On the plus side the Americans are arriving!!

My room is almost full now, just waiting on the final arrival. So far all my house mates seem pretty cool! There will be 4 freshman (1st years), 1 junior (3rd year) and I think I am considered a senior here even though I am 3rd year. The only downside to being with freshman? they are all under 21 which is the legal drinking age over here.. bummer!! This means we can’t have alcohol in the room :( – oh well, it will probably keep my focused on studies so it may be a blessing in disguise.

Afterwards we decided to check out the gym and ended up wandering into the basketball stadium and I don’t think we were supposed to be in there as they were essentially cleaning and putting it together..

Another day, another mall.. There isn’t really much to mention about this one that makes it different from the others… except this one had a hurricane machine!

Anti-climactic? maybe?… is it just a fan in a tube? sure.. but it was still good because it was a hot day.. so ner! Oh they also sell SJSU merch outside the school which I thought was hella cool (there’s a little North Cali slang for ya’ll!).

I decided to check out the pool with the wolf pack, its a pretty nice setup with a heap of lap lanes, bigger areas for mucking around in and diving boards. While we were throwing the football around we noticed there was a film crew on one side of the pool doing some filming. Next hing we know a lady is asking us if we wanted to be part of a commercial for SJSU being aired on ESPN.. well I wasn’t doing anything so a few of us said  yes..

I now understand why it takes months for movies to be made.. we were there for 5 hours!! I’d say all up we filmed for about 10 minutes max (I’m being generous too). On the plus side we got to check out the facility and workout in the athletes gym, which is reserves for college sports teams only!

If anyone gets ESPN the commercial apparently is supposed to air October 14th @ 7.30pm.. woo! tv debut!

Bye!

On Sunday (USA time) I checked out of my hotel and decided to go and look around the campus before I checked in. The campus is huge and really impressive but as I was walking around something caught my eye…

…Frat houses!! I took a couple of photos but there looked to be some people moving in and I didn’t want to look like toooo much of a tourist.

So later that day I finally moved into my room at San Jose State University. The CVB apartment building where I live is fairly newish and looks impressive from the front, it has a nice common area with a pool table, ping pong, a tv/movie room and a village market that sells food.. Though mostly junk food :(

While waiting in line to check in I made some new friends! Nadia and Ryan who go to the same university as I do back in Australia, Margo who is from Sydney, Anders from Sweden and Marcel from Switzerland. Our wolf pack has begun..

After getting settled into our rooms we ventured out on a bus to get some supplies for our new homes, but first we grabbed a bite to eat at Taco Bell.

So cheap.. They have a $5 box with a huge burrito, 2 good sized tacos and a drink, tempting as that artery clogging meal was I opted for a single burrito and a drink, a “medium” drink…

Oh, and this sign they had at the counter was comforting.

So next comes the shopping. Enter Wallmart. Think Coles, K-Mart, Big W put them all under one roof together, then discount everything. I’m not much of a home goods shopper but this enormous place ate nearly 3 hours of my life. I got a boatload of stuff and it only cost me roughly $160.

After we finally got home I made my bed (yes that’s right mum.. Just because I never did doesn’t mean I didn’t know how :P) and met back up with the gang for a few quiet drinks before bed.

The next morning it was back out to the shops again, Ryan needed to do some shopping and Anders found out that T-Mobile have deals on month to month phone plans. This turned out to be exactly what we all needed, for $60 a month we can all now text international mobiles for free!! As well as the standard local calls, texts and data.. We are in business!! I wish I could remember how I survived without a phone.. Im sure I was far more organized. We also ran into someone from Marcels university named Chris, the wolf pack had grown by one!

Meanwhile back at the campus.. We started to visit the different offices around the campus to get things like student ID cards, library cards and stickers that give us all free public transport. Then it was back out to another shopping centre for some “non-essential” items (read: clothes, shoes) :P

Much like the Wallmart, Westfield shopping centres here are huge and again we spent hours here and would have been lucky to actually get around two thirds of it! I picked myself up a nice pair of cross trainers but not much else, I do have some restraint! Before we left I got myself a pulled pork sub with was amazing!! I will be treating myself to a few more of those during my stay, especially now that I have found a subway on campus :)

To finish off the day before bed I rearranged my room because the furniture was all over the place, and I set up my desk.. it’s nice and clean but I don’t think it’ll be that way for long!

Looks nice from the front, but heres the back :P

Which brings us to today! With all the food we have been eating I made everyone agree to start going to the gym, which everyone did this morning, except me.. unfortunately I slept through my alarm. When I did get up I met up with everyone and we finalized some uni paperwork and headed over to a really nice chinese place for lunch. $5.50 for a nice big meal.

I went over to buy some SJSU branded gym clothes which I have been dying to get my hands on.. $30 for adidas training shirts with SJSU branding? I’m in heaven.. I got the the counter and realized I had 4 shirts in my hand, I ended up putting 2 back.. For now.

We went into downtown to grab a few last minute items, I went to buy some beer but I did not have an ID with my birthdate on it as I had cleaned out my wallet the night before to make room for my SJSU stuff. I almost laughed out loud when the lady serving suggested that one of my friends buy it for me, but thats what happened.. Anders ended up buying my beer for me.. For those of you playing along at home I am 28.. Anders is 22 or 23, I felt like I was doing something wrong buy buying it :P

Here are some random things I took photos of..

The rest of the day was pretty cruisey as we are all a bit exhausted so I am finishing this off and heading to bed.. Orientation day tomorrow.

Squirrels!!

Hello 12pm.. gotta love jet lag.

Today is Tech Museum day! So after a quick video chat with my girlfriend (<3)

There is a robotics section where I got to see a demonstration of the now discontinued Sony Aibo robot dog. I took a video on my phone but the quality was kind of dodgy. I got to surf around on Google earth on a beastly 8 screen panoramic display machine!. You can build your own roller coaster on a computer then ride it in a simulator. There is an earthquake machine which I enjoyed, I can now say that I have survived a 7.6 quake, albeit only a 10-15 second one. There were robotic arms that spelled out my name using blocks, and drew my portrait from a picture!. I cruised around in a hover chair and raced in an olympic wheelchair.

This killed about 4 hours! I was so involved in the exhibits that I didn’t realise how long I had spent in that place.. not that I was complaining.. I think it was a bonafide nerdgasm and I haven’t even been near Google yet!!

One thing I found pretty funny was that, apparently, the Wiggles will be in town soon. I spotted a sign on the way home, maybe I should pop in?. Hmm bugger, that reminds me actually, I forgot to pack vegimite..

By the end of all this my feet were killing me.. I headed back to the hotel to relax and ordered myself some room service, a nice healthy… pizza. It was delicious, don’t judge me.

It’s now midnight and I’m not that tired yet.. I was hoping to have the jetlag kicked today damnit.. oh well :(

Before I get to what I’ve done today you should know that getting to this point has not been easy. I’m a Brisbane boy who had to travel to Sydney to get my student visa. This entails fees fees and more fees. I paid for the visa, the flights, the hotel, hell I even had to pay $14 just to create a login on their website to book my visa interview! This was well into the high hundreds.

Then there is my host uni SJSU, I have to take out special health insurance offered by the uni (on top of regular travel insurance). There is the housing and meal plan, which for me was north of $5k. as well as any associated course specific fees. I had my classes enrolled, then the system dropped them, I re-enrolled only to miss out on one I really wanted to do.

When you add this to the regular travel insurance and flights it can be a very expensive exercise!

Having said that I’m really excited for this experience and I’ll fill you in as I go, but I should get back to today..

Whenever in take holidays I usually feel fairly indifferent until I actually reach the destination and this time was the same, almost.. This trip is not like any I have taken before, I have never travelled for more than a month at a time and never by myself. This time I am on my own.. For 6 months!

Leaving my friends, family and especially my girlfriend got the better of me and saying goodbye this morning was possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The flight was also different this time, usually I can sleep anywhere but I have not managed a single wink. Even though I am currently wrecked and dying to sleep I just can’t. I did get to watch a few movies that i have been wanting to see, and the booze was free so it wasnt a total loss! I’m betting that once I get to my hotel in San Jose though I will just crash.

Which brings us back to now, sitting, waiting for another flight… Not an exciting post I know but what can you expect considering I’ve done nothing but sit down for the past 12+ hours.

More soon..