Moving to Townsville

On Wednesday morning we had breakfast, checked out, loaded up the buses and headed for Townsville. At breakfast I managed to spill boiling hot water on my hand then proceeded to spill my entire cup of tea all over myself. This is why I should not be awake at 7am.

Anyway, the bus ride was pretty boring. For two hours we saw nothing but sugarcane, bananas, and mountains. Around noon we stopped at this place that charged an arm and a leg for food. I spent $8 on a small bag of chips and vitamin water and a bag of Skittles cost $6. It was pretty ridiculous. I had these Moroccan spiced chicken and lemon flavored chips. They have some crazy flavors here, but they were actually really good.  

After lunch we got back on the bus for another two hours, but at least this time we got to watch the Princess Bride (best movie ever). Finally we saw the James Cook University sign. We got dropped off at George Roberts Hall, where we will be living for the next 5 months. They gave us our room assignments and we moved in and unpacked.  Our roommates are not here yet, so we have the dorms to ourselves. We went to dinner around 6 and were surprised at how tiny the dining hall is. It's approximately McDonald's, but with different food. The selection is very small, but not too bad and there is this green drink that is pretty good (btw, there are only two drink options: water or green juice).  

That's pretty much it for our first day here in Townsville, nothing too exciting, and we didn't even have internet access to keep us entertained. Now for our shopping adventure as told by Chris.

Before I divulge into this tail, I must add some of my thoughts to some things Emily talked about. Firstly the bus stop place was ridiculous, I've noticed that things are a bit more expensive here, but that does NOT justify charging $6 for skittles, it was so upsetting. For food they had this restaurant style grill serving food with this huge list of food, but no prices anywhere, which was really frustrating. Secondly: Left Cairns, this beautiful tropical city with all these amazing views, and we arrive in Townsville, which looked like we just entered the African savanna. So I was doubting our choice of schools. But I guess its not so bad, except for the internet part, we were just kinda sitting around for two days, until today (Friday). Also when we got into our dorms we didn't pay attention to where the other one was staying, so we just sat around until we found each other at dinner about 4 hours later.

So yesterday we had absolutely nothing to do, and the campus is practically empty, and we couldn't use the internet for another day, so we decided to take a chance and venture into the city to get some things we need. So we get to the bus stop which is right next to our dorms and wait for the bus. Now we were just sitting there, waiting for the bus and a kangaroo hopped by. Yes it actually happens, kangaroos just wander around campus, I didn't believe it when they told us I thought they were joking, but they're for serious. 

As we watched the kangaroo hop away, the bus arrived. This bus was very different from the CATA bus back home. So instead of just paying a straight fare for where ever you're going, you pay depending on where you're going. We were going to Stockland, which was only a couple minutes away, so we had to pay $2.80 per trip, which was kinda dumb but whatever. Unfortunately we had no idea were we were, and we ended up missing our stop altogether and instead we rode the bus all the way into downtown Townsville to the last stop.  Luckily there was a Woolworth's right where we got off, so we weren't wandering around trying to find a store. For those of you that don't know, Woolworth's is kinda like a little Walmart; it's mostly for food, but they also have non food stuff too.

However we didn't end up buying everything we needed. We got shower stuff, like shaving cream and and soap and stuff, but we didn't get converter plugs, although Emily thought she did but it ended up being an expansion plug so you can plug two things into one Australian outlet. I bought some awful headphones and a bottle of air freshener that smells like a used car. But on the bright side we got some delicious cookies and chip, so our trip wasn't too bad. I just wish we didn't have to take a bus into town, and just walk into town like we could in Cairns, but if we were at the Cairns campus we'd have to take a bus anyway. Whatever.