Sunday, July 31, 2011
Rugby League
Today Tim, Joe, Andy, Jess and I went to a St. George - Illawarra Dragons rugby league game against the South Sydney Rabbitohs. I knew very little about the rules of rugby before coming to this game especially because there is three different kinds of rugby here and they all have slightly different rules. They are Rugby League which is what we went to, rugby union, and AFL (Australian Football League). Yes rugby is called football here or footy for short, it gets confusing because sometimes i have no idea whether they mean rugby, soccer, or american football which they actually call gridiron. Some differences that i know is that rugby league each team has six tackles or downs to try and score before it is a turnover so before they are tackled for that sixth time they will kick it away but in AFL rules there are no downs and you just fight for the ball the entire game.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Finished the first week of school. So not ready to get back into doing work again but atleast im taking some really easy classes. Already had to do some reading for Locating Australia and a pralab and online tutorial quiz for Biology. Finally got a chance to explore Wollongong and take some pictures now that it has been sunny and mid 60s this week. All the Australians still think this is pretty cold. Saw Harry Potter 7 Part 2 last night, it was awesome. Went for a run a few days ago for the first time and when i got back and took a shower i got this weird red rash all over my body and it still hasnt gone away three days later. Its getting really annoying. Also I had one of my friends give me a haircut, this is the shortest my hair has been in awhile. Here are some pictures of the orientation games, Kiama trip mentioned before as well as the city of Wollongong.
Orientation Games - When they called Kangaroo you had to jump on someones back and the last people to do this were eliminated
Kiama
Kiama Blowhole. Water would spray up from that hole pretty high everytime a wave crashed onto the rocks
Monday, July 25, 2011
First Week
Ive been in Australia for only a week now and it feels like it has been so much longer. Everyone, atleast most of the international students and a few australians on my floor are already really good friends. Orientation week is now over so there are no more planned daily activities and now classes have started today Monday the 25th. I however did not have any classes today but start the semester off with BIOL 103 at 10:30 am tomorrow morning. The other classes i am taking are AUST102 Locating Australia and PSYC116 Psych of Physical Activity and Sport. All of the local australians are now completely moved in so what was only about 25 students here in the dorm has increased to maybe 250 or so in the three buildings which are part of Weerona. They are all right next to each other with a courtyard in the middle.
This past weekend I went to Surf Camp Australia on Seven Mile Beach in Gerringong, Australia. It was a lot of fun learning how to surf despite just having the wettest july in over 60 years and the 50 degree weather. Once you had the wetsuit on it wasnt that bad except for your feet which were always extremely cold. The worst part was putting on a wet wetsuit for the second lesson on the day. On saturday we had two lessons, one at 9am and one at 1:30pm. Each lesson lasted about 2 and a half hours and consisted of lessons on technique and then mostly practicing on your on in the water. The counselors said the waves were "small" but they were bigger then any wave you will see around New England. Five of us, all from Weerona College stayed in a small cabin which we spent most of the time huddled around the space heater which was given to each room. Since this trip was during Flood Week or Orientation Week at Weerona College we were all supposed to still be wearing our bandannas and we became known as the ninja turtles.
Cabins we stayed in with the dining and meeting area in the middle.
Surfing under a rainbow after the wettest July in over 60 years.
Group Photo. I got the red surfboard in the back middle.
Surfing lesson.
1. Paddle
2. When the wave hits you paddle hard three more times
3. Thumbs to nipples and lift your chest and head up like your stretching your abs
4. Bring your back foot up
5. Bring your front foot up to between your hands and point at a 45 degree angle
6. Raise your body up and keep looking forward
7. Ride the wave, to turn just slowly look to where you want to turn
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Differences from America
1. Unisex bathrooms
2. There is a separate nossle for hot water and cold water so you need to balance out for a good temperature...kinda like a sink
3. Toilets have 2 flush buttons, A full flush is for when you shit, a half flush for when you pee. You must also hold the flush button for 5 seconds.
4. There is no such thing as tipping
5. The lowest paper money is a $5 bill, so you get a shit ton of change
6. There is no penny. I found this out when i bought wine for $9.99 and gave the cashier a $10. After a minute of standing there waiting for my penny with the cashier awkwardly looking at me I told me i dont get any change because there is not such thing as a penny
7. Driving on the left is crazy, especially when you come to a rotary
8. If you replaced every 4 way intersection with a rotary and every rotary with a 4 way intersection in america....then you would get australia. Four way intersections are very rare, almost every intersection is a rotary which does make driving places faster i guess
9. Cars always have the right of way and they take advantage of it. You need to cross the road when there are no cars coming, they do not stop for you and get very angry if they even have to slow down.
10. A cleaning lady named Winnie comes into your dorm room every fortnight (two weeks) and vacuums, dusts, and cleans for me
2. There is a separate nossle for hot water and cold water so you need to balance out for a good temperature...kinda like a sink
3. Toilets have 2 flush buttons, A full flush is for when you shit, a half flush for when you pee. You must also hold the flush button for 5 seconds.
4. There is no such thing as tipping
5. The lowest paper money is a $5 bill, so you get a shit ton of change
6. There is no penny. I found this out when i bought wine for $9.99 and gave the cashier a $10. After a minute of standing there waiting for my penny with the cashier awkwardly looking at me I told me i dont get any change because there is not such thing as a penny
7. Driving on the left is crazy, especially when you come to a rotary
8. If you replaced every 4 way intersection with a rotary and every rotary with a 4 way intersection in america....then you would get australia. Four way intersections are very rare, almost every intersection is a rotary which does make driving places faster i guess
9. Cars always have the right of way and they take advantage of it. You need to cross the road when there are no cars coming, they do not stop for you and get very angry if they even have to slow down.
10. A cleaning lady named Winnie comes into your dorm room every fortnight (two weeks) and vacuums, dusts, and cleans for me
Socceroo Gold
My team was in second place after Games night last night. Also everyone must wear a bandanna of thier teams color and their name tag at all times. If caught without either you are forced to take a shot of fish sauce which looks gross
The beginning
Finally here in Australia, flight from Boston to LA was cool because you could see land the entire time and saw some of the rockies and could even see the grand canyon.
Once we got to LA a few of the other guys and I went to Hollywood Boulevard to walk around. The taxi ride there was $70 which was ridiculous so on the way back to the airport we decided to figure out our way using the Metro which ended up bringing us through some shady areas like compton, crenshaw blvd, and ingelwood.
The 15 hour flight to Sydney went by much quicker then i thought but it still was awful to sit for that long. Night time to entire flight so didnt get to see anything or the city when landing.
Once off the plane we met a probably 60 yr old Australian who drove us to Wollongong and told us a lot of stories on the about 50 min trip
Once we reached Weerona he dropped us off and we met the SRs and got a quick tour around the dorms before walking around and exploring Wollongong and going out to the bar. Drinks are really expensive about $7 a beer. The next day on Sunday there was a barbeque for us held by the SRs followed by some icebreaker games and divided into teams for Flood Week. Im on Socceroo Gold and Bree my team leader. Later on during the day we had dinner followed by games night to earn points for our teams. The team with the most points at the end of the week gets free digital cameras. The games we played were when you call out a number and you have to use that many people to make the designated shape for that number for example if they called a 4, you and three others had to all sit in a group of four and pretend your driving a car, for 5 you had to make a canoe... then there was a relay race eating competition where each of your teammates rotated running up to the plate eat something and run back to tag the next runner. The food was a sheep brain, sheep liver, cup of salt/sugar, wasabi, a cup of hot vegemite, and jelly noodles. I ended up eating the vegemite and it was absolutely disgusting. Other games were passing a life saver down your team using toothpicks in your mouth, and finally ended with making a teammate into anything using a bottle of shaving cream. I was obviously picked for my team so i had to strip down to my boxers while my teammates rubbed shaving cream all over me and make me into a mermaid. Once this was over my leader bree had me put a handfull of shaving cream into another SRs face which started a full out shaving cream fight between all 25 of us Weeronians...i think i can still taste shaving cream in my mouth but it was awesome.
Just woke up today monday, its 8am about to go have breakfast and then get ready for a trip to Kiama, then rock climbing later in the day!
Tuesday July 19th
Started out the day by walking to campus for the first time! It is about a 15-20 min walk but there is also a free bus that runs about every 10-15min. Once on campus we had to sit through an international enrollment lecture before getting a campus tour and our student id photos taken. Then after dinner and tribunal which is a daily meeting for all the new students held by the flood week leaders we went out to the Brewery for some fun.
Flood Week leaders.
Wednesday July 20th
After waking up for a delicious pancake breakfast we headed to Weerona East which is a big field next to Weerona for the Amazing Race Flood Week Event! The first task was to go to Uni (University of Wollongong) and so since I love the show the Amazing Race i was really excited and couldnt stand walking with the rest of my team so not knowing we needed to get there as a team I decided to run but unfornately I got lost for about 20min and by the time I made it to Uni all the other teams were gone. I know they all couldnt have gotten there by foot thought they had to of cheated and taken the bus because i ran there as fast as i could. The rest of the race consisted of singing to strangers, performing random acts of kindness ect. For dinner there was an Australian barbeque and i got to try kangaroo for the first time. It was very similar to steak and tasted pretty good. Australians dont really use hamburger or hotdog rolls they just use bread. And they dont really have hotdogs they just have sausages. Also during the Amazing race I somehow dropped my name tag which was found by one of the Flood week leaders which meant I had to take a shot of fish sauce which everyone says is disgusting. Two people before me went. One puked and the other barely held it down. When it was my turn I took it no problem, it was nowhere near as bad as they said it was and i then took another shot to earn points for my yellow team. The aftertaste did stay in your mouth for awhile which was really gross
Thursday July 21st
Today we had an event called Surviving Australia which we were told to wear old clothes for and since many of us didnt bring out old clothes we all went to Vinnies which is there version of a salvation army thrift store. Since i am on the yellow team i got yellow pants, sweater , and hat. The event surviving australia turned out to be a huge water balloon/egg/paint fight and mud wrestling and a huge slip and slide which was a lot of fun. Everyone quickly ran to the showers after which ran out of hot water quickly and once the hot water runs out in a building in Australia, it is not refilled until the next day I heard. Finally on friday we were scheduled to go bowling with the Flood Week Leaders but many of us didnt go because we were tired, had to pack for a weekend at surf camp and didnt want to spend $25 on bowling.
Once we got to LA a few of the other guys and I went to Hollywood Boulevard to walk around. The taxi ride there was $70 which was ridiculous so on the way back to the airport we decided to figure out our way using the Metro which ended up bringing us through some shady areas like compton, crenshaw blvd, and ingelwood.
The 15 hour flight to Sydney went by much quicker then i thought but it still was awful to sit for that long. Night time to entire flight so didnt get to see anything or the city when landing.
Once off the plane we met a probably 60 yr old Australian who drove us to Wollongong and told us a lot of stories on the about 50 min trip
Once we reached Weerona he dropped us off and we met the SRs and got a quick tour around the dorms before walking around and exploring Wollongong and going out to the bar. Drinks are really expensive about $7 a beer. The next day on Sunday there was a barbeque for us held by the SRs followed by some icebreaker games and divided into teams for Flood Week. Im on Socceroo Gold and Bree my team leader. Later on during the day we had dinner followed by games night to earn points for our teams. The team with the most points at the end of the week gets free digital cameras. The games we played were when you call out a number and you have to use that many people to make the designated shape for that number for example if they called a 4, you and three others had to all sit in a group of four and pretend your driving a car, for 5 you had to make a canoe... then there was a relay race eating competition where each of your teammates rotated running up to the plate eat something and run back to tag the next runner. The food was a sheep brain, sheep liver, cup of salt/sugar, wasabi, a cup of hot vegemite, and jelly noodles. I ended up eating the vegemite and it was absolutely disgusting. Other games were passing a life saver down your team using toothpicks in your mouth, and finally ended with making a teammate into anything using a bottle of shaving cream. I was obviously picked for my team so i had to strip down to my boxers while my teammates rubbed shaving cream all over me and make me into a mermaid. Once this was over my leader bree had me put a handfull of shaving cream into another SRs face which started a full out shaving cream fight between all 25 of us Weeronians...i think i can still taste shaving cream in my mouth but it was awesome.
Just woke up today monday, its 8am about to go have breakfast and then get ready for a trip to Kiama, then rock climbing later in the day!
Tuesday July 19th
Started out the day by walking to campus for the first time! It is about a 15-20 min walk but there is also a free bus that runs about every 10-15min. Once on campus we had to sit through an international enrollment lecture before getting a campus tour and our student id photos taken. Then after dinner and tribunal which is a daily meeting for all the new students held by the flood week leaders we went out to the Brewery for some fun.
Flood Week leaders.
Wednesday July 20th
After waking up for a delicious pancake breakfast we headed to Weerona East which is a big field next to Weerona for the Amazing Race Flood Week Event! The first task was to go to Uni (University of Wollongong) and so since I love the show the Amazing Race i was really excited and couldnt stand walking with the rest of my team so not knowing we needed to get there as a team I decided to run but unfornately I got lost for about 20min and by the time I made it to Uni all the other teams were gone. I know they all couldnt have gotten there by foot thought they had to of cheated and taken the bus because i ran there as fast as i could. The rest of the race consisted of singing to strangers, performing random acts of kindness ect. For dinner there was an Australian barbeque and i got to try kangaroo for the first time. It was very similar to steak and tasted pretty good. Australians dont really use hamburger or hotdog rolls they just use bread. And they dont really have hotdogs they just have sausages. Also during the Amazing race I somehow dropped my name tag which was found by one of the Flood week leaders which meant I had to take a shot of fish sauce which everyone says is disgusting. Two people before me went. One puked and the other barely held it down. When it was my turn I took it no problem, it was nowhere near as bad as they said it was and i then took another shot to earn points for my yellow team. The aftertaste did stay in your mouth for awhile which was really gross
Thursday July 21st
Today we had an event called Surviving Australia which we were told to wear old clothes for and since many of us didnt bring out old clothes we all went to Vinnies which is there version of a salvation army thrift store. Since i am on the yellow team i got yellow pants, sweater , and hat. The event surviving australia turned out to be a huge water balloon/egg/paint fight and mud wrestling and a huge slip and slide which was a lot of fun. Everyone quickly ran to the showers after which ran out of hot water quickly and once the hot water runs out in a building in Australia, it is not refilled until the next day I heard. Finally on friday we were scheduled to go bowling with the Flood Week Leaders but many of us didnt go because we were tired, had to pack for a weekend at surf camp and didnt want to spend $25 on bowling.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Here we Go
Its 4am. I barely got any sleep but im not even tired. Leaving by 5am to head to Logan. Flight leaves 7:35am. HERE WE GO!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Less then 4 days
I have less then 4 days until the morning of Thursday, July 14th at 7:35am when my flight should be leaving Logan headed for LAX. I have just started packing, hopefully everything will fit.
Twelve hour layover in LAX means roaming Venice beach all day with my new friends...excited
Twelve hour layover in LAX means roaming Venice beach all day with my new friends...excited
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)