Australia Day

i can't believe i forgot to talk about Australia Day in my last post!  Australia Day was on Monday.  it's a public holiday so everyone gets off of work and school, except for Bond Uni, of course (sound like a certain Ripon College?).  supposedly the reason we didn't get off of school is because it's an international school and only about 50% of the students here are australian.  i don't know why that makes a difference, but alas, we had class.  well, everyone who has classes on monday. i certainly do not.  random fact: bond uni is only about 20 years old!  that's a really really new school compared to RC at least.  that would explain why everything here is so new and nice still.  no renovation necessary.  it was also voted the #1 school in australia for two years in a row.  wow.  anyway...

australia day is like 4th of july for those of us from the states.  it celebrates the date when the british colonized here in 1901.  (don't i sound smart?)  it's kind of a controversial holiday because it also appears to glorify the fact that the british basically kicked the aborigines out of their homeland (sound familiar?).  whatever the reason, there was much celebration at bond university on monday.  don's tavern, the bar on campus, had a big BBQ and free beer/wine/champagne.  there were even fireworks!  it was pretty sweeet.

today my roommate, casey, and i are heading to byron bay for the weekend.  it's our first adventure out on our own away from campus so it's veryy exciting.  we have to take the bus into surfer's, then catch a different bus at the transit station, and then it's about an hour to byron bay.  once we get there we're staying a hostel, the aquarius, for $36/night.  good deal?  i don't know yet.  we looked up a lot of places and this is the cheapest one we could find.  an australian told us that a better idea would be to rent a big van and drive down there and just park on the beach for the weekend.  that sounds pretty sketch to me, and therefore we're going to have to try it...  anyway, i'm sure i will come back on sunday with some good stories so stay posted.

29/1/09

it rained on sunday so we didn't really get to do anything too exciting, except work out which is always a hoot.  they play australia's version of vh1's top 40 countdown or whatever over and over on the big screen in there, so i've seen the video for lady gaga's poker face about 1 million times now.  even in the clubs and on my favorite radio station, hot tomato, they play the same songs over and over... except in the clubs they're all set to techno beats.  goooood timess.  you can check out this link if you would like to see what the top 40 is currently: http://top40-charts.com/chart.php?cid=4 however i've downloaded all the music so you luckies will get to listen to it every second of every day upon my return.

i took a spinning class which included gay/not gay(?) floral-print man from the pool as the instructor and some strobe lights and a disco ball.  that might have been monday night.  then i started my two days of classes on tuesday which included two hours of love, sex, & relationships and three hours of australian pop culture.  we watch a lot of movies in these lectures and i take a lot of naps...  then on wednesday i had a fulllll day of classes from 10 am to 5 pm.  sensation and perception = my death.  

last night we joined B.A.S.I.C. (beer and social intercourse club).  there was free beer.  that is all.  oh, and casey and i are going back to byron bay this weekend.  yayy.

24/1/09

i finally figured out my classes, i think.  scheduling is very confusing around here and there is a pretty serious lack of communication, to the point that i didn't even know if i was even enrolled for classes come monday when classes started.  but i switched some things and figured things out and it just so happens i only have classes on tuesdays and wednesdays.  i know, rough life.  i have no idea what i'm going to do the rest of the days. lay by the pool?  sweet life.

last night was the pub crawl.  we started at 3pm at don's tavern on campus.  moved to robina tavern, and then the mermaid tavern where there was live music and a dance floor.  i've never been to either of those places before, so that was nice.  they're more pubs, less nightclubs like the rest of the places we "crawled" to.  nightclubs are fun, but not necessarily at 6pm.  after the mermaid tavern we went to platinum, where i've been once before.  the bedroom was next, which is the most sketch place i've ever been in my life.  it smelled like sex & feet and instead of seating they have beds to "sit on" and stripper poles on the dance floor.  next was drink, where we went the first night that we were here.  that's when casey and i decided pub crawling was exhausted and we took the bus home.  this was approximately 8pm.  the crawl continued on to melbas, where i've been before as well.  however, casey and i had to shower and change and then we met up with some people and took a cab back into surfer's and met up with the crawlers back at melbas.  i had my first kebab at a stand around the corner as well and it was delicious.  there was a really strange, old, drunk man who approached us mid-kebab and tried to get us to come party with him and his "crew", but we declined, needing to get back to the club because we had completely lost track of the rest of our group.

today a bunch of girls went into the beach in burleigh head to do some wholesome activities and document them for facebook, so everyone knew that we did more than just party here...  we just laid out in the sun, read, listened to music, and slept all afternoon.  it was glorious.  then the other girls left and casey, kathryn, and i went on an adventure to find some food and i had my first fish n chips in australia.  they were pretty delicious.  then we had to wait a really long time for the bus because we've never been to burleigh before so we didn't know the schedule.  oh well.  we're pondering the idea of going out to dinner tonight, but otherwise it's going to be pretty chill considering the amount of partying we've done the last couple days.

22/1

i would like to say that i've been extremely busy and haven't had time to update, but that really isn't the case.  i started classes on monday, but not really because i didn't have any classes.  i had two classes on tuesday, lecture and tutorial for love, sex, and relationships.  we watched a history channel video called the sexual century and then the tutorial was class "activities".  imagine what you will.  i had my other classes too, but they were not as exciting.  two hour lectures are pretty rough when i would rather be sitting by the pool or going to the beach.  

in other exciting news, we were having a little party in the common room on monday night and my roommate comes out and confronts me and casey and asks us in front of everyone if we would mind switching rooms because we have "different lifestyles".  at the same time the girls across the hall were having some living issues so they decided they were going to kick us out and they were going to live together in my room and i was going to  have to move out and live with casey.  which turns out is fine, but still really awkward.  i've never been kicked out of my own room.  so yesterday alicia and i switched rooms and it was easily the most awkward experience of my life.  we all acted really chipper like it was perfectly normal to get kicked out of your room, but let me tell you this is not normal.  

but no fear, this arrangement will work out much better for everyone involved.  well, at least for casey and me, i don't really care about the feelings of those other fun haters.  so after i moved in we went on a mission to get a couch for more seating so we stole one out of the common room and moved it into our room.  we had to stack a dresser on the desk to make room for it, but it's pretty awesome.  gatherings will ensue.

tuesday night was a law-student sponsored "drink the pub dry" event at melbas so that was pretty fun.  lots of dancing and being jolly.  friday night is a pub crawl.  i'm on the blue team.  we start at 3pm.  saturday we're (hopefully still) taking a trip to nimbin.  stories to follow i'm sure.

19/1/09

wow, i can't believe my first week here is already over.  classes start today, but i have a really rough life and don't have classes mondays or fridays.  so i start classes tomorrow.  i have one from 9-11 and one from 4-5.  wednesday i have class throughout the day from 8 am until 8 pm.  thursday class from 4-6.  i don't know what i'm going to do with all my mondays and fridays...  today i am meeting with the student travel agent to talk about going to sydney for mardi gras.  the school offers a package that includes transportation and lodging and all that stuff, but i went on a trip with the school yesterday and didn't love being in a tour group.  having to wait around for other people and meeting at scheduled times isn't really my thing.  so a bunch of us might get together and just have a go at it ourselves.

the trip i went on yesterday was to byron bay, about an hour bus ride from robina, which is where i live.  byron is kind of an old hippie town... it sort of reminded me of key west.  aka i loved it.  we took surf lessons in the morning, and then got to walk around and do a little shopping/people watching in the afternoon.  then we took a hike up to a lighthouse, which is the easterly most part of australia.  then we stopped at a pub called the beach hotel, which i guess is really famous although i'm not exactly sure why.  but there were heaps of people there so it must be a pretty big deal.  at the beach hotel we ran into our surf instructors from the morning, and they told us we should stay and hang out.  apparently sunday afternoon is a really big party time here.  we had to come back to school with the tour group of course, but he invited us back and said we could stay at the surf shop so i think that's definitely going to have to  happen.  

so now it's time for reality, classes and such.  it's going to be very interesting to see how classes work here and professors and stuff like that.  not too many big plans for the week so far.  the school is hosting a pub crawl in surfer's paradise tomorrow night.  and some aussie boys we met with a car said they were making a trip to nimbin this weekend (nimbin is, apparently, the amsterdam of australia, whatever that means...) so we might tag along with them.  we'll see. 

17/1/09

i got a cell phone the other day which may or may not have been a good idea.  it's prepaid, and i probably won't be making international calls because they are ridiculously expensive (like everything else...) but it will be good to have in case i get lost or locked out of my room or something.

so funny story.  we met the president of the Bond Uni surf club yesterday and he was telling us all about how we absolutely need to join (no frat boys allowed...? that's what he said.  i don't get it) and all this.  well then later on we were laying out by the pool and he was down there doing laps in a brightly colored/flowered speedo.  cute.  he came over and chatted with us for a while, pretty much telling us his entire life story including how much he loves going to Sydney for Mardi Gras because he loves the GLBT community, and he was telling us how he used to be a bouncer at a transvestite bar.  and he's the spinning class instructor here on campus.  a very interesting human being.  but anyway, one of the girls, casey, who happens to be in love with any man who is old and not american (i think this guy was about 30 and australian) instantly decided she was in love with him.  now, i had a sneaking suspicion that our new friend might be gay, but i didn't say anything about it until kathryn's roommate confirmed that he had, indeed, told her he was gay.  why didn't he tell us?  well... maybe he was hinting around at it with all of his story telling?  moral of the story, casey was pretty distraught, but although my gay-dar is pretty much nonexistent i'd have to say i called that one.

last night they played Anchorman out on the front lawn by the lake and a heap of people went.  it was extremely wholesome and adorable, minus all the boozing (or pissing, as they call it here.  i'm not really sure how i feel about that).  

there's three or four different places to eat here on campus.  lake side makes made-to-order pasta and salad and that's usually where i get coffee & a bagel in the morning for breakfast.  juicy bits is a cafe that i have yet to go to because we can't use our meal plan and it's really expensive.  mostly just the professors and post-grads go there because they have real lives with jobs and money. and then there's the brasserie which is like commons-style food.  that was the only place that was open today, so we went to brunch.  the food quality there is pretty much equal to the commons in ripon, so don't be too jealous.  however, my personal favorite place to eat, cafe bond, is so much better.  they have wraps and sandwiches and burgers and stuff like that and... smoothies.  pretty much makes my life.  i'm trying to limit myself to only one per day but it's difficult.  really difficult.

so we went to the bra for brunch this morning, and then to kurrawa beach in broadbeach.  we had to take the bus to the mall, pacific fair, and then walk to the beach from there which is maybe like half a mile away.  i hate public transportation, it really makes me hostile.  but on the way there kathryn got hit on by an 80 year old woman from scotland which was pretty hysterical.  unfortunately we were only at the beach for about ten minutes because it was really windy and overcast and was starting to rain.  my body was completely covered in sand when i got back and i had to take shower number two of the day immediately.  i'm getting ready to go out for dinner tonight, and then hang out with some people on the other side of campus, in a res hall called "the blocks".  it's going to have to be an early one tonight for sure because we're going to byron bay tomorrow and we're leaving at 7 am.  ew.

15/1/09

to pick up where i left off, last night was fun.  after dinner we went to the liquor store to buy some delicious australian wine.  thinking we might be classy, we then went next door to the grocery store to pick up some plastic wine glasses, bottles of water, and a delicious chocolate treat called tim tam which is basically a chocolate cookie covered with chocolate filling covered with chocolate frosting.  or caramel if you prefer.  yum.

it's still taking some time to adjust to the time difference and what not, so i've been pretty tired.  decided not to go out last night, so some of us were just going to hang out in the lounge on our floor and drink our wine out of our classy new wine glasses.  however, it turns out the 4th floor of building 9 is quite the hoppin' place, so we ended up with about 20 people squashed onto the four couches, and enjoying a wide variety of beverages including something called RTDs (ready-to-drinks) which are what appear to be beer cans with pre-mixed drinks like rum and coke.  interesting...

people are extremely friendly here, and are from all over the world.  for example, last night there were australians, americans (everywhere from san diego to jersey), malaysians, canadians... you get the idea.  well with so many of us it got a little noisy so when security did rounds at 11:00 we got asked to be quiet (good to know i'm too loud in this country too...).  to avoid getting kicked out of school so early in the semester, some girls invited us all to their room at the end of the hall, which is the most ridiculous suite i have ever seen in my life.  it's a kitchen, living area, bathroom (which they call a toilet.  we asked for a bathroom at the airport and they looked at us like we were crazy for wanting to take a bath at the airport), two bedrooms with bunked beds, and a balcony.  trust me, the rest of the living accommodations (including my own) are not that nice.  

today we're going to go into town to get cell phones.  last night we thought that we had a really good idea and could all share one cell phone, giving out the number randomly because how hilarious would that be.  well, in the sober light of morning i decided that perhaps i would need my own cell phone with my own number to contact only who i wished and not some scary, random strangers.  so i'm going to go ahead and do that.  staying out the sun today because yesterday was pretty intense, and my little nose is a little burned.  turns out there's holes in the ozone over australia and we're close to the equator so not everyone (including myself) was prepared for how intense the sun would be.

tonight is the tight n bright party at don's tavern where i will be wearing all of my neon-colored spandex and tights together in one ridiculous outfit.  it's like they made this party especially for me.  i will keep you posted.

I Made It!!

oh i have so much to say i don't even know where to begin.  i left from green bay on saturday and traveled with three girls from SNC.  it was really nice to have people to travel with because LAX international is huge and i would've gotten very lost/bored during the 5 hour layover. 

unfortunately, my luggage decided to stay in LA when i left for brisbane, so it did not arrive with me in australia when i did, approximately 7:30 am on Monday.  so i had to come to school with just my carry-on which, thanks mom, i decided to pack an extra set of clothing and some toiletries, etc.

so we took what ended up being a 2 hour bus ride from the airport to Uni (like that aussie lingo?) and the bus driver just dropped us off at the front entrance and was like, okay enjoy your stay bye!  so we had to lug all of our stuff around looking for what we were supposed to do because turns out, we just arrived in the country.  when we finally figured out what was going on  we got our keys and such, unloaded are baggage (which went quickly for me) and then took a few trips to some stores to buy things such as towels, alarm clocks, and clean underwear.  these things are not only incredibly difficult to come by but also extremely expensive.  for example, $15 bottles of shampoo, 2 for $20 towels, and $60 dresses at target.

well, that night the school was hosting a "traditional" aussie party where we were provided singlets to wear, thank goodness, because i didn't have any clean clothes.  a singlet, btw, is like a long, sleeveless t-shirt which is neither attractive or long enough to cover my cheeks (you know the ones i'm talking about) so i had a decision to make.  either make my first impression on the country a strong one by not wearing pants, or wear the dress i had been traveling in for the third day in a row.  i went with the dress.

drinks, p.s., are also very expensive costing approximately $3-$5 for a pint of beer.  luckily those of us newly arrived academics (what they call students and profs) were jet-laggged and dehydrated and it didn't take much for us.  the party ended at midnight (by then, i had been awake for approximately 48 hours and crossed about 4 time zones) and we were provided with a free drink coupon and they wrangled us all onto 2 buses (standing room only) and carted us off into the city where we partied at a nightclub until 3:30, when the buses then picked us back up.

 

ok, well, the plan was that you were supposed to stay until 3:30 but after one of my new friends got beyonce-booty-danced on by some american boy (so embarrassed) and licked in the face we decided to call it a night early and went home around 2 am.  this presented a bit of a problem because we still had an hour and a half until the buses came back.  so we asked the bouncers how you get a cab around here and they pointed us in the direction of what appeared to be a dark alley.  we didn't know better, maybe they keep cabs in dark alleys here?  so we walked and walked and maybe this wasn't the best decision but the story ends well so don't worry too much.  eventually we came to a road with actual cars and caught a cab fairly easy.  turns out there isn't a huge call for cabs at 2 on a tuesday morning.

we ended up paying $30 for a cab ride that couldn't have been more than 10 or 15 minutes, but split between the 4 of us it wasn't too bad i guess.  needless to say i slept pretty well that night, but needed to get early the next morning to take care of administration stuff.  ask me to see my student ID picture that i took the next morning if you ever need a laugh.  it may or may not look like a mug shot.

after eating some delish food for lunch (the food is REALLY good here, especially the smoothies.  i think mango is my fave so far.  yum), we went down to the pool for the rest of the afternoon, went on a campus tour, and then MY LUGGAGE CAME.  so i happily unpacked and then make the executive decision that if i was going to survive the rest of my life, i would have to get some sleep at some point, so i made it an early night.

today, also known as wednesday by the water, was a BBQ by the olympic sized pool outside my dorm room.  and by BBQ i actually mean breakfast sausages wrapped in white bread with some mystery sauce pretending to be ketchup and chunks of fried potato disguised as chips.

plans for tonight are still pending, and as all of you over in the US are probably still sleeping, i will keep you posted.  don't miss me too much.