I made it!

Wow, what an adventure so far. Let us begin with the plane rides. Over 21 hours of flight time, plus 8 or 9 hours of layover time. After leaving Derry a little after 8 on Wednesday morning EST, I arrived in Sydney at about 8 am on Friday morning, local time. The lady sitting next to me on my first flight to Chicago had her tomato juice spilled on her, which is all she talked about (complained about) for the rest of the trip... well, that and the life story of her first prize grand daughters. Flying to San Fransisco wasn't bad either. I got to watch 'Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who' which was pretty funny. Next came the big 14 and a half hour flight to Sydney. We got delayed a little, and didn't leave California until a little after midnight, local time. Luckily my flight was no where near packed full. In fact, I was in a side isle seat, and both seats next to me were empty... which meant I could actually lay down and stretch out a little. That made the flight much more bearable. On this flight I watched 'The Bucket List', which was not nearly as good as I had been hoping. Two airline meals later... We touched down in Sydney!
When I arrived at the airport, I quickly picked up my bags, which both made it thankfully, and easily moved through customs. Peter, my mentor, was waiting for me just like we had set up. We jumped in his car and he first off brought me to the place that I'm staying. I dropped off my bags and took a quick shower. One of the first thing Peter and I talked about were accents, and how they can be greatly stereotyped on tv and in movies. For instance, apparently the phrase "G'day mate!" is not something that Australians actually say. Bummer, I was looking forward to that, haha. After this, Peter and I went in to the University to Peter's office. A very short car ride, this trip is also only about a 15 minute walk from where I am staying. After meeting a bunch of the other professors and a few students, I started feeling very welcome here. We then went down to one of the music department equipment rooms to pick out a violin for me to use while I am here, and it turns out to be a decent instrument. After buying me some lunch, Peter then took me out shopping to get some of the things I will need to get started here, for instance: my air mattress, and my power adapter to plug my laptop in. It's really funny seeing stores here that are very similar to stores in the US, but with different names. For example, we got my air mattress in a store called 'The Big W.' If I hadn't seen the sign coming in, I would have believed it was WalMart. The price markers, signs, even the setup were all nearly identical to those in Walmart.
After this shopping, we went back to Peters home, where we had some tea and chatted a bit about the sort of things that he is currently researching. It appears that I am going to get even more than I bargained for in this project. When I originally came up with the idea for what I wanted to study, it was a result of my realization that UNH does not have any courses in world musics, but instead we are taught only about Western music. I think this is a major flaw in the program, as there are so many other ways to think about music. As a result, I chose to study Aboriginal music here in Australia. As it turns out, on top of Peter's research and extensive writing on Aboriginal music, he is also very involved in researching Balinese music. He even gave me my first lesson on a Balinese gamelan. On top of this, while I was at the University earlier I got to hear Peter and a few other professors playing some music on a set of split log drums from Papua New Guinea, (I can't remember the actual name of the drums.) After a little while, Peter brought me back to my place. Here we said goodbye for the weekend, and I won't see him again until Monday... Hopefully my first weekend goes well. I went out for a little walk to acquaint myself with my immediate neighborhood, and grab some dinner. I got some tasty Thai food at a noodle bar down the street called Wok on Inn. I was very tired after so much traveling, and the jetlag finally got to me... bed time.
As Saturday morning came, I had my room mate, Joey, show me where the closest grocery store is. We went for a little walk, and he showed me both where the grocery store and the laundromat are. Both very close. I did a lot of exploring today, and a lot of walking. Hyde Park, which is right next to my place, is very beautiful. As are the Royal Botanical Gardens. There is a sign in the Botanical Gardens which says 'Please Walk on the Grass. We also invite you to smell the roses, hug the trees, talk to the birds, and picnic on the lawns.' Awesome! From here, I took the ferry over to Manly to do some more exploring and window shopping. I spent a good portion of today going into a bunch of different shops and trying out many didgeridoos. Peter and I talked a bit about this yesterday, and decided that I should really shop around before I actually buy one. There are tons of stores that sell them around here, though many are more for tourist-y people than for people who are interested in seriously playing them. Therefore I need to find a place that has nice, musical didgeridoos. I found a few, now I'll just wait until next week and have Peter come back with me to get his opinion as well.
The weather has been beautiful. Although it is winter here and we are coming up to the shortest day of the year, it is still quite nice out. Probably in the 60's somewhere. I've been wearing long pants and a t-shirt with my light jacket, which has been fine, though it does get quite a bit colder at night. Also for the most part it has been very sunny, which is great. Today it did cloud over for a few hours, and even sprinkle a little bit, but not much at all. I think that is all I have to tell you so far, as my project will actually begin Monday morning when I go in to meet Peter in his office at 9 am. I am very excited about getting started, but for now I will leave you with a few pictures:















Flying in to Sydney.




















The building I'm living in. 158 Liverpool St. Darlinghurst















My first Balinese Gamelan lesson.















Exploring Sydney Harbor.