite dark around 6 pm.
We had a blast in our first week and are excited to learn more about Australian teaching and culture.
Goodbye for now,
Emilie, Lauren, and Sara