New Friends, Warm Welcome
After four sleepless, jet-lagged nights, I have now almost achieved normal sleeping hours and am functional enough to post something about my first week. Actually, I have more to post than I expected because I ended up writing some thoughts down during my sleepless nights, so I divided them into three parts. The two others are in the works with pictures...
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It has been a week since I first set foot on the land down under. I arrived in the morning, so from my window seat, I could see Australia from the air, and it was really beautiful. Very lush, green, and moutainous. (Unfortunately, I couldn't take a picture because I was right behind the wing.) I was seeing the southeastern part of the land, of course. The outback further north and west is supposed to be the exact opposite. Anyway, when the wheels of the plane hit the pavement, I thought, the modern world is truly amazing. In less than a days time, I have been transported nine thousand miles away to the other side of the world.
I was warmly welcomed to the land of Oz by my host counselor through the Rotary Foundation, Bruce Cameron, and another Rotarian, Gail, of the Keilor East Rotary Club. Since my first day, Bruce has been a great host, checking in on me, even though he caught a bad flu the day after I arrived. He is wonderfully jolly and young at heart, and we are already getting along quite swimmingly. Bruce is a retired engineer and businessman, but more interestingly, he is a Lord, donned Lord Bruce Cameron by the Australian Goverment and the Queen (UK) for his service to his community. How cool is that! Bruce and Gail made my first day in Melbourne incredibly stress-free, helping me set up my bank account and get a mobile phone and just making sure I knew I had friends in Melbourne. And indeed, they are my first friends.
Two days after I arrived, I made another new friend, Ryan Diehl, a fellow Rotary Scholar from Kansas. Of course, I brilliantly pointed out that he is like Dorothy--you know, from Kansas and now in Oz. Actually, I didn't make this association until 3AM that night, and I was sure no one else, not even he, had made this connection, and with great pride announced it to him the next day. Okay, I knew I wasn't the first to figure this out, but I still managed to amuse myself and take just a smidgin of pride in my discovery. Anyway, Ryan is also studying at Melbourne Uni (this is what the locals call it) and has been here since February. He was kind enough to accompany me as I went flat-hunting, since I had not yet acquainted myself with the transportation system. Having only gotten about 6 hours of sleep over my first two nights, I cannot tell you how much I appreciated his company.
I'm still looking for a place to live (I think I'll land one soon), but in the meantime, it's nice to have made some friends who have helped me to feel at home already. I don't have pictures of them yet, but I will definitely be seeing them again so I'll be putting those up in later posts.
3 Comments:
you got along "swimmingly" with your host ... felt a "smidgin" of pride ... and went "flat-hunting" in less than a week! You're starting to talk like the Ozzies already! :)
janelle
pictures! pictures! pictures!! glad you made it safely.
I'm very happy to hear you are doing well! Your blog is quite an enjoyable lunchtime read! I'd appreciate if you could do this every day, but I know that would be beyond insane.
Life here at CCE is pretty quiet. No goodbye parties in the last month.
However, we did have some amazingly weird flooding in the office. We were closed down for almost 3 days. Rotting pipes under the center were the problem.
I've been back for the last 2 weeks from my Holy Land tour of Israel. If the fighting there ever stops so that people can freely travel you should really go one day. It was amazing. I missed having you next door so I could share my pics with you. I eat olives now b/c of that trip. Who knew they could be so good!
I'll stop taking up all this space now.
Have a wonderful day and enjoy the adventure!
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