Sorry I Haven't Posted in a While...

I thought it would be fun to make this overdue blog post a short list of Australian things that are subtly different from American culture...just enough to annoy me over time.

1. The spelling. 

There are lots of words where you think the person that wrote said word is dsylexic and they're trying to spell it right, but he/she just got a little confused... but he/she isn't actually dsylexic and it's just Australians spell things differently (aka, incorrectly).

A few examples:

• "Tyres" not "Tires"  (all I can say is y would you spell it that way?)
• "Enrolment" not "Enrollment" (which made signing up for classes simply uncomfortable because I saw this butchered word everywhere.)
• "Yoghurt" not "yogurt," (make sure to emphasize the "h" when you do say it.)

2. Driving on the left side of the road.

I recently bought a bike from a guy named Greg (or Craig, I couldn't really understand him). I'm not a fan of the trams here because they get pretty crowded in the morning when I'm heading to Uni, aren't 100% reliable, they take a while to get to campus, and are pretty pricey to use. Don't get me wrong, the tram system here is great compared to most places, I'm just an impatient toddler who doesn't want to wait for the tram to get to my station and then wait for the tram to get to campus. So, I bought a bike in hopes I will become the Lance Armstrong of my University (just without the steroids) and bike all distances and terrain in the city, free of the hassle and prices of the tram system. Also my thighs will be so strong I could choke a bear, so that will be a cool new power.

Fingers crossed.

Anyway, the law in Melbourne is you must ride in the designated bike lines on the road, going with traffic. Now, being on the left side of the road is a new and ridiculous experience for me. So, taking my bike out to the city for the first time (about a 5-mile journey) was quite an experience, especially because of the whole left-side-of-the-road-thing. I stayed on the sidewalk for the most part anyway because I'm about a step above training wheels in terms of bike skills so I thought it best for all persons that I just annoy pedestrians with my lack of skill, not persons with large, fast cars. Anyway, dodging around people on the sidewalk, I realized I had to get in the bike lane for a few feet in order to stay in the direction I was going for since the sidewalk ended. But this bike lane was on the right side of the road...otherwise known as the wrong side. I thought to myself as I entered the bike lane in the opposite direction I was to be going "Gee, I hope in these few feet someone isn't coming the other way in this bike lane." Sure enough, a woman comes booking it down the bike lane as I'm sluggishly trying to pedal. We didn't really get that close to colliding, and as I sheepishly said "I'm soooorry" (cue John Mulaney's voice saying "I'm soooorry"), she made sure to give me a death glare strong enough to disturb my future children. In short, I driving on the left is terrifying and confusing.

3. The dimensions of paper.

Here in Australia, their standard paper is A4 sized paper. It's 8.3 x 11.7 inches. The standard letter sized of American paper is 8.5  x 11.0 inches. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but believe me when I say it really feels awkward to hold a paper that long.

4. The butter.

Instead of a pack of 4 individual sticks of butter, just imagine those 4 sticks fused together in one door-stopped sized brick.

5. Everyone is nice.

I know it seems odd to add this to the list, but the folks here are so delightful it makes me uncomfortable because I'm simply not used to that. Do they have an angle? Are they actually being condescending and I just can't tell because of their accents? Or am I just neurotic? (the latter option being the most likely answer.)

Also, the niceness throws me off guard because I do not know how to act in return.


I will probably amend this list later, but this is what I got for now.

***Stay tuned for more dramatic episodes of Adventures Down Under Fall 2k14. Next weeks' episode will feature: birthday bashes, bar blunders, hospital hiatuses, confusing classes, and a dog.***


 

Sunset in St. Kilda during my one successful bike trip.

Melbourne Welcome Program

It's been quite a busy week.

As part of the Arcadia University program I'm currently in, I was to go off on an international students orientation and stay "on college" (Australian for "living on campus") at Trinity College. It was officially called "Melbourne Welcome" and it lasted from Monday to Friday.

Day One (Monday): Packed a bag for Trinity College and arrived via tram around 9:30 a.m. Students from not only my program but all different programs from all around the world were checked into rooms and split up into orientation groups. My group consisted of Americans, a girl from London, a girl from France, and a boy from Holland. Our orientation leader was named Kaneeka, an enthusiastic Melbourne student who grew up in Dubai for thirteen years, then moved to Australia and has lived there since. After splitting up into groups, we went off on a scavenger hunt around the city. We took pictures with police officers, asked people to marry us, sang One Direction in the mall, did a dance to "What Does the Fox Say?" in Federation Square, and many more painstakingly horrifying tasks in an attempt to make us jet-lagged and nervous international kids feel more at home (Although I still think this is a dumb way to go about making kids feel comfortable, I did make friends in my group by bonding over how ridiculous the scavenger hunt was). I survived the miles of walking and hours of embarrassing and uncomfortable tasks enough to make it to campus for dinner.

Later that night, my friend and I went back to St. Kilda in order to pick up some stuff I left at my house. What was supposed to be a roughly 30 minute tram ride became a three hour nightmare. I know I have the same sense of direction as a potato, but the degree to which my friend and I got lost was astronomical. At one point, while wandering through some random suburbs, we asked a woman walking by "How far are we from St. Kilda?" To which she responded with wide eyes, "St. Kilda?! Way off!" When we did finally reach my house at St. Kilda, we went to a bar immediately and ordered drinks and nachos in order to tentatively erase the horror of the earlier events.

We took a cab back to campus. 

Day Two (Tuesday): We headed to Healesville Sanctuary, an animal sanctuary about an hour and a half outside Melbourne. They rescue wild Australian animals such as koalas, emus, kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, and so on, in order to rehabilitate them or simply let them live out their lives in safety. It was an amazing place with wonderful creatures. My favorite by far were the koalas. They are the most perfect animals (except for the abundance of chlamydia that's ravaging their population, apparently...) who are adorable, fuzzy, and sleep between 18 and 22 hours a day (dream life, amirite?). My orientation group and I walked around and saw all the wonderful animals only to realize we had three hours to kill...and it was about 30 degrees out. So we crashed in the gift shop for an hour and a half, then after getting kicked out, killed another hour in their café...then we finally drove back to campus.

(Link to the Sanctuary: http://www.zoo.org.au/healesville)

What's great about Australia is the drinking age is 18, like any normal and sane place. So as part of our orientation, our leaders took us on a pub crawl around the city. Although it was sort of cold, it was my favorite part of orientation. We went to three bars, ending with a really neat place called "Word," which was more like a club (and I've never been to a real club, and single handedly made up this category). My new-found orientation friends and I drank, talked, bonded, and danced. It was really laid back and didn't have that desperate "look-how-cool-I-am-while-I-drink-illegeally-and-excessively" a lot of under-21 American functions have. In other words, it was fun.

Day Three (Wednesday): Wednesday was pretty rough because we all went on a pub crawl on Tuesday night, then had to be up and ready to go by 8:00 a.m. But by some divine intervention, we all managed to do so. We headed off for a tour of Aboriginal history and a trip to the sky deck of the Eureka tower which is "the highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere," (Wikipedia.com). Unfortunately, communication between our orientation leaders and the Aboriginal history guides was skewed, and we ended up not taking the tour (let's just ignore the fact that post-pub crawl sleep could've been had...). After moseying around in the city for a bit, we went to the Eureka tower. It was amazing and I really underestimated how big Melbourne is. I then went to the mall for a bit with some friends and skipped the Footy Clinic (an activity wherein us students learned how to play AFL) to go home in order to get some much needed rest, for orientation was literally sucking the life out of me. 

Eureka Tower; Photo Cred: Amelia Benstead

After dinner, everyone went off to the night market at the famous Queen Victoria Market. It was the coolest place! It had all kinds of food from bread bowls, to crepes, to duck-topped waffles (I finally decided on a freshly-made Belgium waffle with banana, almonds, ice cream, and Belgium chocolate- pictured below). There were also local artists selling their work, clocks made out of street signs and tea pots, and so many more interesting things. Another great thing was they had giant fire pits for people to stand around, something that would probably be illegal in the states in case someone threw themselves in it and then sued the market owners.

(Link to the Market: http://www.qvm.com.au/)

Sign outside the Market; Photo Cred: Amelia Benstead

Photo Cred: Amelia Benstead

Day Four (Thursday): This time we went to the Queen Victoria Market during the day, which was quite different. Just as awesome though; there were an abundance of local artists, cheap clothes and souvenirs, fresh produce, and a food court with all different kids of restaurants. I got a cheap $5 dollar shirt (that probably won't make it through one round through the wash) for the "Down Under" party we had later that evening.

At around 6:00 p.m., we had a formal dinner in the dining hall. Everyone dressed to impress (expect for me, who was sporting a wrinkled dress that I've had since freshman year of high school) and sat down at our formally-set dinner tables (I was glad I wasn't the only one who didn't know which silverware was for what...in all seriousness, why would anyone need more than one fork for a meal? Dumb). They served us steak and chicken wellington and announced the winners of the scavenger hunt from Monday's event (our team was dead last, I'm pretty sure).

Many pictures were taken of the orientation groups in their fancy-wear, and then people scurried off to dress in complete opposite taste. At 8:00 p.m., we started a long hike to a bar the orientation leaders had booked for our Down Under Party. It was meant to mark the end of the Melbourne Welcome program, so the thing to do was dress in ridiculous Australian garb and get piss drunk. It was a bit sloppy, but I had a lot of fun hanging out with friends and dancing my booty off (quite poorly) to some Beyoncé.

I was really thankful for all the student orientation leaders because the Melbourne Welcome program was a largely student run and was completely voluntary.

Now I'm back at my house in St. Kilda and plan to get things in order such as a job, getting a bike, and opening a bank account. Adult things I don't want to do.

View from the Eureka Tower; Photo Cred: Amelia Benstead

First Trip off in St. Kilda Solo and First AFL Match

So I'm forever jetlagged apparently, and keep waking up between 5:30-6:00 a.m., which I guess isn't too bad. But I decided to get my day started on an early note. I went to Woodfrog Bakery, just down the street from me to get a bagel and a coffee. Each sentence I uttered to the women at the Woodfrog Bakery counter ever so increasingly made me seem like a dribbling idiot. I didn't know how to order a bagel (to be fair, they didn't have a menu listing the foods, just a vague description of what kind of texture their bagels had), I didn't understand why Vegemite was served instead of cream cheese, I didn't know ordering cream with coffee raised eyebrows, nor did I know they didn't toast the bagel, I was to do that. None of these are complaints about the restaurant in the least; it was a wonderful place and I plan to go back often. It was more like I was silently ashamed I didn't under the code of conduct of this place or the ins and outs of normal orders. After I struggled through ordering a plain bagel and a latte, the cashier looked at me sympathetically and said "Culture shock?" (Which made me feel kinda lame because I was indeed experiencing culture shock over ordering a bagel...I might not survive this trip). Anyway, they had toasters on the table where you toasted your dish yourself and offered an array of toppings such as chunky peanut butter, brown sugar, butter, and of course, Vegemite. I pretended to mess around my phone even though I had no service or WiFi, and ate my bagel sheepishly, recovering from my embarrassing struggle to order it.

After finishing my delicious peanut butter bagel, I headed off a few blocks to the beach. I actually took the long way, and that really consisted of walking maybe 3-4 blocks. So the beach is quite close to me, which is awesome. I sat down in the sand, even though it was sort of chilly (around 42 F) and watched a plethora of joggers and bikers roam by. Even for 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday, the beach was decently occupied. I took some pictures from the pier and started my wander through the shops of St. Kilda. I ended up going to a cafe called 95 Espresso to get even more coffee...in order to avoid coming across completely clueless, I just asked the cashier what his favorite coffee was and to give me that one. I don't know exactly what kind of coffee it was, but it was one of the best coffees I've ever had. Something about the coffee here is different from back in the States, but I can't put my finger on it exactly...it's not nearly as sugary and is thicker, but there are still more elements that make a difference that I can't describe. Anyway, I pursued the St. Kilda Sunday newspaper while drinking my heavenly coffee and learned a lot about local real estate, "footy," marijuana laws in Australia, and local events. I pretended to be an informed citizen for a while, then headed back home.

I then headed to downtown Melbourne to meet up with my friend Amelia for an official AFL match. It took a while to coordinate trams and walking, but eventually we made it to the Essendon vs. Collingwood match. It apparently was supposed to be a crazy intense match, but it ended up being a blow-out; 103 to 30-something (and I don't know which team won, just FYI. My friends and I spent most of the match trying to figure it out what the hell was happening in the sport in general. We picked up on the various sports AFL was inspired by such as football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and cage fighting. We also gathered how the points vary from 6 to 1, depending on which posts you kick/hit/throw it through, and that players must be at least 6' 3", be 100% muscle, and look good in tight booty shorts in order to even try out). All in all, the game was great to watch, even though it seemed like the players and refs made up the rules of the game as they went along.

Tomorrow starts the official Melbourne orientation for international kids!

Hello! I've never had a blog before and frankly, I don't like them. One, because I automatically relate blogs to tumblr. And I don't get tumblr. I sort of had on in high school specifically to look at high-quality pictures of food and puppies. But I never met people because (and trying to be as diplomatic as possible) I wasn't into Dr. Who and Anime and politically charged debates about gender identity, nor did I go to art school and smoke cigarettes outside my favorite coffee shop. Which I guess makes me sound really close-minded and ignorant, but honestly, I was more in it for food and puppy pics and had no patience for anything distracting me from that. Two, some people with blogs shamelessly self-promote his/her screenplays or poems that are trying too hard or his/her awkwardly self-orchestrated "model" shoots. Or three, they're a study abroad blog. Now, I understand this is glaringly hypocritical because this is a study aboard blog, but I'll explain. I didn't like reading study abroad blogs because I didn't like being reminded how boring my life was by scrolling through exotic pictures of friends taking trips to African safaris, or drinking delicious tea in some beautiful pub in England, or hiking ice cliffs in Iceland. But now the tables have turned and I'm supposed to be the one having a good time (so if you're curmudgeon like me and don't want to read this blog, I will not be offended).

Anyway, so I am keeping a blog to keep track of my travels in Australia via pictures and writing that I'm publishing on a blog in the rare event someone is keen/bored enough to stumble upon it (or my mother who will remember more details from this blog than I ever will).

So, in sum, I am a rising junior at Gettysburg College currently studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia. I'm studying English and Philosophy at the University of Melbourne and am currently living off-campus in St. Kilda (96 Barkly Street, St. Kilda VIC 3182 to be exact, for those of you that would like to drop $50+ sending me goodies. No? Okay, I think it's $1.25 to send a postcard if you wanna be pen-pals) a suburb of Melbourne that's about a 25-30 minute tram ride from downtown. It's right next to the beach, has tons of pubs, cafes, boutiques, and more. Overall, you can get every kind of useful and useless thing your heart desires.

One thing I did not anticipate was the cost of living. I knew vaguely that living in Australia  was expensive, but I just assumed as a study abroad student, I was immune the causes of high-priced living and that everything would be easy and cheap because I wasn't a real resident...I don't know why.

And I was quite wrong. The cheapest meal seems to be some sort of pasta dish, which is around $10. A typical beer will cost between $6-10. If you wanna get fancy with it by going to fancy bars, be prepared to dent your budget big time (apparently a male living in Australia for a year will spend upwards of $10k on alcohol alone...not so much for females because a good chunk of that $10k is men paying for womens' drinks).

But, other than that, Australia is incredible. The coffee here is subtlety different, yet amazing, there are infinite things to do, traveling in the country is pretty doable, and the places to travel to are the stuff out of National Geographic magazines. I'm pretty pumped.

Anyway, below are some pictures of the past few days from my Arcadia orientation (the program I'm with). Tomorrow will be my first AFL (Australian Football League) match. Then, I start my formal University of Melbourne orientation on Monday...and I will not be watching the World Cup Final because it's on at 5 a.m. Monday here. So that is a no-go, unfortunately. But, I'm pretty excited to get my semester here going!

Wild Eastern Grey Kangaroos

Hillside views from a kangaroo reserve

More kangaroos

Sorrento, Australia (our house is the big one to the far right)

Sorrento Beach

Sorrento Beach

Sand Shark an adorable family drew