Week seven: rugby, Sydney and unintentional swims...

This week has been busy, but in a far more enjoyable way than the previous, microsoft word-filled week. On Monday I, once again, failed to do anything productive. Several hours were spent in the swimming pool and library, fiercely avoiding opening microsoft office. In the afternoon, I layered up quite considerably - resembling a denim-clad michelin man - and headed with the girls to a rugby match! Ha, I know. Livvy. At a Rugby match... It was the Newcastle knights (and their terrifying local fans) versus the Brisbane Broncos. The match was fun, and the chips were incredible, but my disdain for Rugby remains... It's just not as good as football. (Despite the fact that the Aussies seem to think that 'rugby' and 'footie' are interchangeable terms... No.) The Knights were slaughtered by the Broncos (26-6), incidentally. I'm not sure I'll be going to another match, but hey - that's another true Aussie experience ticked off the list!

Newcastle Knights vs Brisbane Broncos

Tuesday was a work day, mainly focusing on finishing off the presentation for my sustainability module. It is beginning to look half decent, but I was still slightly worrying that I would be asked an unexpected question and thereby expose my absolute ignorance of most of the topic...

Wednesday was P-day, time to put my presenting (and bullshi**ing) skills to the test in order to pass the module. It seemed to go fairly well, and the lecturer seemed pleased... Clearly if saving the whales doesn't work out, I have an oscar-worthy acting career ahead of me. Watch out Hollywood.

In the evening, Anna hosted a 'Suit-up' pre-drinks. The theme was impressiveky well adhered-to, with the entire international student population of Newcastle turning out in their (charity shop and otherwise) fancy best. Whilst the majority of girls were donning posh frocks, most boys had braved the eccentric and bizarre Newcastle charity shop scene to uncover some rare gems... Leopard print ties, tartan dinner jackets and monochrome brogues were the order of the day. Fetching. Arsey neighbours forced a premature end to the evening, and attempts to carry on the party further down Church St failed in a blaze of Westlife and youtube videos... Ahh Adam Buxton, why must you foil our night out plans? ("He looks like a frog... that died." "Tom Baker!")

Suited and booted!

Thursday was spent in a pointless tutorial, where the vast majority of the class left when a video was shown. Afterwards I headed to the library (via the free BBQ, duh) to indulge in a spot of collusion and online module quiz teamwork. Oooh rebel. Later, there was yet another module quiz to undertake (sigh), so a vastly uninteresting evening was had.

My oft-neglected Friday morning 9am lecture was - shock, horror! - attended! The subject has moved on from Plant biology (dull, dull, dull) to Animal biology (yey), and therefore the idea of hauling myself from my warm doona-cocoon is marginally less traumatic. Post-lecture, I collected my parcel from the accommodation office (thanks mum and dad!) and celebrated the arrival of reasonably priced makeup, a lovely card, decent chocolate and a wonderful CD of Sri Lankan Mariachi-esque covers of American rock music. It is so much worse (and therefore amazing) than it sounds.

In the afternoon I hopped on a train bound for Sydney to meet Siobhan! It certainly felt bizarre heading to meet someone from home, in Australia. I met her lovely family and we had a lovely Thai meal before heading out for cocktails and a natter. We had ice cream, coffee and frangelico on a balcony in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge before boarding a ferry to Darling Harbour for a stroll, a chat, and a (successful) quest to find discounted cocktails on a Friday night in central Sydney. Mojito o'clock!

Mmm affogatto!

Just to make Hugo jealous :)

On Saturday, I headed out with Siobhan's family for a trip to Taronga Zoo. I am a huge fan of most cute and furry/scaly/bewhiskered critters, and the abundance of them - coupled with the incredible, panoramic views of Sydney Harbour - means that Taronga is now situated firmly within my list of Favourite Zoos of All Time. The Zoo was huge, and could easily take up several days if you wanted to see everything. Once the zoo closed, we headed back on the Ferry to Circular Quay, where I bid Siobhan and her Family farewell and continued back to Newcastle, after a lovely whirlwind trip to the city.

Sydney Harbour Bridge from the ferry

Koala!

Itchy Roo

Look how tiny the baby is!

Tigger

Sydney Harbour panorama

Back in Newcastle, I headed to Church St to play a game of catch-up with the inebriated party goers. I was perhaps a little too successful, but a lovely night was had :) Any notions of waking up pre-dawn and heading out to watch the sunrise over the South Pacific were quickly scuppered when I realised that the bed was really, really warm... And I am really quite lazy. I slept in for a few more hours before getting up and breakfasted (Thanks Nathan!) and heading back to Campus. Teds halls held their Hall Ball on Friday night, and therefore Sunday was allocated as the (wonderfully inappropriately named) 'Recovery Day'. This essentially consisted of lots of alcohol, free t-shirts and entirely doomed attempts to avoid being thrown into the (CHILLY, to say the least) pool. Once we had changed into less sodden attire, we spent the evening hanging around Teds. It was a good end to a lovely week :)

Merry (and dry) pre-pool dunk

...and a few minutes later!

Soggy children :)

Week Six: The work begins...

G'day! :)

Sombrero!

This week has been busy. And not in the good way, drinking-beer-every-night, surfing-every-day (without a hint of a hangover) like the Visit Australia ads would have you believe. In actual fact - and I'm very sorry to burst the antipodean dream bubbles of anyone considering a year abroad - the universities here actually set you work. Bummer. Therefore, in my busy-busy week, the days of surfing have been replaced by the library, and the nights of beer have been substituted for, well, Mulan... But in my opinion that is ALWAYS a good thing. The consequence of this has been very little of note to blog about (as well as having "I'll make a man out of you" in my head for the past 18 hours straight).


On Monday I headed to the library (sigh) to begin planning my presentation for my sustainability module (eurgh). Due to a wonderful combination of unluckiness and idiotic tutorial leaders, I have ended up giving a presentation on Australian Politics. British politics - well, maybe I could bull my way through a presentation, throw in some jokes about Charles Kennedy and hope there were no massive politics geeks in the audience. But Aussie politics? Really? The girl who was unfortunate enough to be landed with me as a partner is great, definitely pulling her weight (and mine), but it wasn't a great start when she had to correct my spelling of the Labour Party. There is no 'U' in Aussie Labor, apparently. Pffff.


On Tuesday I went for a very early morning swim (note - by very early morning, mean pre-10am. I am a student, afterall). I went to my lectures, and in-between I went to the library and finished off my notes for the Marine Science module I'm doing. The best module, by far. I like fish.


Wednesday was spent working on the presentation again. It is beginning to look half decent, so I may POSSIBLY be able to get through this. My partner isn't so hot on the science, and I am basically politically retarded (at least in Australia), so we're splitting the slides. She can rant about aussie politics, as long as I can blab on for long enough about Phil Jones and the climategate scandal. OH YEAH - I MANAGED TO WEAVE UEA INTO MY PRESENTATION. I am awesome. I might chuck a photo of the LCR on there, just for lols.

Wednesday night we headed to Kirsty's flat for pre-drinks, where we discovered that sombreros are FUN. We grabbed a lift off Nikki's friend into town, with Kirsty safely tucked up in the boot. We got to the Brewery WAY too early... It was a fun night, but we ended up leaving by half one. We are lame.

 

The girls

Arriving in style!

On Thursday I made it to my tutorial for Aboriginal studies, then headed to the weekly free BBQ at the NUSA building, because, well... FREE FOOD. UEA union take note. I went for a quick swim and then home to do some work, before dinner at Church St (yeyy, more free food!). We also watched Despicable Me :) ("It's so fluffy I'm gonna dieeeee!")

My day on Friday depends on who is reading this.
If it is my parents/grandparents/other positions of authority - I DEFINITELY went to my 9am lecture. Then I delivered food to orphans and rescued an injured koala.
If you do not fulfill the above criteria - I slept til lunchtime then bummed around until dinnertime at Church Street.


Saturday was the day of our group trip to Blackbutt (haha, 'butt') Nature Reserve. It was a pretty epic trek, involving several buses and first-day-on-the-job bus drivers, but we got there by lunchtime, in time for a BBQ (again, wheeey). We walked around the enclosures and saw lots and lots of birdies including some gorgeous peacocks, some ENORMOUS sleeping wombats, a few wallabies, some roos and emus and A TINY TINY TINY BABY KOALA. It was tiny. After we had spazzed out (and taken far too many photos), we headed home mid-afternoon and spent the evening chilling at Church Street, eating and watching Mulan. (YEAHHH). We caught the last bus home with our food babies and vowed never to eat again. (HA, likely).

 

TINY TINY TINY BABY KOALA!

Pretty birdie :)

Emu

Roo crew

I slept in (accidentally) on Sunday and in the afternoon, headed into town for coffee with Kirsty, Liz and a lovely Aussie girl we met in O-week called Alyssa. We went to Liquid Gold, this little cafe overlooking the beach (and its enormous waves thanks to the mini-gale blowing outside). It was pretty chilled, we just sat for a few hours and had a natter, but it was a lovely way to end the week. :)


We've booked a weekend in Hawks Nest, about an hour north of Newcastle, in a few weeks time. The beaches are supposed to be gorgeous, with lots of dolphins and whales (and sharks...), and the hotel has unlimited bike and surfboard hire (which is great, ignoring the whole LOTS OF SHARKS thing. It's fine. I bet they're veggie sharks. Fish are Friends, not Food.)


The weather has gone a bit poo again, but it should be turning to spring in a few weeks time, so hopefully by the time we head to Hawks Nest it will be starting to warm up :) I haven't got much planned for the next few weeks, other than the occasional mini-meltdown due to workloads and massive hatred of my sustainability module. Hopefully my blog entries won't all be this dull... They'll get good soon, I promise. (Hopefully).

Gorgeous peacocks tail

I love owls :)

Week Five: A cup of tea is needed.

This morning I woke up with the distinct feeling that a team of very small-but very real-kangaroos, with very small-but very real-feet, were ruthlessly and determinedly jumping up and down inside my skull. It was fairly unpleasant, and most likely a consequence of my poor decision to drink classy wine - I should qualify that in Australia, all wine that comes in bottles rather than bags can be counted as classy - mixed with industrial strength Raspberry Cordial. I think all wine in Australia - whether sold in bags or bottles or boxes or buckets - should come with a warning: Caution - contains many tiny marsupials. May cause severe pain, embarrassment and regret. Enjoy.

POSSUM!

This week has not been my most productive. Monday was spent pretending to do work, with a quick break for a swim. I printed some CVs in order to begin searching for some method of supporting my extravagant lifestyle... Not that I do much that you could count as extravagant, but living in one of the most expensive countries in the world doesn't come cheap. Tuesday was spent at lectures, a boring but necessary part of a 'Study Abroad' year.


On Wednesday I decided to be Productive. I got up early, headed to the Forum for a quick swim, went home to dump my stuff and pick up my CVs, and headed to the train station. At the station, in plenty of time for the train, I paused - headphones in - to read a notice about train time changes. As I was reading, headphones in, my back to the platform, I did not notice the train pull in. As I turned around, the train doors closed, and my productive day was ended.


Rather than wait half an hour for the next train, I headed off for lunch with the girls, and a peruse of the campus secondhand book fair. It was impressive, if only in sheer volume of paper. The entire Great Hall (which, I was disappointed to note, bore little resemblance to it's Hogwartian namesake) was filled with rows and rows of tables, weighed down by endless volumes of travel books, self-help books, science books, sheet music, biographies, autobiographies.... All with one thing in common: Moustaches. All - bar, perhaps, the sheet music - seemed to contain beautifully outdated photos from the 60s, 70s, 80s - showing Scientists, Ramblers, Celebrities... Everyone, with a glorious moustache.



Yorkshire ♥



Wednesday night called for an impromptu night out at the Brewery - which is so, so much better than Fanny's that I can't quite believe anyone bothers going to the latter. I also found $2.50 on the floor. Boom. We stayed at Liz's, unable to face the train home at 3am, and made our way back in the morning, feeling decidedly worse for wear. 

On Thursday afternoon we headed into town to hand out CVs, until I realised that mine were safely tucked up in my room back on campus, so we went for brunch instead. Raisin toast with Fig jam and a Mango-Berry smoothie. Nom nom nom. In the afternoon, I turned hairdresser for the evening, trying my hand at dying both Liz and Roseanna's hair. It didn't come out green, and neither of them have tried to kill me, so I think it can be regarded a success.


On Friday we headed back into town and handed out CVs, with limited success. One Penny Black, a gorgeous little cafe filled with beautiful little cakes, had recently filled their vacancy (cry) and most other

places agreed to have a peruse of my CV, but offered little hope. One lovely little deli-cafe seemed interested and called me that evening, only to tell me that they required a full-time barista and my part-time coffee skills would be surplus to requirements. So the job hunt continues.... In the evening, Nathan was cooking, and I tried Gumbo for the first time! It's a sort of soup, with beans and vegetables (and meat in the non-veggie one), poured over rice. Yummy :) Afterwards, we headed out in search of chocolate and the aforementioned 'classy wine', before settling down for a screening of 'How to Train your Dragon' and an inevitable sugar coma.

 

Seagulls by the harbour

...More seagulls.

Saturday was spent attempting to work, before heading into town with the girls. We bought noodles in a box (A box! Like in AMERICA!) and ate dinner on the beach, watching the surfers, bodyboarders and DOLPHINS. Actual dolphins! You would catch glimpses of fins and tails, arching above the water, and occasionally surfing through the waves, amongst the surfers. It was incredible. I need to learn to surf NOW.
In the evening we decided to have some drinks at my flat, nothing too rowdy. Well, lets just say that it didn't go to plan. I have since discovered that wine in bottles is inherently evil, and I shall be sticking to goon. On the upside, I was in bed by 11pm...


Today will be salvaged by the addition of many, many cups of tea. I need to do work, even with my cerebral-marsupial problem. I am running low on teabags though, and donations of Yorkshire Tea would be very (very, very, very) gratefully recieved!


We've been planning our travels this week. In a few weekends time we are heading to Melbourne (tip #1 - Never call it Melbourne. The Aussies look at you strangely. It's pronounced 'Melburne', apparently). Everyone says that it's a gorgeous city. Cobbled streets, lined with coffee shops and art galleries, incredible food, beautiful sights, and the best coffee anywhere in this coffee-obsessed country. Lovely. The Surf Weekend with Mojosurf has been put off as we counted the costs and realised that $265 for two nights accommodation and food, and three surf lessons, really isn't that great value. Instead we're going to learn right here in Newcastle.


I'm definitely getting itchy feet. I've been in this huge, incredible country, with so much on my to-do list, for over a month now, and I still feel like I haven't even scratched the surface! With Melbourne in a few weeks time, then Brisbane with Mumma Brown soon after, I know the travelling will start up soon. A year is a really long time, but Australia is so big, and diverse, and - with the addition of New Zealand as well - there is so much I want to see! I do not want to waste my time here, seeing only the typical tourist sights, although I really do want to head to Coffs Harbour to see the 'Big Banana'. I need to get a job soon, so I can start planning and booking my travels, making the most of my year on the other side of the planet.

Autonomy Day and other Week Four adventures!

This week started off very sedately, in stark contrast to the way it ended... Mondays were spent, as is becoming routine, bumming around and being incredibly unproductive. In the evening (Try not to laugh too hard here, I would rather not cause third degree burns in my readers due to severe tea-snorting) I attended a Salsa class. As in dancing. Yeah. I stress that it was NOT MY IDEA, and I was - as I'm sure anyone who has seen my lack of co-ordination can imagine - horrendous. It was a fun way to spend an hour or so though, even if it required holding hands with several clammy-handed midgets. Mmm.

Tuesday was a fairly dull day, spent attending lectures etc. Nothing of note - now i'm settling in, I would have thought my week-to-week blog entires will become increasingly populated by days such as these!

On Wednesday I got up bright and early to pop to the bank and to Charlestown Square shopping centre to sort out my dire phone situation (solution a $20 phone, no expenses spared down under!) and buy some vegetables to address the severe timtams : vitamins ratio imbalance in my diet at the mo. I went for a quick swim in between lectures. In the evening we went to a Trivia night at the Grand Hotel, where my impeccable knowledge of pointless subjects (and great love of childrens literature) came in very handy - Did you know that Fergie wrote the 'Budgie the Little Helicopter' books? Well I did! Although that was pretty much my only contribution... Oh well. Liz's amazing landlord bought us wedges, yum yum yum :)

I have rejigged my modules choices and taken up a Marine Science module in place of the Intro to Ecology one (which makes pretty good sense, seeing as I want to do Marine Ecology...). Anyways, this all means that I now have Thursday afternoons off, along with everyone else, so we headed to Newcastle Beach for some (failed) volleyball and (failed) catch and (semi-successful) sunbathing. Once the sun headed in the direction of you western-hemispherians and the temperature dipped a bit too low, we headed out in search of goon and cordial for Autonomy day! In the evening, one the Statesiders organised an international 'pot-luck' dinner, which was amazing! There was a lot of pasta considering the conspicuous absence of any italians... I also tried 'Puppy Chow', an American invention consisting of cornflakes dredged in melted butter, chocolate and peanut butter, then coated in icing sugar. Healthy? Not so much. Moreish? Dangerously so. There was also an amazing apple crumble, some 'Oatmeal Cookie Cake' (ie, American Flapjack) and - of course! - Mac and Cheese! There were lots of other international bits and bobs too, like some little Russian fruit pastries and a funny pink soup... Gave that one a miss. The British contribution consisted of a bag of sliced bread and beans... DIY Beans on toast at a pot-luck dinner. Nil Points. We had a nose around Anna's house, which is AMAZING. She has a huge balcony with panoramic views of the Harbour, in a gorgeous location. Once we were dangerously full, we headed back to campus and decided to crash at Roseanna's room at Teds Hall for the (brief) sleep before Autoday.

Autonomy Day is the anniversary of Newcastle University's becoming autonomous from the University of New South Wales. Every year, in true Aussie fashion, this academic milestone is celebrated through the opening of the Campus Bar at 6am, and an all-day drink fest. All over the city people get up at the wee hours of the morning, and on-campus halls are no exception. At 10pm, the halls were full of students wandering around in their pyjamas reminding each other to keep it down and get to sleep. There was an atmosphere not unlike christmas eve for students.

At 2am, the festivities started. I headed back to my flat at Evatt at 3am in my Pyjamas, to be greeted by both A-block flats and a jagerbomb. The entire quad had been toilet papered, creating some bizarre winter wonderland assault course that I had to cross in order to make it indoors. Slightly disorientating at 3am on 3 hours sleep. Drinking continued until 4am, when a twilight breakfast BBQ was served - Eggs and veggie burgers and (for the non-veggies out there) bacon. Nom nom nom. At 5am ish came my first drunken dignity-loss of the day - I managed to get lost in my room, talk to some girls from home and have a little homesick cry of goon-tears. Once I realised I was in AUSTRALIA and that is MINT, I found the girls and we watched the sun rise over the tennis courts, accompanied by some people from Teds, and, of course, the omnipresent bag of goon. 

 

Autoday sunrise

Trolley riding, as you do...



Once the sun had risen, we headed to the bar on the hill (via a piano session in the common room, being told off for drinking by the man whose job it was to keep the common room alcohol free - followed by a drink with him, another goon-cry by one of the girls, and a quick trolley ride in bottom quad). We had a brief panic when a purse went missing, which culminated in the third goon-cry of the day - only one more girl to go! Once we made it into the bar, we promptly lost everyone and wandered around the carpark-turned-outdoor bar, drunk and lost and happy. Once we regrouped, we headed back to Evatt to chill on the makeshift outdoor living room consisting of the furnishings of all bottom-floor flats, regurgitated onto the grass. We headed to the Oval behind the bar on the hill for a bit, for some zorbing/bouncy castle-ing/napping, and then for a dance back at the Bar On The Hill. It felt like a festival, beautiful sunshine, loud music, amazing atmosphere and lots of fun. I bumped into Alex, who came to UEA last year! We headed back for a chill at Teds when it started to die down around 4pm - 14 hours after it all kicked off. Autonomy day was a bizarre, amazing and entirely Australian experience. Nothing like this would ever happen back in the UK. It was so much fun, and everyone was so excited for it, now I'm just sad it's over! I was tucked up in bed watching a film fairly early on Friday night, as were most people, although some of the nutters amongst us continued drinking until the 24hr mark and beyond...

Bar on the Hill

Beautiful sunshine

 

Saturday was spent recovering at the warm, but breezy, Nobby's Beach. I discovered that Australia sells Maxibons, which made my day! Yum. We four girls headed out to Sticky Rice Thai restaurant for a lovely dinner, then a drinky at Liz's house before heading to Finnegans.

 

  

Newcastle Beach looking towards the city



Newcastle!

:)

On Sunday morning we headed out to Estebans Gelati and Espresso bar for a lovely breakfast. The bircher muesli wasn't great, but my porridge was lovely and the pain au chocolat looked incredible. I definitely want to try the Caramelized Fig gelato as well as the Spanish Hot Chocolate. A quick nip to the shops to stock up on milk and onions was about as much productivity as I could manage, before hot-footing it back to the flat to chill and maybe do some work. Possibly. Or just blog, and watch a film, and drink tea, and plan my travels...

Yum yum yum

Newcastle Beach ocean baths





End of week 4 in Australia.
Injuries sustained: NONE! Despite the Autoday antics and trolley riding, I have finished the week unscathed. I am proud.
Random Aussie observation: Pub quizzes are called trivia. When I mentioned the pub quiz to my aussie flatmate, she was very puzzled as to why I would want to do a quiz (which in Oz means exam) in a pub.
Best Aussie Invention: Autonomy day. No question.

Nobby's Beach

Week three: Busy bee!

This week has been the start of my proper year abroad: the start of classes, the start of my (planned) fit and healthy aussie lifestyle, the start of my travels around Australia....


On Monday we decided to embrace the Aussie beach goddess thing, and therefore work on our bikini bodies. We signed up for a weeks free trial at the Forum gym and pool. My shiny new timetable gave me Mondays off to spend at my leisure, so we all went for a swim (read: 2 lengths and a lot of chatting). In the evening, we headed to town for a dinner party. The meal was a sausage-potato-tomato sauce combination, and when the search for veggie sausages failed, the veggie option consisted of a sliced green pepper.... bizarre, but its the thought that counts!


Lectures began for me on Tuesday, with Introduction to Aboriginal Studies and The Sustainable Society. Aboriginal Studies looks to be pretty interesting and the lecturer seemed nice, although I felt guilty for being British - we seem to have a knack for screwing up indigenous cultures. We went for a quick swim- a proper one this time - before afternoon lectures.  The Sustainable Society lecturer was a bit hippy-dippy and "excited to learn and grow with us" (HAHA) but it was entertaining at least... the class seems to be made up of 'our-only-option-is-to-renounce-technology-and-return-to-our-ancestors'-nomadic-ways' hippies, and people who like to provoke them. Cue intense discussions and lots of 'crunchy granola' types. And lots of knitware.


Wednesday started off with a trip to the gym. Yes, Australia has somehow coaxed me out of my exercise-loathing shell and caused me to partake in exercise - real, actual exercise, involving TRAINERS and GOGGLES (although not at the same time, that would be weird) - for three days running. Crazy. Afterwards, we popped on a shopping trip to buy shirts for the 'Back to School' party that evening (which we never actually bought due to them costing TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS!), although a palaver with the buses/overexcited extended trip to Go Low to buy cut-price calories meant that I missed my first lecture for a module.... Whoops.


That evening we jumped on the goon-wagon and headed to Bar on the Hill, our lack of school uniform forcing us to be more creative and offering me a chance to whack out the freebie tweed jacket I nicked from NUSA (which is pretty cool in a grandad-y way, despite being approximately 74 sizes too big). We headed out to Fanny's after Bar on the Hill, and discovered quite how bad clubs can be. Imagine the Gallery/Mercy, on a smaller scale. More 'intimate'. Eurgh.


Thursday was lecture o'clock again, and I discovered that my Ecology module was actually an 'Introduction to Ecology' module, which is fairly pointless after 5 Ecology modules in second year at UEA. Think I'll be dropping it, especially as the intensive lab week eats up half of my spring break. I made it to the gym again (starting to doubt my sanity). In the evening we headed to a Mountaineering BBQ, where we smiled and nodded when they discussed caribenas in return for the best BBQ since arriving in Oz, no exaggeration! They put on a platter of vegetables and meat, with proper bread rolls and lots of dippy bits, and we could make our own kebabs! We had veggie kebabs, with aubergine and pumpkin and mushroom and other yummy bits, whilst the carnivores got the option of Kangaroo steak, amongst other, less exotic options. Nom nom nom.


Friday started early, with the second lecture of my Organisms to Ecosystems module, the
first lecture of which I had previously missed. My early ideas of it being the soft option as it's a 1000-level module were soon shown to be unfounded, as the course is heavy on the Plant Biology and Chemistry, most of which I have not done since year 12. I went for a swim afterwards - LOOK, MUM, I'M WILLFULLY DOING EXERCISE!!! That evening was the Commencement cocktail party for Evatt House, which was an opportunity to get all dolled up and enjoy yet more goon and free nibbles. The evening ended fairly early for me, as I had to be up at 5.30am for the amazing weekend in Sydney!


The 5.30am start for a 6.30am bus and a 7.20am train was, admittedly, not so fun. We were all doing our best koala impressions on the train (zzzzzzz) and we got to Sydney for 10.15am before meeting the boys at the hostel. We headed to Bondi Beach, which is GORGEOUS, but pretty small! Did a bit of sunbathing/shivering - 15 degrees is not QUITE bikini weather - and some pathetic attempts at beach games (anyone who has observed me in PE lessons can imagine how I sucked at Duck, Duck,
Goose). Eventually we took the plunge (geddit!) and went for a swim, which was really nice!
Once the sun began to sink, we went to grab some food and then head on the coastal walk from Bondi to Bronte. The walk was BEAUTIFUL, absolutely gorgeous! Definitely spied my future holiday home along the way - anyone got a spare $10 million or so? Once we got to Bronte we jumped on the bus and resumed our koala impressions - lazing in the sun really takes it out of you!

Bondi Beach

On the coastal patch, overlooking Bondi.

In the evening we got dolled up and played some drinking games. The hostel organises lots of free/cheap stuff for the residents, and we took our free drink tokens out to Maloneys, then skipped Shark Hotel due to ID issues with the boys, and headed back to the Hostel.

On Sunday morning, we headed out in Sydney, walking to Darling Harbour, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Rocks and Sydney Opera House. Sydney is gorgeous, especially in the sunshine. Lots of high-rise buildings, surrounded on three sides by water, with lots of shops and cafes for brunch overlooking the harbour. It feels quite like New York, but cleaner and sunnier and less crowded. The Rocks was beautiful, lots of gorgeous old buildings with views of the Harbour, the Bridge and the Opera House. There was a food festival on, and we did what students do best - went begging for freebies. Lots of sugar-roasted macadamias, pieces of fudge, cherries and chai tea later, we decided to stop being skanks and go buy some food. I had a lovely turkish flatbread thing stuffed with feta and spinach, and topped with fresh lemon juice and chilli (nom) and a chocolate custard tart from the Guylian stall (nom nom). We headed to the Opera House afterwards, which was every bit as stunning as you imagine. We chilled and watched the ferries pass in the Harbour for a while, before it was time for me to leave the girls and head back across Sydney to collect my rucksack and get my train back to Newcastle, in time for the flat 'family dinner'.

AUSTRALIA!

Mmmm Guylian

Hyperactivity at the Sydney Opera House

The harbour bridge

The week has flown by, it's strange to think that 3 weeks ago I was heading down to London to catch the plane! I think now that I'm getting into the swing of things, time is going to start zooming away - I need to start planning out my travel adventures ASAP! Everyone seems to be a lot happier now that the torrential rain has ceased, to be replaced by sunshine and beautiful blue skies. I'm getting very excited for summer!


End of week 3 in Australia.
Injuries sustained: I just pulled off half the skin on my leg* and after soldering it to my insanely hot radiator. Paiiiiiiiiiin. (*may be a very slight exaggeration).
Random Aussie observation: Grenadine is called Red cordial. And they don't know what squash is.
Best Aussie Invention: The 'Aroma' food fair at The Rocks. SO MUCH TEMPTATION. All of my posts seem to revolve around food. I am going to have to roll onto the plane home.

Beginning to find my feet.

G'day!

It's after midnight here, which means it is OFFICIALLY the beginning of my third year of tertiary study, and my year abroad at the University of Newcastle. No, not that one, the other one. The sunnier one (supposedly). It is also two weeks since I said all my goodbyes and casually hopped on a plane to the other side of the world. It's gone pretty quickly!

The last few days have been pretty busy. We went to the Reptile Park on Friday which - despite my hopes and prayers to God/Buddha/Dumbledore/Voldemort (hey, I was hedging my bets) - was every bit as soggy as I feared it would be. It was also, however, way more fun! There were (as implied by the name, duhh) lots of lizards, crocs, crawly things, jumpy things and slithery things. There were also a number of more personable individuals - such as Matilda the Wombat, Hugo the Galapagos Tortoise and a number of ADORABLE little Kangaroos! I did my best Brit-on-tour impression and fed the rather soggy roos handfuls of stale sugarpuffs whilst attempting to ignore the permanent wall of water cascading from above. It was so fun though, and we hot-footed it to the cafe soon afterwards to warm up with chips and pumpkin soup, as the stale sugarpuffs didn't really appeal. Funny that.

Startled koala

Jus' Chillin'

I have pictured this moment many times... and it was never this soggy.

Skippy!

Friday night was party tiiiiime! One of the girls from Leeds Uni, along with her many and varied housemates opened their doors (/cupboards/beds/ipods) to 50-or-so of the best international academics Newcastle has to offer, for a night of intellectual stimulation. Needless to say, the goon flowed, and was rapidly followed by table dancing and group disney singalongs. CLASSY. I awoke on Saturday morning with a fairly unpleasant goon-over and a camera of pretty wonderful photos.

Presentable pre-goon photo...

Goon-head.

Saturday was spent wandering in the rain, and moaning intermittantly about the state of my head due to a severe hangover-induced sugar overdose. Bleurggggh. (Don't worry Mum and Dad, I'm pretty sure my brain cells have survived the goon. 9+1=11. See, my maths skills are as good as ever.)

Today the weather FINALLY took pity on us poor, summer-starved Northern Hemispherians, and the sun came out to play! We headed back to uni to make the most of it at a Sunday afternoon shindig at Edwards Hall. I can now see where the $450 accommodation acceptance fee goes! It was amazing - free BBQ (obviously), free coffee bar, free pancakes, free drinks, free henna tattoos, free facepaints, live music... It was pretty impressive. Afterwards us Evatt House newbies were treated to a 'mystery dinner' (More free food. It's a hard life down under.) which turned out to be pizza and wedges at a bowling alley, with free bowling, free lazerquest (woo!) and free karaoke (...woo?). It was a pretty fun way to end O-week!

So there we go. The last few days have been really good, although reading through this entry I realise you'll probably find it a bit boring. Well screw you, I've fed a Kangaroo!

End of week 2 in Australia.
Injuries sustained: Surprisingly few considering the whole 'rain = slippery surfaces + Livvy's lack of co-ordination skills = disaster' thing.
Random Aussie observation: All sweets are called lollies. Even those which aren't on a stick. Oh, and leggings are called tights, because tights are called stockings. They're a funny bunch down under.
Best Aussie invention: GO-LOW. A shop selling iterally everything you could ever NOT need, for cheapy cheap. Yessir.

Week one, done and dusted!

And it begins!

After a long (long, long, long) journey on the big shiny A380 double-decker plane (which, for you aviation geeks out there *ahem, Hugo* was just like all other nice long-haul planes, but with free twirls and comfier socks. I'm not complaining!), I arrived at Sydney airport, which was, well, airporty. (I'd been travelling for approximately 73 years, don't expect any startling insight). I got a shuttle to the hotel where the very grouchy manager decided I'd cancelled my room, and then backed down and gave me a room anyways when I said no I didn't, and i'm so jetlagged I'll go northern on you if you tell me otherwise.

After an incredibly refreshing 3 hours sleep (ahh jetlag!) I bummed around until it was an acceptable time to go in search of a starbucks-shaped breakfast - random/pointless Aussie fact numero uno: there are only 3 starbucks in the whole of Sydney! Cer-azy. I managed to find the train station and get all the way to Newcastle without either my arm falling off due to the weight of my suitcase, or falling asleep and waking up in Perth (although that may be because the train terminated in Newcastle, but whatevs).

I moved into my rather bleak room in my big (but cold and empty) flat and it started to sink in that I was actually OFFICIALLY living in Australia now. (As in AUSTRALIA. As in the other side of the world. For a year. Cripes.) I decided that I needed an urgent dose of facebook, just to check that England was still there, and was forced to do my "scary unstable jetlagged girl" face for the library lady so she'd fix my internet.

ANYHOW - that was my first (rather uninteresting, but scary!) 24 hours in the land down under.

Since then, I've met lots of people from my halls - think Suffolk Terrace B01, but with accents and goon. Ahhh goon, The tipple of choice for all self-respecting (if not liver-respecting) Aussie students - it's essentially a four-litre bag of extra-strong lambrini. I sell it so well! But it's actually not so bad. My flatmates are all very nice and aussie (other than Ozan, because he's turkish). I've met a bunch of other internationals from the US/Leeds uni/Swansea uni, whom all seem nice :) I've had a bunch of DULL orientation week lectures including lots of jiggly moobs, from an indigenous dance performed by some men on the plumper side of chubs. I've eaten at least 8 BBQs this week (not even an exaggeration, they even cooked pancakes on the BBQ for us, loooool). Turns out Aussie land doesn't hate on the veggies quite as much as I'd feared! Everyone is very friendly and fond of imitating our accents - I've already been told I sound like Emily from Friends (lol) and asked to say "Tally ho!"

The weather has been ATROCIOUS. I'm not even exaggerating. It has been monsoon-ing on a scale unimaginable in drizzly little England. Actual rivers down the streets. It hasn't stopped raining for more than 5 minutes for the last three days.... Hopefully the weather will buck up soon! As usual in Livvyland, I eschewed the advice of clever people and decided that Australia doesn't have winter, and therefore I would pack nothing more waterproof/warm than a hoodie. Needless to say, I have been wearing variations of the same outfit every day for the past week. Sigh.

The uni organised a city tour on Wednesday in an attempt to show us the pretty side of Newcastle and reassure all the depressed internationals that it's only the area around the uni that resembles a ghetto. It would have been useful if we were able to leave the bus - the parts of the city I saw through the torrential downpours and steamy windows looked nice enough! The beaches (there are many) looked amazing, although the surf was terrifying because of the storm! There are some gooooood shopping centres here, with pet shops stocked with fluffy wagging-tailed little balls of cute, and lots of Boost Juice bars (nom nom).

Tomorrow we're heading out on a trip to the Reptile Park, and i'm going to do my best to ignore the fact that i'm so-clumsy-i'm-practically-disabled and attempt to avoid an Irwin-esque "Crikey, he bit me arm off!" moment. I currently have EVERYTHING crossed (fingers/toes/legs/arms/eyes/earlobes) that the weather stops being such a mardy bum and allows us to dry off, even if just for the day. I'm worried I might start going mouldy.

So there you go, the run down of my soggier-than-expected first week! Lectures start on Monday, and hopefully once the sun decides to get it's arse into gear, there will be beach trips and kangaroo-spotting opportunities galore (helped along by my timetable only spanning Tuesday afternoon to Thursday morning. Ohhhh yeah!) so my camera will hopefully get a little more use! Surprisingly enough, photos of rain in the Southern Hemisphere look pretty much identical to ones in the Northern Hemisphere. Hmm.

Week one:
Injuries recieved due to extreme specialness = Possible broken nose from headbutting my cupboards, owwie. Big egg on my head from headbutting Jack's boiler. Oh dearrr.
Random Aussie observation = There's no chance of "tossing a shrimp on the barbie" here - they call them prawns! They also have a town called Dubbo. Best name ever?
Best Aussie invention = Timtam shooters. Bite both ends off, suck up tea, make a big melty mess, sigh like a satiated smack addict, cue obesity.

My room for the next few months

Mmmm calories