Day Five

Still pretty tired.
I have to admit that over the last few days I have done very little of note. As anyone who has moved to foreign country for a substantial length of time will know, there is plenty to be done. The main two thing I have been trying to sort out are a bank account and a new phone/ cancelling my old UK contract. This is hardly the reverting topics that anyone would want to read about.
However during my discussion with the man at the bank, we got onto the pretty standard conversion of what the hell I am doing here. He looked at me in shock when I said I was studying in Melbourne and that I had had the option to going to other English speaking cities like New York and Toronto. Here I was thinking that I had moved to an amazing city. Well not his book. He was adamant that I had made a mistaken. He did not say so but his faced said it all.  My brief discussion with Adam got my thinking. There are always going to be people in any country that have a negative opinion of where they call home. That is a given. But I have generally not said or heard anything so far in my time in Melbourne that would make me question my decision to come out here. I am only starting to get to know my new home but already I am sold. Whether it be the busy Central Business District or the rather more gentile University area of the City in the district of Carlton, it fascinates me.  
I went for a walk this afternoon around the old Olympic park (below) in the centre of the City.

 I have to admitted I was ignorant to the amount of sporting history that Melbourne has. Hosting the Olympics in 1956 and being the home of Aussie Rules and Cricket in Australia puts it as the clear sporting home of the country. And that is saying something. To be the centre of (perhaps) the most defining aspect of a nation makes a city very special in my eyes. I'm really looking forward to tasting some live Australian sport and seeing if the stories are really true about this country being sporting mad. Hopefully the wait should not be too long. As part of my freshers week at the University of Melbourne I get to take part and go to a game of Aussie Rules. I am so excited.
Ahead I have a quiet weekend and then the real beginning. On Monday I move to the University, first to take part in Melbourne Week, a four day event for new international students. Then next Friday, I moved into a residential college on campus called Janet Clarke Hall which will be my home for my time out here. I don't normally say this but I can't wait for the weekend to be over. I just wan't wait for Monday!