Week Eleven: A week spent waiting

I am currently sat airside at Newcastle airport, awaiting my flight to Brisbane. I am loving the laidback attitude of Aussies towards domestic flights - no disposing of water bottles, clear bags of make-up and "you cannot bring that through", whilst having glaring competitions with hormonal customs officials. Down Under, I can waltz through security - disrupting their gossip about supermarket prices and what Brenda was up to last weekend - with my water bottle and cookie in hand, without an eyelid batted.

Monday was spent in the library, attempting to work and failing miserably. This year abroad - as amazing as it undoubtedly is - is doing nothing for my work ethic. Siiiigh. One thing it is doing, however, is polishing up my dinner party skillz, as I attempted to atone for my risotto-based failings in the Church St kitchen by utilising my recently acquired veggie boxes to rustle up Roast Vegetables with chilli and herb Couscous and home-made Garlic Bread :) I had lots of help from my wonderful assistant Liz (cue cheesy Jim Davidson's Generation Game theme tune), and the meal worked out far more successfully than the unintentionally chargrilled risotto :)

Tuesday was another library day, followed by dinner at Church St (yummy stuffed peppers with feta courtesy of Bram) and the long trek down Darby St to Bar Beach, where Maggi was having a party to bid her farewells before she jets back to Germany. Unfortunately, due to ridiculous bus times and underestimated walking speeds, we could only stay for a little while before heading back home. Boo.

Haha well done Australia

Some of the street art around Newcastle

Wednesday was another library day - I am starting to go stir-crazy in this place! In the afternoon we trekked to Church St again for a final pre-Spring Break meal. Everyone heading up the East Coast had an overnight bus journey to prepare for, so the meal was - of course - a fry up! We made some pretty failed chips, and the bacon was suspiciously linear (not that I 'indulged' in that particular porcine treat... if indulged is the word), but the eggy bread and mushrooms were amazing, and have I mentioned how much I have missed baked beans?! Om nom nom. After walking all the East Coasters to the bus station, weighed down with rucksacks and excitement, Kirsty and I told them to be good, and not to talk to strangers (unless said strangers were offering goon), before leaving them in their giddy states and getting the bus back home. Boooooo!

Any guesses where I spent Thursday? So much hatred for the library right now. As the last two remaining Church St family members remaining in Newcastle, Kirst and I stuck together on Thursday night, and headed out on the farewell night out for one of her departing flatmates. Perhaps goon strengthens over time, or maybe we were just incredible lightweights, but we were both a little messy that night. However, a brilliant night was had and we got home safe (...before I had a 40-minute dolphin-related tantrum, apparently. Sorry Hugo.).

...Oh dear.

A successfully inebriated send-off!

I awoke on Friday morning feeling like death in a microwave. Bleurgh. This was to be cured with a trip to the beach post-tute, but Kirst and I were both in a rather Indiana Jones-esque mood and decided to go exploring the surburban wilderness of Newcastle.. to go househunting. Okay, so 'Indiana Jones-esque' may be overstating it... perhaps more 'Phil and Kirsty-esque'? No houses were found, which is hardly surprising as the majority of them are currently inhabited by students, but we continued on our epic quest (okay, i'll stop now) towards Marketown, to buy pumps and nutella. HARDCORE. The evening ended on a spectacularly lame note... sat in bed watching Australia. Perhaps the worst film ever made, but it's just so PRETTY!

Saturday was certainly no cooler. The hot weather had melted away, leaving Newcastle a drizzly grey mess. It could have been Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. The most productive part of the day involved me managing to get the lunchtime bus to Kirst's flat, where we would spend the afternoon watching Sex and the City and eating Omelettes. Living the life. In the evening, I boarded the bogan-riddled bus again (although to be fair, the bogans thought studying Environmental Science was "like actually massively cool", so maybe they aren't so bad). I packed my bag for Brisbane (one more day!) and watched Ocean Giants (which is "like actually massively cool"... Geek and proud!).

Today I took every precaution and arrived at the airport waaay too early, where I have spent my time eating pineapple and watching the Inbetweeners... and so the productive mood continues. My flight is in an hour, and I'll hopefully be at my Uncle's house in Brisbane with my mum before the day is up! I probably won't get a chance to update my blog next week -  i'll be too busy feeding dolphins and relaxing in Southbank Lagoon, dahhhling, life is hard! I will, however, provide an epic fortnight roundup when I return to Newcastle after Spring Break.

Toodles!

Week Ten: Bird poo and banana hammocks.

I'm now at the end of my tenth week in Australia - double figures! Time is flying. One more week of uni until spring break! Excited would be an understatement.


This week has been a very busy one. I have spent my days catching up on assignments from this semester, and the evenings recovering from full-on library days. Monday was spent attempting to work at my flat (always a bad idea), before heading to Church st for curry with all the extras courtesy of Josh. We booked the girls trip to Melbourne at the end of November to celebrate the end of exams and beginning of summer! I'm so excited!


Tuesday was a looooong library day. Eurgh.


Wednesday was another library day, followed by a desperate blowing-off of library steam at the Brewery :) A bizarre predrinks session - consisting of many youtube videos ("The maple kind, yeah?") to accompany the goon - managed to get us suitably merry to ensure that a good/embarrassing night was had by all! On my way home I made friends with a Possum which has taken up residence on my doorstep. Nice enough chap, but rather quiet.

Oh dear.

I met a possum on my doorstep. His name is Percival.

Thursday was - you guessed it - another library day. There are lots of things in this world that I care about: my family, my friends, my Hugo, travelling, gin&tonics, my bike, my camera, a good victoria sponge... Water Sustainability Policy is not one of these things. Somehow I have managed to whack out 2,800 words on this ridiculous (well, technically very useful, but BORING) subject in the space of two days. I feel proud (and a little thirsty). I celebrated my victory over EMGT2020 and microsoft word with a big stirfry at Church st thanks to the ginger one :)


Friday morning was spent in the library - notice a pattern forming? I edited a hefty chunk of my essay and so allowed myself an afternoon of bumming around on the beach. Yay. Liz cooked in the evening, and whilst we waited, we nipped to the pub to watch the rugby, where I managed to win a huuuge veggie box in the raffle to raise money for the Surf Lifesaving Club. One Dollar for a veggie box is a bargain, but I managed to get much more out of my donation to the club.... After dinner, I was called down to Josh's room and found myself in the middle of an intervention. Anyone who has seen that episode of How I Met Your Mother will understand. (I was not one of those people until earlier in the evening!) The evening was rounded off with X-men: First Class! Yay for geek times.

My veggie box!

Intervention!

Saturday was forecasted to be beautiful sunshine and 27 degrees, hence why the train to Newcastle was bursting at the seams with beachwear-clad teenyboppers. Nobby's Beach was nowhere near as crowded as Newcastle Beach, but there were still plenty of people to observe me getting more bang for my buck from the Surf Lifesavers... Josh promised to give Kirsty and I a surf lesson. Armed with Rachel and Hazel (surfboards, belonging to Josh and Bram respectively... boys are odd), we gave it a go. It wasn't exactly a riproaring success, but it could have gone worse (only one nosebleed, woo!) until we decided to go a little further out. After a few minutes we turned and realised we were really quite far out....  Josh and Kirsty, with just one (smaller and more manouverable) board between them, managed to paddle out of the rip current and back towards shore. On my own in the rip zone (and getting increasingly frustrated at my pathetic lack of arm strength and the bulk of Bram's ridiculously sized surfboard), I seemed to be going backwards. Next stop Tahiti?


I decided the only way I would get anywhere was to swim, so I climbed off the board. To my horror, I immediately heard the lifeguards hut tanoy: "Girl in the black rashie, get back on your board and keep paddling. Wave your arms if you need help!". OH NO. I was not going to be that girl. I kept paddling.... and going backwards, bloody rip currents. The next thing I know, I see this figure paddling towards me on a board emblazoned with 'LIFESAVERS'. No, no, no. Please do not be for me.


Obviously, he was coming for me. Any images I had of Aussie lifeguards being straight out of a Home and Away cast were quickly dispersed - he was at least 65, wearing an indecently small budgie smuggler. The humiliation continues. Apparently the only way for me to get out would be to surf back on his board - with him. Therefore, my first surf outing in Newcastle ended on the most extreme of lows... The entire beach watching me surf back into shore on a board paddled by a geriatric in a banana hammock. Oh the humiliation. On the plus side: $1 for a veggie box AND my life? That's a pretty decent deal.


I spent the rest of the afternoon sunbathing and pretending I did not exist. Waaaah. Once the beach started to get chilly (which is insanely early here - like 3pm), we headed back to Church st for failed omelettes (scrambled cheesy-mushroom-tomato-egg anyone?) and Blue Crush, before popping next door to the Grand - again! - to watch the rugby (Ireland vs Australia). I sat through the whole match - and here is the shocker - I actually enjoyed it! I mean, it's still no way near as good as football; and I'm pretty sure most of my enjoyment was due to the trough of wedges sat in front of us... But still.


Sunday was a verrrrry early start, as we headed to Sydney to watch our resident American nutter, Anna, run the Sydney Marathon in 30 degree heat. Crazy! Amazingly we almost bumped into her as we got to the track, and saw her again as she neared the finish line. Most people were looking pretty worse-for-wear by the 26-mile mark, but not Anna! No she just casually jogs along for 26.2 miles, no biggie! Nutter (but a very impressive one at that!).

Hero!

In the afternoon, we grabbed some Korean food and headed to Darling Harbour to watch the Wales vs Samoa rugby match of the floating outdoor screens - two matches in two days! I hope you are proud ENV rugby-ers, after I spent the whole of first and second year resisting. The match was very good - well done Wales - but my personal highlight must be the moment when the DELIGHTFUL seagulls swooped overhead and landed a big blob of poo BEHIND my sunglasses, directly on my eyelashes. WONDERFUL. Rats of the sky. If I find this one again, I will have no problem forgoing my vegetarian/ecologist principles and CHUCKING IT ON THE BARBIE. (Although I must say, I have very little desire to eat seagull....)

Free icecream! Thanks Marty!

Wiping blumming seagull poo out of my eye. FML.

Yey Welsh friends!

We headed to Paddy's market for some tacky souvenir shopping after the match, passing through a very busy Brazilian Festival on the way. I got rather overexcited upon seeing a stand selling Sugarcane Juice, the drink I had become so enamoured with in Vietnam, where it was like fresh lemonade but SO much better. I paid $4, took a sip... and wanted to cry. It tasted of sugar and tree bark. Heartbreak. However, I managed to lift my spirits with the addition of beautifully hot and crispy, chocolate-filled churros, rolled in cinnamon sugar. Amazing.

Sugarcane juice-related sadness :(

Churros make everything better!

Mmmm!

We headed back to find the boys post market, catching the end of the England vs Georgia match, before heading to get the train back to Newcastle, exhausted and grimy but happy.

Darling Harbour at dusk :)

I love Sydney. I love hot chocolate churros. I love geriatric lifeguards (although not so much their swimwear choice...). I love Darling Harbour. I love Australian beaches. I love my life here.


I have one final essay to crack out this week, before flying up to Brisbane on Sunday to spend two weeks with Mumma Brown in Queensland! I am so excited! Yay :)

Week Nine: shooting stars, surfing fails and sand everywhere.

Week nine... Where is the time going? I'm now pretty much halfway through the first semester - more than halfway in terms of lecture time - and I have no idea how the time is passing so quickly!

Monday to Thursday zoomed past this week, in a blur of library days, procrastination and presentations. Bleurgh. On Monday, I gave up the opportunity to go surfing at Newcastle beach in order to stay in the library. I consoled myself in the evening by splitting an entire packet of gingernuts with my favourite fake gingernut, Roseanna, and watching The Butterfly Effect (strange, disturbing, incredible) and The Inbetweeners (yeeeey).

On Tuesday, I - once again - passed up on a beach day in order to do work... No-one warned me that a Study Abroad year would require so much studying! I also managed to miss my lecture by an hour, only realising this once I had turned up and taken a seat... I noticed that the class had halved in size since last week and the lecturer was carrying books on greek mythology...

Wednesday was another work day, brightened up in the evening by chilling at Liz's with the girls. Thursday was the day of my dreaded Aboriginal Studies presentation... It went alright, I hope! In the evening there was a BBQ in King Edwards Park (again), where we gorged ourselves into oblivion (again). On the way home we heard about Coco Monde, the new chocolate restaurant on Darby St, and decided (despite our rapidly developing food babies) to give it a go. The others got an amazing Hazelnut Hot Chocolate (it tasted exactly like melted chocolate icecream) and Honeycomb Cheesecake, which was pretty beautiful. I ordered the Chocolate Gateaux and it was the MOST AMAZING THING EVER. A crumbly brownie base, then a layer of warm white chocolate and almond, topped with gooey, melty layers of white, milk and dark chocolate ganaches. It came - unlike the cheesecakes - with big chocolate spikes, raspberry coulis, chocolate icecream and a chocolate truffle. Exactly why was a mystery until the bill came ad they tried to charge me $9 extra for a large (which I did not order)... Five minutes later and I had a large for the price of a small :) Yeeey.

Friday morning was an early start, up at 7am to shower, breakfast and pack my bag for a weekend away. Hawks Nest is a small town located an hour and a half north of Newcastle, adjacent to the town of Tea Gardens (cutest town names ever?). Thanks to Groupon, our hotel was a steal, and a massive group of us descended on the town for a weekend of surf, sand and free champers on arrival. The weatherman unfortunately chose this weekend to be accurate for the first time since my arrival in Oz two months ago, meaning that Friday was a grey and rainy mess. We spent most of the afternoon warming up in the hot tub. Once the skies cleared we grabbed the free rental surfboards and set out to the beautiful Bennetts Beach to attempt to surf. It wasn't the most successful afternoon - at least not in my case - but it was a lot of fun. Without wetsuits the wind chill was ridiculous, but we managed to last an hour or so before leaving the boards with the boys and sprinting the 200m back to the hotel to dive into the hot tub, where we spent the remainder of the afternoon.

Not quite Blue Crush... yet.

The path down to beautiful Bennetts Beach

Yey warmth :)

The arrival of the rest of the group at 5pm-ish signalled the beginning of a ridiculous 20-or-so person hot tub gathering, before a poolside BBQ. The was a thunderstorm further out in the bay so we wrapped up in blankets and spent a few hours laying out on the beach watching the lightning; it was amazing. Once the hypothermia set in, we dashed back to the hotel for urgent and copius amounts of tea and oreos.

Loving the beach at night

The mooooon

Saturday was sunny-ish, but very windy, Rather than risk pneumonia due to windchill from surfing, we went on a long walk along the beach. Bennetts Beach is over 30km long in total, but we only covered a fraction of it. We climbed sand dunes and discovered secret bays, climbed rocks and collected shells, watched some impressive kitesurfing and generally acted like teenagers on their first unsupervised foray into the adult world. Listening to the sea through conch shells is still fun when you're twenty.

:)

Windy windy windy

In the afternoon we went for a walk around Hawks Nest, consumed inadvisable amounts of biscuits and descended, once again, upon the hot tub. We found the much sought-after sauna... It resembled little more than a B&Q garden shed with heaters, but in the hour we somehow spent in there we all became sufficiently dehydrated to call for the immediate administering of large amounts of goon. For rehydration reasons, obviously.

The evening passed in a goon-aided blur of BBQs, jacuzzis and waterslides, ending abruptly when the hotel manager informed us that the pool was CLOSED and we should all run along like good little children. Boo. Rather than further pickling ourselves in the over-chlorinated water, we wrapped up like an international army of Michelin Men and headed to the beach, to camp out with a bonfire and await the sunrise. The night was cold and sleep was pretty impossible, but when you're lying on a beach in Australia watching shooting stars and listening to the waves crash on the shore, who cares? By 4am most people had abandoned the beach campfire for the warmth of their beds. Sunrise was at about 5.45am so at 4.30am I headed back with Josh and Anna for emergency tea and timtam slams. We re-insulated ourselves in our hobo blankets and hats, and headed back to the beach to find Nathan and Roseanna just in time for sunrise. It was absolutely beautiful, and completely worth the sleep deprivation. Best moment in Australia so far.

Beach campfire

Survivors photo - 6am!

So worth the cold.

Gorgeous!

Sunday morning passed in a rush of powernaps, cleaning and goosebumps on the (chilly) ferry ride to Port Stephens. It got a bit choppy at times - kudos to the hungover ones for not vomming. From Port Stephens we walked to Shoal Bay, a town with a beautiful white-sand-and-turquoise-water bay. The sea was completely still - no surfing here - but unfortunately no swimming either as the wind was just too, too cold. Pff. Instead we lazed on the beach, headed to 'Aussie Bob's Fish and Chip Shop' on the recommendation of a nice old man, and generally perfected the art of Doing Nothing.

Beautiful Shoal Bay

Gorgeous turquoise water :)

Eventually the time came for the bus, so we hauled ourselves off the beach and onto the bus for the 90 minute journey back to Newcastle and reality. We passed over the bridge and saw the towering structures of the coal mines; it wasn't the prettiest sight after the beauty and isolated charm of Hawks Nest and Shoal Bay.

The next two weeks are going to be busy and stressful, with deadline after deadline, but this weekend definitely got me excited for Brisbane. Hawks Nest was the perfect pre-spring break break. I would go back in a heartbeat.

Week Eight: A total lack of work, clothes and sense...

I have now been an adopted Aussie for eight weeks! Madness. In these eight weeks there has been a lot of goon, rain, sunshine, sand and dignity-loss... And every week keeps getting better. Best week ever? No, it has been the best week in Australia so far, but the best is definitely yet to come.

Lazy Monday afternoons.

Monday was spent - as is becoming worryingly routine - lazing around. Don't get me wrong, I had the very best of intentions! I got up early, but got distracted before I made it to the library. I got to the library and opened up a lecture powerpoint, but then Liz and Kirsty turned up and forced me at gunpoint to leave the library and get a Subway with them. Resistance was futile. The afternoon passed in a veggie delite-induced haze, lying in the sun and blissing out in the 'bleak' (18 degree) midwinter.

In the evening it was time to step up and do my duty in cooking for the Church street family. I thought I'd do the failsafe Butternut Squash risotto, which I practically live off back in Norwich. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as failsafe as I believed... Cooking for 13 people is hard. It tasted okay (especially considering I used pumpkin rather than squash as I'm a cheapskate), but had the unexpected addition of Burnt Rice extract. Risotto di zucca e riso bruciato. Maybe I'm the new Heston?

Monday night's post-dinner film was Black Swan, something I've wanted to watch for ages but have never got round to... Mostly due to a stubborn boyfriend. Pffff. It was really good, but it certainly had its share of 'interesting' moments. Ahem.

Tuesday passed with the regular routine: Lecture-swim-lecture. Snore. When I got home I was informed that I was hosting a girls night in, commencing immediately. The usual Girly Night repertoire ensued: Bring It On, lots of chocolate, Serendipity, cups of tea... and Summer Heights High. Just to mix it up a bit.

Wednesday was fairly productive, with work broken up by the discovery of the $10 Crepe and Smoothie deal at the (bizarrely international) crepe-smoothie-sushi cafe on campus. Bit of a rip off, but SO GOOD. Mmmmm pancakey goodness. To continue the very Australian theme of binge eating, we headed to Kirsty's that night for a BBQ and pre-drinks. For herbivores like myself, the BBQ consisted of bread, bread and more bread. The Pre-drinks turned out to be just 'drinks' due to certain messy individuals - who shall remain nameless -  requiring escorting home and tucking into bed. Or floor, as it turned out. Despite this fundamental failure in both aspects of the evening, it was good fun :)

Nathan's birthday was on Friday, when he was going to be away climbing rocks and pretending to be Ray Mears. (Or Bear Grylls... I can't really imagine Ray Mears climbing anything, except maybe a large sandwich.) Therefore, his (surprise) birthday celebrations were moved a day earlier. Kirsty and I created (or perhaps unleashed would be a more accurate term...) a cake of monstrous proportions/calorific content. Two layers of chocolate cake, sandwiching a marbled goo of peanut butter and nutella, the whole thing drenched in more nutella, and decorated with M&Ms. Consume with caution (and perhaps a cardiac surgeon on speed dial).

We somehow transported this beast to Church St, before heading out to King Edwards park for a surprise BBQ. The surprise worked fairly well (minus the few false alarms), and Nathan seemed pretty impressed with his giant inflatable dinosaur - present numero uno.

Nathan and Dinosanna.

Present numero dos required a little more planning... The original family portrait of the Church St crew had been modified and redrawn to include the extended family, before being printed onto tees. We each bought one, and managed to sneak off to the toilets unnoticed to change into them. Nathan was blindfolded and led to the Bandstand, where he was greeted by an international clan of t-shirt clad students, dancing along to the Lion King song. The rest of the evening was spent in the bandstand, eating handfuls of cake (perhaps a knife may have been a good idea).

(Most of) the Family!



Ridiculousness in cake form



Cake attack!

Friday was spent doing very little, before heading to Kirsty's for the second girly night of the week, to watch When Harry met Sally and eat my own weight in Tabbouleh, yum yum yum. We got rather overexcited as we began to plan our travels to New Zealand in January/February 2012...Auckland-Rotorua-Wellington-Franz Josef Glacier-Milford Sound-Queenstown-Christchurch. I cannot wait for summer! On Saturday morning we headed off to Charlestown Square for some retail therapy, before heading to the (fairly chilly) beach for a while. Once Liz had finished work, we headed off to Hunter Street to find materials with which to build our outfits for the ABC party that night...

For noobies like myself - ABC means Anything But Clothes. Yeahhh. We piled Liz's room up with bin bags, tinfoil, stacks of newspapers and veggie boxes. Liz and Kirst went for the garbage bag dress, I opted for a Newspaper dress and tinfoil flipflops, Lawrence went for a hobo-meets-tinman ensemble, whilst Josh and Dom decided to outdo us all with a full on 'Robo-Couple' get up, made of veggie boxes. The walk to the party, along the busiest restaurant street in Newcastle (and on a Saturday night!), was pretty entertaining. With passersby's faces alternating between bemusement and alarm at the motley crew of homeless-designer-robots strolling past.

Gaga's got nothing on us!

Oh boys...

Sunday was spent recovering at Newcastle Beach. The weather was beautifully sunny and warm... the perfect opportunity to make a start on replacing my 'Casper the Friendly Ghost' look with one more akin to 'Aussie Beach Goddess'. Needless to say my albinism, coupled with the insanely strong southern hemisphere sun, and my propensity to fall asleep when I'm warm and comfy and listening to City & Colour, was not a good combination. The entirety of the Little Hell album later, I now sport the most ridiculous tan lines in Newcastle. Or probably New South Wales. Possibly the whole of Oz.

Beautiful sunshine + balloons!

I may look faintly ridiculous, but a beautifully sunny spring day at Newcastle beach was the perfect way to end this week. It has been so much fun, and the best bit is knowing that with Port Stephens next weekend, and the whole of summer stretching ahead to the horizon, the best really is yet to come. And hey, at least I now have an alternative reply when someone asks if I'm a Pom.... "No, can't you tell? I'm a lobster."