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