...But that's not what this post is about. Because I still haven't found the time to sit down and type out my experiences in Sydney or the absolutely gorgeous Kiama, I figure I'll still put something up. So instead I figured I'll talk about my life a bit more, because as we all know I love talking about me :)
University of Wollongong is way different than AU. It still gets me. Actually, I even got a bit lost walking around the uni last week trying to find my classrooms - sometimes I decide I'll go a different way and then I end up discovering a whole new part of the campus. I actually found this really pretty duck pond area. The campus itself is huge compared to AU, but it's not as big as Penn State or IUP I suppose - mostly because there is no on-campus housing really. And while I adore AU and the quad, the uni here is so much prettier! There are ponds and trees and bushes. I'm going to end up taking pictures probably right before I leave because that's when there will be less people on campus to give me funny looks. It's also a huge commuter campus - in the mornings when I have my 830 class, there will be about 3 shuttles that come within 5 or 10 minutes of each other, just to deal with all the people that are getting off the trains. My neighbor Ben, before he got a room in I-house, had to wake up at something like 5 am just to get to class at 830 or 930 (I don't remember which). But lots of people do the whole commuter thing! I know some people back home have long commutes because of the metro and rush hour, but for these people it's really just a matter of location. I don't know how they do it. Also, there are more older people here than at AU, and not even taking graduate level classes. There are at least 5 older people in each of my classes, which are just 200 level classes. It's strange to think about, seeing as how back home it was really just kids my age. Sometimes they have interesting things to say, and most of the time they enrich the conversation, but I think it's also obvious the difference in the way we communicate - the older people tend to draw out things they say and elaborate a lot (although there are younger kids that do that too - can you tell I'm just annoyed by people in general who aren't concise/take too long to say something?).
I hang out with a decent mix of Americans/Australians. My roommate is American and our friend Steph is also American, but for the most part all the guys we hang out with are Australian. I'm not sure exactly why this is - the Australian girls here are mostly first years and banded together with other Australians in the first week or so, but I suppose we did the same thing (me, Caitlin, and Steph). If the situations were reversed, I would try to make friends with the Americans, but at the same time, knowing that they were all going to be leaving at the end of the semester would be kind of off-putting. Regardless, I'm getting to know some cool people from the States as well as some awesome Aussies. Would you believe I have a friend here who is legit Australian? Like America, Australia has a lot of immigrants, but this kid's family has been here since the convicts were first sent over (yup, he's a descendent of convicts!) I'm also listening to some new music - some American music that was never really big over there, and some Australian music too (listen to My People, This Boy's in Love, or Talk Like That, by the Presets - I can't get enough of this band!). Night time when we don't go out, we'll watch movies, listen to music, or generally bum around on YouTube. It's actually pretty fun - Caitlin and I always have our door open (we don't have air conditioning so it's good for air flow) so people just pop in and hang out for a bit.
Today I went on a field trip for my Aboriginal Studies class and we hiked up a mountain, which made me realize that as much as I like hiking, the draw is gone a bit seeing as how I am always staring at the ground and never really looking up to enjoy the view. I took some pictures when we stopped, but I also bashed my head into a tree because I was looking where I was walking and not looking up. It was pretty funny, actually, in hindsight.
That's all for right now - I'm about to start some pre-birthday celebrating, courtesy of my roommate (she's very excited about it). I think the best of the celebrating we're going to be doing is going to a place that has 3$ tacos! It won't taste as great as Mexican food from home, but it'll have to do.
(Here is a surprise video for reading the post! This video is from Kiama - you can hear me sighing at the beauty at a few parts I think and you also see Steph's head)
29 March 2009
25 March 2009
Week 4 of school, Week 5 of Awesomeness!
So I’ve been in Australia for more than a month! It’s crazy, it absolutely doesn’t feel like it. In honour of this occasion though, I’m going to make a list of favourites/things I’ve done since being here…
Favourite Place: Kiama!!
Favourite thing I’ve bought: my gladiator shoes!
Favourite thing I’ve eaten: SWEET CHILI SAUCE ZOMG SO GOOD!
Favourite experience: Great Barrier Reef Trip
Thing I’m most looking forward to: My trip to New Zealand for Easter Break! (I will BE ARAGORN!!)
Food I miss the most: Chipotle (also, good home cooking)
Person I miss the most: Bella (Alex too, I suppose :D )
Most Commonly Worn Piece of Clothing: pair of shorts I bought here – they’re super awesome
Most Schoolwork I did: I wrote a 1000 word annotated bibliography about my research on how Australians reacted to the declaration of war in 1914
Favourite Class: Australians and the Great War
Most exciting thing I’ve done: Sky diving (ok, haven’t done that one yet, but it’s coming up within the next two weeks!)
Most Painful thing: Using my skull to stop a surfboard from moving forward
Most time spent at the beach: 7 hours – 2 hours surfing, 5 hours lounging
Books I’ve read: Watchmen, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, and Dune (just started The Road)
There are of course many more, I’m sure, but I think that’s good for now. You might notice that I’ve switched over to Australian typing – I type up the blog posts in Word, which I had to switch over so I don’t get points taken off when I turn in papers. Speaking of papers, classes are going pretty well, although I haven’t gotten anything back yet. I’m really enjoying my History class – everything we learn about is interesting and in my tutorial I get the chance to speak pretty openly with Australians about our nations’ relationship. I actually gave a presentation today in my class – it was unnerving because I was the first person to present and I’m pretty sure I did it the American way as opposed to what Australians do (from what I’ve heard and what the Australian who presented after me did, they just read their essays…I straight up sat in front of the classroom, rambled off some notes, and then asked questions). I learned a lot, so I can only hope that the rest of the class did too. You can pretty much ask me anything about how the Australian people reacted to entering World War I and I’ll have an answer for you.
Besides classes, life here is perfect! I spend my time relaxing, reading, hanging out with friends, or sitting at the beach. I need to go to sleep now, but I figured that I should at least attempt to update, seeing as how it’s been quite a while.
Favourite Place: Kiama!!
Favourite thing I’ve bought: my gladiator shoes!
Favourite thing I’ve eaten: SWEET CHILI SAUCE ZOMG SO GOOD!
Favourite experience: Great Barrier Reef Trip
Thing I’m most looking forward to: My trip to New Zealand for Easter Break! (I will BE ARAGORN!!)
Food I miss the most: Chipotle (also, good home cooking)
Person I miss the most: Bella (Alex too, I suppose :D )
Most Commonly Worn Piece of Clothing: pair of shorts I bought here – they’re super awesome
Most Schoolwork I did: I wrote a 1000 word annotated bibliography about my research on how Australians reacted to the declaration of war in 1914
Favourite Class: Australians and the Great War
Most exciting thing I’ve done: Sky diving (ok, haven’t done that one yet, but it’s coming up within the next two weeks!)
Most Painful thing: Using my skull to stop a surfboard from moving forward
Most time spent at the beach: 7 hours – 2 hours surfing, 5 hours lounging
Books I’ve read: Watchmen, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, and Dune (just started The Road)
There are of course many more, I’m sure, but I think that’s good for now. You might notice that I’ve switched over to Australian typing – I type up the blog posts in Word, which I had to switch over so I don’t get points taken off when I turn in papers. Speaking of papers, classes are going pretty well, although I haven’t gotten anything back yet. I’m really enjoying my History class – everything we learn about is interesting and in my tutorial I get the chance to speak pretty openly with Australians about our nations’ relationship. I actually gave a presentation today in my class – it was unnerving because I was the first person to present and I’m pretty sure I did it the American way as opposed to what Australians do (from what I’ve heard and what the Australian who presented after me did, they just read their essays…I straight up sat in front of the classroom, rambled off some notes, and then asked questions). I learned a lot, so I can only hope that the rest of the class did too. You can pretty much ask me anything about how the Australian people reacted to entering World War I and I’ll have an answer for you.
Besides classes, life here is perfect! I spend my time relaxing, reading, hanging out with friends, or sitting at the beach. I need to go to sleep now, but I figured that I should at least attempt to update, seeing as how it’s been quite a while.
13 March 2009
My "Week"
Happy Birthday Mom! This post is going up as a special birthday present to her.
So, let’s go through my week, which is basically just Tuesday and Wednesday – everything else counts as a weekend in my eyes.
Tuesday morning I wake up around 7 so I can take a shower and get ready for my 830 class. We, being my roommate and our friend Steph, go to breakfast at 730ish. Breakfast for the most part is just cereal – some days they have hot breakfast, like sausage, bacon, pancakes and eggs, but we all know I don’t eat any of those, so I stick to my cereal. I have started eating it with milk though – I don’t know why I had such a huge problem with it before, it’s actually quite manageable. Anyway, we hop on a shuttle to the campus and I have my 830 Redefining
I’m enjoying this class so far. It’s not specifically about aboriginals; it extends to indigenous knowledge worldwide. This week we learned about how indigenous knowledge tends to be more sacred and holistic than western knowledge. My professor isn’t advocating specifically for indigenous knowledge over western knowledge, but more for a blending of the two.
After that class, I walk to my 930 class – Australian Content: Media, Narrative and Celebrity. I think that if I were taking this class back home, I would probably drop it and take a different one, but I don’t feel like going through the whole process of approvals and what not. The class seems a little hokey to me – this is a new class, so I suppose I should cut the professor some slack, but in general it just feels like it’s all over the place. Then my professor took thirty minutes of class time going over motivation/time management techniques. I was kinda bothered by this – I’m a junior at a decent university, I think I know how to do these things. However, my irritation with the whole thing might just have been because I had to pee really badly.
Those two lectures are over by 1130 and my next class, my Australians and the Great War tutorial, doesn’t start until 330, so I walked back to my dorm and took a nap, among other little things. During that time, I’m usually able to talk to people from back home because it is night time back home and most of my friends/family are still awake. Oh! For lunch, at my dorm, they don’t actually serve lunch. At breakfast, they have a sandwich bar with different lunch meats and cheese and toppings, so you just make a sandwich and wrap it up for lunch.
Anyway, so I head back to uni for my last class of the day. Normally it will be a two hour tutorial, but it was shorter because it was the first one of the year. I’m really excited about this class – it’s good to learn a bit about history and apply it to war, especially seeing as how I’m going into an international security field, and what better to look at from a different perspective than World War 1? Even more exciting, I’m one of two Americans in the tutorial – which is basically a class of 12 people where we go over the lectures and go more in depth about some stuff. We started the tutorial off with trying to define war. While I see it as a highly technical term and I define most other things relatively technically as well, we talked about the events of 9/11 quite a bit. It was strange to see it from an international view – I felt that even though I was surrounded by people, they couldn’t actually understand what it was like to have that happen on your home soil. Although during WWII the Japanese bombed
After that class is over, at 530, I’m done for the day and I head back to International House for dinner and then Tuesday Topicals. I-house runs events every Tuesday and Thursday which are meant to broaden your horizons and what not. This most recent topical was a Faculty Face-Off, where everyone got in groups with their majors. Here, I’m in the faculty of Arts. It’s weird, back at AU, SIS is the most popular major…here, I have yet to find anyone else studying International Studies (as a major at least). I’m not used to being in the minority! Most of the people here that I know are engineers or science majors. Ha, oh well. I actually often think, maybe I should have picked a different school/country that is more relevant to international affairs, but I decided that I’m here not just for school but for the experience, and experience abroad is still experience abroad. Additionally on Tuesdays, I-House has supper, which is when they put out donuts, cookies, crackers, cheese, and people drink coffee and what not. It’s delicious! There are cookies here called Tim-Tams – at first, I didn’t think much of them, but I think there’s an exponential curve of how much you like them.
Wednesday mornings I have a tutorial for my
Well, that right there is my week. I suppose I should say a few other things, like how the food (at least at I-house) is kinda bland – I’ve started putting salt on a lot of my food. Not a ton of salt, so my blood pressure should be fine, but enough to give the food more flavour. Every night for dinner, I-house has brown rice, white rice, two different kinds of vegetables, and a potato option. For the main meals, there are three meat eater options – chicken, beef, or fish – and one vegetarian option. The chicken is sketch for the most part/it doesn’t meet my standards – it’s often on the bone and doesn’t resemble chicken breast, so I’ve been getting beef a lot. I know that beef isn’t as healthy an option as chicken, so who knows, I may even start eating fish. I doubt it though. There is one food thing here that I absolutely love and know for sure that I am going to be very saddened to leave: sweet chili sauce. IT IS DELICIOUS! I’m going to bring a whole bunch back/import it myself from
Back to Brett and Marissa. The three of us are taking our spring break together – Marissa and I met on the plane from
I know a few people are aware that I went to Sydney last Saturday for the Gay Mardi Gras Parade, and I’ll have a post up about that sometime this weekend or so, because I’m actually going back into Sydney tomorrow to go to the aquarium, so I feel as though a joint post would be more efficient.
Finally, I’ve already picked up an Australian phrase. I was actually trying to say it before I left for
I’m almost finished with this post. Today, I was at the beach for right around four and a half hours. Of course, I didn’t think to bring my camera, but I really should have. Probably around 4 I decided three and a half hours of tanning is enough and that perhaps I should go check out the water. It was so warm! After walking around for a bit looking for Mom’s birthday present (she loves it, I called her up to wish her a happy birthday and told her all about it) I just go in about knee deep and look for shark teeth, which involves me sticking my hand into the sand and looking through the little pebbles of sand and seashells in hopes of finding a tooth. After many unsuccessful attempts, me and my roommate go to this rock area right next to the beach, where there are tons of little pools of water supporting fish and seaweed and fun stuff like that. It was lots of fun crawling over it and seeing all the little pockets of life. Like I said before though, didn’t think to bring my camera. I don’t think I’ll make the mistake again, but I’ll probably go back to the little area to check it out and crawl all over the rocks again. It’s fun being active again, after spending so long in knee braces. I’m of course always conscious of my knee and its limitations, but I think that just doing things is a bit of a help for it too.
Once more, happy birthday mommy! And happy march 12 to everyone else out there too.
09 March 2009
06 March 2009
Mini-Post
This update isn't going to be about classes just quite yet - I've only had one week of them, but it doesn't really count because they were just introductions. I'll write about them next week after I've had more material presented to me and thus will be able to convey more to you. However, I will tell everyone a little story about my day at the beach today...
It wasn't super hot today - I think only like, 23 or 24 Celsius. It was extremely windy though. And the wind is intense, so it picks up the sand and it feels like you're being sandblasted. Luckily, it wasn't that intense for very long so it was okay after about half an hour. Anyway, so I'm laying on the beach, listening to my music/sleeping/reading, and I realize that there is a seagull about .5 meters away from my feet, just chillin' in the sand. It was sitting down, and it kept tucking its head into its feathers and dozing off. So cute! When have you ever seen a seagull take a nap so close to you? Then, I watched the seagull yawn - it's a very funny image in my head. His entire mouth just opened so it was like looking into a big hole. He walked around a bit and then I guess he realized that he had to stretch as well. I don't know if this is how all seagulls stretch, but when he stretched out his left wing, he also stretched back his left foot. Maybe a minute later he did the same thing with his right side. He also walked all around the blanket me and my roommate were laying on - when we picked up the blanket to leave, there were seagull footprints that made a rectangular shape. Strange, eh? I don't know what to make of it except that the seagulls here are friendlier, just like the people.
Also, I finally saw the Southern Cross - it's a lot smaller than what I would have thought. But I can see Orion's belt, which I think is pretty cool. I had always wondered why I hadn't been able to see it. It's still strange to think that I'm seeing an entirely different side of the universe. I like knowing that I've seen both sides though - makes me feel like a universally better person (that was an attempt at a pun - it's late though and I'm sleepy so that's why it wasn't a very good one). At the same time, I feel kinda sad for everyone in the southern hemisphere, that they don't get to see all the northern hemisphere stars. Maybe the Earth should just flip upside down so everyone can see what the other hemisphere's stars look like. Although, I suppose that if the Earth flipped upside down people wouldn't be much worried about the stars and perhaps more worried about whatever natural disaster had caused such a flip. Ok, I'm ranting now so I think it's just better if I went to bed. Update next week sometime on classes!
01 March 2009
Oz
Ok, so I think I’m going to skip telling everyone about the RainForeStation trip – you’ll have to ask me about it another time. The highlights of the trip though: I got my picture taken holding a koala, fed and pet kangaroos and wallabies, and held a snake (which decided to wrap around my neck a little too tight for comfort). Now onto what life is like so far in Australia…
I live in the International House, so there are lots of Americans, Aussies, and people from all over. I actually feel like a bit of a disappointment because apparently some people knew my last name and were hoping that I was from somewhere Spanish and would therefore speak it. I’ll have to add it to my list of things to do before I die – learn to speak Spanish like a native so I’m not a total let down to people :D I share a room with a girl named Caitlin from Staten Island, NY, but she goes to UConn. She’s pretty awesome – there will be some roommate pics up eventually. Our room is kinda small but we make it work. We have all the normal dorm room stuff plus a sink in our room! It’s nice because we don’t have to leave the room in order to brush our teeth. We have a bathroom on each deck (floor) that is co-ed…I haven’t had any interesting run-ins yet though. We have to pay for our internet, but for 30AUD a month we get 15000 gb so it’s more than enough…I might even be able to play some WoW at the end of the month if I find I have a lot of gigs left!
My dorm (or campus, as they call it) is about a 25 minute walk from the university and a 15 minute walk to the beach. I know how to get to the beach better than I do the Uni, actually. Luckily, there’s a shuttle that takes us from our campus there. There’s also a train station right next to my campus – it’s like a 100 meter walk down the road. It’s a city line train, so it goes all the way up to Sydney and runs pretty late, so I could potentially make a day of it. But it’s good because one stop north is the station next to the campus where a bunch of my other friends live and one stop south is the Wollongong city stop, which is like a two block walk to an amazing mall. I still have yet to just go explore the city, but I’ve only been here a bit over a week, so I’m sure I’ll get around to it. The mall had a ton of stores. There were two components to it. You had the normal mall bit and then there was this outdoor area where there were a bunch of cafes and more expensive boutiques. I bought this really pretty dress (all the girls wear dresses when they go out, so I feel compelled to buy some to stay up with the fashion) for AU$12, which comes to be about US$7.70, or an AMAZING DEAL! I bought all my toiletries and whatnot else that I needed – it’s becoming more and more real that I am in fact going to be living in this beautiful place for the next four months. I think that once classes start it will really sink in that this is not just a vacation. Either that, or I’ve already accepted it and I just don’t miss AU that much. Think about it – being 15 minutes away from the beach or on a campus surrounded by cement, where it’s cold and rainy all the time? Which would you pick?
The beach itself is amazing – I took pictures so everyone can be jealous. Beach etiquette is a bit different here. For example, there are flags and it’s highly recommended that you swim between them. It’s the place where the lifeguards have deemed that it’s safe and where they are more likely to be able to help you. People swim between the two red and yellow flags and surfers have to surf outside of the blue flags. They also put up warning signs – like today, there was a sign that said ‘beware of blue bottles.’ Blue bottles are like mini Portuguese man of wars. The Aussies were telling us that it’s not that bad of a sting and that the lifeguards have spray that stops the pain. The water itself is so warm and so clear! Everyone is probably aware of my fear of water I can’t see into. Well, here I don’t have that problem! There is seaweed/kelp on the bottom of the ocean and even though it brushes against your legs in a creepy ‘omg what the hell was that’ kind of way, you look down and see it’s just seaweed and you calm down. The water is really warm too. Back home, when you get in the water it takes like 5 minutes for you to get numb enough for the cold water not to bother you anymore. Here, as soon as you get in, you think, ahh, that’s just chill enough to take away how hot it is. Which, by the way, that giant hole in the ozone layer is right above Australia, so everyone always wears 30+ sunscreen. There is none of the 4 tanning oil. They’re very serious about skin cancer down here because they have a huge amount of it. When I was walking to the mall, there were about three or four clinics for skin cancer. The waves are way more fun here too. There will be giant ones, about three or four of them right in a row. Today I attempted to learn how to ride them in, but I was always too afraid of losing my bottoms or my top to really do it.
Classes start this week – I don’t start until Tuesday morning and this week we only have lectures. Normal weeks will have lectures (usually 1 hour) and tutorials (usually two hours). My schedule as of now is this: Tuesday mornings 830 – 930 Redefining Eden: Indigenous People and the Environment lecture, then 930 – 1130 I have Australia Content: Media, Narrative and Celebrity (this class doesn’t have a tutorial, so that’s why it’s a longer lecture) and then from 330 to 530 I have my Australians and the Great War tutorial. On Wednesday I have from 930 to 1130 my Redefining Eden tutorial and then from 130 to 230 I have my Australians and the Great War lecture. And that is all my classes! I’m actually excited for them to start – I really do enjoy learning and these classes are pretty different from what I take back home.
On another note, today at the beach I played a bit of touch footy (basically touch rugby) in a small little area (so not a whole lot of running and cutting) and I realized how much I miss it. My knee is sore now (it might also be from the pilates I did earlier today too though) but I feel compelled to make it super solid so I can play again (sorry mom! At least you’ll get good action shots though). It really didn’t hinder me too much, or at least a lot less than I thought that it would, but I’m sure I was favoring it.
I’m really having a good time here – I know I’ve only been here in Australia for a little over a week but I think this was exactly what I needed after all of last semester’s nonsense. Additionally, I’m most likely going to be going to New Zealand for spring break (although for them it’s called Easter holiday because the seasons are switched) and going to see some Lord of the Rings sites, which pretty much makes my life every time I think about it.
Some other little things about Australia that I want to tell you:
• Money: The money is plastic. Apparently before it was, everyone was ruining their money because they were taking it in the water with them. Also, you don’t pay sales tax on anything or tip at all. The price you see is the price you pay. Here instead of $1 notes (they’re called notes, not bills) they have $1 and $2 coins. It’s actually pretty awesome because you think, oh man, all I have is change, and then you count it and it turns out you have close to $20 in your pocket.
• Opposite directions: Yes, they drive on the other side of the road over here. Apparently it’s because when driving, your dominant hand is on the wheel and your non-dominant hand is shifting (they only drive manual! I get props because I can) and everything just aligns better. However, it extends to more than just driving…when walking, they walk on the opposite side of the sidewalk too! For a while I would be walking into people, but I think I’m catching on now.
• Toilets: I haven’t actually seen the water flow in the opposite direction. It doesn’t really flow around like they do in America. First, there’s a lot less water in the bowl and then there are usually two buttons that you can press. One is for a lesser amount of water and the other is for a larger amount of water – I’m sure you can figure out why you would use one and the other. The water just kind of rushes into the bowl – there is no clockwise or counter-clockwise action.
• Stars: This is probably the weirdest – nothing looks familiar. I was outside and looking for a dipper and didn’t see one. Instead you have to look for the Southern Cross (it’s the star formation on the right side of their flag and potentially a tattoo for me ;) ) . I couldn’t find it when I was looking for it but apparently it’s sort of upside down in the sky, so I think I’ll go check again tonight.
That’s all for now – next time I post I should be able to talk about my classes a bit more and hopefully I should have pictures up soon! If you want to know anything else, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Additionally, here is my contact information in case any one wants to send me some love (I’m buying post cards tomorrow so if you want one, send me an email or something with your address!)
Lisa Espinosa
International House
University of Wollongong
Wollongong NSW 2522
Australia
My mobile number is: 0466002510
I live in the International House, so there are lots of Americans, Aussies, and people from all over. I actually feel like a bit of a disappointment because apparently some people knew my last name and were hoping that I was from somewhere Spanish and would therefore speak it. I’ll have to add it to my list of things to do before I die – learn to speak Spanish like a native so I’m not a total let down to people :D I share a room with a girl named Caitlin from Staten Island, NY, but she goes to UConn. She’s pretty awesome – there will be some roommate pics up eventually. Our room is kinda small but we make it work. We have all the normal dorm room stuff plus a sink in our room! It’s nice because we don’t have to leave the room in order to brush our teeth. We have a bathroom on each deck (floor) that is co-ed…I haven’t had any interesting run-ins yet though. We have to pay for our internet, but for 30AUD a month we get 15000 gb so it’s more than enough…I might even be able to play some WoW at the end of the month if I find I have a lot of gigs left!
My dorm (or campus, as they call it) is about a 25 minute walk from the university and a 15 minute walk to the beach. I know how to get to the beach better than I do the Uni, actually. Luckily, there’s a shuttle that takes us from our campus there. There’s also a train station right next to my campus – it’s like a 100 meter walk down the road. It’s a city line train, so it goes all the way up to Sydney and runs pretty late, so I could potentially make a day of it. But it’s good because one stop north is the station next to the campus where a bunch of my other friends live and one stop south is the Wollongong city stop, which is like a two block walk to an amazing mall. I still have yet to just go explore the city, but I’ve only been here a bit over a week, so I’m sure I’ll get around to it. The mall had a ton of stores. There were two components to it. You had the normal mall bit and then there was this outdoor area where there were a bunch of cafes and more expensive boutiques. I bought this really pretty dress (all the girls wear dresses when they go out, so I feel compelled to buy some to stay up with the fashion) for AU$12, which comes to be about US$7.70, or an AMAZING DEAL! I bought all my toiletries and whatnot else that I needed – it’s becoming more and more real that I am in fact going to be living in this beautiful place for the next four months. I think that once classes start it will really sink in that this is not just a vacation. Either that, or I’ve already accepted it and I just don’t miss AU that much. Think about it – being 15 minutes away from the beach or on a campus surrounded by cement, where it’s cold and rainy all the time? Which would you pick?
The beach itself is amazing – I took pictures so everyone can be jealous. Beach etiquette is a bit different here. For example, there are flags and it’s highly recommended that you swim between them. It’s the place where the lifeguards have deemed that it’s safe and where they are more likely to be able to help you. People swim between the two red and yellow flags and surfers have to surf outside of the blue flags. They also put up warning signs – like today, there was a sign that said ‘beware of blue bottles.’ Blue bottles are like mini Portuguese man of wars. The Aussies were telling us that it’s not that bad of a sting and that the lifeguards have spray that stops the pain. The water itself is so warm and so clear! Everyone is probably aware of my fear of water I can’t see into. Well, here I don’t have that problem! There is seaweed/kelp on the bottom of the ocean and even though it brushes against your legs in a creepy ‘omg what the hell was that’ kind of way, you look down and see it’s just seaweed and you calm down. The water is really warm too. Back home, when you get in the water it takes like 5 minutes for you to get numb enough for the cold water not to bother you anymore. Here, as soon as you get in, you think, ahh, that’s just chill enough to take away how hot it is. Which, by the way, that giant hole in the ozone layer is right above Australia, so everyone always wears 30+ sunscreen. There is none of the 4 tanning oil. They’re very serious about skin cancer down here because they have a huge amount of it. When I was walking to the mall, there were about three or four clinics for skin cancer. The waves are way more fun here too. There will be giant ones, about three or four of them right in a row. Today I attempted to learn how to ride them in, but I was always too afraid of losing my bottoms or my top to really do it.
Classes start this week – I don’t start until Tuesday morning and this week we only have lectures. Normal weeks will have lectures (usually 1 hour) and tutorials (usually two hours). My schedule as of now is this: Tuesday mornings 830 – 930 Redefining Eden: Indigenous People and the Environment lecture, then 930 – 1130 I have Australia Content: Media, Narrative and Celebrity (this class doesn’t have a tutorial, so that’s why it’s a longer lecture) and then from 330 to 530 I have my Australians and the Great War tutorial. On Wednesday I have from 930 to 1130 my Redefining Eden tutorial and then from 130 to 230 I have my Australians and the Great War lecture. And that is all my classes! I’m actually excited for them to start – I really do enjoy learning and these classes are pretty different from what I take back home.
On another note, today at the beach I played a bit of touch footy (basically touch rugby) in a small little area (so not a whole lot of running and cutting) and I realized how much I miss it. My knee is sore now (it might also be from the pilates I did earlier today too though) but I feel compelled to make it super solid so I can play again (sorry mom! At least you’ll get good action shots though). It really didn’t hinder me too much, or at least a lot less than I thought that it would, but I’m sure I was favoring it.
I’m really having a good time here – I know I’ve only been here in Australia for a little over a week but I think this was exactly what I needed after all of last semester’s nonsense. Additionally, I’m most likely going to be going to New Zealand for spring break (although for them it’s called Easter holiday because the seasons are switched) and going to see some Lord of the Rings sites, which pretty much makes my life every time I think about it.
Some other little things about Australia that I want to tell you:
• Money: The money is plastic. Apparently before it was, everyone was ruining their money because they were taking it in the water with them. Also, you don’t pay sales tax on anything or tip at all. The price you see is the price you pay. Here instead of $1 notes (they’re called notes, not bills) they have $1 and $2 coins. It’s actually pretty awesome because you think, oh man, all I have is change, and then you count it and it turns out you have close to $20 in your pocket.
• Opposite directions: Yes, they drive on the other side of the road over here. Apparently it’s because when driving, your dominant hand is on the wheel and your non-dominant hand is shifting (they only drive manual! I get props because I can) and everything just aligns better. However, it extends to more than just driving…when walking, they walk on the opposite side of the sidewalk too! For a while I would be walking into people, but I think I’m catching on now.
• Toilets: I haven’t actually seen the water flow in the opposite direction. It doesn’t really flow around like they do in America. First, there’s a lot less water in the bowl and then there are usually two buttons that you can press. One is for a lesser amount of water and the other is for a larger amount of water – I’m sure you can figure out why you would use one and the other. The water just kind of rushes into the bowl – there is no clockwise or counter-clockwise action.
• Stars: This is probably the weirdest – nothing looks familiar. I was outside and looking for a dipper and didn’t see one. Instead you have to look for the Southern Cross (it’s the star formation on the right side of their flag and potentially a tattoo for me ;) ) . I couldn’t find it when I was looking for it but apparently it’s sort of upside down in the sky, so I think I’ll go check again tonight.
That’s all for now – next time I post I should be able to talk about my classes a bit more and hopefully I should have pictures up soon! If you want to know anything else, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Additionally, here is my contact information in case any one wants to send me some love (I’m buying post cards tomorrow so if you want one, send me an email or something with your address!)
Lisa Espinosa
International House
University of Wollongong
Wollongong NSW 2522
Australia
My mobile number is: 0466002510
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