You can say that it all started years ago, ’cause the urge to go study abroad has always been there for both of us. Still, this blog starts today, no less than ten days since we first arrived here in Australia. Why? ‘Cause we’ve been busy, lazy, too social… Call it whatever you want! 
I’d say that our abroad adventure started that cold winter’s day in January when Anette started to send her university applications southeast. International diplomas were sent through Norwegian study abroad-organizations and after some time the offer letters started to appear. I (a.k.a. Charlotte) joined in at the end of February, after a more or less casual comment about Australia seeming quite appealing, and a couple of more applications were sent. When both of us got accepted to the University of Southern Queensland a plan was starting to take form. Come Easter we’d both paid our school deposit money and so we started looking for cheap plane tickets, visas, insurance, study support from the government and last but not least a place to live. We’ve been sorting it all out this summer, while working at the same time. ‘Cause studying abroad is expensive! The visa alone is over 2000 NOK (about 400 AUD)!
But we made it somehow, and Wednesday 8th of July was our departure date. We arrived at Oslo International Airport Gardermoen around 2:30pm, ready for a real adventure. The flight was long and went through London and Singapore. When we finally reached Brisbane it was early Friday morning in Australia. Our train further north didn’t leave until 5pm so we had 7-8 hours to fill. Despite our lack of sleep, we locked up our luggage and headed out into the streets of Brisbane. While enjoying the morning sunshine we found our way through the skyscrapers to pleasant South Bank. Here you can find Griffith University, a big observation wheel (that reminded very much of the one in London) and an artificial but quite nice beach area. We spent our last hours in the city on a patch of grass here.
Anette on the plane to London.
Sunrise on our way from Singapore to Brisbane.
Charlotte in the streets of Brisbane.
Anette in the Brisbane Jungle! x)
The observation wheel at South Bank.
Anette with the "air compass" in the wheel.
The view from the wheel.
A part of the artificial beach on South Bank.
Enjoying the sun at South Bank! 
When the time to leave finally got there, we got on the train to Maryborough. On the train we got three and a half hours of sleep before we arrived in Maryborough and had to change from train to a bus, a bus that was going to take us the last kilometers to idyllically Hervey Bay. When we arrived at our temporarily accommodation, the Next Backpackers Hostel, we took a shower and went to bed at midnight. At that time we had been travelling for 48 hours! We fell asleep swiftly and woke up at around seven the next morning as the German girls we shared room with that night left for Fraser Island. We still felt pretty tired so we laid down to sleep some more. The plan was to get up at around noon, get some food and have a look at our new hometown. But that just didn’t happen. We ended up sleeping for nine more hours, and so we had slept through both the Australian and the Norwegian night. Great! :p At that moment we hadn’t really eaten much in about 26 hours so we were feeling a bit drained. We couldn’t bear more than a meal at Subway and a couple of hours on the internet before we went back to bed around one at night.
Our six bed-room at Next Backpackers.
On Sunday on the other hand, we both woke up at six o’clock in the morning. Jetlag ftw! We got up to a rather hot day that we spent on the wonderful beach of Hervey Bay. The fact that we could lie there wearing just a top and a skirt in the middle of winter without freezing is pretty amazing. ‘Cause that’s what it is here now; winter. And although it’s everything but cold, we can’t wait ’til summer! Brighter evenings, warmer nights, more hours of sun during the day…
Charlotte at the beach on Sunday morning.
We finally got to se Hervey Bay in day lights! 
This is Hervey Bay!
Even more of Hervey Bay!
Here's Anette demonstrating how you get the sand of your beach mattress.
We’re actually gonna stay and study here for a year! A year surrounded by palm trees, bright colored sand, nice small roads and friendly Australians. Not to mention all the young backpackers constantly passing through the bay. We’re looking forward to it!
Anette & Charlotte
