Australia Day

I had my first experience with celebrating Australia day this week. The night before Australia day there was a famous DJ that played at club vanity. DJ Havana is here name and she is the most famous female DJ in Australia and she DJ's for Brittany Spears. She was pretty good though. When it hit midnight and it was officially Australia day everyone cheered. We ended up staying there it 3:00 or so in the morning. The worst thing was my ears were ringing for the next couple of days cause the music was so loud.
On the actual Australia day, we went downtown to Broad Beach to see if we could find fireworks or a parade or something. We didn't see anything other than a bunch of drunk ozzies. Some were wearing the national flag some where passed out on the bushes or the lawn from a day of constant drinking. That is what Australia day is from what I could tell. Drink all day and have BBQ's.
It is kind of strange that they celebrate a day like this anyway. Australia day is the day that the English landed in Australia and took over the land controlled by the aboriginal people. The aboriginals I have talked to call this day "Invasion day" and refuse to celebrate it. I don't have a shirt with anything Australia on it, yet. So, I just wore my shirt with the British flag on it. No one got upset.
Although, the people of Australia as a whole are pretty nice, I have definitely run into some rude people. Mainly at restaurants. If you try to specialize the order in any sort of way they get upset. If I ask for no mushrooms for example. Trying to ask for the prices also angers employees as I learned when trying to order a value meal at McDonald's. The worst thing was at pre-Australia day bash. I won a free hat and ,granted it was free, but I left for 10 minutes to go dance a little and some Australia snatched it up. It was a women's hat so I gave it to one of my friends but when I saw the guy dancing with it I confronted him. I asked him where he got it and he said he didn't know. I told him that I am pretty sure that he stole my friend's hat. He looked dumbfounded but then his buddy came in from around the corner claiming that he had the hat all along and that he won it, ect. I just let him have it if he really wanted it that bad. I saw the guy later and he works for the BUSA administration which is supposed to help students on campus.

Pub Crawl

I decided last minute to do the campus pub crawl. They had buses leaving at 3 and 4 pm to go to the bars and drink. Most people started pre drinking at 2 pm so at noon. I didn't which made the night more expensive. Drinking is definitely a huge part of the Australian culture. 

I did the 3 pm crawl and didn't really know anyone else when the crawl started. I ended up meeting a bunch of Norwegian people right away and basically hung out with them the entire time. There was actually a good mix of people there. When we got on the bus to go to the next pub there were these Brazilian people that would bang on the roof and shout futbol (soccer) chants. Seven Nation Army was a popular one chanted. Everyone dressed up like Waldo and we had group leaders that were dressed up like wizards. The wizards also had these Australian chants that were similar to army chants that we did.

The pubs themselves were alright. A couple were dive bars and they are the first dive bars I have seen here. Most were kind of fancy. I asked the bar tender at one what the cheapest mixed drink they had was and she told me water. I ended up getting a $8.50 whiskey and coke. They had a swimsuit competition at one of the pubs and that is the 2nd time in the short time I have been here that I have seen that done at the bar. 

At the end of the night, I ran into three Australians. They told me they swam 12 hours from Brisbane to go to the pubs in Gold Coast. Brisbane is really flooded still so I don't know how they did drive though. One guy tried to swap shirts with me cause I had the waldo shirt on still. We swapped but then I realized that I couldn't get on the bus home unless I was wearing a Wally shirt. These Australians had it in their heads that Americans don't like Australians for some reason. I thought it was the other way around so I guess we were both wrong. 

Classes

The first week of classes are basically over for me. I have one this afternoon and then I am done. So far, I have noticed that the classes are basically the same as in the US. The grading scale is much different. Here a 50% is considered average instead of a 75%. There seems to be more writing than what I am used to and more power point presentations as well. The cool thing is that class is only once a week for 2 hours and then you have a 1 hour recitation.
The last class I have is Cell Biology. Hopefully it is not too hard. International Relations will be difficult cause I am one of the few Americans and he is always making fun of our foreign polices and I don't really know what he is talking about. Philosophy class seems easy but very boring. I didn't learn anything new in the two hours he lectured.
I still can't get used to everything being on the left side over here. When you are walking down the hall way traffic flows on the left side and people pass you on the right. Even walking into subway you start on the left side then move right and place your order on the far right side. England and Australia are the only countries I know of that do this. Crossing the street is different too cause you have to look left, right, and then left again.
The TV programing is pretty nice over here. I get to watch all the NFL games in real time, the Australian Open, and the Premier League. I finally figured out how cricket works after watching that for a couple hours. It is pretty similar to baseball. The coolest thing is that, even though they only get 10 channels, Australians get premium shows like Entourage, Dexter, and Extras on basic tv. They also have a couple movies on a night. I have only seen a couple of actual Australian shows though. It is mainly all American tv shows.
Working out has proven to be harder than I thought. I don't know how much I am lifting cause it is all in Kg instead of lbs. I have to go on feel. I tried to swim in the lap pool. It is Olympic sized. I got done with one lap and was dog tired. I sat in the hot tub for 15 minutes trying to catch my breath.

The University

I haven't started classes yet but we have had our "O week". Orientation week basically. Just another way to meet people I just. On Monday there was a toga party at the bar on campus. Yes, there is a bar on campus. The legal drinking age is 18. Again, like every pub it is expensive. It was actually the least fun event that I went to all week. On Tuesday, a hypnotist came just like at post prom in the LC. It was pretty funny. He was much raunchier though. I guess less people sue each other over that kind of stuff here. It was strange. He would do stuff like every time a girl shook his hand they would feel pleasure and every time a guy shook his hand he would get a shock in the nuts. Things like that I guess.
Wednesday, we had trivia and comedy night. Despite my best efforts to lead the team to victory. We got last. I guess all the other teams used their iPhones or something. I don't know how that happened really. The first comedian wasn't very good. He did songs with his guitar and just seemed like he was trying way too hard. The second guy was much better. He would make fun of people in the crowd and there were lots of jokes about New Zealanders cause there is a rivalry between them and the Ozzies. Like us with Canada in a way. Thursday was again another party. This time you had to wear tight and bright clothes. Don't really remember a lot from this night. My room mate didn't show up till 7:30 in the morning.
Today, I finally got to go to the beach. It was great. The waves will mess you up though. Some of them get to be around 8 feet or higher. Also, they don't net off the beaches so jellyfish can get in sometimes. Very fun though. The city is right on the beach so it was cool to see it got from ocean straight to skyscrapers. I should have brought my camera. Everyone has been telling me that the sun is worst here and that the ozone is thinner but I still haven't got burned. I have been using SPF 70 though. Still very pale at the moment unfortunately.

First Post

At the request of a couple of Loup City residents, I decided to start a blog. We shall she if anyone reads it or not. So much has happened since I got here. I guess I will start with the plane ride over.
I got into LAX with little time to spare and in the gigantic airport. The lady at the counter didn't think I could make it though security in time but I had half hour to spare when I got there. The plane ride itself actually wasn't that bad. I slept for 8 of the 13 hours. The rest of the time I tried to make friends with the east coast kids that were sitting on each side of me. There were tons of movies to watch. All the newest releases and some Australian movies even like Animal Kingdom. I recommend watching it. When we landed they herded us through customs like cattle sending us into different chutes. From there we took a plane to Brisbane which was 2 hours and another to Carnis which was also two hours with a couple of lay overs in between. It was a long day. When I got there they tried to give us a lecture of all the important things in Australia but kids were falling asleep so they decided to wait till the next day.
The next day we saw rain forest station. I got to pet a kangaroo, hug a kola and hold a snake. Pics can be found here http://picasaweb.google.com/104385918922478847724/Australia?authkey=Gv1sRgCMW11KeM9LvEfQ#. Overall it was a good day. We also got to see the dance of the aboriginal people, watch them play the didgeridoo, and saw them throw spears at targets.
The next day we were up early again to see the coral reef. Our group took a 2 hour boat ride to the middle of the ocean. It was the worst time to find out that I can get sea sick. I snorkeled at the first spot they showed us for two hours. I threw up right before lunch and then didn't have the stomach to eat anything. They took us to another spot, the boat rocking violently the entire time. Thankfully at this spot we could swim to the beach. I saw a couple sea turtles along the way. There was just this tiny island with thousands of birds on it. There was a little section roped off for humans to sit in and I composed myself there for a couple hours. It really is a shame cause during the snorkeling I did do I saw the most beautiful ocean life I could have ever imagined. I swam with schools of fish, saw a small shark, and observed the diversity of plants on the ocean floor.
That was really all we did. I was told we were going to do a community day which would have been really cool especially to help with all the flooding going on here but it never happened. I did go to a pub crawl and ended up spending $80 that night on drinks and covers. It is the most expensive time to live in Australia apparently.