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