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.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
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.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
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.
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