Arriving in Townsville

My flight took over 8 hours of transit and 4 stopovers. When the propeller machine of Qantas landed on a little red dirt sand strip in the middle of nowhere called ‘Gove’ and a yellow-crested cockatoo flew right beside my window and the security guard at the check-in greeted me with ‘Hey dude’ I finally actually believed that I AM in Australia!


First time setting foot on this continent everything felt quite exciting, however I was a bit anxious about the uncertain next 6 months and also quite sad about leaving Simone and Indonesia behind. Standing like this with my luggage tired and brooding about everything at the airport in Townsville I did not feel quite as excited and thrilled as I expected to be.

However after a short time my jolly English mate Bry picked me up with the car. He showed me around Townsville a little bit and even prepared an awesome dinner for me and my supervisor David at his home the same evening. Thanks a lot again Bry the dinner was deluxe you made my entrée into Townsville and AIMS much easier! I promise I will make up for it with cold beers and some good German Schnitzel and Kartoffelsalat in the near future : )
When I arrived here in Townsville I still had no place to stay. Fortunately my supervisor David offered me to stay at his place, so I moved in with him for the first week.



After that I moved in with two Phd students from Sheffield (England) and Melbourne (Cheers Chris and Matt and not to forget Pauly our Mundingburra swamp tiger!). We live in a typical Queenslander, that’s what the wooden old houses (in Victorian style) that sit on stilts are called here, with a big back yard and a nice little veranda on the front.



I don’t want to bore anyone here with details, and I think everyone who has tried to built up a living in a foreign country without actually knowing many people before arrival, limited budget and especially in a place where everything is so vast and so far apart (without a car) knows what I am talking about. I can just say at this point it wasn’t easier than Miami. But I had even learned quite a fair bit this time Georg and Stefan. No more share with crazy Italians (No personal offence meant here Roberto ; )
Start here wasn’t really easy but I had great help from so many nice people that made it much more convenient for me.

Thanks a lot at that point to everyone David, Bry, Verena, Matt, Chris and all others that helped me out some time, you were awesome.
It is great to have such good mates!