Australia vs Samoa

            So I realized today that I never wrote about the rugby game I went to.  Of all the things I’ve done here, that was by far the most Australian thing I’ve done.

            One of the kids in the house is on the UNSW Rugby team and he told us that Australia was going to be playing Samoa in an exhibition game the first Saturday I was here.  Tickets would be cheap and easy to get since it was a meaningless game against an easy opponent.  This was a warm up game for the Tri-Nations Cup which started this weekend, and for the Rugby World Cup which starts in a few weeks in New Zealand.

            A bunch of us from the house decided to make the trek to ANZ Stadium, also known as Olympic Stadium.  It’s where the opening and closing ceremonies, the track and field events and soccer games during the Sydney Olympics in 2000.  Now it’s mostly used for soccer, Aussie rules football, and rugby.

We were told that the trip to the stadium would take us about 45 minutes, by bus, then by train.  We boarded the bus with about 20 of us and started making our way to the train station.  The bus trip took much longer than anticipated and we got to the train station about 5 minutes before the game was supposed to start.  From there we were scrambling to figure out which train we needed to get on.

            A bunch of the people decided it wasn’t worth the train trip, which we were told by the ticket seller that it would take another 45 minutes to get there.  So three of us decided, ‘what the heck, we’re in only in Australia once and probably won’t get to see world class rugby again,’ so we hopped on the train just as the doors were closing.

            Literally 15 minutes later we pull up to the Olympic Stadium.  We get off the train and make our way to the gates.  The three of us buy our tickets, which were only $25 and go into the stadium.  We stopped off to get a beer, which was actually very reasonably priced, only $6!  Better than some of the bars.

            The tickets were general admission so we could choose wherever we wanted to sit.  We got into the stadium with a few minutes left in the first half, and to our surprise, Samoa was shutting out the Wallabies.  Yes, their name is the Wallabies.  Intimidating, huh?

So anyway, we meet up with the kid in the house who plays rugby and probably annoyed the crap out of him by asking him what was going on every five minutes.  I swear there’s no real rules in rugby.  They just throw the ball backwards and hit each other as hard as they can.  It makes no sense to me, but hey, American football probably makes no sense to them.

In the end, Australia lost, 32-23, marking the first time in history that Samoa has beaten the Wallabies.  The Samoan fans, and there were a lot of them, were going crazy.  They easily drowned out the Australian fans.

            Apparently this was a big wake up call for the Wallabies.  This should have been an easy win for them, and does not bode well for their chances in the Tri-Nations (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) or in the World Cup.

            I guess the Aussies didn’t play most of their starters and gave the backups a chance to earn their spot on the field, my guess is, none of them did.  I heard that half of them would be let go from the team after the loss.

            It was a really great experience and a really fun time.  Even though I had no clue what was going on, it was awesome to see world class rugby and watch one of the best teams in the world play.

Side note:  the Wallabies are living and practicing just down the road from me while they train for the upcoming events.  They even work out at the same gym I do.  So if you ever want to feel emasculated, work out next to the Australian Rugby team.  Those guys are huge.

There was even a rainbow after the game.  If you look carefully you can see the double rainbow!

Here’s a link to the rest of my pictures from the game.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101391854179954.3615415.9379372&l=42004fec93&type=1

Platypuses and Penguins!

Since I didn’t have class all week until Thursday, I decided to take advantage of my time off.  I joined a gym, which for me, is a big step.  I haven’t really worked out since I played lacrosse, so my junior year of high school.  I’ve been a few times since then, but with little to no regularity.  This spring I started running because I realized I needed to be somewhat in shape.  The running was going well, but I was doing nothing in terms of weight training.  Now, I’m not trying to get huge, I just want to be in good shape and be healthy.

                The gym I joined is just a block away and is probably the nicest gym I’ve ever been in, and like most things around her, the price reflects that.  Apparently we got a good deal by being students, but it’s still an expensive gym.  They threw in a free t-shirt and a visor, because lord knows we all love visors.  Supposedly there is a free towel coming our way soon, but they needed to order them.  Chances are we’ll never see those towels.

                It’s only a three month membership which means it will get me through September.  If we want to upgrade it to another month, it will only be another $25, so they tell us now.  Who knows if they’ll stick to that agreement since we never got any of that in writing.

But anyway, I’ve gone to the gym most days, taking a few off in order to give my body a rest.  I’ve been running first, then doing some weight training, so hopefully when it becomes bathing suit season here, I’ll have that beach bod.  Of course when I get home it’ll be winter and no one will be able to see my hard work, and chances are, by the time New York bathing suit season comes, I’ll look exactly like I do now.  Oh well.

                But other than joining the gym, I’ve been trying to take advantage of this amazing place and all it has to offer.  One day I had lunch on the rocks overlooking the Tasman Sea with a few of the housemates.  

And the next day we went to the Sydney Aquarium.

                The aquarium is located in Darling Harbour which is right in Sydney.  According to Wikipedia, they have over 650 species, and over 6,000 animals.  All the exhibits show the different species that live in the waters of Australia.  They even had a platypus!

I didn’t bring my nice camera so none of my pictures turned out that well.  So I’ll steal a few to put up here.  I’m sure I’ll be back there at some point and I’ll make sure to bring the DSLR.

Anyway, they had all these really cool Lego statues all over the place.  I love Legos, so it was really cool to see all these things made from them.  They were huge!

                They also had a few of these awesome underwater chambers.  You walk underneath the giant tanks and there’s fish, rays, sharks and even a dugong swimming over you.  It was definitely one of the cooler aquarium exhibits I’ve ever seen.

They even had penguins there!  The penguins seemed preoccupied and you couldn’t see them very well.  I’d go back just to sit in front of the penguin tank all day long. 

 (Of course it wasn’t as cool as the penguins I ACTUALLY GOT TO TOUCH in Tampa!)

But I’ve been trying to take advantage of all my opportunities while I’m here, since chances are, I’ll never get a chance to do something like this again.  There’s still a ton I want to do, but I have a lot of time to do it.

First Day of Class, or So I Thought

                It’s been a little while since I last updated this thing and I figured I should keep all my millions of readers informed on what I’ve been getting myself into since I came to Australia.

                Last week should have been my first full week of classes, however, unbeknownst to me, the majority of the classes start this coming week.  I don’t quite understand why most classes don’t start during the first week of classes, but hey, these Australians seem to do things in a very laid back kind of way.

                Anyway, so on Monday I woke up a little extra early to go to campus to take care of some things.  I didn’t have class until 1, but I figured I’d go around 10:30 to figure out where things were.  I also had to get my student ID and my passwords for my email and other online stuff.  As I’m leaving the house and starting to walk towards the bus stop, one of the girls I live with is leaving too and asks me if I want to walk to school with her instead.  I was planning on taking the bus on the first day to figure it all out, but it was a great day out, so I figured what the heck, I’ll walk.

                The walk is actually much shorter than I thought it was, only takes about 20 minutes and it’s on the same road I live on.  (One direction is the beach, the other is school.  Not a bad place to live).  Once we get to campus we split up and she heads to class and I head to the study abroad office to figure what I need to do.

                From there I get sent to the library where I can get my ID and passwords.  While waiting in line for my ID, I realize I didn’t bring my passport with me.  I get to the front of the line and say I don’t have it and ask if I can use some other form of ID, I literally have like ten different things with my name and picture on it, but alas, I cannot use any of those.

                So since I don’t have my ID, it means I can’t get my password, and without my password, I can’t get on the WIFI, which means the laptop I have in my backpack is useless during my two hour wait for class.  Luckily for me, I had my trusty Kindle, so I found a seat in the library quad and started reading to kill time.  After about fifteen minutes of reading I notice a few of my housemates sitting on the lawn so I go over to hang out with them.

                After killing some more time, we decide that we’ll go walk to another building on campus to get our student activity membership.  I had already purchased mine, but you have to go to the office to get the sticker and some free stuff.  On our way there we ran into a few other people we knew and we all decided to walk together.  Of course, when I got there, I found out you need your student ID to get your membership, which at this time I didn’t have.  I didn’t have much hope for the rest of the day.

                Whatever, I couldn’t get those things done, but at least I know where a few things on campus are.  So now it’s time for class, right?  Wrong.  I find the building where my class is, beautiful building by the way, and then find the room I’m supposed to be in.  Hmm, the door is locked.  Weird.  Maybe I’m too early? 

                I look at my watch, five minutes to the hour, so no, I’m not too early.  I pull out my schedule to double check that I’m in the right building and at the right room.  I am.  Then I see it.  This class starts in week two.  Alright, well that’s fine, I’ll just go grab something to eat.

                As I’m walking to the on campus bar, yes, they have an on campus bar here, I decide to check my schedule to see if my next class meets today or not.  Alas, it does not.  So this day turned out to be a big giant waste.  I came to campus early to get things done, and couldn’t get any of them done, then it turns out I didn’t even class.

                It turns out that I only had one class last week.  The rest of the classes start tomorrow, so we’ll see how they go.  I’m actually really excited to start classes.

                Cool little fact:  On my walking adventure of UNSW I found a building on the edge of campus that said NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts).  It’s a pretty cool looking building that is part of the UNSW campus.  It turns out that it’s an incredible drama school that’s turned out numerous famous actors.  Hugh Jackman, Mel Gibson, Geoffery Rush, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe and a few others.

First Day in Australia

After I landed in Sydney, I had to go through customs, and then pick up my luggage. After that I was met by my “caretaker”, Hugh. He’s a UNSW student who is essentially our RA (resident advisor). He’s a Sydney local, but he’s done a bunch of travelling and has been to the US several times. I think he even just got a job in America that will start in late November.
Anyway, he picked me up and then we headed to campus. At this point I was pretty out of it so I don’t remember a whole lot about the drive. We went to the study abroad office and I filled out all the paperwork to officially be a student. I got my cell phone (which took a full 24 hours to start working) and a few other things. I still need to go on Monday to get my ID and my password for my online accounts. I’ll get an email address through the school, but I’ll probably never use it.
So then we finally got to my house, which is right down the street from the beach. When I got there, no one was awake yet, except for my roommate who had locked himself out of the room and was sleeping in the common room.
I started to unpack my bags, but realized I didn’t have any hangers, so that made putting clothes away a little more difficult. After a few minutes I decided that I’d much rather take a nap than do the rest of my unpacking. So I took a quick nap then unpacked a little more.
Eventually I decided that I should shower since I hadn’t cleaned myself in almost 2 days at this point. After my shower I figured I’d go out and walk around a little bit to get to know my surroundings. I walked upstairs and there were a bunch of the other housemates were sitting around. They said they’d be going the Coogee to Bondi walk soon and asked if I wanted to join.
We sat around here for a little bit and talked. Most of them are from Duke, UPenn and Georgetown. The majority are from Duke and came together so they all knew each other already. A lot of them are business/finance majors with some engineers too. UNSW has a great engineering school and is very well known for their business school as well.
So then after hanging out for a little bit, we went on the Coogee to Bondi walk. It’s this walk that goes from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach. Supposedly it’s only 6km (3.5miles) but it seemed like way longer than that.

But anyway, it is a BEAUTIFUL walk.  Some of the most picturesque views I have ever seen in my life.  These pictures are all taken with my brand new Sony Bloggie.  I plan on going back on another nice day with my Canon EOS 20D (courtesy of my dad), to take some real pictures and get all the art shots.

                You walk along the edge of the water the entire time where there are cliffs, and then of course all the beaches.

If you want to check out the entire album, here is a link http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101385683321404.3613383.9379372&l=8a084159bd

                Keep in mind that it is winter here in Australia.  Many people we saw along the walk actually had on winter jackets with hats and gloves!  I guess temperature is all relative.  To me, this is just a cool spring day, but to them, this is full out winter.

                They were having their Winter Fest on Bondi Beach, complete with ice skating on the beach.  Strange…

There are some beautiful houses along the walk too.  The architecture here is amazing.  They’re these funky modern houses with terraces and balconies on every level facing the ocean.  Wouldn’t be a bad place to live.

Also, there’s a giant cemetery along the walk, so I guess it wouldn’t be a bad place to die either.

After the walk we took the bus back to the house where I passed out and didn’t wake up until the next morning.

10,000 Miles

Well, folks, here I am blogging from 10,000 miles away.  It’s hard to believe that I’m actually here.  After months and months of preparation, with a lot done by my wonderful parents, I landed in Sydney.

When the whole idea of me going abroad started, I didn’t think much would come of it.  I figured I’d soon give up the idea and move on with my life.  But then I seriously started considering the possibility of me going abroad.  It had always been something I wanted to do, I just didn’t know if I could actually do it.

But here I am, actually doing it.  I’m hoping that the hardest part is behind me, leaving.  I knew leaving wouldn’t be easy since I’d be leaving behind my friends, my family, and of course my girlfriend. 

My parents and my girlfriend drove me down to LaGuardia.  My flight left from there and went to Toronto.  In Toronto I got on a big plane that flew first to Vancouver, and then to Sydney.

  When I landed in Toronto I had to get my bags, go through customs, and then get them checked again.  And then in Vancouver they had to check everyone’s passports again!  Apparently Canada is very strict on who is in their country.  So about an hour after landing in Vancouver, after the plane was refueled, we could reboard.

Between Toronto and Sydney there were no meals on the plane for us.  First class got a meal, but we would’ve had to pay for our food.  By the way, first class, or Executive First Class, as they call it looks amazing!  Wouldn’t want to know how much those tickets cost though.

Pretty soon after we got into the air from Vancouver they served us dinner.  I had a choice between chicken and pasta, and I decided to go with the pasta.  It was alright, nothing special.  You know what they say about airline food.  I had some white wine with my meal and then decided to go to sleep.  I woke up several hours later and apparently missed the cold meal, which I think was sandwiches.  I tried to sleep a little bit more and then eventually they served breakfast.

In case you didn’t know, I really am not a breakfast fan.  I don’t know why, but breakfast is just not my thing.  The choice was pancakes or eggs, but the pancakes already had this weird looking fruit spread on them.  It was probably just jam or jelly, but it looked a little odd so I went with the eggs.  Not the best choice, but hey, what are you going to do.

Overall the flight wasn’t too bad.  Other than the fact that it is SO LONG!  I was planning to write a blog post while I was flying, but my bag was too big to keep under the seat, so I didn’t want to keep getting up and getting my bag out of the overhead compartment.  Also, for some reason, I was one of the few people on the plane to not have an outlet in their seat.  It seemed like almost everyone else had one except for me!  Good thing there were TV screens on each of the seats or else I would’ve been super bored without a laptop.

I read a little bit on my kindle and did some sleeping.  I got to watch a few movies which was good.  I watched Hall Pass, The Limey, and True Grit.  Hall Pass was about what you’d expect from it.  The Limey came out in 1999.  One of my professors showed us a clip of this film in one of my writing classes so I figured I’d watch the whole thing.  I really liked True Grit.  I am a big fan of the Cohen Brothers and I love their director of photography, Roger Deakins and everything he does.

Anyway, I was relieved when I finally landed because I knew that my time on that plane was finally up.  Although, it was a little bittersweet when we touched down.  I was sad when I left LaGuardia, but by the time we were in the air for Sydney, I felt better about it.  That was of course until we touched down in Sydney and then I realized that this was all real.  I was actually there, and there’s not a thing I could do about it.

I have now flown on probably two of the longest flights you can take on this planet, from Newark to Kuala Lumpur, and Vancouver to Sydney.  I can’t say that either one has been great, but they haven’t been bad.  I feel bad for the stewardesses that have to stay awake and actually have a job to do the whole time.

Speaking of long flights, the woman next to me on the plane was in Philadelphia and flew to Toronto.  From there she was going to Sydney as well.  BUT, after Sydney, she had to fly to Darwin, and then from there she had to drive TEN HOURS to where she lives.  She lives and teaches on an Aboriginal community.  That made my trip seem a little less hectic than hers.

That’s about all for the flight.  In the next entry I’ll talk about what I did when I landed and what I’ve done since then.  Thanks for reading!

I'm Leaving, On a Jet Plane

                Sorry for not updating this more often, but things have been getting hectic here considering I leave TOMORROW for Australia.

                I’ve been getting a lot of packing done, which I’m about 95% done with at this point.  All my clothes are packed and my bags are weighing in under the 50lbs I’m allowed to bring.  I still need to pack up my backpack which will be my carry on, but most of that stuff is already together.

                It finally hit me the other day that I was actually leaving.  I think it was when I stopped working.  When I was working, I didn’t have much time to think about leaving, and then when work ended, it meant leaving was coming up soon.  I think the biggest shock to me is going to be when school starts next week.  Going to Australia is one thing, but I actually have to go to school!  It starts so soon that I almost have no summer vacation!

                It’s going to be a tough adjustment, but I’m not all that worried.  The classes I chose should all be good, and I’m living in an amazing location, so life is pretty good.  Even though I’m halfway across the world, I’m still just an email, skype or phone call away.  I don’t know if I’d be able to do this in the times before computers.  Imagine leaving for 5 months and only talking every so often, and just over the phone.

                I’ll certainly have more to write about once I actually get to Sydney.  I’ll probably be crazy busy and tired the first few days so I don’t know how much I’ll be able to update this.  I’m sure though that once classes start and I settle into a rhythm that I’ll be able to get on here often and keep everyone at home up to date with my life.  I’ll probably write an entry on the plane that will sum up more of what I’m doing and why I’m going to Australia.

                So for my last entry written on American soil, I’ll talk to everyone when I’m down under.