Submitted by Briana Lamet on the 2016 winter session program in Australia sponsored by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Mathematical Sciences…
I opted to fly to Australia without the rest of my study abroad group and arrive in Melbourne a day ahead of the professors and the majority of students. After 30+ hours of travel to get to my hotel, I was more than a little frazzled. Since my phone is new, I wasn’t able to purchase an Australian sim card to use while I am away so my access to communication is strictly WiFi-based. The hotel I was staying in for the first night here looked abandoned and had few accommodations. They did not have WiFi, they barely even had a receptionist! Immediately, I was flooded with panic. How could I rendezvous with the rest of the group in the morning if I couldn’t text them? What if I got lost and didn’t make it to the College we were supposed to be staying? Then I was flooded with regret. Why did I fly so far away from home? Why did I spend so much money to get here? What if I hate it? What if I feel this way all month? So, I wandered the inner city in search of a café that would have free WiFi so that I could text my Dad and professors about my distress, not thinking that the professors were on a plane headed in my direction and the 16-hour time difference from back home meant my Dad was likely to be asleep. A I was walking around downtown Melbourne, I told myself it looked similar to downtown Philly or New York City, except a lot cleaner with a lot more interesting architecture. I found WiFi, mapped the morning’s rendezvous location in my phone, and went back to the dodgy hotel to try to sleep off all my anxiety.
In the morning, I was able to get in contact with the group and was finally moved into the dorm room that would be my home for the next month. The accommodations in the dorms were so much nicer than anything I was expecting that my worries started to melt away. Immediately, I found a couple of friends in the study abroad group to be my adventure buddies and we haven’t spent an idle minute in the city since. We are always looking for things to do and to see so that we can soak up as much of Melbourne as we can before heading back to “The States” (what the Aussies call the U.S.). I am now having such an amazing time exploring that I feel silly for having so many doubts in the first place. I guess that just goes to show you how much of a difference traveling with friends and being brave enough to explore can make.