Birthday!
Although my 21st birthday would have been an
extra special occasion in the United States, my 21st birthday
celebration here in Australia was memorable in its own right. A few other Americans on the program
and I went out to eat at a BYOB restaurant on Lygon called Tiamo’s. Everyone shared some cheap wine (from
bottles not a bag because we’re classy) and had a great time chatting and
eating . Afterward my 8th
floor friends bought me a red velvet birthday cupcake to celebrate and they
sang me happy birthday. I’m glad I
remember my 21st.
Orientation week was a little lackluster compared to the
welcome week activities I am familiar with at Northwestern. I think the main reason the orientation
wasn’t great was because most students here commute to campus a couple days a
week and don’t want to trek to campus just to meet people they probably won’t
talk to again. Not many
Australians live on campus so making orientation events mandatory is difficult,
but I did manage to meet plenty of Australian first year students in my host
group which I was happy about.
I visited the Melbourne Museum and saw some amazing
Aboriginal art, boomerangs and shields as well as a 15 person canoes made of tree
bark. Admission was free with a
student card so hopefully I can make it back there to investigate the exhibits more.
The last two days of Orientation Week was the societies and
clubs fair. I joined the Student
Wine Society and the Science Club and am considering joining the Mountaineering
Club and the footy (AFL) team. The
Student Wine society was only $10 and has free all you can drink wine tastings
every other week and you get a 15% discount at the local liquor store. The Science Club does things like pub
crawls and barbecues (cookouts) on campus weekly and also does pub crawls
(Australians like pub crawls which naturally begin at 5PM). The Mountaineering Club does a lot of
trips to the bush where people can rock climb, canoe and do other outdoors
things. AFL should just be a
learning session for me because I can never figure out the rules when I watch
on TV.
I just got back from surf weekend. It was simply amazing!
I got surf lessons and two hours to “practice” during which I fell on my
ass repeatedly. I did manage to
stand up a few times and the feeling was exhilarating and I hope to try to surf
again while I’m here. I was a
little sore the next day from pulling myself to my feet on the board which I
was not prepared for but other than that I have no regrets. There were some amazing surfers out
there who caught the waves with ease and also there were a few kayakers who
caught waves too which seemed odd to me.
We stayed at a YMCA center near a different beach and layed out at that
beach most of the time and had some friendly yet competitive drinking games. The surf weekend was only international
student so I met people from Ireland, Canada, England, Norway, Spain, France
and Italy.
Fun Facts:
1.
Americans speak louder than Australians, so that
is another way to identify an American besides the accent.
2.
The honor system is used for all trams, and each
passenger is required to swipe their card when he gets on. There are undercover cops on the trams
to enforce the system, and the ticket for failure to swipe is about $200.
3.
Most Americans are used to a night out beginning
about 10PM and ending in the early hours of the morning. Australians on the other hand begin to
pregame a night out at 6PM, arrive at the bars or clubs at 8PM and are soundly
back at home no later than midnight.
4.
Canberra is pronounced “Cambra.”
5.
Sunglasses are “sunnies.”
6.
Footy means different things in different
regions in Australia. In Victoria,
the state where Melbourne is located, footy means Australian Rules Football
(AFL) and in other places of Australia it means rugby. People also call soccer footy.
7.
Cheapest alcohol in Australia is called “goon”
and is basically wine in a bag and is a worse version of Franzi in the states.
That’s all for now.
Next time: first week of school, first footy practice,
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