Beaches and Burritos

I promised I wouldn't leave you guys in the dark anymore, but since the last post, not too much has really happened. With school starting, its a lot more work and a lot less play.  My schedule still is not nailed down, but hopefully by the end of this week it'll be set. The whole drop/add process is a bit different here, as well as being an international student, so I can't just drop a class and choose another and pick it up, we have to send in things called e-requests, and only can do one at a time, and I haven't gotten my first one back, so I can't send another one until that happens. But that's the extent of educational news I have to report, nothing too exciting yet.

I've come to realize that our location is actually amazing, having Broadway Shopping Center right across the street, the grocery store and K-Mart are always just steps away.  Which means, as I've come to find, I visit the grocery store a lot, just for a few small things at a time. Now, I really want to explain some things about Australian grocery stores that I've noticed. First of all, the aisles are very wrong, meaning the things that share aisles with each other should not be sharing aisles.  It's weird, like panty hose are across the way from canned soup.  Light bulbs and hair straighteners are across from the refrigerated fruit juices.  Knives live right across from cereal. There are three mini aisles between the produce and the meat devoted to asian food, that can't be read by someone who speaks English.  Oh and the eggs are not kept refrigerated, they just sit there on the shelf next to the olive oil. And those are my observations of the grocery store.

Friday night ended up being a laid back night.  We hadn't come to a conclusion on what we were doing for the night, so I went down and hung out with Scott for awhile, learned about how their surf camp went (great, minus Nate having to get stitches across half his upper eye), then Guido and the IU girls came back from the rugby game they were at. Scott hadn't gone with because Nate had called him earlier in the day to take him to the hospital since blood was now leaking into his eye, so he was with him all day. I decided I was going to go out with this group for the night, but as it turns out, plans with them didn't work out either.  We'd planned to walk over to Nate and Lucas' apartment, which is sick, so nice, and then head to Tank.  But once getting to the guys place, everyone decided they were too lazy to go out, so we just hung out there and chilled for the night.

Saturday we decided to head to the beach since it was 90 out.  But the fact that we insist on traveling in groups the same population as some small rural towns, it takes awhile to get everyone set to go.  On Friday we'd set a goal to be at the beach by noon Saturday, but people weren't even up by then, so I started the wake up call by knocking on everyones doors making them get up.  Two hours later, we were just leaving UniLodge.  The plan was to stop at Sumo Salad on the way to the train station, and I was so excited for it. We get on the train and open up the salad, wrong kind of lettuce. And thus, the downward spiral of my day.  It sadly ruined the rest of my day.  Once we got to the beach, I was still annoyed about my salad and the fact I had to sit with Luke M the whole way there, where he proceeded to show me every picture on his iPod and annoyingly annotate "this is my brother." "this is me eating a corndog" "this is my brothers friend who is an alcoholic" "this is the fourth of july", all while I'm attempting to listen to my iPod.  Luke and I have a relationship unlike any other, pretty much we cannot stand each other, disagree on everything, but at the same time we're still somehow friends.  He strives to annoy me to the point of explosion, and in turn I make fun of him every chance I get.  Everyone in our group calls us the angry bitter divorced couple who fight like it's their job.  And I know what everyone says, you must like each other if you fight so much, this my friends is not the case, ask anyone in our group, they will confirm.  And I'm sure everyone reading this is thinking that I'm being really mean, but we understand our relationship and are perfectly content with it, right Luke? Anyways, we got to the beach and Chuck came to find that calling me princess was his new favorite thing to do.  Now, he calls me princess the same way my dad calls me princess, neither of them actually meaning I'm a princess.  "Is this spot on the beach ok with you princess? Can we get you anything princess? What can we do to make YOU happy princess?"  I suppose I deserved it, I was in a pretty foul mood. I did call my dad to tell him that Chuck had adopted his nickname for me though. He got a good laugh.  But when I got in the water, I did cheer up a bit.  The waves were insane, and I actually finally ventured out into them, and had a blast.  I did get taken under a few times, once really bad and cut up my knee pretty bad in the sand.  Emily proceeded to tell me I looked like ridiculous as it was happening, which I'm sure was quite sure. After long enough I had to give up, the bathing suit was having some trouble staying on as the waves progressively got bigger, and though Bondi is a topless beach, I wasn't quite ready to join in with that crowd.  I've been wearing SPF30 since I got here, but now I feel like I'm not getting color, so I'm going to need to downgrade to 15, though they're hardcore about skin cancer here, so I haven't seen anything less than 30, I'll have to have my mom bring me some when she comes.   Since we didn't get there until 3, we stuck around until about 7:30, being one of the last groups on the beach, then headed home.  The night ended up being pretty scatterbrained, with people not being able to get into bars for being too drunk (which would never happen in America, money is money, they could care less about the well-being of people), ending up in bars in which we were the only white people, and losing people along the way.  It ended up being a mediocre night at best, but I suppose any night in Sydney is a better night than most :)

This morning when I woke up I turned on tv, and as I've mentioned previously, there isn't much on the five channels that come thru.  Though they are completely obsessed with The Biggest Loser, it is seriously on every night of the week! But anyways, this morning an old Elvis movie was on, and Mrs. Sargent always used to tell me that I needed to watch the Elvis movies,  and I never had, so I left it on, and it was actually really funny.  When we all gathered a bit later, Chuck mentioned he was watching it too, so I turned it on in Julia's room when I went to pick her up, and we came to understand why all the women would have gone crazy for the guy, Elvis was hot! Later,  Emily, the Lukes, Chuck and I took a walk down King St. to get lunch at a place that I discovered earlier in the week. The place is called Guzman y Gomez...the Aussie version of Chipotle.  When we were walking down the street and I finally saw the sign, it was like a beacon of hope!  One month. It had been one month today since I had a Chipotle burrito, and I was on the verge of a breakdown, so the fact that I got a burrito today...heaven.  They weren't Chipotle, they were very good.  White rice and all. The walk to the place is a good haul though, so the fact that we had to walk there and back to get it made me feel a little better.  But now that I know it's there, it'll be tough to stay away.  The goal is not to return until Leslie gets here in two weeks. We'll see how that goes.  Once we walked back we went across the street and bought a DVD player and got Blockbuster memberships.  We rented season one of Summer Heights High, a series that was on HBO or Shotime about a public school in Australia, sort of like a mockumentary.  I hadn't ever watched it, but a couple of guys from home were talking about how funny it was before I left, and some of the guys here love it too. Well, to go along with our day of doing nothing, we watched the entire season, which technically isn't a full season, just 8 episodes, but that's still pretty bad. We then decided we should do something with our lives, so we went to Broadway for pizza...very original, I know. Then we came back and sat around and did more of nothing, oh Sunday nights of a college student.  

Emily and I realized we hadn't gone to mass while walking to Broadway, so since I don't have class until 5 on Monday, I'm going to go tomorrow. We're also joining the gym tomorrow.  For lent I decided that I'm going to work out at least four times a week, and I've given up chips and cookies. I was going to do bread, but for lack of an actual kitchen, meals here are mostly soup or sandwiches if you want to stay within a budget that isn't going to bankrupt you.  So I realized that wouldn't be a good idea. Plus I read somewhere bread is part of that food pyramid, and on the bottom, which I heard means you need the most of...?  I couldn't possibly go against the Food Pyramid! And Emily and I have also decided that we're giving up swearing.  And if we slip up, it's 15 extra crunches at the gym for each time. And considering the fact we're with each other 23 hours of a 24 hour day, it shouldn't be difficult to keep tabs on each other. Chuck suggested we wear rubber bands on our wrists and every time we slip up one of the guys gets to snap them, we vetoed that idea quick.  

So here's a fun fact. In the past three weeks, there have been three shark attacks at various Sydney beaches, one just yesterday morning, at Avalon Beach.  The one I mentioned at Bondi, and then a day before that one, a Navy diver in Sydney Harbor.  This latest one was a 15 year old boy, but his father, who was out surfing with him and was a senior patrol captain for the surf club at Avalon, was able to rescue him and got him to the shore safely, or as safely as you can be after your thigh has been chomped on. Good thing I haven't learned to surf...yet. And cue Jaws music.

On a lighter note, I'm moving.  I'm not sure if I've complained much on my blog about the size of my room, but it's tiny. Really tiny.  All the AL students were put in small studios with AirCon.  Mine would probably be considered a super small studio.  Everyone in my group has larger rooms than me, substantially larger.  My laundry basket literally sits in the middle of my room because it's the only place for it.  I'm in a corner room, which is why it is smaller, but the fact that I'm paying the same amount as everyone else, I came to the conclusion this was no longer going to work for me. So I went down and spoke with the woman in charge, and she proceeded to tell me all small studios are the same size. I, in turn, told her she was wrong. She apologized and explained they had no other rooms available for me. I, in turn, told her my parents would be arriving shortly, and she'd really rather deal with me than them. She then magically had rooms available.  She offered me the room next to mine, another corner room, which was the same size, I graciously turned it down. She then offered me a large studio, but explained small studios are the only rooms in the complex with AirCon, I again declined.  After being in Jenny and Caroline's room and Guido and Scott's rooms I've come to find rooms without A/C are living hell.  She then told me there would be small studios available on the 13th of March and I could move in then, so that is the plan.  It's on the 4th floor though, but directly above Luke's room, so not a far walk from the lifts.  But on the upside, at least I'll get to be neighbors with Night Stalker now! Can't wait.  Leslie and Smat get in that day, I'm sure they'll be so excited to help me move as a welcome to Sydney first activity!  Sorry guys!

Ok bedtime. and by that I mean I'm going to watch a few episodes of Entourage season 2.  I wanted to rent Nip/Tuck season 2, but someone had checked it out earlier today, I was not happy about that, not one bit. But they have to return it at some point I suppose.  The plan is to get up early, go to the library to do some homework, church, maybe lay out at Victoria Park and read, then class 5-8. 

Last note, Oporto fries are out of this world. That is all.

Return of The Night Stalker!

School has started. Before this week, we've pretty much been on the most extended vacation of my life, not having been in school since December 11th, it was tough having to get back to the grind.  I had my first class Monday night, and though it was interesting, I'm not quite sure I want to continue in it.  For one, the teacher absolutely does not know what she's doing, and has problems explaining things so that the class understands.  Secondly, it's Textiles: Print, which is not printmaking, but rather printing on fabric.  And the entire class is about florals, so I feel like it is much more fashion oriented.  I've looked into it, and only taking three classes while over here (a normal course load in Aus, because each class is 6 credits rather than 3) I'll still be able to finish up at Columbia on time. So I'm still thinking about doing that.  My class on Tuesday is Aesthetics of Industrial Design, which I think is going to be really interesting.  We already have our first project, which is researching the development of a particular product over time, not in terms of functions, but rather design and style, and why it has changed; whether it be technology, demand, etc.  We're working in pairs, and my partner is a guy named Nick, who is a mech. engineer at Cornell.  We decided to be partners because he lives in UniLodge as well, and would make it much easier to coordinate working together, considering a lot of the people in the class commute to school everyday, some as far as an hour away. Anyways, we pulled our product and got Decor Kitchen Accessories, neither of us knew what this was.  Our professor explained to us that it's like Tupperware, "but a much better version!"  We started doing some research, and couldn't find too much back info on containers and all that, but did find a lot of information about a BYO Wine Chiller. Sidenote, they use BYO a lot here, a lot of people were shocked that you could bring your own drinks into restaurants here, but I didn't find it too crazy since there are actually a lot of BYO restaurants in Chicago nowadays.  So the plan is to do the research and project using soley the wine chiller. Should be fun.  I have two more classes, one Thursday and one Friday. 

Today is Ash Wednesday, so Emily and I are planning on going to get ashes later on at St. Mary's.  I think that maybe a couple other people are coming with us as well.  I'm still debating what I'm giving up for lent.  Emily and I had a plan to rather than give something up, try something new everyday, so that might be an idea.  But I'll figure it out by the end of the day obviously.

So now let me explain the madness that happened last night.  I think I've mentioned before someone I like to refer to as The Night Stalker.  Well, he's back.  We were getting ready to go out to Scruffy's last night (after Broadway Cafe, obviously. I may give up pizza actually!) and the Night Stalker decided to make another appearance.  I can't recall if I explained this man to you, but I'm going to do it again to refresh. He is HUGE, with a bald head and a weird patch of hair on the back of his head, and tattoos all up and down his massive arms.  Pretty much he is the epitome of intimidating.  Since the first time he scared the crap out of all of us, we've been keeping the door to whatever room we're in closed.  Apparently he doesn't care. Last night he decided to come down with a baseball bat, and slam it on the frame of the door and then proceeded to swing it around at Luke, not actually hitting him, but most definitely threatening him.  He then went back up to the fourth floor and got into a screaming fight with Luke, telling him he was some exorbitant amount of  of kilos of raw testosterone.  It's clear the guy is not in the right mental state. Oh and I believe he also told them he was 37 years old, living in student housing? He accused Luke of being loud in "his" country...just madness.  Luke had called the police right after it happened, but they were not showing up, so I decided this was not ok, and went down to find security, who really did not do much, I just explained to him what was happening, and he wrote it all down. He told me he knew the guy that I was referring to, and that they'd had previous problems with him.  He later revealed (under confidentiality...) that this guy was a tenant/owner, in other words, they really couldn't do much about him until they had something on him.  I pointed out that threatening people with a baseball bat could be thrown into this category, and he agreed but didn't do much.  Though I'm sure that as soon as my mother reads this she'll make sure that something happens...  The police ended up never showing up, or maybe they did, but we decided to go out since we didn't feel like staying at UniLodge with the crazy, and the security guard told us they probably wouldn't show up, or if they did, it wouldn't be for hours.  And at this point it was already 12:30, so we just wanted to have a good time. Took a cab to Scruffy's, and came in contact with our first cab driver who knew where he was going, and he drove fast! Perfect guy, Julia even tipped him even though tipping is not customary in Australia. The Gumal girls had dipped out of UniLodge as all the madness was happening, so we ran into them there, but then lost them again. We also ran into Steven and Ameet, who were just arriving as well, and so we hung out with them for awhile. Once we'd had enough we decided to mosey on home, and ran into two really nice guys from Ireland who we talked to for awhile. Then stopped at the only place that was open at that hour, McDonalds, which I honestly do not like, but ate anyways because I was hungry. Moral of the night, don't piss off Night Stalker! 

Since I don't have class today, the plan is to do some laundry and clean up my room.  I have a doctors appointment later today too because I've been sick for awhile and it doesn't seem to be getting much better, and I'm tired of sounding like a raspy old grandpa.  I'm planning on finishing up a website that I was working on as well, and then going to church.  The plan is to take it easy for the next few weeks, hopefully that will get me feeling better. Welp, time to clean the room! 

Oh and just to put everyone at ease, a surfer was attacked by a shark at Bondi earlier this week...I suppose I'll be staying out of the water on future trips?  I think he was really far out though, so could be his own fault...

Cheers

Design is a SEXY profession.

First, let me explain the title of this blog. This was a direct quote from the chair of the Design department. Love it.

Sorry it’s been awhile since my last update, but the weather has finally decided to be
nice, and the sun has been shining and the air has been hot, for the most part.

Monday 2/16- we decided that since it was finally sunny and hot we’d go back to Bondi for another serving of skin cancer. But once we’d all gotten ready to go and reconvened to leave, it was pouring out, go figure. So plan B was we walk over to Gumal and use the free wireless on the rooftop, which is partially inside, so no, we didn’t sit in the rain with our pretty laptops, I’d never do such a thing to my Apple. After sitting up on the roof for hours, and once it decided to finally stop down pouring, a few of us took a walk to Chinatown to get some dinner. Luke M and Chuck decided they “totally knew where they were going” but I’m pretty sure we ended up taking the most roundabout way possible. But it was actually nice out so I enjoyed getting to see more of the city. We couldn’t really decide on somewhere, so we ended up going into a Chinese mall and eating in their food court. I felt like every single “restaurant” in the food court was serving the same thing, and the menus up on the wall were literally just pictures upon pictures of bowls of different Chinese food that looked the exact same to someone like me who didn’t know what she was looking for. So I settled on a Make You Own Noodle Meal at one of the places, which ended up not even being too good. Bummer. While we were leaving Chinatown, we noticed an Asian guy across the street wearing nothing but boxer shorts, sitting on a milk crate, pretending to fish. He was literally doing all the motions of casting and reeling and everything. Pretty weird. Then three guys came up to him to take a picture with him, and he FREAKED out. He started swinging and kicking the guy and so his friends came to his rescue, which turned out to be not much help, with the imaginary fisherman ripping one of the guys shirts completely off, and shortly thereafter throwing his bag into the street, in turn scattering his millions of papers across the whole street. Meanwhile, everyone around has stopped to watch, a security guard was actually standing right next to us, watching as well, doing nothing. So there’s a taste of your safety in this county. Kidding, I’m not sure what he was security for, but it just seemed funny. Then finally after being jacked in the face and pushed onto the pavement, the fisherman got back up, walked over to his crate, sat down, and casted his invisible line back into the street.
Once we returned we got ready and went out to Scubar. Once in there, I came to the conclusion that I really am not a fan of this bar. It’s fun, but incredibly too small and crowded, making it smell like a runner’s armpit
And while I’m on the subject, I’ve come to find that people in Australia really stink. Honestly, back in Chicago I’ll walk by a homeless person and their stench will make me flinch, but I understand because, well, they’re homeless. But here, it seems like A LOT more people stink, badly. And they are in fact, NOT homeless, so I’m not quite sure what the deal with that is, but if they’re alright with their terrible B.O., I’m not going to bring it up to them, they seem content enough. 
Anyways, back at Scu, we all sort of spread out since there really is hardly enough room for us to all stand together. You get bumped into and spilled on every 20 seconds it seems too, really fun. Tessa and I spun the shot wheel, which landed on Brain Hemorrhage, which freaked me out! But turned out to be a great shot with Bailey’s and butterscotch flavored vodka and grenadine. Yum. Emily and Kelli showed up later, which was awesome because I hadn’t seen them since I left Mizzou after my first semester. I hung out with them for awhile, met some guys from Boston and Chicago, and we were dancing with them for awhile, then out of nowhere a guy stepped in front of me and jacked the guy next to me in the face! The bouncers had to break it up and pull them upstairs, this was the first bar fight I’d seen in Sydney, but the second fight of the day, hardly seems like an acceptable ratio. After this I decided I was ready for bed, so a couple of us walked home to UniLodge and called it a night.

Cool picture of Scubar sign behind the bar.

Tuesday 2/17- Still not your typical Sydney sunshiney day. There was a BBQ lunch at school at the tower building, but I’d just eaten before we all went, so I didn’t have anything to eat. But even if I hadn’t eaten I don’t believe it would have mattered, the food did not look good. Oh and sidenote, they don’t believe in buns for meat here. No hotdog buns, no brat buns, no real burger buns, they pretty much just use good old sliced bread and stick the meat in between. Later I think the whole crew ended up going to Broadway for pizza and drinks. Later thereafter I got some sad news about a childhood friend who had recently passed on due to an overdose, but I figured being out with friends would be better for me than staying in alone. RIP Johnny. Tuesday’s in Sydney means you go to Scruffy Murphy’s. So we all made our way down George St in the light drizzle, and got in without any waiting, always an exciting time in Sydney. The place was PACKED. It’s three levels, I didn’t go upstairs, but the main floor had a dance floor and live music playing some pretty solid classic rock, American obviously, progressively getting louder as the night wore on, until I was partially deaf upon leaving. Funny thing about the music they play here, it’s 95% American, and its 95% from the early 90’s. Apparently they’re two decades behind, but it’s actually kinda fun to hear them playing Backstreets Back and seeing the Aussies belting out Sweet Home Alabama. The basement seemed kind of what I would assume a bad rave would look like. Blacklights and weird grafitti wirting on the bare cement walls, but large projection screens projecting music videos. The amount of sweat dripping off the people down here from the all the dancing could have put the Dead Sea to shame. I stayed upstairs for the most part, and was having somewhat of a hard time having a good time after the news I’d received earlier, but some of my friends swooped in to the rescue and helped me out. Then later on in the night I was talking to Emily and Luke V and someone jumped on me from behind, and I turned around and it was one of my best friends from home, Erin. I was so happy to see an actual familiar face, once I’d known since Kindergarten, especially tonight. We attempted to catch up, but like I mentioned, the deafening tones weren’t helping the cause, so we decided to get together the next day. 

Meebs united in Oz, Erin & myself at Scruffy Murphy's.

Once we decided to leave since one of the IU boys was kicked out multiple times for being too drunk, some people tried to go to another bar, but Guido, Scott and I just grabbed a cab home.

 Now let me try and explain my frustration with this subject. Cab drivers in America for the most part know where to take you when you give them your destination. Sometimes an intersection is necessary, but they can get you there. Here, you get in a cab, tell the cabbie, “UniLodge”, and they look at you like bugs are crawling out of your eyes. “Uh, its on the corner of Bay and Broadway?” Bugs are still crawling apparently. “Um…Broadway? You know, the street we’re on now, George, it turns into Broadway, take it south?” Blank stares. “Across from the Broadway Shopping Center?” Finally something they recognize. It’s seriously madness. And it isn’t like America where the cab drivers don’t speak great English, these drivers are all Aussies, so it isn’t as if there is a language barrier here, they just honestly don’t know where anything in their town is! Very weird. I’ve attempted to stay away from taking cabs for this reason, along with it makes you seem touristy, and they charge by time rather than distance, which pretty much means they’ll be taking my first born child at some point in return for payment. Once we’d directed the cab home, we made delicious paninis for the late night then they went down to their room and I went to bed.

Wednesday 2/18- This morning I woke up and took a jog over to University Village, where Erin is living. We caught up on our lives over the past two and a half weeks that we hadn’t seen each other in. We then walked back to my place so Erin could get in touch with the rest of the world, since she didn’t have internet or a phone. We then went to the mall and she got herself a cell phone. Good work Erin, you are now back to being part of society! She then went home to catch up with her friends to go to the beach, and I met up with the girls at the mall. We grabbed something to eat in the food court (Sumo Salad for me, load on the capsicum please!) then went back to get ready for our UTS hosted International Student Cocktail Party in the Great Hall in the tower building. We got there and saw that there were tables with lines of champagne flutes, glasses of red and white wine, and bottles of different beer. Oh and did I mention it was all free? And provided by my educational institution? Yep, that’s Australia for you. So we all drank for free for two hours and mingled with other international students. We met a group of four girls who are really fun, they go to University of Ottawa. 

Once the cocktail party was over we all jumped on buses that took us up to The Rocks, the historic district of the city, for a pub crawl. The Rocks is just a short walk from the Circular Quay, which is near the Opera House and the bridge. I don’t recall the name of the first bar because it was German and some unpronounceable name. But we got free food the whole time we were there, which was wonderful, again. But after being there from 7-10, I’d had enough of this bar, so Christina and I decided to round up the our group and head to the next bar on our own, The Argyle, which was literally right next door. This was a much more posh establishment, with a red carpet layed over the cobblestone to the entrance, and really awesome lighting when you walk in. The foundation was made of wood, and it was just a really neat looking place, bathrooms especially! But at the time we were there, it was a much older crowd, so Christina and I decided to check out Sidebar, where a bunch of our other friends who didn’t go to UTS were planning on going. I asked a guy I met if we could walk to Sidebar and he said definitely not. We did . Three miles later we get to Sidebar only to find the line down the entire city block, so just kept on walking and went to LandsDowne for awhile before I attempted to call it a night. But once in my room, Guido and Scott decide to drunkenly come in and eat all my food, so I insisted we go back to their room, so they could drunkenly eat their OWN food. Guido went to bed and Scott and I played the TV Theme Song game and listened to music for two hours before his hiccups annoyed me enough to go back to my room and go to bed for real this time.

Free champagne, beer and wine...at school, paid for by the school?

The girls, plus a few new ones...?

Awesome lighting at the entrance to The Argyle

 

 Mad cool sinks in the M/W bathroom, that thing in the back is a urinal!

Thursday 2/19- Once everyone woke up we decided that it was b-e-a-utiful out, finally, so we all headed to Bondi. It took awhile to get everyone rounded up since the entire crew wanted to go, so we vetoed Luke M’s formidable desire to go to Manly. But Bondi ended up being great! The sun was out the entire time, except for a short while when I was positive we were going to get dumped on, but the cloud passed over and we were left graciously dry. Once arriving and setting up my massive beach blanket, lathering up in 30 SPF and settling in with the new Fray album on my ipod, I was ready to tan. After just a bit I sat up and saw the IU crew of boys set up just a few feet from us. The waves were out of control, and the beach patrol had to announce some warnings throughout the day about strong currents and such. The water was thankfully not as frigid as the first time I was here, and so playing in the waves was much more enjoyable this time, minus the salt water…but you already know my feelings on that. Though while in the water, I did run into Evan, who was with Jenny and Caroline somewhere else on the beach. And later, Liz was attempting to find the Canadian girls we’d met, since she found out they were there as well, and as it turns out, after Liz went on a 45 minute walk of the beach to find them, they were 10 feet in the other direction of us. Seems like everyone had the same idea since it was so awesome out.

A cool shot of Bondi Beach, looooove it.

 After breaking up into smaller groups to eat and shop and such we all headed back on our own, Christina and I came back together, then went home to shower and met back up at Broadway for dinner. I think I’m going to make an official tally of how many times I eat here, because the number already seems quite outrageous, but let’s get serious, it doesn’t get much better than $5 gourmet pizza…does it?

This is written right outside Broadway Cafe.

 On my way over, I was getting in the elevator and there was a guy standing there and asked me if I went to Miami, realizing I was wearing a Miami of Ohio hockey t-shirt, he followed with, “because I go to the REAL Miami.” He explained how in Florida they didn’t really see to many Miami Ohio shirts. The Gumal girls decided they wanted to bake cookies, but I wasn’t really in the mood, so I decided to go to a party at USYD with Evan, Guido, Jenny and Caroline, as well as Stephen (REAL Miami boy) and his roommate Ameet. It was at USYD’s union bar (apparently all the student unions here are filled with bars and flowing alcohol) called The Manning. It was actually pretty fun, met a couple more people living in UniLodge from different places, including a kid named Cliff who goes to NIU. Erin showed up, again unannounced, which I love. We all talked until security threw us out and so we walked through Victoria Park over to LandsDowne. During the walk, I saw a squad car in the park, which may or may not have been the first officer I’ve seen since I’ve been here, there aren’t cops ANYWHERE it feels like! But weirdly enough I still feel pretty safe.

Friday 2/17- Myself and a few of the other girls who are in the DAB faculty, which in America would be called a department, went to a lecture in order to get a better feel for the design department and to meet some of the faculty, which I’m not sure what the people who teach and run the department are actually called considering the department itself is called a faculty. If that doesn’t make sense, disregard it, because I’m not sure I even know what I just attempted to explain. Oh, and DAB stands for Design, Architecture and Building. This was semi-interesting, learned about the new state of the art studios they're currently finishing up in the design building, which should be finished in a couple weeks, which will be awesome. We had breakout sessions for the different courses, which in America would be considered disciplines, but since I’m taking classes in three different disciplines, Emily and I decided to go meet up with the Luke’s outside the tower building to check out O’Fest, the last day of Orientation Week. O’Fest is a huge party with live DJs, food, and drinks, sadly ones you had to pay for this time. Since it had just started, we decided to go home and eat and drink on a cheaper budget, then return, which we did. There were a lot more people there later on. After this, we decided to head up to the roof, where there were a bunch of people hanging out, and just chilled up there for awhile, the Canadians stopped by for awhile too. After this we tried to go out, but once we walked to the bar we were planning to go to , Luke wasn’t allowed in because he was wearing flip flops, and I realized I didn’t even have my ID with me, so we just walked back. Luckily it wasn’t far at all.

  

A pic of some of the girl at O'Fest, loving on UTS

Erin, myself, and Brittany, two of the girls from Ottawa.

Saturday 2/18- Slept in until about 1pm and may have slept longer except for that Emily came and banged on my door to wake me up. Herself, Luke V and I went across the street to help Luke FINALLY get his cell phone since he just received a credit card in the mail from his dad. When we got back, I was determined to make his internet work, though I’d tried multiple times since we’ve been here, to no avail. But I’d had enough of the fact he had to walk all the way to campus every time he wanted internet, so I continued trying, and finally prevailed! He was a happy camper, cell phone AND internet all in one day, after having neither for three weeks. Later a couple of us went to, yep, you guessed it, Broadway for dinner. A couple of the Gumal girls had been sightseeing all day, and didn’t feel like going out, so went to see Slumdog, but since I’ve seen it three times already, I wasn’t about to shell out another $16. So a couple of us went to Bondi Beach, which I was opposed to the whole time, but went along with it anyways. We got there, it was dumb (sorry Luke, but you know I’m not really), so we left. Took the bus back to The Rocks. It took about 30 minutes before a bus showed up, and it wasn’t a nice smelling bus either. It seemed the bus driver was apparently in training because there was a man standing up next to him telling him where to go, and my neck’s whip lash could also prove he hasn’t had much experience driving. Once we got off, Evan and I walked awhile and met up with the IU guys at The Argyle for awhile, then proceeded to again, WALK home the three miles. I suppose that’s one way to get exercise. At least it’s nice out, though it doesn’t make your feet feel any better if you’re wearing four inch wedges…

Sunday 2/19- This was the most fun day I’ve had here yet. We decided to wake up early because Tropfest was today. Tropfest is the world’s largest short film festival right in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. Luke made me a wonderful omelet since I’ve been bugging him for awhile. We then went over to Cole’s to get picnic food for the day, and came back and made sandwiches and packed up the food in record time. And when I say we, I actually mean that the guys did and Emily and I watched. Then we met up with Gumal girls and hopped on a bus that took us right near the Gardens. We didn’t’ go the correct way, we actually took the longest walk ever, but I didn’t care because the gardens are absolutely beautiful, most amazing place ever. I took so many cool pictures, and just loved being there. Oh and did I mention it was beautiful weather as well. God clearly wanted today to be a good day! Once we found the actual place Tropfest was being held, The Domain, we staked out ground and just hung out. We got there around 3pm, and the films didn’t begin until 7, so we really just lounged around and picnicked and watched the sun begin to set and the rest of the grounds slowly fill in.

Now something I found to be probably just the smartest idea ever, was what they do with garbage bags. They walked around and handed everyone three bags, a black, a white and a clear, and told us which was trash, which was recycle, and which was biodegradable trash. And just by giving these to everyone, the trash left on the ground when the festival was over was overwhelmingly less than what you’d see at something like Ribfest back home. Sure they still have to pick up trash, but he fact that it’s all contained in bags, and sorted, it’s just easier!

Guido and Scott met up with us with Scott’s two roommates from back at IU, one who is also studying here, one that was here visiting for a few days before heading to Byron Bay to visit his girlfriend studying there. Some of the Gumal’s roommates came and sat with us, including Elliot, who when saw me doodling with markers, insisted I use them to tattoo both his arms, in their entirety. He honestly wouldn’t let me end until I’d used every color. Then later Liz and Chris met up with us, and even later on the Canadian girls came and joined us. Once the films started the entire place got quiet. It was so weird, because I feel like in America there would be no way that everyone there would shut up.

 

Me across the harbor from the Opera House and bridge.

A shot of the crowd at Tropfest, still early in the day

A shot of St. Mary's Cathedral while walking home from Tropfest

In terms of the films, they showed the 16 finalists, of the over 650 entries. I thought most of them were very good, some were really stupid, and some were just downright amazing. The overall winner was a short called “Be My Brother”, about a man with down syndrome making friends with a woman at the bus stop. Once it ended, we all gathered up our stuff and headed back, sort of breaking up again since there were so many people. The man in the short also won best actor, which he well deserved. My favorite one best original score, so that was exciting! Ha. Around 11, it ended, and we all broke into groups and headed home. And why break my streak now, I walked home the three miles again with Evan and Jenna. I’ve discovered it’s a lot less work with flats on, though that’s probably common knowledge, I’m just throwing it out there. We arrived home just minutes before us, and they took the bus. So I suppose it was worth it. Julia was back from her vacation with her family, finally, so Luke M and I caught up with her for awhile turns out I’d really missed that lady!


From now on I promise I'll try and update more often instead of updating like this. I assume it'll be easier with school starting today. Yep, my first class, Printmaking, starts at 5 today. Jenna is in it with me though, so that should make it a little less scary. Welp, back to the Oscars. And personally, I'm sick of Benjamin Button winning so much, but entirely happy that Slumdog is doing so well because it was honestly an amazing movie. But honestly, the Academy Awards normally keep my entertained for awhile, then I give up, but this year, they are putting on a great show, perhaps because an Aussie is hosting...? :)

(ps, pics up later when I have a faster connection at school)

Miss you all.

Observations and updates.

Ok, so I've realized I haven't really been providing my non-facebook friendly readers with any pictures of my adventures, so I'll try and be better with that, either posting them on here directly, or figuring out a Flickr account, the only problem with that is my internet is pretty much dial-up speed, so it takes preeeeety long to upload entire albums. Anyways,  for this blog I want to start off by stating some observations I've found interesting thus far. 

1. There is no such thing as bell pepper. I ordered a salad the other day in the food court across the street a the mall, and you make it yourself, and there were red peppers and roasted red peppers as options. And so being the red bell pepper fanatic that I am, I asked them both to be put in. The man sort of looked at me funny. I gave it a second thought, wondering if perhaps I'd mentally lapsed and said something other than I'd like red bell pepper. No, I hadn't. So, I pointed to it. "Oh, red capsicum?" Uh, no, red pepper? Well, turns out he was correct. Wouldntcha know he knows better than I.

2. They don't serve ice in Australia. Probably my least favorite part about this country. At dinner, then bring you "chilled" glasses, which really just stay cold until they're placed on your table. Then a bottle of lukewarm water, not even cold water, it placed on the table. So don' t be disappointed when you order ice water and then bring your iceless water. 

3. Stray animals like to run the streets. Last night on our way to dinner, across the street at Broadway, obviously, a man was walking down the sidewalk with his dog on a leash. Normal. But then we see running up behind the dog, NOT on a leash, a goat. Yep, just a goat trotting along behind the man and the dog on a leash. He seemed to find nothing strange about the scene, unlike every other person on the sidewalk, who cocked their heads muttering, "Wait...was the a goat?"

4. You can't purchase liquor anywhere besides the liquor store, which is so cleverly named LiquorLand or a bottleshop. Luckily for us we have two LiquorLands in the mall across the street, about four stores away from eachother, in the event that...yeah, I've got no explanation for why that would have been a necessity when deciding which stores should go where. But they close early, so the bottleshop in Landsdowne across the way is open until midnight. 

5 . They have Crunchie Bars. 

6. Aussies speak differently. Ha. Yeah, they speak English, but it's not the same. All their phrases are different. And after being here for awhile, I'm starting to  use some of them by accident, they just slip out. Like "no worries" is a really big one, and just the casual use of the word "bugger". They say "have a chat at me" rather than come chat with me. And people tend to ask "How you going?" rather than "How's it going or how you doing." 

7. Their cheddar cheese is ALL white cheddar, and pleasant surprise to me, when I forgot to buy white cheddar to put on my green apples, and opened my package of what I thought was yellow.  And they differentiate sharpness or aging by "tastiness".  So there is Lite Tasty, Tasty, and Extra Tasty. I prefer the extra tasty, because, well it's extra tasty!

8. Guys Speedo bathing suits are called budgie smugglers. That's all I have to say about that one. 

9. Cell phones are NOT called cell phones. They're mobiles. I feel so much more sophisticated telling people to "ring my mobile" which the way the number is 0416865191. You can call me,if you can figure out how to do that,  my incoming calls are free. I think you have to call the country code which is +61 then you don't dial the first 0 in my number...but that could be completely wrong, but give it a go! (They say that all the time too, not give it a try.)

Ok so enough observations for now, let me update you on what we've been doing since I posted last. It's still raining here daily, sometimes sprinkles other times DOWNPOURING. So on Friday, when half the group went to the Blue Mountains, the remaining six girls hopped on the train and rode up to Chatswood for a day of shopping. They have a five-level Westfield there, full of stores that I've clearly never heard of. Everything is expensive though! I did buy a dress at a little shop at the train station where every item was $10. Its a dress with purple and leopard print, just planning ahead since UTS is hosting a Vegas Night party on a boat on Friday, and for $10AU, I decided it was worth it even if it falls apart after the first time I wear it, which it probably will. I got one other shirt at the mall, sort of hippie/bohemian-ish, but it's cute. Once we got home Julia's roommate from back at Ithica had finally arrived and came and hung out with us. We attemped to go out, but it was seriously raining the hardest yet, and it was just chaos, so I went home and went to bed.

You guys don't know it, but I just took a two hour break from writing this blog. The reason for this: incredible news. IT'S SUNNY OUT! I walked out of my room to go to Julia's room to steal all her food from her since she's leaving with her family tomorrow until Sunday to go to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island, and didn't want it to go bad. And what do I see but blue skies! It was an event! Everyone was dancing in the halls! So I decided to go for a run. Ran over to where Erin is going to be living (she moves in tomorrow I believe) and it took me 8 minutes. Love it. Then ran around the USYD campus and all that. It was hot out, and I loved it! The boys went to go work out at the gym across the street, and when they get back we're meeting up with the Gumali's and going to Manly Beach. Apparently Manly is less touristy than Bondi, and it's where the locals keep telling us to go.

Saturday was Valentine's Day, and we all decided to go to dinner together, the AL (I'm gonna use that for AustraLearn from now on) group and Evan, Caroline and Jenny.  We found some place that we thought was going to be really nice. I think you can guess that it was in fact not. It wasn't BAD, it just was...mediocre. The fact that Emily asked for her pasta in red sauce instead of white and the server told her she could not because it was already prepared in the white sauce kind of gave a hint. Anyways, back to the story.  Everyone dressed up in cute V-Day apparel and the boys dressed up nice too. We took fun pictures like we were going to prom, real cute. Then we pregamed with some pink champagne and strawberries, which I've discovered is the best thing ever! 

We then took three cabs to the Circular Quay and meandered around in the rain, with a nice backdrop of the bridge and the Opera House behind us until we found the restaurant. 

You heard  about the quality of that earlier. And the server was no better, when we asked to all pay separately he told us no, and there was nothing he could do. When we explained some of us had to pay with credit cards, he about freaked out, and so Emily took over and he like threw the pad at her and a menu and said, "Here, you figure it out!" First rude Aussie I've come across. But I suppose if they're that few and far between they're still 100 time better than the States. After dinner we headed to Gumal for a stoplight party on the roof, which was kinda lame since security broke it up after 15 minutes of us being there because it was too loud. So we headed to Landsdowne which was also lame, Saturday isn't really that pub's popular night. But I am in love with the bartender. Never spoken to him, but he's probably the most beautiful man in Australia...no big. I told my good 50-year-old friend Ed (he's the bouncer) this, and he proceeded to go behind the bar and TELL the bartender this. Well, thats not embarrassing at all. So twenty minutes later when I see Ed back at the door I run over and demand he tell me what he told him, and instead he hands me a piece of paper that has the bartenders number on it. Ha. No way I'm calling.  After going home, we hung out in Julia's room and the scariest man to exist in the world, we like to call him the night stalker, came down and asked Julia if she had hindges on her door, and she said yes, and he said then use them! Then stalked his huge tattooed-self away. When I walked back to my room he was on the floor above us pacing back and forth with a black hoodie on. Hellllllllo scary! Good times.

Sunday we all went across the street to Victoria Park for Fair Day. This is the commencement of Mardi Gras, which is the world's largest Gay and Lesbian Festival. It was a prettttty interesting event. The whole park was filled, sort of reminding me of ribfest.  There were food tents, and booths and concerts, and dunk tanks and all sorts of stuff. And EVERYONE was walking dogs. That was weird, I think maybe there was a dog competition somewhere too, not sure. There was a nice dance show, three incredibly toned and buff guys dancing around in their underwear to Britney Spears, it was quite the sight. And a Dolly Parton-esq draq queen was MC-ing. (S)he was pretty funny though. The weirdest part about it was there were TONS of kids there. Just enjoying themselves, with men making out all over the place. There was one lesbian couple groping eachother with their two little girls in tow...that's all I've got to say about that. 

Then we came back and some people decided to go to the aquariuwasn't really in the fish watching mood so I didn't go. So the people that didn't go, Julia, Emily, the Lukes, Chuck and I went over to Broadway Cafe for pizza, it had been a few days, we were due back for a visit. Then I suggested board games and everyone was down. After dinner we went to Kmart because thats all that was open Sunday nights, and tried to find a game. Apparently adults don't play board games in Australia, because they seriously only had games for kids 8 and under! It was madness. They did in fact have Cranium, so we bought that for a whopping $60. Oh Australia. We drank and played that for FOUR HOURS! No joke. I'm not sure how it happened, but it took seriously that long for Luke and I to win the game. Oh yeah, we won! It was so fun though, I can't wait to play it again! 

Oh, so the chances of me getting run over here are pretty high, so if i report being hit by a vehicle, don't be surprised. This whole driving on the other side of the road really gets me confused and I never know where to look and where the cars are coming from and when they're allowed to go! Ugh!

So excitingly fun news, Smat is coming to visit! He's coming for his spring break to see Guido and me. He got ripped off on coming to study here, so he's making up for it by coming for break. And now my sister might be coming as well. Smat is coming while my parents are here, and so Leslie might fly with him and so she'll be here for a few days that my parents are too, so that will be awesome!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Gonna make this short and sweet--

I'M SO SICK OF THE WEATHER HERE! It has seriously been raining/drizzling/downpouring since Monday. I chose to study in Sydney, NOT Seattle. This is seriously a joke. No one wants to go see the sights when its pouring rain and windy. I'm not happy right now. It isn't supposed to get sunny again until Wednesday. Ugh. Today the girls took the train to Chatswood to go shopping because we didn't even want to be outside it was so crummy and windy and rainy and cold. Even the walk to the train station sucked. And it ruined our evening plans too!

ps, Happy early Valentine's Day. It is Valentine's Day here technically, and later we're all going to dinner together some place nice. We're all gonna wear nice pink or red dresses and make the boys dress up too (if they come back from the Blue Moutains, most of the girls decided not to go since it was so crummy out). 

Last night was chill. I hung out with Guido and Scott, we watched old episodes of Beauty and the Geek, because, well, you watch what is on here. And that is what was on. Good times. 

Ok, I'm gonna go read my book and open my window and listen to the rain, that is the ONLY benefit of this crappy precipitation. 

XOXO

Panini In My Face

I suppose it's time for an update on my life.  

So monday, we all woke up relatively early (thought pretty much every cannot sleep in here, it's sort of weird, and very annoying) for Orientation.  We, and by we I mean AustraLearn kids and a million freshman.  It was really weird, we had to all stand as the speakers proceeded in, with organ music and all, I felt like I needed to make the sign of the cross once the organ stopped.  And they were all wearing their robes, graduation style. They did mention the only other time we'd see them in those was at graduation, which we obviously wouldn't be there for. We learned a bit about the school, watched some more aboriginal dancing, then it was finished.  There were other parts, but we bailed out since it was things like "How to study", pretty much seminars for freshman entering Uni.  We did come back for our compulsory International Students seminar, in which we watched a pretty ridiculous slideshow about fitting in and culture shock. Then we played Aussie trivia and Julia was one of the last people standing (thanks to me, 50 million kangaroos in Australia, yeah, I knew that!) and she won two free movie tickets, which of course she gave one of to me because she owed me dearly for the 'roo question! Afterwards we decided to meet up with Evan, Jenny and Caroline (the IUians staying at UniLodge we met the other night) and go out to Scubar. That was an adventure. Quite a long walk, in the rain, while *sober*, in heels...not so much fun. And then once we got there we had to stand in line outside, and once I get to the front they decide not to let me in. Everyone else was allowed in, except for me, they said "I appeared visibly intoxicated", but so did everyone else! Their solution, I go nextdoor and buy a bottle of water and drink the whole thing in front of them. Because that sobers a person up? But I obliged and was let in, $2.50 on a water later. It's hilarious how much American music they play from four months ago, they're prettty behind on a lot of things over here. But what can ya do. The night ended weirdly, with everyone just peacing out in small groups and not notifying the others, weird, but everyone made it home fine.

I don't really recall what we did on Tuesday. But I do know that Tessa, Julia and I have started a wonderful tradition of making paninis in her George Forman grill that she bought. We literally have had them every single day we've been here. Not sick of them yet, we'll see how long that takes. We aren't sick of The Point pizza yet either, which we eat regularly since they have great deals, the pizza is awesome, and it's across the street. And happy hour starts at 3 and goes until 8. Can't beat it. 

Guido's roommate arrived at some point on Tuesday. Really funny guy from IU. After we all ate at the pizza place, 16 of us crammed into Luke's room (which might I remind you are TINY) and watched Flight of the Concords and Its Always Sunny on his laptop. It was hilarious, mostly because there were 16 of us watching a laptop in a room the size of a closet. But I love that even after only a week and a half we're all completely comfortable with eachother to be sitting on top of eachother with feet on people's heads and the like. Plans to go to Melbourne over the weekend were attempting to happen, but died quickly when all the girls nixed it. And then we all went to bed at 11. We love to rage here.

Yesterday was another lazy day. The weather has been so sucky no one wants to go see the Opera House when it's raining. So we've been putting that off for a nice day. But it's literally been in the 60's and drizzly rainy for the past few days. Lame. I went to the grocery store to buy more bread and turkey for my panini's obviously, and decided I'd like fresh turkey rather than the packaged stuff. So I go up to the deli and realize I have NO CLUE how to order. I don't know metric conversions to save my life, which is somewhat of a small problem here. So I said "well, I'd like some turkey, butttttt I don't know how much." She laughed at me grabbed a handful and I told her that would be perfect. I should really get on those conversions. Oh, and later in the night Julia and I wanted to make guacamole, and in my greatest attempts to find cilantro, I could not. So once we left and went to the liquor store, I felt it necessary to ask Carl (the nice man behind the counter) if cilantro existed here. This is when I came to find that they in fact to, but its called coriander. That would have been nice information to know earlier. Granted I could have asked while at the grocery store, but...well, thats me. Later before going out, we went to Guido and Scott's room since its a lot bigger than any or the AustraLearn singles (they have a loft and a balcony the size of my entire room, probably bigger). More IU boys joined us, which was funny because I kept asking them all where the lived on campus and they all proceeded to say 14th and Indiana. Yep, they all lived in the same apartments, but none of them knew each other previous to getting here. Love when that happens. Then some more IU girls joined us, who are living all the way up at Bondi Junction. That's gonna be a sucky commute everyday for class. But they are close to the beach. Once the arrived to headed over to the Landsdowne, a pub right across the street, and met up with the Gumali's (thats our new name for the kids living in Gumal) and the other UniLodge kids who'd  headed over early. Pretty fun night over there as well. Lots of dancing and singing. A girl was singing for awhile, lots of Tracy Chapman, loved it! But once she finished, some random surfer guy just got on stage and started playing guitar and singing, a really great range of songs, and he was good too! Loved it. And I love that there is no grinding here! It's so much more fun to just dance like normal people rather than people in rap videos! Seriously! 

Today I went and met with my advisor to straighten out my classes. One of my classes was changed to Thursday, which was when two of my other classes are, and overlapped them both. And it's the only day that it is offered, so I'm going to have to drop it and pick up a different class. Which hopefully will work out. Fingers crossed. Oh, and I also received an email today saying that one of my classes won't be starting until April 20th, which means it won't be ending until July 20th, three weeks after I'll have gone home, which means I need to drop that class as well. Awesome. Uggggh. 

Going to see He's Just Not That Into You with the girls tonight at the theater across the street. Good thing Julia and I have free tickets! Then stoplight party at Scubar. Fun. 

xoxo

Hey Oh.

Sad news to report today. South of Sydney, down near Melborne, in Victoria, there have been horrible raging bushfires all day long, killing over a hundred.  The fires are still going, over 700 of houses have been completely burned, with nothing being salvageable. I'm watching the news coverage on one of the 5 channels my TV gets in my room, and it seriously looks like how New Orleans looked after Katrina, minus the water, add a scorched homes. It's so sad, the people they're interviewing are all in tears because they've lost everything in their homes, and some have lost family members. My prayers go out to them.

On to some happier updates. Last night we all went to Darling Harbor. After a quick cab ride, we hopped out and I fell in love. It's such a fun place. It reminds me a lot of Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney.  Bars, restaurants and clubs all along the water, with lights everywhere. I could stay there all night. We found this really fun fountain that some kids were playing in, and the girls decided we wanted to do the same, so we left our shoes with the boys and got in. Stupid. The fountain was a round fountain that you could follow a circular path to the center, but the paths hurt your feet SOOOO bad if you weren't walking in the right direction, and in our *sober* state, we weren't quite playing by the rules the designer had most probably set. I eventually found the path that DIDN'T hurt your feet walking downward, if I were to take the same path upward it would have. But regardless, as soon as I get to the center I slip and just ate it. My knee is black and blue today, pretty bad bruise. Whoops. So our (the UniLodge kids) intentions were to meet up with the Gumal kids down there since they hadn't eaten yet (we returned to the pizza place across the street that we'd gone to the night before for Happy Hour pizza and jugs earlier in the day).  But once we got to the place they were eating, on attempting to enter, we were turned down since the guys were not dressed appropriately, aka they were wearing shorts. And Guido was wearing running shoes(once my phone got working I called up Guido and he is now our +1 in the UTS crew), which is not acceptable, nor are flipflops. Even mine, which were cute, which I proceeded to tell the doorman, which he agreed with but didn't particularly care. He did offer to let me in for free if I went back and changed, he said it would cancel out the cab fair, which was true, but when I told him there was seven of us, he took back his offer. So after I sweet talked him to let me at least go in to tell my friends we couldn't join them, we waited around for them to finish their drinks then headed to another pub.  Apparently boys are allowed into pubs with shorts, so that seemed our only option for the night. Had a couple Toohey's New drafts and then decided we wanted to head somewhere else, even though we were well aware we wouldn't succeed. We stood around for awhile, ran into some girls dressed as playboy bunnies walking down the street and took some pictures with them. Then we just decided that since we couldn't get in anywhere we'd head to UniLodge, grabbed a cab back home and called it a night.

So the money is freaking me out here. It's like Canada, anything smaller than $5 is a coin. But they use 50 cent coins as a regular coin, not like our half dollar, which is hardly ever used. And it's about the size of a small bicycle tire. And their smallest coin which is about the size of a penny, is the $2. Not sure which idiot came up with that idea, but I've found $6 on the ground already. It's so small its the easiest to lose. But I seem to be reaping the benefits, so I'm alright with it. 

Today we went to Bondi Beach since it was so hot out. In order to get there, we had to walk to Central station which takes about 10 minutes, then hop on a train to Bondi Junction which is about a 15 minute ride. The trains are so cool, they're like the EL in Chicago, except they're three levels, you can sit on the level you walk in on, or go up or down. Preeeeeetty cool. Then one we got to Bondi Junction we hopped on a bus to the beach, which was another 10 minutes. It was madness, everyone getting off at Bondi Junction was heading to the beach, so they have something like five or six buses just waiting there to take people. The beach was awesome. It was so big, and pretty crowded, given the temperature.  Julie, Tessa, Liz, Ellen, Guido, Luke and Chris all found a spot to put our stuff and lay out. Julie and I bought these HUGE beach towels, they're actually called beach blankets. Best investment ever. Most of my sunburn had turned brown, so I felt safe enough to be soaking in more UV's. I still was slathering on the 30SPF though, I wasn't taking anymore chances. After awhile a couple of us decided to venture into the water, it was not right. I've never felt water so cold in my entire lift. It was like back in high school when I had to soak my ankle in an ice bath, only it was my entire body. I honestly couldn't stay in it more than three minutes, then got out! But it felt really good once I went back and laid down. Later a really fat pale white guy was running into the water in a Borat suit, for those of you who don't know what that is, its like a speedo one piece but goes over your shoulders, if you can picture that. If you can't, google borat suit. It was probably the grossest thing ever. But he ran into the water, and everyone sitting on the beach got up and ran to the water, it was outrageous! Everyone was standing around, most not even knowing what they were trying to look at. Quite funny. Headed back, talked to some pretty funny guys on the train who decided to announce to everyone getting on the train when they got off that we were American and to be nice to us, and that Guido was single. No one seemed to care too much to pay attention to him, but I found it funny. 

Once everyone got back, we came to the conclusion that eating pizza five nights in a row was not going to happen, so Tessa and I walked across the street to Coles and picked up stuff for burgers and we all went on the roof and Luke grilled for everyone. When we got up there, there were three other people up there already that were here through the Kelley Business school at IU, the group Guido was with, he knew one of the girls, so I ended up chatting with them for awhile. They're all really fun too, so now we have an even bigger circle of friends. No Aussies yet...bummer. I assume with orientation starting tomorrow we'll meet quite a few. 

Another fun thing I love about Australia, the cross walk sound. It makes this wonderful noise like a laser is going off when you're allowed to walk. Whenever we're waiting to cross as soon as it makes its "pew" noise, Guido and I always make our own version of the noise then make a gesture like were shooting a laser gun... It's pretty stupid unless you actually hear it, then you love it!

Well I'm conked out. Gotta get up early for orientation.  And to prove how tired I am, I just misspelled orientation so badly that when I right clicked to fix it the only option it gave me was urination. Wow. Good. Night. 

Oh ps, got tickets to  The Fray when they play  in Sydney. Best news ever! The Fray and Taylor Swift and Kings of Leon? Could it get any better? Probably, but I won't complain. :)

This Is Some Hot Stuff!

Hello from sunny Sydney! We've finally arrived. Yesterday was pretty laid back, once we go into Sydney after about a three-ish hour flight, we got dropped off at UniLodge to settle into our rooms.  Thankfully it is nowhere near how bad the bad reviews described it online.  Its actually pretty decent.  My room is a corner room, so it's TINY in comparison to the other guys studio layouts. But I'm alright with it, its homey. I never had my own dorm room, so its sort of like that. And I still have my own bathroom, or ensuite as they like to call it.  The roof of the building is awesome, and there are bbq's up there all the time apparently. We're right in the center of everything in the city. Such a great location, five minute walk to campus, five minute walk to U of Syd as well. Literally across the street is Broadway shopping centre, which is a mall, but has a Target (not quite the same as in America), Kmart, a Coles which is a grocery store, and on the bottom level is a market with fresh fruits and veggies. Can't wait to go get some fresh passionfruit! Speaking of, there is an ice cream shop right next to us as well, and right after we got settled the six of us staying in UniLodge went and got a scoop of pasisonfruit ice cream, so good! 

Sidenote for anyone who cares, my bottom lip is about to fall off. And that facial sunburn I'd mentioned, turned into a full body sunburn. So I'm enduring that pain right now and hoping it turns brown soon. 

Ok back to yesterday, once we got settled we went over to Gumal, which is the apartments the other six are staying in, which are literally a block and a half from UniLodge. They're all in separate shared apartments, some have roommates from all over; Oz, New Zealand, France, etc. Pretty cool, but I'm actually kind of happy with  my living situation. Need to go buy some storage compartments since there is absolutely zero space for storage in here, actually really absolutely zero space for anything, but I'll make do! I figure why complain like I normally would, I'm in Australia! 

We all went shopping at Kmart and got our essentials; bedding, towels, pillows, TP, kitchenware, that sort of stuff. Then we got out sim cards for our phones. Mine still is not working, not sure what the deal is with that. Going to go to Vodafone later today and get that straightened out. But I believe it is free incoming calls for me, and texts, so if anyone wishes to spend lots of money to talk to me, I won't complain. :) Kidding, But seriously, if you do wanna talk, feel free to call. Or skype. I'll post my number later today once I know the phone is working. And I've also got my internet working, but its slower than anything, so I'm gonna try and call the company and change to the next plan up, because it seems I could fly home and back before some pages load. 

Since we were all trying to get our internet and phones in check, and were unpacking trying to get our rooms livable, we didn't even realize how much time had passed, and by the time we headed over to Gumal to meet up with the other group it was 10:30, and we hadn't eaten. But we found a place called Broadway Cafe right across from UniLodge that was still serving dinner at 11, but just pizza. This would be my third night in a row of eating pizza, but I didn't care, this place has gourmet pizza. I had canadian bacon, avacado, chicken and roma tomatoes on mine. Yum! Only the UniLodge kids went since the Gumal people had the common sense to eat before 11pm...but when we got the bill it was something like $130AU, which worked out to be about $80US, between 6 of us was about $14 each. There is no tipping in Australia, which I LOVE! I mean sometimes it's weird and I want to because when you have good service you want to tip, but it is not something they do, since their base pay is something like $18/hr. Hopefully I can find a job in that shopping center and work a few hours a week just for some extra spending cash. Anyways, everyone got their own pizza and a drink (girls got sex on the beach, boys beers) and it was only $13 each American. I'm starting to like this exchange rate. 

So here's an interesting story.  According to news temperatures  today (Saturday) and tomorrow are supposed to be tipping the mercury at 44 and 46 degrees.  Thats between 111 and 116 degrees in Fahrenheit.  They're really worried about fires throughout the state of New South Wales.  They're also slowing down trains to prevent bending the steel tracks. In other words, this is intense. We had planned to go exploring today, but we're thinking maybe it's just safer to stay inside for the day until it cools off. Thank God I've got A/C or as they call it here, Air Con, in my room. Apparently a lot of the rooms don't have it, which probably will suck today. All the AustraLearn kids have it though, so we're straight on that front. But on the agenda for today is getting the phone fixed and going grocery shopping, exciting! More tomorrow, I'm I haven't died of the heat. Hope everyone at home isn't too cold...  :)

Cheers

Cairns Excitement!

So the internet situation with where I've been living isn't completely reliable. Plus I've just been super busy, and didn't have too much time to sit on here and waste money typing up a blog. So I've been writing on word and I'm just going to copy and paste what I've recorded thus far. So sorry if there is like past tense errors and such, it was written at another time. So here ya go!

TUESDAY

Today we went to RainforeStation. It was really really fun. We got to do all sorts of fun stuff. The bus ride up the mountain was about a half hour, and once there we were literally up in the clouds. Its “wet season” in Cairns so its been pouring pretty much constantly since we’ve gotten here. Last night we walked to dinner and it was literally POURING and so we were all just absolutely dripping wet once we got there, but it was a fun first experience, so no one seemed to mind. Plus the fact that its warm…

Anyways, once we got to the rainforest, we took a tour through the rainforest on these things called Army Ducks, but I don’t think that’s how they were spelled. But we got to see all sorts of different plant life, some that was really, really old, others that was super poisonous. Once we hopped off those, we watched an aboriginal dance show, which was funny because you could tell one of the guys didn’t care at all that he was playing a character, and just chewing gum totally obviously. Then they showed us how to play the didgeridoo, throw spears and boomerangs. We all got a chance to throw the boomerang, and my second try turned out to be better than a lot of other peoples. My first try failed miserably enough that he gave me a second try. I pretty much just whipped the thing into the dirt, I mean if I was trying to kill something on the ground, it would have been dead for sure! After that we had lunch, which was really good. They had heaps fresh fruit, including a passion fruit, which looked incredibly disgusting, but since I’m branching out and trying new things here, I jumped out of my comfort zone and tried it. It is not my favorite fruit! I had like seven of them! It could have been because they were so fresh, but I’m hoping they’re all that good. Next came the wildlife area, we got to hang out with kangaroos, feed them and pet them. They were just hopping all over the place, no cages or anything. There were dingos and crocodiles too, but caged because well…you can probably guess. There were koalas too, which are the cutest bears to ever exist I’ve decided. I got the best picture of a mom and baby, it should probably be framed, and sold because it’s THAT good! Afterwards we got to hold one named Kip, too cute. They were so soft! Then we finally headed back to the hostel.

At the hostel we all decided to go swimming, despite the fact it was pouring out. I think probably all 30 of us were in pool just messing around throwing some beach balls around in the rain. It was actually really fun. A big group of us are all getting ready to go to dinner then out for the night. Should be fun, one of our leaders, Andy is going to take us to a place that is really good about accommodating AustraLearn kids, so that’s always appreciated. We do have to be at breakfast at 6:15 tomorrow morning though to walk to the marina, so we’ll see how every fairs. G’day.

THURSDAY

So last night was pretty fun. Andy took us to a place called The Wool Shed, which was an interesting sort of place. You come in and order your meal, then go find somewhere to sit upstairs, then when your food is ready you have to come back downstairs to get in then take it back up, seemed sort of backwards, but oh well. Tessa and I split a pizza, which ended up being realllly good. Drinks were really expensive, but I suppose we’ve got to get used to that. But we got coupons or a free drink and a free dessert for being with AustraLearn, and Andy got us a bunch of jugs, or their version of a pitcher. It’s smaller than our pitchers though, which seems like a bit of a rip, but again, something that will take adjusting too. I talk like I’ve been drinking pitchers at bars for years, and not two months. Later in the night they had goldfish racing. They set up two long plastic tubes of water, and then people buy a particular fish for $5 and then they race the against eachother by blowing bubbles behind them with a straw! It seemed like something I’d see at the DuPage County Fair, if I’d ever gone besides to see Brad Paisley! But nope, this is a normal thing up in Cairns, along with weekly wet t-shirt and wet jock contests…yikes! One of the Luke’s bought and raced a fish, his particular fish was called the Raging Dyke from Holland. Andy bought and raced one as well, his fish was Nemo from Australia. The fish were named by the bar, not the guys. Neither of them advanced to the next round, but it was still fun to watch. We headed back to Gilligan’s after that, and hung out at the bar for awhile. Emily and I headed in early since we knew we’d have to be waking up early for the reef and weren’t about to be hungover on a boat for the entire morning.

Morning came sooner than everyone wished at 6:15, but breakfast helped. We all then walked over to the marina, which was only a couple blocks away from where we were staying. It was probably the first time it wasn’t raining the entire time we’d been there. But it was still really cloudy, but seemed promising…I’d seen mornings like this in Aruba that turned out to be beautiful days, so I had to be hopeful, but it didn’t seem promising at this point since it had rained nonstop since we’d gotten there. But, in fact miraculously, it was sunny the entire day! And maybe you’ve heard about how Australia doesn’t really have much of an ozone, that my friend, is not an understatement. If you don’t believe me, just ask my face, which at the current time is a red that would be considered very pretty in any other instance than the current one. I applied and re-applied 30 SPF all day long, but alas, the sun did not care, and retaliated on my face. The rest of my body got a pretty decent tan though, using 30 SPF no doubt. The sun is honestly wicked hot down here. I haven’t experienced an intensity like it before.
So once on board we were told that we could do a little 10 minute trial of scuba diving for free, so figured sure, I’ll do your free little demo holding onto the ropes, that way I can at least say I dove the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven wonders of the world. So after passing that I could take my regulator out, put it back in, and clear it, I got to move down to the second rope below, and equalize pressure in my ears. This was the part I was scared about, but seemed to be alright with. Then we got to clear our masks out. Then I was asked if I wanted to continue with the dive. I gave him a thumbs up, as in no, I want to go back up. So we go up and he asks me why, and I reply I don’t like the salty, dry taste in my mouth, and he convinces me to just come back down. So I do then feel freaked out and go right back up again. The then again decides that I must pay the $70 for the full dive. And so, against my will, I go for an actual dive in the Great Barrier Reef. My dad should be so proud…and jealous. It was actually pretty awesome and I’m so glad that he convinced me to do it. There so was so much pretty coral, that was actually alive. A lot of awesomely colored fish, sting rays, sea turtles, etc. No sharks, which was sort of a let down, but I’ll get over it. Overall, so fun, minus the burning factor. Once we got back, we had one more AustraLearn session, in which dinner was provided, one less thing we have to pay for. We then came back and repacked up all our bags, since we’d been living out of them and messed them all up. And now I’m laying in bed typing this.

I cannot wait to be in Sydney. Being here and doing all this fun stuff was awesome, but I just want to get settled in and be where I will be living for the next four and a half months. So I’m going to go eat breakfast and head to the airport! See you all in Sydney!

In terms of the whole culture shock, I'm still on the honeymoon. I love everything the Aussies do and say. Some of it is just so weird, but to them, completely normal. One of our sessions went over some ways they talk, and its just outrageous. They talk in opposite, so they'd call a redhead a "bluey" not to be confused with a bluebottle jelly fish which are also called bluies, because they shorten all their words. But just little things in their speech, rather than saying "three, fifty" they say "three dollars, fifty". And instead of saying lets have a chat, they say come have a chat at me. They say mate like its their job, but thats only because they're super nice so they consider you a friend immediately. There has been vegemite at breakfast each morning, but I still haven't had the guts to try it, its smells rank!

Ok well now I'm writing in real time, 7:00am, which means breakfast is calling. Then we're heading to the airport. So I suppose I'll see you all in Sydney!!

I've Arrived!

I'm here! I'm in Australia. I just woke up from an 11 hour sleep on a relatively hard bunkbed. What a treat. Right now I'm in northern Australia, in a city called Cairns, pronouned CANS, which reminds me exactly of downtown Aruba. So at least theres a little bit of familiarity. So I guess lets start at the beginning of the trip.

The flight to LA was pretty much non eventful. Once I arrived, I met up with some other AustraLearn kids. Some that will be going with me to UTS, others are going to Murdoch, which is in Perth, located exactly on the opposite end of the country. If you were to overlay American on top of Australia, it would be like flying from Toronto to LA. Sucks for them. Our flight to Sydney is only 4 hours, I can't imagine what theres will be. I've had enough flying for my lifetime already. So we all met up and got to know the UTS kids we'll be going to school with the next 5 months. We also met a guy flying down that went to Michigan and did study abroad at Bond University two years ago, so he really helped us out. He was going down for work, lucky him, to recruit councelors for a camp in Maine. So he was doing job fairs in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, but was extending his trip in Sydney a week after all his work was done to just party. He offered to take us out and show us all the fun spots when we get into Sydney, so we exchanged emails, and we're all looking forward to someone who's been there to show us the ropes.

The flight to Brisbane was lonnng. 14 hours to be exact. But it really wasn't too bad. Lucky for me there was no one sitting in the middle seat, so it gave me a little more room to sprawl out. In front of every seat was a personal TV screen, showing new release movies and TV shows on demand. I stayed up for two hours once we took off at midnight, or 2am Chicago time. Started trying to watch a movie about the guy that invented the windshield wiper, Flash of Genius, which I'd never even herad of but apparently was full of big names. But I fell asleep. Slept for seven hours, thank you Tylenol Simply Sleep and my little bottle of Jacob's Creek shiraz we were served with dinner. Once I woke up I still had five hours to kill, so I watched Rachel Getting Married and started three other movies which I eventually gave up on and just listened to music.

Once we landed we had to go pick up all our luggage to go thru customs. Of the 30 students total, everyones baggage all made it. What a miracle. So then for some reason I was expedited thru the entire customs process and was told to walk right on thru while the person in front of me and behind me both had to stand in a lonnnng line. Not quite sure where all this luck I was getting was coming from. Surely it would be biting me in the butt later on. So then we continued on to re-check our luggage for our flight to Cairns. The women at the desk were yelling at us all to hurry up because our flight was going to leave without us. So we were all just throwing our luggage on and they were shoving new boarding passes in our faces and telling us to move as fast as we could. They couldn't leave without 30 passengers...could they? So then we had to get on a trail to take us to the domestic terminal, which had just left, and only came every 15 minutes. So we waited around on the platform for 15 and then hopped on the train. Upon stepping foot into the terminal we hear over the loudspeaker last call for boarding flight 718 to Cairns. Yep, our flight. So we zip thru security, which couldn't care less what we bring through, and sprint tot he gate. We seriously looked like a scene from a movie. My friend Tessa and a couple others randomly got stopped to search for a bomb in their bags. That really helped our cause of getting to the gate. Once we got on the plane, we were all seated in the very back of the plane, which meant we got to walk past an entire plane of angry, sweaty people that we'd been keeping waiting. The auxillary air wasn't working, so they were all sweating waiting for the engine to start so some air would be pumped thru there. Needless to say, we were the most hated people on the plane. That flight was easy as pie, two hours was nothing. And they served us cupcakes! No, not muffins, but pink frosted cupcakes. I love Australia!

So we land in Cairns and are so happy to be done flying for four days. Go to meet our AustraLearn leaders, who decide to tell us only 6 peoples luggage came across.

And a little thing just popped up on my screen to tell me I only have 5 minutes of credit remaining. So I'll end there for now. We do have our luggage now, don't worry, they delivered it all to the hostel a few hours later.

Hope all is well with everyone at home. And if it makes you feel any better, yes its hot here, but its INCREDIBLY muggy and humid. Ugh. Gotta go put my hair up.

Cheers!