hi all, had a busy week so ill fill you in!

when i arrived on friday i felt a bit weird as id only met one person so was scared i guess there werent many other international students.. well i was wrong! because i had just arrived and then it was the weekend never had a chance to go and meet the others until the monday. the weekend was well used to work off my jetlag! on the monday, we had to go to the uni for a arrival briefing and to get our student ID. is really important to do this as its a visa requirement to check in with the uni when u get here. the arrival briefing was good as there were about 30 people from the US,UK and some european places to meet! that evening we had a welcome pizza and trivia night, because there were arrival briefings on everyday for the two weeks there were many more than just the 30 people id met in the morning! was a good night!

there were numerous talks on this week all for different things and you can choose which ones you want to go to. on the tuesday, i went to the study abroad talk and then the free BBQ! Although it was a cold day, was nice to meet everyone and have a ’snag on the barbie!’. that day i set up a bank account with Bank SA, and also bought a prepaid phone from vodafone. its only 11p to text home so was happy with that. bought a tv aswell, only £30 from a cash convertors and works great, its not neccessary to buy one but i couldnt live without it for a year! that evening i was tucked up in bed ready to sleep (at 9pm – i was tiredddd!!) and got a knock on our door to ask if we wanted to go to a party at one of the apartments.. so we decided to go and ended up having a few too many beers!

on the wednesday, we went into the adelaide hills to see a bit of adelaide before uni starts. we went to cleland wildlife park and then to mt lofty summit. both places i definately recommend going! got to see and feed kangaroos and koalas! felt like such a child because i was so excited… especially when i saw the roo’s in the pouches! lol mt lofty summit looked over the whole of adelaide and was such a sunny day so was lovely to see. to get from the wildlife park to the summit we had to trek up a hill. took about 45mins and was well worth it. 

on the thurs, we went on an uni organised trip. it was to victor harbour which was south of adelaide. took about 90mins to get there but was such a lovely trip. we stoped at a wildlife park on the way and although was my second day of wildlife parks, i was still as excited! saw some wombats, dingoes and croc’s aswell this time. victor harboour was lovely aswell. you could either take a horse drawn tram over to granite island or just walk. we were all convinced we saw a whale aswell.. but could very well just have been a rock.

(sorry this is so long.. but had such a packed week!) on the thurs nite we went to a party at an apartment in the village and then went onto a club, was a really good night as there were lots of us out!

think i may be the only scottish person here.. so ill try my best to make a good impression! has been a good laugh though trying to get the ozzies and americans here to try and speak scottish!

the only thing ive still gotta write is quite important and will be beneficial for you to be aware of if you come to this uni! the uni give you 500mb of internet quota per semester. so heres me thinking that this only applies to downloads of files, photos,videos etc. actually it applies to every visit you make to a non-uni website! so for me to access this website, or hotmail, or facebook you use part of your quota. so when i arrived on friday, since i was unaware of this fact and i was accessing all these pages i was using the quota! so much so infact that i used the whole uni quota of 500mb in 4 days… oops! i couldnt believe it! there is a site you can check your usage, but as its only updated once a week, i couldnt see my usage until it was too late! i was so mad because unless i buy more quota i cant access any other sites on campus except my uni email and access adelaide (same as moodle).

as far as usage here in my room, i paid for a service that gives me pretty much unlimited usage for 4 months for £90. really quite pricy but its the only way to do it unless you get a internet that you can use between all your townhouse/apartment mates. such a contrast to home where you get unlimited internet in halls and at uni! so worth thinking about when you get here to sort out something so you can keep your quota for just being at uni.

anyhoo ive blabbed on enough, will write soon!

p.s its my birthday in a week! yehh! xx

Hi everyone,

so i arrived yesterday and man am i tired! cant quite sort out my sleeping yet, woke up at half 5 this morning and 5 hrs later, i cant get back to sleep! I arrived about 7am yesterday and my fear of going through customs (ive heard its really strict here) wasnt needed, went through with ease and then must have looked quite trustworthy as my bags didnt need to get scanned

i was met by a representative of the university along with a few other students, was thinking we’d probably get a mini bus back to the city and drop us all off but instead i was handed a taxi coupon and got in the taxi myself! it was alright to be honest, got a nice chatty taxi driver and was about a 10mins drive to the Village, the uni accomodation where ill be calling home for the next 12 months.

When i arrived i had to sit in the reception area for about an hour until the staff started so i could get checked in. The reception area was also a common area with a projected TV and sofas, x-box, and computer room so all seems really nice and modern. i checked in and was told my room wasnt going to be ready until 2pm, grrrr i just wanted to get in and sleep! they said if i wanted i could stay in the common room or they’d keep my bags and i could walk into the city. it was about 9am at this point and thought id walk in and see what it was like. Leaving the accomodation which was a really modern building and walking towards central market was like walking back in time! all the buildings seemed really old fashioned, not neccessarily in a bad sense but really did give the place character.

when i came back to the accomodation, about 10am, i was told they did my room first so i could check in early!  i checked in and was told by one of the staff id get my room inspection 2 days later. i was also told to write down EVERY mark, even the small ones as they can be strict when it comes to the end of the year and might withhold your depoist, suppose thats expected from any uni halls tbh.

i was shown to my townhouse, and first impressions.. i like it! i suppose thats a good thing as i will be living here for a longtime.. my room is the biggest out the 5 in the townhouse and im on the ground floor. the living and kitchen area is 2 floors up though! my mum will be glad im getting some exercise here! on the top floor there is a roof terrace overlooking the city so is good too.

i settled in and met my flatmates. at the moment, there are only 2 other girls here as 2 of the chinese students are back in china for the winter break. they did leave a sweet note saying sorry they werent here to welcome us but they will see us soon, really thoughtful. the other two girls here are very nice and last night i went with one of them to grouger street looking for somewhere for dinner. the whole street is just restaurants! american, chinese, malasysian,indian, italian… we settled for italian and had a good meal. that night we got some shopping at one of the supermarkets. seems that its quite expensive here, i expected it to be the same as home or maybe even cheaper but looks like it could actually be dearer. think i might look for a job here, if not just for the money but i think it’ll be a good way to meet people.

going out today.. in the rain and cold.. yes it may be oz but it is winter here!  going to get a international calling card so i can call home, hear its the best way to call home as the phone in my room in about 50p per minute.

anyways…ill write soon.. got a few things im sure i can write about in a weeks time after the o’week (equivalent of freshers week) and then its my birthday!  still not seen any hot aussies yet.. theres time for that yet

now its only 20days to go.. im so excited! when i arrive out there its their winter but as they have BBQ’s organised for the orientation week, im guessing it cant be that cold! all i have to get organised is my enrolment, so once i get into sorting that ill let you know how easy.. or not the process is! x

Hi everyone, well this is my new weblog, i like it!

only 41days to go.. not that im counting The University of Adelaide better brace themselves for their first Glaswegian!