Landed, grounded, moved in

Hey all--

I am finally here and all settled into my (tiny) room at Curtin University!! The past few days have been crazy busy!! Flying was...put simply...long and exhausting. 5 of the people in my program were on my (13 hour) flight from Brisbane to Perth. We were greeted at baggage claim by a current graduate student named Ashley. She is from Texas and did this same program a few years ago and loved it enough to return for grad school (good to know?!). Anyway, she took us all to our hotel that we were staying in for the night. We were given some time to shower (yes it had been 2 days =/) and get ready for a night out in the city of Perth. It only took about half a second to realized that the outlets in the rooms didn't work. That was very unfortunate for the 10 girls who were looking foward to drying and straigtning their hair, using a computer, or charging a cell phone.
We walked probably around 2 miles to an asian restaurant downtown and stayed there for a few hours. Australian waiters do not work for tips, so things get accomplished on their time. For example, we were sitting for at least 20 minutes before we were waited on, then waited a good hour until the first entree was served. Not everyone at the table was served at the same time. In fact, two were served first and had completely finished with their meals with time to spare before the others were served.
After the meal, we hung out for another hour or so until the check came. After we paid, 4 of us took a cab back to the hotel while the rest went on to a bar to hang out for the rest of the night. It is not commonplace to wear flip flops out to bars and restuarants, so I wore heels. Big mistake. By the time we reached the restaurant I had blisters SO bad that walking across the street to the ATM was like...I don't know...Hell. I am paying for that now, and I have (nasty) pictures to prove it!
Today we all met at 10 am (most of us were up by 6am because of jet lag/time difference) to go back into town to the "shoppes" to do some shopping. We went to some tourist attractions first, like the Bell Tower and a Ferris Wheel similar to the London Eye. 2 of the girls and I went on the Ferris Wheel and got a great view of the city. The city is built on the water, so there are some great strips of city jutting out into the water connecting to the land by bridges.
After the tourist attractions, we made it to the "shoppes", which is how the Australians refer to closed off portions of streets littered with malls and stores with everything you could possibly think of to buy except a hair straightner. It figures that the one thing I was looking for is no where to be found.
We checked into our rooms this afternoon. I am living in an 8-person suite called Vickery House. I am told that it is all girls, but currently I am the only person here. Many others are co-ed. The suite literally looks like a bomb shelter. Its kind of scary actually, but I think once I get some colors and such up it won't be so bad. The suite contains a common room with 8 chairs and a table (no tv), a kitchenette with a sink, oven, stove (scary thing), 2 fridges, a microwave, and lots of cabinets. There is also a kitchen table with a bunch of chairs. Everyone has their own bedroom, which is nice because I can't imagine trying to stuff 2 people into this room! There are 2 toilet rooms (not bathrooms), and in a separate room there are 4 sinks and 2 showers. It's very basic, but will work for the semester. There is no AC, but it cools down at night and I do have a personal room fan.
I already got sunburn. Sunscreen is DEFINITELY necessary!! The only exposed place that was not affected was my face and that is only because my moisturizer has SPF in it! Good thing I used that this morning...
I don't know when I will next update because I hear that our orientation is taking us camping/beaching/surfing for the next few days!!!! SOO exciting!!

Love me!

***I think that pictures are going to have to be a once-a-month deal because internet here is not free. You pay by the month and pay for MGBs and everything, which get wasted fairly easily.