First Week of Uni

Catching the train to uni on Monday was traumatic. Adelaide definitely has a North / South divide and I'm a southern boy. My comfort zone is a bit shaky on O'Connell street and non-existent at Mawson Lakes.

The outer windows of the Gawler train were smeared with a, hopefully, ersatz viscus liquid that half-hid the industrial wastelands that flashed past mile after mile. It seemed like some sort of prison transportation. Certainly half the passengers, some sipping slyly away on cans of pre-mix bourbon, wouldn't have looked out of place in the big house.

Then the train slid into Mawson Interchange, looming out of the wasteland like the set of a sci-fi movie. I followed half a dozen Asian students up and over the concourse and onto the connecting bus. They all wore sunglasses and had tiny white headphones disappearing into jackets, worn despite the heat. No-one spoke. The bus wound its way through massive construction zones, half shrouded in dust rising from the trucks maneuvering on the open ground, before depositing me, half-relieved and half-freaked, at the uni.