2nd Exam, Cairns and The Whitsundays

So its all over. I am back in the states now in Maine for a little while before I go back to Boston and start co-op. I had my last exam (thermodynamics) on the 17th before heading to Cairns on the 18th. My exam went alright but I'll have to see the results before I am really satisfied. I was doing really well in that class before the exam so hopefully I continued my run of good results. The rest of the day after the exam was spent getting things ready for the trip up to Cairns and The Whitsunday Islands. Wednesday night I went out with a bunch of my friends that I've met here in Australia to probably my favorite bar in Hawthorn, the Nevermind. Its a really relaxed bar with a bunch of couches inside on multiple levels and a couple different decks on the outside. When we got there I was surprised to find four of my friends from the Aussie rules team in addition to the 12 or so people that had came with Will and I from our apartment. Anyways, it was great to hang out with those kids for one last time.

The next morning Will and I went and got on the plane to Cairns at 7 am and arrived at noon to balmy conditions somewhere in the neighborhood of 27 degrees (mid 80s Fahrenheit). I have to admit it was pretty nice after coming from Melbourne where it had been around 15 degrees on average for the past 2 months. We checked into our hostel Thursday night and went on a rain forest tour on Friday. The tour was pretty fun and our tour guide was amazing. He knew so much about the area and the wildlife that lived within it in addition to being hilarious and conducting the whole tour barefoot. We went on a boat ride on a river, to a pretty cool beach, a rain forest wild life sanctuary and saw one of the rarest birds in the world (a cassowary, sort of like an emu but weirder). The next morning we got on a Greyhound bus that took us down to Airlie Beach which would serve as our jump off point to the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. The bus ride was 11 hours which kind of sucked but I didn't mind it too much because by now I am more than used to traveling long distances.

On Sunday the 21st Will and I walked around Airlie beach until it was time to board the boat at 4 pm. When we got on the boat and got our cabins, met the crew and the rest of the guests it was quickly apparent that it was going to be a sick trip. I was actually a little worried that I wasn't going to enjoy the rest of the guests because there were only two other kids on the trip the same age as Will and I. The rest were significantly older except for 3 kids who had came on the ship with their parents. However, it actually worked out really well and we met some great people on the trip. The food was amazing on the trip and if it was a restaurant it would be the most expensive one I've ever been to (but luckily it was all included in the price of the trip which wasn't that bad). However, the real highlights of the trip were obviously found off the boat. The reefs and beaches were amazing! I went snorkeling a bunch and scuba diving twice in one of the coolest places in the world. The trip also included a trip to one of the most beautiful white sand beaches in the world, Whitehaven. It was so sweet and after being in Australia I have a much better appreciation for ocean beaches than I did before. The first time I went snorkeling I was swimming around watching fish hanging around the coral and then I looked around me and I surrounded on three sides by by between 100 and 200 different fish of probably 12 different species. It was amazing! For the rest of my time snorkeling on the trip I saw over 100 different species of fish and over 30 different kinds of coral (however, the coral was not as colorful as I had pictured it would be). Anyways, it was still crazy and like nothing I have ever done before in my life.

Anyways, Australia has been amazing! The people are great, there is so much to do and there are so many great things to experience. Do it!!!!

End of The Road Beach Party, Studying and First Exam

Last weekend started off with a bang. Thursday was fairly uneventful other than footy training. After training we went back to our place and just hung out. The next day was the finale to our Mexican friend Chico's parties. Before the party we had a great barbecue on the deck of out building. In the place where I am staying on the third floor there is a common area which contains a large tv, a pool table and an outside deck-ish thing. On this deck-ish thing there are some electric barbecues that anybody can use for free! Its such a good idea because barbecues are one of my favorite things in the whole world. Its sweet because you put a little money together, get some beers and some food and then go hang out outside while you cook the food. Its like a really laid back party where you can just hang out and talk with your friends. Anyways, we had about 20 people over to our building and had a barbecue before this great party. Chico's parties seem to get bigger every time. the first one was probably 20 people or so, the next one about 40 and they have just kept on growing until this one was probably over 100 people. I was really excited for this one too because I hadn't really drank for about two weeks so I was ready for it! Anyways, it was a great time with plenty of ridiculous things going on.

On Saturday I started studying for my Structural Mechanics test which took place yesterday. I studied for probably or 5 hours each day after that and I was still feeling pretty nervous. The test was last night at 6 and was to last 3 hours. It was both the longest and most important test of my college career because it was worth 70% of my grade in a class that I was not doing great in. Well I got the test and I was pretty confident because I had seen all the material before. Come to find out 3 hours is apparently not enough time to complete this test for me though. ugh. I left a few answers blank so needless to say I am a little nervous about the results.

Next on my plate is a paper I have due Monday and a Thermodynamics test next Wednesday. and then I am out of here...

Mornington Peninsula, Going to the Country, Stitches round II, Preparing for exams

So since classes ended on the 29th I've pretty much been bumming around waiting to start studying. So in order to put off studying Mike, Scott, Will and I went to Australian Will's house in the country. We boarded a train to Will's hometown of Colac at 8 in the morning which was pretty early for a Saturday morning. Will's dad picked us up and drove us to there house where we had some great home cooked food which included fresh tomato soup, chocolate chip muffins and grilled cheese, tomato and ham sandwiches. It made me really miss the home cooking of my mom.

After they fed us we took their car and went and saw some of the sights of the great ocean road. Mike and I had already been there but Will had not. We also managed to see some things that I had not seen before which was pretty cool. The weather was also a lot better than the last time I was there so we had a great time. When we got back to Will's house we were treated to another excellent meal including potatoes, a lamb roast, carrots, and some amazing cake afterwards. I really really need to learn to cook. I think when I get back to the states I'm going to pick up a cook book of some sort because I am getting a bit sick of the stuff that I am currently capable of cooking.

The next day we relaxed around the farm and slept in. When we woke up we played games in their pool room and then took a drive around the farm. It reminded me a lot of what I thought the midwestern U.S. would have been like 20 years ago. They owned a small amount of cattle(four or five hundred), grew a lot of their own food, the house had been passed down from the father's parents and although they weren't that far from a small town it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. It was great to get out of the hustle and bustle of Melbourne and into the country side. We returned from the country at night and promptly relaxed for the entire week. I really should have started studying but I couldn't muster the strength of will to do so. On Tuesday we went on the last Swinmates trip to the Mornington Peninsula and the hot springs. It was great and as usual the Australian coast did not dissapoint. It was very rocky and sort of reminded me of Ireland or Scotland with its green pastures running almost directly up to the edge of the ocean when all of a sudden it dropped down in steep black volcanic rock cliffs into the ocean. The sunset was a bit of a dissapointment due to the clouds but we still had fun.
The hot springs were great because they were like a series of hot tubs minus the nasty chemicals.

Thursday was another night of footy training and then Friday morning I finally was rid of my stitches. Last Friday the 29th when I went to get my stitches out the doctor said that a part of my skin had overlapped. The result was a need for the current set of stitches to be removed and 4 more to be put in. Anyways after another week I got that set of stitches out yesterday. Last night a bunch of us got together and had a really fun barbecue beforea really great party at one of our mexican friends place Chico. It ended up being one of the best nights I've had in Australia so far. I am definitely missing home at this point but at the same time I am extremely reluctant to leave my life here. I have made some great friends that I doubt I will see regularily if at all when I go back to the States. I also have started playing an amazing sport that I already love and will miss playing it as well as watching it on TV when I go back to the states. Anyways, must go watch the Carlton game and then to bed before waking up and studying tomorrow!

End of Semester, Post School Plans, Footy Excitement

Alright so pretty much the reason why I haven't written anything in awhile is because nothing that interesting has been happening. The last few weeks I have kind of fallen into a routine of playing Aussie rules, going out, going to class and doing school work.

Last weekend I started on the field for my first Aussie rules game for the team I play for, the Razorbacks. I started at half-forward which was pretty fun and played for most of the game. I played pretty well with a few kicks, a couple tackles and a handful of disposals. Needless to say, we lost handily. Since we one the first two games of the season both the seniors and the reserves (I play reserves) have experienced some injuries. As people get injured the best players on reserves move from reserves up to seniors. This is nice because it gives us international students a chance but on the other hand it makes reserves play a lot worse. After those first two games we have lost four straight.

On Sunday the 17th, Will Arundell (my Australian roommate) took Will (my American roommate) and I too the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The MCG is one of the largest athletic stadiums in the world (Number 8 on the list, capacity of just over 100,000) and that day we went to an Aussie Rules Football game between Carlton and Collingwood. It was a pretty good game but it was clear from the beginning that Carlton was going to win. It was really fun though since Carlton is the team that I root for.

In the past few weeks we (American Will) and I have finalized our travel plans. After our last final exam on the 17th we will fly to Cairns on the 18th and stay there for two nights and go on a day trip to the Daintree Rainforest. After the rain forest adventure we will take a bus down the coast to Aerlie Beach where we will stay the night. The next day we will board a sailing ship and stay on that for 6 nights among the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. The ship that we will stay on isn't very big with space for only 21 people so it should be pretty cool. Seeing the Great Barrier Reef was my number one thing to see while I'm here so I am really excited. Its going to be expensive but I kind of doubt I will ever come back to Australia so I have decided to spring for it and borrow the money from my parents.

So that brings me up to yesterday. Yesterday we had a game up in Kew at Victoria park. The game was going alright up until the 3rd quarter. I had been assigned to the defensive back line which kind of sucks because your main job is just to prevent the man you are guarding from catching the ball. I like to have more creativity like what you get when you play half forward or in the middle of the field which I had been playing earlier in the game. Anyways, in the 4th or 5th minute of the 3rd quarter I was charging forward after a bouncing ball as one of my teammates was charging backward. His elbow ended up hitting me in the eyebrow and a few seconds later I'm on the ground spouting blood like a leaky garden hose. Part of my eyebrow was drooping down in front of my right eye as a walked off the field led by our athletic trainer. She did a pretty good job momentarily stopping the bleeding but it was clear that it was going to require stitches to close the 5 cm gash. One of my teammates drove me to the closest hospital and about three hours later I walked out with 8 stitches. Luckily, I had taken care of my health insurance situation a few weeks earlier so I was covered. I think I probably won't play next weekend because of the stitches but we'll see I suppose.

Water boy, Books, Night time

Alright so last weekend was the second round of games for the Razorbacks. Unfortunately for me I had missed a week of training and round one because I had been on the road trip. Also, I still kind of suck at footy. All of these reasons contributed to Scott, Will and I getting left out of the roster for the weekend. However, there is an agreement within the team that if you help them out during the game you are guaranteed a spot in the roster the following weekend. Anyways, Will and I were appointed water girls (haha) while Scott was assigned to the time keeping role. The game went pretty well with the Razorbacks initially down after the 1st quarter but from then on they absolutely dominated. It was alright being a water girl but it would have been a lot better to be on the field. It just feels demeaning to not be selected for the team and then have to watch it while delivering water to them. Its alright though because tomorrow Scott and I will get our shots on the field!

Also going on that weekend were a couple fun parties. One of them was at my friend Chico's place. He is the most Mexican person I have ever met and is as a result, hilarious. Will, Scott, Mike and I went there around 10:30 or 11 on Friday and arrived to the surprise of a bunch of people with their country's flag painted on their faces. We all went along with it and got the stars and bars painted on us. The party was pretty fun with a bunch of international students as well as a couple of girls who work for Unilodge(the place I'm living) as receptionists. I made the unfortunate mistake of letting people write on my arms and I woke up with a couple very vulgar sayings written on my forearms. Saturday night was a birthday party for a German down near St. Kilda. The building was a very tall apartment building literally across the street from the beach which was pretty sweet. The party wasn't great, but we met some fun people from all over the place. This included my first encounter with a lady from South Africa and their native language(Zulu maybe?)! That was amazing! Its crazy how seemlessly they integrate their tongue noises (tongue clicks doesn't really describe it accurately) into the language. I left kind of early though because I was exhausted. On the tram ride home I lost my phone, again! Uggh. It turned out alright though because I got it back from the lost and found on Monday. I still can't believe that I've lost my phone twice down here and gotten it back both times!

During the week I started reading again with a book I picked up last summer. It was by Agatha Christie and called "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." I finished it on Wednesday night and then yesterday I went out and bought Harry Potter and The Half-blood Prince which I am really excited about and will probably finish it far too fast to justify the $45 I spent on it. Other events in the week included ladie's night at Space Bar on Tuesday and last night we went to a great club called "Seven." "Seven" was pretty cool with a bunch of different rooms with different music. One room played some great hip hop. I heard 2pac, Biggie and the first song I heard was "A Milli" by Lil Wayne as I was walking in. I was immediately sold on the place as all I hear around here is techno and the latest shitty music playing on the Top 40 countdown. I have missed hip hop so much! Actually, that's not really true since I listen to it whenever on my Ipod or computer, but I just hate the constant thump intertwined with the synthesizer of techno. This week Will and I also moved back our flights from the 27th of June to the 29th to give us a few extra days up in Cairns or on the Great Barrier Reef.

Surfers Paradise, Chelsea are through!

April 15th-24th

So I woke up Wednesday morning at 5:00 am to watch the second leg of the Chelsea vs. Liverpool Champions League tie. The first leg of the tie had been my favorite game of the year so far with Chelsea (my team) winning 3-1 in Liverpool's stadium. Therefore going into the second game, Chelsea looked like they would go through. However when I woke up Liverpool were already up 1-0 and would soon add another before half time to make it 2-0. I was not happy. Luckily, in the second half Chelsea scored 3 unanswered goals to make it 3-2. Liverpool were still in it though and score two quick goals in the 81st and 82nd minute. Super Frank Lampard finally put it out of reach though in the 89th minute. What a relief! Anyways, Chelsea are through and will face Barcelona in the semi final on May 6th.

When the game was finished it was still 6:30 am so I had some time to kill while Will and Mike slept. I ate breakfast out on the balcony and took a shower. When they got up we were off to the beach! The beach was amazing. When we walked down to the beach from our hotel I looked in both directions and could not tell how long the beach was. I have never really traveled in a place like Surfer's Paradise before where the water and air is warm year round but it was great! The water was just warm enough not to chill you but still cool enough to refresh. Before we went swimming we went to the pharmacy to get some sun screen and some sinus medication as I was starting to have some serious issues breathing. On our way back we got ensnared by a saleswoman making a pitch for a club crawl later that night. I don't normally like to pay cover charges but I figured since we were on a vacation it was alright. We threw down $40 a piece for entry into 5 clubs and a drink at each club. On that note Mike rented a boogie board and I rented a surfboard and we were set for a great day at the beach.

The waves were pretty choppy that day which made for some challenging surfing conditions. I had fun all the same and it was great just to be in such a great place. We played some frisbee and soaked up the sun and 85 degree heat. Luckily, none of us managed to get burned too badly and we retired to our hotel room to prepare ourselves for the night's festivities.

The club crawl was actually pretty cool. We met some good looking girls from all over the world and sampled some of Surfer's best night life. The people were all really friendly and we had a great time. However, I woke up in the morning at 5:30 with the jitters because instead of drinking beer the night before I drank scotch and cokes. Due to the effects of the caffeine from the coke I couldn't sleep anymore. It wasn't all bad though as I was up before the sunrise and went down to the beach and took some amazing pictures of the Australian sunrise. Once I got back to hotel after the sun rose I had a bowl of cereal and went out for a walk to find a real breakfast place.

I found a place about a kilometer away and I ate a huge breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon and sausage. I talked to the waiter a bunch about soccer and the U.S. since he and his girl friend are going to travel there in June. I took my time eating the breakfast and watched the Arsenal vs. Villa Real Champions League game on the TV and then walked back to the room around 8:30 or so. We checked out of the hotel at around 11 am and got on the road back to Melbourne. The plan was to knock off a few hours that day and hopefully stop somewhere at a beach or park that afternoon and then travel to Sydney the next day. Unfortunately though, when we were about an hour and a half from Surfer's in a little town called Ballina, Mike punched through third gear while shifting and we could not shift out of it. We had to get the van towed to a repair shop and we were stranded there overnight. The van got fixed by the next morning and we were able to leave by around 11:30.

That night we made camp in a National Park just south of Sydney next to a waterfall. At this point I had become sick with a bad sinus infection and did not sleep well waking up around 6 in the morning coughing pretty terribly. We made the rest of the trip that day without incident and were back in Melbourne by around 8 pm. Great road trip, in the bag.

On Monday it was back to school and I was feeling a little stressed about my first Structural Mechanics test since I was not sure what to expect. My test was on Tuesday and I think it went pretty well with the problems on the test well within my reach. I didn't go to footy training on Tuesday as I was still feeling under the weather but I did go last night and today I feel pretty good. Unfortunately, Will, Scott and I got left out of the roster for the footy game tomorrow but I suppose it is to be expected after missing practice and Round 1's game over break. In other news I have begun planning our trip to Cairns/Great Barrier Reef which will take place after the semester.

Easter Break Road Trippin

Easter Break (Part 1)
April 10th-April 14th

Alright so I last week I left off at the point when we were staying at Manly Beach just north of Sydney. We were supposed to meet up with one of my friends who is going to school in Sydney. For whatever reason it didn't work out so Will, Mike and I wandered around Manly for awhile and then since it was Good Friday everything closed at 10 pm. We did the only thing we could do, go to sleep in our luxury accommodation known as the Wicked camper van. It actually wasn't too bad; we slept three across with plenty of leg room. Although, should room was lacking somewhat in the early 1990s model Mazda cargo van. We slept alright, rising early with the sun and then dozing off until around 7 or 8.

When we finally did wake up for good we planned to do the usual tourist things. I drove the van to downtown Sydney where we parked in a garage near the Rocks for the day. We walked around the shops and markets until we found a breakfast place called "Pancakes on The Rocks." I was a little skeptical going in because it was rather expensive for breakfast food, but it was delicious! I'm not even normally a huge fan of pancakes, but these were amazing! After the pancakes we walked around and saw the Botanical Gardens as well as the Sydney Opera House. To be honest the Opera House looks a little ugly up close but from far away it is magnificent. In
the Botanical Gardens we saw trees filled with huge bats, called flying foxes and there were so many bats hanging upside down in some trees that they looked like cat sized redish-brown Christmas tree ornaments. That was pretty weird to say the least. We spent some more time in Sydney walking in Hyde Park and around Darling Harbour. When evening fell on us we decided to pack it up and go to Bondi Beach in hopes that the next days weather would be better the next day. Waking up in the morning was not great as it was cloudy and not exactly a beach day.

Time to get on the road again. Once about an hour or so outside the city we did some tourist recon at an information stop along the side of the highway. Will discovered a tourist drive with great views and many beaches and a few small towns we could stop along the way. Once we drove for an hour or so after that the weather began to clear up and we looked for a beach to plop down on a for a few hours. We came across along the drive a place called Avoca beach which was great! It wasn't the longest beach I had ever been on but it was very wide and had great sand. It was so weird though, the sand was squeaky! Whenever you walked or ran it sounded like a very small pair of tires were squealing or a perhaps hands squeaking along some glass (Mike suggested that it was probably due to the high silica content of the sand). After a few hours it started to cloud up so we decided to move on after exploring the town a bit and getting something for lunch. I got probably the best fish and chips of my life for $10 at this place called "burger girls." It was amazing except for the fact that (like many places in Australia unfortunately) they made me pay for the ketchup to put on my chips. At any rate, it was time to get rolling again.

Later that afternoon while we were on the road it rained some and then it was just cloudy. Kind of annoying but not terrible. We made camp that night at a place called Old Bar again, parking right on the beach, hoping for a cool sunrise to wake us up. Alas, it was not to be, we woke up to cloudy and drizzly weather. Whatever though, we still had a week ahead of us and it was supposed to clear up on Tuesday or Wednesday. We drove the rest of that day through places like Nambucca Heads which in the travel guides looked like something out of, well a travel guide, but in the pouring rain looked fairly similar to the Sandy River in Farmington, Maine. We parked that night on a yet another beach in Byron Bay, the eastern most town in Australia. It was still pouring rain but we decided to brave the weather and walk around town for some night life. We found ourselves at a local reggae concert which was sweet! Pints were $6 which isn't bad so we had a few of those and listened to some white guy serenade a bunch of hippies with some Matisyahu-esque music. We had a great time until the concert was over and we had to walk back through the heavy heavy mist (it never rains per say on my vacations) that was coming down and climb into our van absolutely soaked.

We were awakened early Tuesday morning by a stern police officer asking us some questions about what time we got into the parking spot and what we were doing etc. He kindly told us that he would leave the parking fine on the wind screen. Luckily we had been armed with the Wicked Camper handbook which said parking fines are nothing to worry about if you don't live here. So other than the hassling we got from the officer we came off from that incident unscathed. Its a good thing we won't be paying that parking ticket too because it was $81. That is absolutely silly.
Whatever though, no big deal. We moved the van to another beach in the same town and it was once again cloudy with patchy rain. At this point I was contemplating becoming suddenly relgious on the hopes that the weather would get better. While Mike caught some much needed rest the already awake Will and I adventured along this new beach until we reached the very tip of the Easternmost point in Australia. It was kind of a cool morning adventure and little did we know but that was the last we would see of the rain on the trip. We spent a few hours of the day in town at the main beach (where we had gotten the ticket) surfing, walking around to the different shops and buying gifts for friends and family. Once we had had our fill of this, to the van and the road to Surfer's Paradise. Though of all the places we visited on the trip Byron Bay was probably my favorite simply because of the hippie/surfer nature of the town along with the great scenery and low number people to number of beaches ratio.

We all piled into the van and severely looked forward to staying in the hotel room that I had reserved for Tuesday and Wednesday night. There was some confusion though as I had only written down a phone number and address for the hotel and not its name! Once we got that worked out though we eventually found the Crowne Plaza hotel, a block from the beach on the Gold Coast highway. It was amazing! We were on the 14th floor with two beds, a balcony and probably the nicest bathroom I have ever been in. We didn't even pay that much to stay there, only the cost of what it would have been to put the three of us in a hostel for 2 nights. Anyways, we walked the 2 km or so from or hotel up to the main shopping/night life/restaraunt area of Surfer's Paradise for dinner and relaxed in a bar. That night we retired somewhat early for our first night in a real bed in what seemed like ages.

Footy Match, Soccer Tournament, Mid-Semester

April 3rd - 10th

On Saturday the 4th I had my first Aussie rules footy match. I rode with my friend Scott (American) , Colby the reserve team coach and an Aussie out to one of the suburbs of Melbourne in the morning. I was kind of nervous about it but still very excited. When we got to the field we all went into the locker room and got changed. On the previous Thursday I had bought some team shorts and upon trying them on found that they were about 6 inches shorter than any pair of shorts I had worn since age 10. I'm a little surprised longer shorts haven't caught on yet as they have in every other sport. So on Friday I bought some compression shorts and the matter was put to rest. It felt good to be on a team playing a sport again as I hadn't suited up for a team since last November. On the field I did alright getting a few tackles in and blocking a shot in the first half. However, I also made some mistakes and missed a couple tackles. Footy is so much fun! We got completely crushed though and the scoreboard might as well have read "a lot to a little." I took a few knocks but came through largely unscathed. One guy on our team had suffered a pretty nasty head injury which required 7 or 8 stitches and was diagnosed as a minor concussion. Anyways, I can't wait to get on the field again!

The next day I had a soccer tournament with four of my friends out in Camberwell. It
was put on by the Swinburne soccer club and lasted from around noon until 3 or so with a barbecue afterwords. My friends Martin, Will, Val, Tony and I were on a team together and it was really fun! We lost our first game pretty badly but then after some organizational issues were worked out we played a lot better and won the rest of our games. Martin and I were both asked to come to a training session by the coach was pretty cool but Martin already plays for a semi-pro team and I have Aussie rules so unfortunately that is not going to work out. It was great to play some soccer though and the free barbecue afterwords was sweet.

On the Tuesday of that we I had my first exam-ish thing in my Thermo class which was alright. I was nervous going into it because one needs to get 35% or better on everything in order to pass the class. This isn't very hard to achieve but it still means that if you mess up a seemingly meaningless quiz that you won't get credit for the class. It went alright and I think I did pretty well on it. On Thursday we picked up our Wicked van and Easter Break had begun! I was pretty nervous about driving a standard with my left hand but it worked out alright. It was definitely easier making the transition than I was expecting. On Friday the 10th we drove to Sydney through some fairly uneventful weather and lots of Aussie bush country. Mike, Will and I spent the night in the van parked along Manly Beach. More on our adventure in my next entry!

Sara's Birthday, Melbourne Grand Prix

March 27th-April 3rd

Friday was my friend's Sara's birthday. She is Italian so we went out to an Italian restaurant in St. Kilda. The food was good and it was BYOB which was interesting. Here in Australia you can often bring in your own alcohol into restaurants which makes it a lot cheaper to drink there. After dinner we went to an English-style pub down town in Melbourne Central which was pretty fun. I also discovered that night that there is a night bus which runs at 3 am which is amazing because the trains stop running at 12 or 12:30. Otherwise the only alternative is a cab which can be expensive so the bus is sweet!

On Sunday the 29th we went to the Melbourne Grand Prix. I am normally not into auto racing because back in the states four hour long NASCAR races are pretty much the only option. F1 races are only around an hour and a half long and My friend Will had been talking about this race since before we had left the U.S. so I told him I'd go. There was a wakeboarding trip the same weekend which I was a little upset about missing but decided to go to the F1 race anyways. I watched the qualifying for the race on Saturday and actually found it pretty exciting. As an added bonus "The Who" were slated to play a concert after the race.

Anyways, I woke up on Sunday to great weather mid-20s and sunny! I went with two of my German friends and my roommate Will from Northeastern. We got there around 11 or 11:30 and we walked around, bought some souvenirs and watched some of the other races going before the main event. I decided to root for the Mclaren team of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen. I always find with sports that if you root for somebody it much more interesting. We watched the start from the second turn of the race which was great because all the cars were still very close together. After a few laps from the second turn we walked around to turn ten or so and watched from there where there were less people. We then started walking around the track up to turn 9 and got our best views there. It was a near 90 degree turn which meant the cars had to come down from 250+ km/h down to about 60 and then accelerate again. F1 cars are amazing technological marvels. They produce over 700 hp and weigh close to 1300 lbs. When they go around corners forces of more than 4 G's are produced laterally. I actually had a great time during the race! Lewis Hamilton ended up finishing third which was pretty cool and "The Who" were great afterwards. They played a bunch of there music adding a half hour to 45 minute encore which was amazing. Its great to see that they still love performing!


Anyways, the rest of the week was spent at a couple footy training sessions getting ready for our first match on the weekend. I also had some uneventful classes and grew less and less enthused about my structural mechanics class. uggh.

Surfing, Footy Practice Match, Easter Break Plans

Yes! I am finally caught up and can now write about just what has happened in the past week. Last Friday the 20th was spent again at Bonbeach, this time without seeing a shark. I am happy about this since I think 1 shark is enough to see at beach that you are going swimming at. It was another great weather day and the Saturday was supposed to have great weather again so we planned to go surfing at a beach in the town of Torquay. In Melbourne it is great to a get a few days of good weather together because the weather is changing constantly. So far since I have been here the weather has varied from 11 or 12 degrees C and rainy all the way up to 34 degrees C and sunny. Anyways, when I got home that night I didn't really feel like going out because I was going to have to get up around 7:30 or so the next morning to go surfing. On top of that I was not feeling amazing due to a sore throat after I had lost my voice the previous night yelling over the techno (Uggh, so sick of techno.)

The train from Southern Cross left at 9:00 am the next day and we were off! There was a pretty good size group of us, around 14 or 15 including some Germans, Danes, Mexicans and of course Americans. The train would take us to Geelong where we would have to change over onto a bus which would take us the rest of the way. It was surprisingly cheap at only $12 for a 95 Km round trip. Once we got to Torquay we rented boards but the shop that we went to did not have enough for all of us so we only rented 10 boards. Soft boards are generally used by beginners but since they didn't have many I insisted that we should get an additional hard board. I was fairly confident that I would do alright and I wanted to get as much surfing in as possible. Surfing was such a fun experience! It makes me wish I would have gone to school somewhere that was going to be warm. One of my friends from home went to school at Wollongong and surfed all the time. Balancing on the board was fairly tricky but by the end of the day I was standing up nearly every time a wave came through. The hardest part of surfing for me was the timing. One has to paddle while laying on the board and then try to stand up on the board at the right moment. I met a girl while I was surfing too which was pretty sweet. It would have been better except when she said that she wanted to be president of the United States someday I obviously asked which party she supported. She said that she supported the Republican party to which I replied, "aw that sucks." Stupid me and my big mouth haha.

When we got back to Hawthorn I was so stoked on my day of surfing out in the sun and 30+ degree weather that even though I was exhausted I still wanted to go out. Will and I ventured out to the Hawthorn. When we got there the bouncer told me I was too casually dressed due to my Chelsea soccer jersey. I would have just forgotten about it and went somewhere else except we were meeting my Australian roommate Will in there. So, I asked the bouncer what I needed to do and he said that I needed to change my jersey and shorts. I went back to my room and changed into pants and a t-shirt which is more than acceptable attire for the Hawthorn. I went back and the bouncer told me I had had too much to drink. That was normal except for the fact that I hadn't drank anything that night. I was pretty angry but there wasn't really anything I could do about it. Clearly the bouncer just hated anyone that is a Chelsea fan. I have experienced a lot of hate for wearing a Chelsea jersey around here, something I am not accustomed to people caring about. I have gotten lots of condescending marks and even some threatening gestures directed at my love for Chelsea F.C. I'd say its similar to being a Yankees fan in Boston even though I am no where near West London. That night it was a pretty big buzz kill and I'm still a little upset about it. Whatever though I went there Tuesday and Thursday without any issue.

On Wednesday, The Swinburne Razorbacks had our first practice match. We had a practice long scrimmage which was pretty fun. It was my first time playing footy in a game situation so it was very interesting. Its so much different playing a sport where the object is to tackle people instead of going only for the ball. It was really fun though and I look forward to the next such game. This week Will, Mike and I also firmed up our Easter Break plans. We are renting a camper van and driving up the East coast of Australia to Gold Coast. I am very excited as this will give me another chance to go surfing and see more of Australia. Anyways, I have to go now and make some food. Then it is on to the Melbourne Gran Prix tomorrow!

Bonbeaching it, Todd's 21st, Melbourne Nightlife, Food, Classes and More Footy Training

March 13th-20th

Alright, so on Friday the 13th I went back to Bonbeach in considerably better weather. It was about 30 degrees C which is 86 degrees F and sunny. Val, Mike, Will, one of our Japanese friends Anri and I left at around 1 pm from Glenferrie station which is conveniently located about a 2 minute walk from my building. It took us about an hour to get there and when we got there we
were immediately warned of a shark in the water! So instead of swimming for the first 45 minutes we tossed around the frisbee and kicked around a soccer ball. While we were doing that we noticed a man following a dark shape swimming through the water as it was swimming up the water's edge. We took a closer look and realized that it was the shark! We watched it swim up the coastline and tooks some pictures of it. To add to our scare Mike and I spotted what looked like another, bigger shark farther out. We never really found out but the helicopter that had been circling the closer in, small shark also spent some time circling this large dark object farther out. At any rate, nobody was injured and when we were given the all clear we jumped in the water. That night a bunch of the international students went out to Chapel St. in South Yarra to a backpacker's bar and then to a club.

The next day I had the annoying task of recovering my cell phone from the Police Station near Bonbeach. Apparently, I left it either on the train or at the station but the good news was the person who found it had turned it in! If only I would have had this good of luck with my
camera that I lost while in Germany when I was in high school, that's a different story all together though. After I recovered my cell phone from the police station I called Todd up as I had told him I would go to his 21st birthday in his hometown of Buninyong. I caught the 6 o'clock
train to Ballarat and met his sister, girlfriend and another one of his friends at the station. They drove me to his house and I arrived to see about 40 to 50 people eating barbequed food and drinking. Needless to say, I was stoked so I got amongst it and met some really cool people and had a great time. We stayed up until 3 or so and then about 30 people crashed inside the house on whatever they could find. When we got up the next morning his parents made us breakfast and sent us on our way. What a great time! It was also coincidentally my cheapest weekend since I had been here, spending less than $25 from Friday to Sunday. Sweet! I wish I had some pictures from it but my battery charger had fried earlier in the week due to a difference in electrical frequencies(?).

On Monday and Wednesday I had more footy training which was real fun. I could
feel myself feeling in better shape every day I was out on the pitch. The guys are really cool too.
When I play soccer back in the U.S. although it is about having fun and making friends its a lot about playing well and winning too so when new players show up they pretty much have to be good, otherwise we shun them. This is mostly due to the fact that we have very limited space. That might not be a good enough excuse but, its just how it is. However, on Swinburne's squad everyone is super friendly and encouraging. It definitely makes it more fun, especially since I'm trying a completely new sport! I haven't done that since freshmen year of high school when I played lacrosse. Anyways, the guys are great, very welcoming and I am looking forward to the season!

Alright so this blog so far has been pretty much a play-by-play of my life down here but I feel like I have left some hey things out. These include the nightlife, food and classes.

So far classes are going well. I am taking Thermodynamics, Structural Mechanics and Australia: A Global Context. Thermo and my Australia class are great, taught by interesting lecturers and are interesting subjects. My Australia lecturer, Peter Love, is a professor of history and pretty much the stereotypical older Australian. I have learned a good amount so far in what is sure to be an interesting class. Thermo is taught by Akbar Ramdhani and he does a good job teaching a great subject that will surely prove useful for the rest of my engineering career. One of the highlights so far has been a week spent on renewable energy! However, all is not great. My structural lecture is terrible. The lecturer is good, and her lecture is interesting. However, nobody pays attention and alot of the student just talk the whole time. The most annoying thing is her response though. Every once and awhile she'll turn around and smile at the class and threaten to make somebody sit down front. Its like she doesn't even care that 50% of the class is being completely disrespectful! I just don't understand why it doesn't make her mad, surely any other professor would get angry and tell everyone to be quiet rather than smirking and jokingly threaten the class. Whatever though, onto something a bit more fun.

Melbourne's nightlife is really, really interesting. There are bars for whatever mood you are in and with every setting imaginable. The first bar I went to was a place called the Geebung Polo Club. Will, Dan (the kid from Phildelphia) and I went there on the Sunday we arrived in Melbourne. The first thing we noticed when we got in was that the place reminded us of a house. It had 4 or 5 seperate rooms including a dance floor, pool room, dining room, and two traditional bar rooms as well as a deck. There were heaps of girls there apparently due to the fact that professional footy players occasionally attend. Another one of my favorite places is a bar called St. Jerome's which is downtown Melbourne. When you walk in there is a small traditional bar area which you walk through out into what is essentially an alley that they have blocked off and turned into a club/bar. It is open to the air and you can look up and see the sky. There is a dj in a corner as well as a bartender serving drinks. The two other places that we often go are the Nevermind and The Hawthorn. The Nevermind is a very chill place with couches, pool tables and two decks. We go there occasionally to play trivia and meet locals. As for the Hawthorn, oh the Hawthorn, it is probably the most popular college hangout around with reasonable drink prices, a large deck and footy games on the big screen. I'd say the most interesting thing about Australia's night life so far though is the way they space it out. Its not necessarily a Thursday, Friday and Sunday affair here. Most of the time, Friday is a relaxing night and instead Tuesday is the third night out instead. I like it because at home it get's entirely exhausting by the time Sunday roles around. Prices here are higher than they are in Boston simply because the standard beer is smaller. A jug (about half the size of a pitcher in the U.S.) is anywhere between $10 and $17 but with the exchange rate it isn't terrible. The same goes for food, a bit more expensive but with the exhange rate prices aren't bad.

Its amazing to me the melting pot that Australia is, and with that melting pot come all sorts of different kinds of food. They have all the fast food of America minus Taco Bell. My Australian roommate will thought KFC was Australian! I informed him that KFC stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken and I got a good laugh out of that. The best part so far though has been the curry. It was introduced to me at the Victoria Market the first week I was here and it has been amazing ever since then! I eat curry chicken at least once a week. It combines the spicyness of mexican food with the huge variety of asian spices. Another highlight is the Chinese and Japanese food which is plentiful and cheap. However, the one dissapoint thing is the barbeque food, specifically the sausages or snags as they're called here. They have about as much flavor as soggy cardboard. I bought some breakfast sausages the other day hoping for a difference. No such luck, they were exactly the same. No worries though, the Tim Tams and Milk Arrowroot Biscuits more than make up for it!

-Greg

Phillip Island attempt, Healesville Animal Sanctuary, Rochford Winery, Footy Training

March 6th-13th

Hello again,

On March 6th there was a group excursion to a place called Healesville Animal Sanctuary and The Rochford Winery. Both places were located about an hour or so from the Hawthorn Campus in the country. We left Hawthorn on a charted bus at around 9:30 or so in the morning for the animal sanctuary to see some quintessentially Australian things like Kangaroos, Koalas and Platypuses. I was excited because other than a few penguins and the common birds like ravens (which on a side note manage to be even more annoying then North American ravens, so loud and obnoxious) I had not seen much wild life around. When we first got there the group was split up into sections to see some very cool nocturnal creatures like sugar gliders, ring tail possums as well as some reptiles like snakes and bearded lizards. I was amazed at how soft the possum's fur was and I had a great time. After the private showing of these animals we went out for the feeding of the Kangaroos. This place was sweet! It was in a rural setting so nearly all of the enclosures were outside and were very spacious. When we went to feed the kangaroos there was only a 2 foot high fence with 1 rope on top which more served as a place for the people to line
up than to keep the Kangaroos enclosed. Several Kangaroos crossed the border fence and wandered amongst us extremely interested in the carrots and corn we had been give to feed them. The Kangaroos were followed by a very exciting "Birds of Prey" show which involved some fierce looking trained birds one of which was a Wedge Tailed Eagle with a wingspan of 6 or 7 feet. At one point when it flew over me its wingtips touched my head. Later, Will and one of my other roommates, Mike, walked around tried to take in as much as possible in the short time we had there. We got the standard Australian animals in and then it was time to leave. A little too soon if you ask me made all the worse because we had left later than expected from campus in the morning. No worries though, and it was on to the winery.

We arrived at Rochford Winery around 1:30 or so. The country was beautiful, with rolling hills and rows of grapes as far as the eye could see. Luckily, both the Rochford Winery and the Sanctuary had been untouched by the recent bush fires so they were both intact and looking gorgeous. The plan was to do a wine tasting of several different wines offered by the winery and then head back to campus. Suffice to say, wine is not normally my thing, it is probably half the price of beer and liquor here so I had been drinking a decent amount of it when not out at the clubs. However, this doesn't mean I had been drinking good wine so it was going to be nice to sample something that is supposedly better. It turned out to be a pretty fun time and it was interesting to learn about the distinctions between wines and how they get their names. The wine tasting finished and I was real hungry so I ordered some french fries. We got back on the bus and I sat with one of my friends Valerie who has been in Australia since the end of January traveling around, up and down the coastline. She stayed in hostels and back packed around, riding buses, and rented a car with some random Swedish guy she met. It seemed like a pretty cool trip.

Anyways...when we got back to campus we had a swinmates event. Every international student gets assigned an Australian, called a "swinmate," who serve as something like an ambassador while we are here. My Swinmate is a guy named Todd Kitchen whom I had met on the previous Wednesday at the campus bar after he had emailed me a few weeks before saying we should get together. That Friday's swinmate event was at the primary local hangout, the Hawthorn (more on the Hawthorn and other Melbourne nightlife in a later entry). Todd didn't get to the event until around 7:30 or 8 so I spent most of the time hanging out with some of my Mexican friends, Ana and Malila as well as an Australia girl, Ally, who is coming to Northeastern in the fall. When Todd got there we watched some Australian Football on the TV. Its a very interesting game combining the athleticism and endurance of soccer with the physical brutality
of the American gridiron. We left at around 9:30 to go to a beach themed party at a local club called "Cheers." It was a pretty solid night, although I could only listen to techno and dance for so long so I went home around 12.

The next day we planned to meet at 9:30 downtown at Flinder's Station to catch a train to Phillip Island for some sightseeing. Unfortunately, my friend who was leading the excursion showed up late and we missed the train. The alternative to that plan was to take a different train out as far as we could and hop on a ferry to Phillip Island. However by the time we finished our 2 hour train ride the last ferry had left until 5 o'clock that evening. So we walked around a little town called Crib Point and then hopped back on the train back into Melbourne. Along the way we got off at a stop called Bonbeach and decided t hang out there for awhile on the beach. Two of the Mexicans that we were traveling with had been there before and said it told us it was great. I think the greatest part about traveling in a place like Australia is that even if you mess up your trip by missing connections you can stop along the way and have a great time. The beach was huge! I don't know the exact dimensions but it was at least a few miles long if not more with great sand and calm water. Unfortunately, on this day it was a little too cold to swim so we tossed around the frisbee and built a sand castle. After and hour or two we got back on the train and went back to our respective apartments.

The next week classes went on and on Wednesday I met Todd at Spacebar where I had a drink with him and his friends. He and a lot of his friends play for the Swinburne Football club so he invited me to come along to a training session. I had been looking for something active to do since I hadn't been doing anything healthy since I had gotten to Australia. I went to the training session and it was really cool. Between what I saw on TV and the training session footy seemed like a great sport. I was really sore the next day and I was also hooked. Todd also invited me to his 21st birthday party that weekend in his hometown. More on that in the next entry.

Until next time,

-Greg

Great Ocean Road, Melbourne Auto Expo, Classes Start

February 28th-March 6th

So when I was at St. Kilda Beach for the second day in a row on Friday the 27th I
ran into some other international students. They had developed a plan to tour the Great Ocean Road in a rental van. It turned out that they had space for 12 and only 10 people had
agreed to go so they offered one of the last two spaces to me.

The Great Ocean Road is a 250 km section of scenic highway along the southern coast of Australia with beaches and stunning rock formations all along it. We left at around 10 am on Saturday and drove south from Melbourne, first to Geelong and then to Torquay. Torquay is a famous surf town with some very good surf beaches around. We walked around the Point Danger Marine Sanctuary and looked at the vast beaches on either side. The weather was reasonably clear but not warm enough for swimming which was unfortunate. We stopped at around 3 or 4 more spots along the way to get some good pictures and do some coast line exploring. I am still amazed at how many beaches there were along the way.

That days journey ended at a place called Apollo Bay where we stayed in a hostel. The weather had gotten progressively worse and now it was completely overcast and fairly cold, around 14 C or so. The next morning a few of us got up very early to see the sun rise a the beach. It had rained a little over night so there was little chance of a good sun rise but we decided to give it a shot anyways since the beach was just a short walk away. We didn't really see the sun rise but got some good pictures anyways due to a short break in the clouds. We continued along the road to the most famous site along it, the 12 Apostles. They were originally 12 limestone stacks of rock gradually carved out of the coastline over thousands of years. Now, there are only 8 left due to the gradual erosion of their bases. I was a little worried that I would not enjoy myself that day because of the less then desireable weather but the coastline was still extremely impressive with its large sandstone formations. After we visited the 12 Apostles it was time to return the van to Melbourne. The drive back took around 3 hours and was fairly uneventful, although when one is in a place so different just looking out the window at the land can be interesting.

Classes started on the Monday of that week and I still felt like I was on vacation. Its very hard to get back into classes after not having homework for 8 months or so. I found out on the wednesday that I had a conflict in my schedule and that I had to drop one of my classes. Luckily, it is not a prerequisite for any other class back at Northeastern. The week was supplemented with another trip to St. Kilda and a trip to the Melbourne Auto Expo. We went to St. Kilda at dusk on the Wednesday, this time at dusk, to see some of the Rock Penguins which live in the breakwater. On Thursday Will and I went to the Melbourne Auto Expo which was pretty cool. I got to sit in a few cars that are way more expensive than any car I will ever own. I also got a chance to look at the next generation Toyota Prius which is a very cool car.

Anyways, must make some lunch now and do some homework.

-Greg

First Week

February 20th-27th

I lifted off from Boston at around 2 or so in the afternoon leaving the cold weather
and all that goes with it behind on the 20th of February. This of course included skiing,
which I still miss a lot and regret missing the end of the season. If I wasn't in
Australia I'd probably miss it a little more though. The flights were fairly uneventful
except for the token infant screaming now and again. I found myself getting pretty angry about
it but when we landed the parents picked it up to look back at us over the seat and I immediately regretted thinking anything negative about the baby. The traveling was done with my friend Will who at the time was recovering from mono and whether rationally or not I was nervous about catching it from him. We also had a minor delay in San Francisco due to an issue with the navigation equipment and gyroscope. The pilot came on after it had been fixed and reassuringly proclaimed "Well folks, now that we fixed the problem we have to fill out 30 minutes worth of paperwork to satisfy the federal government. " No matter how safe flying is its never reassuring to hear a pilot grumble about safety procedures. Anyways, the flights weren't bad, just a little long. The fact that my head was filled with ideas what Australia has to offer made the flight worth it anyways.

Once we got on the ground in Australia (around 11 am on the 22nd) we got picked
up by a driver hired by the University. He played tour guide from the airport to
our on campus housing telling us some things that we shouldn't miss. Will and I met another
Northeastern Student as well as a student from Philadelphia. We were all staying in the
same building at Swinburne. Its a pretty nice building, fairly modern and my room has a balcony which one can see the city from and pretty solid sunset views.

The first week was comprised of several orientation sessions, going out and experiencing
some Melbourne night life and meeting a lot of new people. I definitely enjoyed myself
in a place that is somewhat similar to Boston but with different weather, people and a
lot of things to explore. I met some new people and by chance got invited to tour the
Great Ocean road the following weekend. I'll talk about that in my next entry as I think
this has been enough for now.


-Greg