when i login, it shows a blue "connecting" bar down the bottom, and when it finishes, it says "cannot connect to server please try again later"

are the servers down or something?

this is my first time logging in btw

I will try to connect to make sure, what server? and which country?

i think its the EU server, and i'm in australia.

Crap, I can't go on there

do i have to re-download to get the us server?
because it didn't even give me an option when i dl'd.

I am really honestly not sure, but to download the North American client, you would want to go to www.cabal.com

i downloaded from www.cabalonline.com i guess thats why i got the eu one.

Yep.