Class Excursion to Sydney

Yesterday Matt, our area contact for Study Australia, came over at noon and treated us to lunch at the Five Islands Brewery, which was awesome. He's supposed to come by every few weeks and buy us coffee and a snack and answer questions we might have, but I'll take the upgrade to lunch any day haha. We found out where our garage is, although not like we need it for much... and that apparently we're supposed to have a cleaning service we didn't know about. All round awesome news lol. I think we are going to go to a footy game with him later in the semester too, which should be good since we missed that other one and didn't go to the one last night. Actually, instead, we went to the full moon festival at North Beach. It wasn't as happenin as we had hoped, but it was kinda fun to go see it. It was really chill, a bunch of people sitting around talking to friends with a group of people doing firetwirling and another in a little drum circle.

I went to bed pretty early last night after coming back from the beach, but I was still really tired when I got up at 6:30 this morning. Today was my field trip (or they call them excursions) to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney for my Aboriginal Art and Society class. I feel like I did/saw so much haha. Even on the walk to the train station, I cut through the mall so I could do a few things and saw that the fountains were filled with suds lol. There was railwork being done so I had to take a bus. I was annoyed though because I bought a return trip ticket, realized i could have rode that bus for free, then had my ticket eaten when I exited St James station... I always have issues with train tickets for some reason. The bus was quicker than the train would have been, so I killed some of the hour I had by taking my time walking to the gallery. After our tour, I walked all they way up through the botanical gardens (under all the flying foxes again and heard my first kookaburra), by the opera house, and around to The Rocks Market. It was a lively day- I passed people shoving themselves into a tiny box, a unicycler, a couple people didgeridoo players, someone filming a guy waxing himself... yeah, dunno what that was about. The markets were fun, but I didn't get back until after 6 because of it.

Lucky!

Another 4-day week gone by. I love not having Fridays haha. Yesterday I had a big presentation in my sociology tutorial which went well but I'm glad I got it out of the way. By the time I got home Amy and Jason had left for their weekend up in Queensland. We spent our Wednesday night not partying like a lot of other people were, but making dinner, going to get ice cream, climbing trees in the park, playing tag, and walking along the beach in the dark. lol yep, it was definitely rewind to elementary school night :D.

I found out I won 50 dollars too! It totally made my day haha. It's just to the unishop, so it's not like free cash, but it's the first prize in a drawing from taking a survey on orientation. I'm pretty sure I can put it to good use haha. I also found out that there are two different pictures of me on the UOW website and in the campus newsletter lol. http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW075185.html. Yahya had us come over so he could show me and Ashley the newsletter with the picture of me and her trying Vegemite a couple weeks ago. fun fun.

Beach Bum Weekend

So all those plans I had for this weekend? None of them ended up happening. Friday morning was super productive for me, but we didn't buy our tickets beforehand for the footy game, so it was a bummer when we all walked down there and saw it was sold out. Not like there's not another one for us to go to though, and I have to get something red to wear before the next game to support the Dragons. Somewhat because of that, Friday turned out to be much less exciting than anticipated.

We had similar issues with the IMAX - we have 2 for 1 coupons for tickets but apparently you can't use them unless buying them in person, which created an issue because then someone had to get up super early and go to school just to print them. So I'm planning on going next weekend and yesterday just turned into a beach day because it was beautiful out. I'm so happy I bought that Australian sunblock- it worked so well haha. I also have to take back any complaining I did before about not being able to see on the beach, because I went and played in the waves for a while with everyone else and didn't have any issues with my contacts. It was exciting to be able to see the waves lol. Oh yeah, and not to mention to be able to look out for bluebottle jellyfish! Matt got stung by one of them - it looked really painful. The problem apparently is that they sort of stick to you so you have to pull them off, stinging your hand also. I hope I never have to know what it feels like though.

St Patty's Day

Sunday we got up at a reasonable hour and started making a huge breakfast (or brekky if you're Australian). We made piles of pancakes, two dozen scrambled eggs, a batch of cinnamon crumble muffins, fresh fruit salad, and kanga bangas (the 'roo sausages). Our neighbors came over, minus their son who had to take sunday arabic classes, and had brought some cheese and honey crepe things as well. So it was a feast. We don't know why, but they ate very sparingly, I don't know if they didn't like our food or what, but they are normally practically force-feeding us to eat the food they cook. In any case, I think we all felt accomplished haha.

Most of the rest of the week hasn't been too exciting. Yesterday for St Patty's day we headed to the Irish Pub, but bailed on that idea as we neared Hotel Illawarra and just went there. We figured it wouldn't be so worth it if the entire town was there. Got an appropriately delicious Irish car bomb at the Illa though lol. We met up with some people when we went to the Glasshouse, but we called it a night at a reasonable hour and my st patty's day wasn't too wild and crazy. That's really about it for now, classes and homework aren't that exciting haha.

Surfing!

This morning we had our surfing lessons at North Beach. We got these huge blue foam boards to use that were kind of unwieldy though I'm sure more stable than the small fiberglass ones. It was fun but I feel like I took a beating and it was super exhausting. Note to self, don't try to go surfing after only 3-4 hours of sleep. I am glad we decided to do it here for cheaper for only 2 hours rather than spending the weekend surfing. I would be dead by the end of the weekend. I didn't really successfully stand up on my board, but almost. And I've decided knee boarding counts a little, right? Too bad all of us were in the water so there's no pictures of us actually surfing haha.

We're all super tired now. I doubt today will involve much more than doing homework and eat leftovers. Speaking of, yesterday our power went out so me and Ashley ended up going out on a super successful shopping trip. On our way out, we ran into our neighbors who insisted we come over for coffee when we were done. So we did, but they kept us over for dinner again afterwards! We've gotten so many meals out of them haha, and of course we got a couple huge pans of leftovers. We are planning on having them over tomorrow morning for a big breakfast. We have to pay them back somehow for all their kindness lol and it should be fun.

Down South

We just got back from an amazing day exploring a little south of here with Matt. He picked us up around 11 this morning and we took off to the south. After driving or a while we stopped in Kiama where there is a big blowhole, which got so big it soaked some of the people that were quite a distance away. And of course I took some pictures - I'm gunna try to start putting some in my posts. make it more interesting lol.

That's mostly what we saw of the cute little town of Kiama. That and a cow statue that apparently gets repainted constantly... After that we drove a while more to another little town, Berry, which is famous for its pies apparently. So I bet you can't do what we did there. Actually, Amy was the only one who bought an actual savory pie, but we all got these really good little caramel/chocolate bars and such. That was again mostly what we did there, and took off again. The whole way there though we talked a lot about the aussie slang and such - I feel like I learned so much about Australian culture lol.

We drove through a bunch of other places incuding Nowra and by Mollymook beach on our way to our final destination in Ulladulla where we had lunch. I couldn't get myself to get an order of fish and chips since I don't generally like seafood, so I split a burger with Ashley, but actually I ended up eating a fair amount of Amy's - it was really good and not fishy at all. It was about the same as London fish and chips as far as I could tell, except you get 'chicken salt' on it, which is pretty much just like it sounds. Also, most of the fish and chips here is actually shark. After that we went down to Burrill Lake at Dolphin Point and walked along the beach there. We had our beach stuff but it was sort of rainy so we didn't actually go in the water. Even in the rain it was really pretty out there and I'm so glad we got an opportunity to go see it.

Another Desperate Monday

We were told last week that Desperate Mondays would be back again this week, so of course we had to go. Amy, Ashley, and I met one of Amy's friends there - Jen and her friend Sam who is Australian and we got our 50% discount again from Jen's heels this time. We saw our friend, Matt, who is the bartender there who we met 2 weeks ago. Apparently he was there last week but we must have missed him or something, which sucks because I bet he would have put the screen down or we could have at least hung out for a while. But anyway, we were reminded that he makes really excellent impromptu cocktails haha. We watched, very appropriately I might add, the drama of Desperate Housewives on the big pull-down screen while sipping our drinks in heels. It was so much fun - we learned a little more about the area from Jen and Sam and I think we are all getting together tomorrow night to check out some of the new places they told us about. Plus, Matt got off of work as the show ended so he came and had a drink with us. It was great - both him and Sam were making fun of our American words and pronunciation (not hiking through the woods in Australia with a flashlight, but bushwalking through the bush in Austraya with a torch!). We also got to talking about more places we should go see, but as is frequently the problem, you need a car to get to a lot of them. Matt offered to drive us in his car somewhere this Thursday, which honestly made my week. Everybody here is so nice!

Today I didn't start class until 4:30, so I slept in a little and woke up in a really good mood. I was just about to make breakfast when my phone rang and it was our neighbor, Yahya, asking if I wanted to come over for coffee or tea and then go to Uni together. I had forgotten I had gone with him to Uni last week before I had changed my schedule and he had offered for me to come over and have breakfast with them beforehand. Everyone else was at class already, so it was just me. I went over and had some mint tea and he ended up feeding me breakfast at the same time lol. It gave me a good idea though - I invited all 3 of them over for a big breakfast one day that we will cook for them.

After dealing with a slew of stuff, including housing for next year and the stupid Earlham Registrar telling me my 6-credit classes here will transfer as 2-credits (seriously, wtf?), I took off for my sociology tutorial. It was fine - I missed the first class last week and they ran out of readers in the bookstore (because there are 490 people in the class!!), so I was kind of out of the loop. It was fine though, it just felt really late to be going home after 6:30.

Burnt... Again

Yesterday, despite weather.com claiming it was going to be storming all that day - and in fact saying it was raining at the time - it was beautiful out. It's funny, it was rainy and cloudy only for the school week, but it felt like forever. Like it's so beautiful here and normally really sunny that once it's cloudy it seems so out of place. I guess that's not entirely true though, the rain can be nice - plus it basically feels like a rainforest here, so it fits.

Anyway. Amy is gone on a trip to Jervis Bay this weekend, so the rest of us went to the beach for a few hours. We played in the huge crashing waves for a while which was fun but tiring. They can be quite strong and if you catch them wrong I can totally see being thrashed around by it. Even in knee-deep water it's hard to keep your footing sometimes since it's like someone is kicking in your knees almost. The key is to dive under the bigger waves and therefore more or less avoid them altogether. I looked really dorky I'm sure, but I wore my goggles which took out the clear-your-eyes-every-time-you-come-up factor. Everyone learned how blind I am too when I was out in the water and couldn't see where they were. Surfing next weekend will be interesting lol.

And of course, despite the fact that I was only out for a couple hours and reapplied sunscreen, I still got nice and burnt. Stupid hole in the ozone layer. While I haven't gotten any bad burns, it seems like I've more or less been red or peeling ever since I got here lol. I ran out of my US sunblock yesterday though, so I bought some more yesterday at the store. Aussie sunblock is supposed to be extra-strength since they have such intense sun. You can't really find much less than 30, which I've been told is much more than the US 30spf somehow. So hopefully that'll help. Until then I'll just keep chugging water and dousing myself in aloe haha.

In other news, I think I'm dropping that play in education class, and picking up Intro to Sociology. While I was really excited about it before I went, I don't think it's going to be worth it. There are two major assignments - a 3000 word essay and a group 4000 word essay with an hour presentation... plus everyone else is planning to travel over their 3-day weekends and I don't really want to be stuck in class while everyone is gallavanting around australia. Basically it honestly comes down to the fact that academics, for this one semester, are not my absolute priority. Important, yes, but really, how many times do you get to go to Australia?

End of Week One

Whew. First week done. While it's nice to think I'm already 1/12th through the semester, it's also kind of depressing because I know it's going to go by sooooo fast.

Wednesday I had a long day with a ton of time to kill (like 4-5 hours) between classes. I spent the time exploring the library, signing up for Picnic Club, and reserving a spot in surfing lessons in a week. I went to that art class and really like the sound of it compared to the psychobio class. It seems like almost all of the lectures are interesting guest speakers or performers and it includes a field trip to the Sydney to an Art Museum. There are a bunch of Americans in that class, but oh well. When I was waiting for the bus afterward I heard a bunch of them saying it was so boring and they might not stay in the class... which I thought was so stupid because the prof seemed super nice and everything sounds like it'll be fairly interesting. It seems like there are a fair number of people here - especially Americans- who are just sort of here to party. Which bugs me because I really want to learn about the culture. Like all the trips that you can sign up for spring break are mostly just party trips, which I'm not as interested in. But I digress.

I walked in late after that art class after like 7 and was told I should get ready really quickly because we were going out to eat and then out right after that lol. We went out to eat at this Brewery that is between us and the beach, so basically not far at all. They had pretty good food and of course good beer. They have about 9 different types that all have funny names - shark oil, barbeerian, longboard, rust, dipto, and an Obama Pale Ale haha. I don't know if I mentioned before that Wednesdays are big going-out nights here for some reason, but they are. We went to the Glasshouse and danced for a while, but I had to bail before long since I kept yawning from my long day.

Thursday I didn't have food chem until 2:30, but I was late anyway because I waited for the bus for 45 minutes. It's free and supposed to come every 20 minutes at the latest, but it's not always the most reliable in reality. This little girl at the bus stop did give me one of her cadbury eggs though haha it was really cute. That class so far has been pretty much all chemistry review as well, but I'm hoping that'll just be the first couple classes. It's going to make for a boring semester class-wise if I'm not actually learning anything...

Woke up early this morning due to our stupid neighbor above us vacuuming in heels at 7:30am forever. Like, what the hell? I was the only one with class today, so it was kind of sucky. It was my Play and Pedagogy lecture and tutorial which is basically an education class about the importance of child's play. I met a couple girls and the good thing about that class is I think I'm one of the few international students in the class. It makes me really conscious of my American accent though, like as soon as I open my mouth it's so noticeable that I'm not from here.

I'm starting to notice more of the weird things aussies say. Like they say "How are you going?" and replaced 'math' with 'maths'. I swear I'm going to go back to the US spelling everything aussie-style too. colour and customise. haha. They also pronounce a lot of things totally different, some of which I think comes from the UK english, but idk. Like oregano is totally different, and especially science-y words in my classes.

More Classes...

Last night's plans of going to Desperate Mondays was foiled. For some reason nothing was set up for it - the screen wasn't pulled down and none of the seats that were out last time were to be seen. There was a different girl behind the bar too who was kind of snotty in saying they must not be doing it. I think if it was the girl from last week, she would have put it on for us :P. But anyway, so last night was kinda boring after all.

I had a late morning without a class until 11:30. I was the last one out of the apartment and I saw the now major character in our life, Yahya. He insisted on making sure I made it to my building even though it was pretty straight forward on how to get there lol. Unfortunately once I got into the building I realized I had conflicting information about where my class was and ended up sitting in the wrong class for the first 5 minutes until I realized it was in the room across the hall... This was my Biological Psychology and Learning class, which I think is actually going to be super boring. It seems like there is maybe only 5% of the material that I haven't a) already learned in previous classes or b) am going to learn next year in the classes I have to take for my major. While it might just mean it's super easy, now I'm looking into switching to another class - maybe a class about aborigine art and culture.

Beside that class, I bought myself a ballin labcoat and safety glasses for my Food Chem practical, and did some laundry... exciting I know.

First Day of School

Today was our first day of classes! It's been a nice super long break, but it's nice to finally be starting since it's been a big unknown for a long time. I was really anxious to see what my classes were like and start meeting some people in my classes.

My first class of Intro to Indigenous Australia, which everyone except Katie was taking also. It's an early class - at 8:30am, so we were all tired as we trouped out to the bus stop and found our way to the class together. It's in a big lecture hall with tag-team style lecturers, which wasn't all that different from my big bio classes at Earlham, but the professor we had this morning we rather dry. He had a powerpoint which he pretty much exactly matched up with the essay that he seemed to be reading off to us. Thankfully the info itself still seems like it will be really interesting, and hopefully the other professors are a little more lively.

Right after that I have my practical, or lab, for Food Chemistry. It's sort of across campus, and I was already practically running late, so I hurried to the massively confusing science building that I think I mentioned before. Of course, after asking 3 people for directions, I was finally told that we didn't have prac today. I killed the 3 hours by finding everyone else who had some time off and ate my lunch that I had packed.

At 12:30 I had the lecture for Food Chem, where I met a couple aussie girls. It's an upper-level course, so I don't think there are that many other international students in there. I'm really looking forward to meeting more people in my classes and tutorials. I think it's going to be a good class, and it seems like it won't be all that work-intensive actually, which is awesome. We only actually have practicals about every other week. And actually, from that indigenous course I got the impression that we actually have TWO weeks off for spring break, which would be kickass.

I promptly took the best nap ever when I got home. While I was asleep Matt, our go-to Study Australia guy, had brought by Jason's closet and little hanging shelves for the rest of us which we have been waiting for ever since we got here. So finally I'm totally unpacked out of my suitcases and feel a little more settled.

We had some of our leftovers for dinner that our neighbors has given us last night (they gave us 3 giant platters full of leftovers). And what day is today again? Desperate Mondays! So in a bit, we are planning on heading out to Hotel Illawarra to watch Desperate Housewives. It's been pouring and really windy all day, so hopefully it's nicer out when we go.

Amazing Weekend

Jeez. I can't even keep up with everything I'm doing on this blog. Fair warning- this might be super long.

Thursday me and Ashley went shopping - I need some more summer/beach clothes, and I really need some going-out clothes. A lot of people get pretty dressed up to go out at night, and it's not like I'm used to going out clubbing, so I went hunting for some new clothes. I didn't find much though, I got one shirt - the most exciting thing we both got was a bunch of postcards haha so if you want one, let me know!

We went to meet the others at one of the saltwater pools next to the beach after that. There are a few - there are two nice ones that look just like a normal pool, it just gets supplied by ocean water. We went to the one that is more like it's carved out of the rocks - those sort of pools are a lot of places in australia so you don't get eaten by everything. Sharks are the least of worries- it's the riptides and all the bluebottle jellyfish everywhere. I swear I'm gunna be stung by a jellyfish before I leave - if even just from walking along the beach and stepping on a dead one.

Thusday night there was a big party at the Unibar and we went and hung out for a while, listening to the band there and dancing. The busses stop running on weekdays around 10pm but they have what is affectionately called the drunk bus which shuttles around all the major bars and clubs, which is super convenient because we live within walking distance of almost all of them.

Friday morning we went to the Welcome to Wollongong Festival specifically for international students in the center of town, which is put on by the city of wollongong and uni. It was cool, they had a whole presentation with people welcoming us which finished with some people from an aborigine tribe doing some traditional dances in traditional clothes and makeup. There was food, dancing, and a bunch of booths set up where we got soooo much great info and free stuff. From there we went home, grabbed our stuff, and headed for the train station. Unfortunately, the wrong train station. We still go there and got on a train to Sydney, but we walked all the hell around Wollongong. The train ride is about and hour and a half so not too bad - I definitely plan on going back many other times.

We stayed with Taylor, Jayme, and their roommates. Right after we got there we met up with all the other Study Australia students staying at Bondi Junction (which is sooo many) and went to this bar, The Eastern where we all got two cards. One that gave us a free drink there, and another that we can keep and gives us a free drink at participating bars and 25% off. We didn't know we were going to get them, so it was pretty sweet timing we thought. Stayed out late dancing, which was fun, and then crashed on the small pull-out couch, snuggling with Ashley hahaha.

The next morning we got went out shopping for crazy Mardi Gras clothes - sparkley shirts and dresses, masks, boas, basically awesome clothes haha. We got to the parade area at 4, which was super early since it didn't start until 8, but it was well worth it. The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is the largest in the world and there were soooooooooooooo many people there. We got a great spot right against the rails and basically camped out, sitting in the sun until about 6:30 when everyone started standing. Soon after they passed out the whistles. Oh the whistles. My ears are STILL ringing, more than 24 hours later. The parade was crazy - it was 3 hours long. I'll post pictures soon, but there was pretty much everything you can think of. Since we were in the front row we got kissed and danced with numerous times lol. Afterward we collapsed into bed - our feed hurt so bad from standing for so long. It was well worth it though, it was so much fun.

Today we headed back to Wollongong, this time getting off at the right station and getting home without incident. Ran to the store, and then went next door to have dinner with our neighbor who I mentioned before, Yahya. His wife made us the most delicious traditional Saudi Arabian meal - Kabsa. Everything was utterly delicious, and soooo much food. They are so nice and we stayed over there for almost 3 hours just talking to them about their culture and ours. We already have plans for Fatima to teach us how to cook all the food she made for us tonight :D. It was the perfect way to end the weekend.

I did warn you it was going to be a long post. I've got my first classes tomorrow morning early though, so wish me luck!