San Fran to My First Half a Day

G'day mates! I'm sitting in the Macquarie library right now. It's pretty sweeeet!

My day in San Francisco was pretty fun. I checked out the Castro district in the morning. Maybe it was the time that I was there, but the Castro was pretty disappointing. The stores were basically aimed at middle-aged (gay) men, with one New Age-ish store, which I mentally referred to as the token lesbian store. The one really cool thing was in a bookstore. I saw under the Queer Studies the book that my Uncle John wrote on the Rainbow Support Group, a group for mentally retarded gay people that he founded. I had to tell the cashier, of course, when I bought a copy of Ms. magazine (so I can keep up on my feminist news!). Since I"m sure I'll go back to San Francisco at some point, I'll make sure to hit up the Castro at night to go clubbing; it would probably more fun then.

I people-watched in Union Square, which was more children-watching, since there were at least a dozen children running around doing crazy things like sword-fighting and chasing pigeons. I then walked up Powell Street to take the streetcar down. I got stuck on the inside, rather than enjoying the view outside, so that was kind of disappointing.

The flight went well; I slept for most of it (though, at 5 PM AU-EST, 1 AM US-EST, I am starting to feel the desire for sleep). The airport transport ride was good; most of the people in there were Americans. We all got our apartments easily and I saw one of the guys, John, later when I was grocery shopping.

We were assigned apartments and a room in the apartment. My apartment has six bedrooms. I have the only one on the first floor; the shower, one of the toliets, and the other five bedrooms are upstairs. The strangest part of my bedroom is the huge whiteboard that takes up the top half of one of my walls. I don't see a real point to it except to write ridiculous messages.

One of my apartmentmates is here already. I noticed evidence of someone else when I walked in and, accustomed to Richmond's single-sex housing, assumed it was another girl. When I got back from shopping, I noticed that the occupied bedroom's door was shut. I knocked and was surprised when a tall blond guy answered. His name is Christian, a 23-year-old business major from Germany. We talked a little bit. When I asked him if he was taking a nap when I knocked, he didn't understand what a nap was.

It's weird being the "international" one here. Every time I open my mouth, I realize that I'm betraying my nationality. My first culture shock was during grocery shopping. Fruit is sold by the kilogram and everything is in litres or mL. Nutrition labels are written differently as well. There's no daily percent values. I had to figure out what was the equivalent of 1% milk (I think it's "lite," since it has more fat than skim but less than whole...).

Well, that's about it. Orientation is Friday, so I have to get some of my schedule figured out before then so that I can ask intelligent questions by then. I love you all!