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05/05/03 |
      
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February Star Date 17-02-02 At 6:40p.m. Saturday night my time (Wisconsin time) I land in Melbourne International Airport. It's really 11:40 a.m. I got about 6 hours sleep on the flight from L.A.X. to Auckland (a 13 hour flight). I didn't think I would get that much, so I was surprised. On the plane from Auckland to Melbourne I ask the person next to me if he is from Australia and he says yes. So I have him help me fill out my customs form, because they use 3 letter state abbreviations here. He then continued to "take the piss out of me", or as they say in the states "give me some crap." They call it just "taking the piss." He was quite a hilarious man and his friend was also quite funny too. He made me laugh until I land, but told me some things about getting around. I will tell you one thing and that is I hate customs. I must look like a drug dealer or something cause I always get stopped. This time after making it through the first portion of do you have any plants or anything to declare another man starts asking me questions. For example "Do you have your ticket?" I give him my boarding pass because these days there are no real tickets. "This is your boarding pass do you have your ticket?" So I show him my electronic ticket. He seems disappointed that I don't have a real ticket, but I'm not caring at this point. Then he asks "What are you studying at La Trobe?" Well, I don't know because I haven't signed up for classes yet so I told him "Just general courses." He asks, "What specific courses are you taking?" I just started saying every class I was approved for like philosophy and astronomy, German, and then my mind goes blank so I say I can't remember any of the classes. I really can't take German, because it's part of Melbourne university so they won't let me take it, but he doesn't know that. I really don't care at this point because I remember that I don't have anything to hide. There are five of us in our group and the four members who have made it through customs are all looking at me while they wait to go pick up their luggage. Anyway finally I make it through and get my bags ok. After completing everything in customs I make it to meet the person who will take us to our school. Everything from then on goes quite smoothly. My room is more square and a little smaller than UW-Whitewater dorm rooms. I have a single bed with sheets, blankets, and a comforter waiting for me. There is a lamp on the desk for me, some book shelves, a closet which, and a little night stand. Instead of keys we use little flat pieces of metal, as cards to slide into the door knob. During the day our group walks around campus a little to explore what we can. Probably because we didn't want to unpack yet. The weather was great around 75 degrees. I wore shorts and walked around noticing different trees, birds, and animals. That night our group the five of us decide to go out and explore a little of Melbourne. We finally figure out how to ride the tram downtown after about 30 minutes. Once downtown we walk around for a little bit and decide that we would like to get some food. We stopped at some Chinese place, which was amazingly good, especially because I don't like that kind of food. I tried eating with chop sticks, but it was a little hard to eat all that rice with them so I finally moved over to the fork. After dinner, the others decide they would like to have their first legal drink. So we found a pub and I had a "Victoria Bitter" or VB. It wasn't bad at all and I decided to have another. After we finished that we had had enough to go home. We went aboard the wrong tram, but the driver recognized that we didn't know what was going on said that he would tell us when to get off. He and all the other people here are more outgoing and nice compared to Wisconsin. Finally we made it home, and I fell asleep, waking at 7:30 in the morning and finally getting up at 9. I wake up at nine with a headache. Residence life here is worse then back home. They don't know what they are doing and the girl R.A. behind the desk, looks physically hung over. Later I find out that she drank like a fish the night before. After signing up for an I.D. or something, I try to get my internet hooked up. I can't though because I need to enroll first. I paid $60 Australian (That's about $30 U.S.) so that I can get my hook up. They have a fee of around 10 cents (Australian) per megabyte download. That sucks, I want my free connection back at home now. Finally we are off to do some of the activities planned for the International Orientation. Basically just lectures. For one of them we go shopping for about 2 hours. Really, there was about enough time to get off the bus and get back on. I hardly got anything I need, but I did get this really cool back back though. It's green and grey with a stitching of a boomerang and it says "Boomerang Club" on it. The best part of all is I got it at "The $2 Store" (remember the exchange rate, it's basically the $1 Store) and it was $12 (Australian). I got pots, pans, dishes, silverware, alarm clock, and that's about it. I signed up for a surf trip on Saturday. We leave at 7:30a.m. (which is ok, because of jet lag I wake up at 7:30 feeling like I slept till 2:30) and get treated to lessons, food, wet suit, board, and a trip to the beach. It cost $60 (Australian), which for all that is pretty good. I spent the night, awful tired watching "office space" off my laptop hooked up to one of the TV's in the TV room. I went to bed about 12 am and woke at about 7:30 the next day. Once again I wake up earlier than normal and decide to go get some breakfast with Emily. In the Agora (basically like a square market on campus, I get a muffin, some zucchini bread and some milk. After that we go to a boring lecture on "Living on a budget". Emily, the big dork, takes notes during the thing. The next lecture was on an "Intro to La Trobe". It wasn't bad, but the parts I really needed to understand were discussed poorly and too quickly. For example, they spent more time on water safety then on how to enroll. Later in the day around 2:45 I went on a city treasure hunt. It was stupid, but the only reason I went was to see some of the city. Afterwards we had dinner at a Malaysian restaurant. It wasn't bad food. I've eaten more Asian food in the past 3 days here than my whole life back home. I'm starting to get better at using chop sticks, but no where near as good as some people around here. Afterwards we went to a pub. I met (or met again) some of the people at the International Programs Office. Randa, and Mandy. Mandy is from Winona, Minn. and I had met her on Monday, but the way my memory is I couldn't remember that. So I am once again embarrassed when she remembers and I don't. I deserve a little slack though, since threes about 100 people I've just met. Randa is a native, but unfortunately doesn't drink. That's ok though, we are going to get married, because she drives a Toyota Supra. Basically that's my dream car and I got to ride shot gun on the way back. When she dropped me off I scared her by saying, "Ok, now give me a kiss" ha-ha! You should have seen her face. I told her I was just kidding she said "no worries." When I got back, I stayed up till 1am so that maybe I'll be able to sleep in from now on. I want to get through this jet lag. I stayed up talking to Parini, Veronica, and Heidi. Yes! Finally I sleep in until 10:30. Once I get up, there is a maid outside my door to vacuum and take out my garbage. What a great place this is! I am dragged to an academic program this time by Emily. I hear that Randa is putting it on, so I am anxious to poke fun at her. Lunch was pretty good, more Asian food, but the chicken was great. After lunch we finally go shopping and I get some of the things I really need. Food! After shopping we get back at around 6 or so, so of course after shopping for food, the fun part is trying everything. Supper was alright, I had a potato salad sandwich and a ham and cheese sandwich. After hanging out for a couple hours I convince some people to go out on the town. We go to the pub that I was at last night. It was alright, then we left there to another place which had loud thumping music, so we expected it to be a disco. Nope! It was some lame ass little pub, with loud music and not very much else. The rest of the night we spent walking around looking for another, better pub. It didn't' happen though and by 1:15am, we were in a taxi on our way back to campus. It was about a 20 minute ride which only costs about $4.00 Australian per person, because we have 10 people. After we arrive back at campus, we decided to check out a party that was going on by the moat amphitheatre here. It was pretty lame, it was dark out so you couldn't see anyone, and if there was any beer, no one was offering us any. We just decided to go back and go to bed. I had a really fun night though, I think everyone else did also.
Today I woke up at around 10:30 and eat breakie for the first time in my college (dorm). Rice Krispies except it isn't really Rice Krispies, it's some Australian name, but it is still Kellogg's brand. Then I talked to Emily and she said she was going to play volleyball, so I decided I would go. A group of us walked over and played. All 3 of the U.S. kids were on one side. We lost though. Afterwards we went to Preston Market. It looks like a mall, but it's more of a farmer's market. We decided to have our first Barbee in Australia. So we picked up fresh potatoes, spices, wine, and of course some porterhouse steak. The porterhouse was amazingly cheap. What's really nice here is that they have electronic grills. I don't know they must have a lot of barbees. Anyway it was fun, once again I am confirmed that I hate red wine. The white wine we got was really good, it wasn't dry at all and after we let it "breath" (just sit open cause we accidentally threw out the cork) it tasted much better. It was very sweet and a little fruity tasting. After the barbee, we just threw the Frisbee a little and sat around in the grass and talked. After about 30 minutes of putting off cleaning up, we decided to finish up and then go to the local rugby field and lie there and look at stars. Once we made it back to the college (dorm), we ran into Heidi, Veronica, and some others who came with us. We had wanted to go to the local pub which is about 1 block away but it wasn't open. It opens tonight, with a big party for Orientation! So since that wasn't open we just decided to head for the field. When we arrived, there were lights on, so Jared went to ask if they would turn them off for us. This is what captain smooth did... Jared "Excuse me could you turn off the lights so we can look at the stars in the field?" Light operator "You really can't see many stars right now?" Jared "Oh I know, it's just romantic you know." Light operator "Right mate." Anyway... It was pretty windy, and cool, but fun. We sat out there just talking probably for about an hour or more. I think I got to bed around 1, but I'm not really sure.
Today I woke at 9:30 with a very sore back. I think my bed sucks compared to what I'm used to. I think once I get used to this one, it will be ok. Today we plan on going golfing and then heading to the orientation party at the Eagle Bar, which is about a 2 minute walk from my college. Jared, my personal hero, hooked me up with the Menzies College Bicycle Club, so that I can barrow a bike and helmet any time and get anywhere. He also called a golf course and got directions. Here it is illegal to ride without a bicycle helmet, you can get a ticket for $200 I think. Once we were signed up we went to check out the bikes. One of them was ready to go and the only other two, that were men's bikes, needed air in the tires. We walked to a service station (gas station) and filled the tires quickly and made it too the course. The course was excellent. No water hazards, few sand traps (I didn't go in any) and lots of trees. I did however make it in the trees quite a bit. Once specific shot I tried to make with my 3 iron was to hit it through two trees and make it on the fairway hopefully down quite a bit. That didn't happen though, but what did was my ball bounced off a tree and went three feet back from where I just shot. It was very quite and nice out on the course. The weather was quite up and down though as it was cloudy out. In Melbourne, the temperature jumps from place to place. One moment I was sweating in the sun and the next I was chilly from the wind and shade. We were hungry during golf so much that we just decided to hit Mc Donald's on the way back. I didn't notice though that the breaks on the bike were reversed from the way they are in the U.S. so when I went to lock up my back tire, I locked up the front one instead and flipped the bike. Luckily I was able to jump over the handle bars in time, but the bike still smacked me in the back of the leg. Also, I was not the only one who did this just 2 seconds in front of me Aaron did the same. We must have looked so stupid in front of the locals. There were a bunch of private school kids in their uniforms eating who saw us. I laughed the incident off with the boys over a nice American meal. We also went to grab some more supplies, I got a white board for my door and some laundry detergent. Once we made it back it was around 6. We decided to met around 7:30 and head up to the Eagle Bar. Once we met we went to the Eagle bar. Jared and Aaron were hungry though so we came back to Chisholm to grab some food. Then we ran into some people from Flat One who told us to go there for a party. When we arrived the girls where in their bra's and so were the guys. They quickly made us join them, they said "When in Australia, do as the Ausie's do." That is a direct quote, so I decided whatever! I did however make the mistake of bringing my camera. Once we left, we went to the Eagle Bar, to check out the scene which was much more busy now. People were drinking inside and out. There was so much space, you almost couldn't tell there was quite a bit of people there. Aaron decided to get us drunk by getting shots and using peer pressure. What the hell you know, I'm on the other side of the world!
Wow. 4 hours of sleep last night! I had to hurry up, because the bus left at 7:30, I had to wake Aaron, eat something, make a snack, and gather my things together. Once upon the bus I began to realize something. The people here remind me of an American Eagle Outfitters commercial. At least I can say this of the people I have met so far is that the worries they have are little and the fun they have is great. On the bus at 8 in the morning and they want to dance to "Pure Disco" and "Knock on Wood". Jared danced with them for a little bit, but I was too tired. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to drink last night. Once you start drinking, there's no way to slow down the train. My original plan was to drink one or two drinks and then switch to water. Anyway after a while we made it to Great Ocean Road, and it was everything everyone has said it was and more. It took forever to get anywhere on the road however because we had a bus and because the road follows the ocean. The people who live there, must never be board. We made it down to the beach and changed into our wetsuits. After a ten minute lesson we got to go out and try surfing. I give surfers a lot more respect now because it's exhausting out there. After missing some waves I finally caught mine and rode for a while. It was fun and not too hard. I had swam too much in fresh water though. So I was used to having my mouth open, which you really can't do in the ocean, 'cause the salt tastes bad after a night of drinking. I even had a few dry heaves after taking some water in. Yuck! Emily and I caught the same massive wave, not expecting it to be so big. I nose dived and flipped. It was a bad experience. I didn't know which way was up, but it only took about 5 seconds to get my head above water, the only bad thing is that you can't open your eyes to see which way is up. I was very tired by the time we were done, so I was happy to get some food at our barbee. After the barbee we went up to shipwreck beach, where many settlers came, but because of the ocean cliffs weren't able to make it up to land and just died. Then we went to see the twelve apostles which were quite interesting. Finally we went to see a little gorge, which had caves, and a little beach which reminded me of a scaled down beach of the one from the movie "The Beach". At each of these stops, the noise from the city, cars, and people, just leaves you and you are left with the waves pounding the beach and rocks. The silence is great, there were also no birds which made it much nicer. The water was a great blue, not as turquoise as some others, but blue. There was a strong breeze, with some mist in it, but it felt great with a mixture of the sun. After all of this we started heading back around 6:30. It was a 3 hour bus ride back and so we stopped for supper at Mackies (McDonalds). I can't believe an ice cream cone only costs $.40 here it's great. That's like 1/3 the price back home. I guess that will have to make up for the fact that they don't have ketchup. We made it home around 10 and I went to sleep. The Aussies kept going though and went out to the pub. I am curious to see how they did. Today was a full day and tomorrow it will be a week that I have been here and it seems like a month because I have been so busy. Well, I've got a great nights sleep and I'm ready to start O' week. You'd think something sponsored by the college wouldn't have drinking, but oh yeah, every night this week. Forget any drinking record I had for myself since freshman year of college, cause this is going to be crazy. I went to the city today and walked around a lot, but otherwise I didn't get much accomplished. After words I went to the Barbee to kick off O' week. It was lots of fun, and lots of drinking. Even more so was the stripping. I found out what was written on my white board on my door. "Came to see if you were toey, obviously not. XX OOO" Well apparently toey means sexually frustrated. At the dance after the barbee some girl came up to me and asked what my name was and I told her and she said "Charlie Russell?" I said yeah, why? She said, "cause everyone says you're hot." I said "I want names and addresses." I also met a lot of Aussies for the first time. I'm frustrated with the amount of non-Aussie's on my floor, flat, and college all together. I didn't come here to meet people from other countries damn it! If I wanted to do that I'd go live in Washington D.C. Anyway, these activities they have planned for us are crazy! Some of the games at the Barbee were to take your clothes off. If a certain song comes on you've got to take down your pants! I can't believe the stuff they can get away with. If residence life was like this back home, residents would be involved about 300% more. Just try to imagine organized drinking socials put on by the R.A.'s There was a lot of music and dancing. We danced for a couple hours and then game back to the college. Back at the college I picked on Aaron because he gave away half our beer to some stranger. Then he proceeded to make a mess of our kitchen. Later on, I found out that Jo has been telling people I'm 28, cause she though that's what I told her. No! 22! Whatever, they can think I'm the old man if they want. I fell asleep around 1 something.
Today I woke up to a fire alarm, that oh yeah, no one told us about. Wait did I forget to mention it was at 8 am in the morning! These people are laid back so much, sometimes it's frustrating because you want to get something done, and they are a little less goal oriented. For example, when they were taking pictures for I.D.'s, they messed up the order of pictures with names, so I have to get my picture taken again. I almost wigged out, but I'm just going to relax and say "whatever." Anyway, I went back to bed until 3 and then I got up. Aaron came over and we decided to go to the library to figure out our schedule. We instead decided to spend our time on e-mail, which took 30 minutes. After words we started walking back and Aaron was hungry so we decided to look for some food. By the time we didn't find any and were about half a block from the college, I remembered I left my sun glasses by the computer in the library. Aaron, my sweet heart, went back and got them for me while I cooked scrambled eggs. After words we started drinking again because tonight is "Nuts 'n Bolts" night. Basically it's simple, we all go to the bar and each guy gets a bolt that is a certain size and each girl gets a nut which is a certain size. You walk around and try to match your bolt to the corresponding nut. I found mine right away, it was Heidi. After words there was a dance contest for you and your partner, and I though we did pretty good, but didn't make it to the finals. In the finals the two couples had to dance in one pair of tighty whiteys. I spent some time talking to Laura and then Aaron, Jill, Parini, and Emily wanted to go to Menzies college to see Jared, so we went. It was a toga party over at Menzies and there were very few of us with out togas on. At this point I was feeling quite tired so Parini and I went back to Chisholm's party and found that to begin to bore us. I left and went back to the college for some good ole' peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I think I'm starting to get a little homesick, but I'm going to try and fight it. Anyway, tomorrow I register for classes, and I guess I'm going to the city tomorrow to go to a disco with Katie and some others.
Today I woke up at 9:30 to Jared and Emily coming in after running. I had some weird dreams last night about Mom and Dad and how I was fighting with them. Well today is a black day for today is the day I register. I went and registered for classes today. It wasn't too bad. I thought it would be like the horror stories my mother told me about long lines and things of that nature. All I did was write down the courses I was pre-approved for, go get approved for two others and then take it to the ladies to put into the computer. Still more painful then computer registration, but wasn't too bad. The three classes I am taking are 1) Astronomy and Philosophy, 2) Philosophy of Religion, and 3) Knowledge, Existence and Truth. I needed to get approved for 2 and 3, so when it was my turn in line I asked if I could take the courses. The lady was like "have you ever taken a philosophy class before?" Off course not, so I told her no. She said "Well, I want to approve you because you've already got Astronomy and Philosophy approved. I said "Wow, you are a very kind and beautiful person." Then she was really nice to me, telling me what to fill out and filled out part of it for me. It was awesome, she did the majority of the work for me. Then I went to get my ID picture taken and felt like goofing off some. So when it came my turn for a picture I asked if I could wear my sun glasses and the lady said "it's your picture, do what you want." Alright, so I posed really funny, I can't wait to get the picture! After all that Aaron was hungry so we went to the agora and ate a Kebab. After relaxing in the sun at the Agora for a bit we ran into Randa. She offered to give us a ride to the shopping centre called "Northland". I went with Jared, Aaron, and Nacho. They all sat in the back of Randa's Supra, while I got shot gun. I picked up milk, and o.j., and some more cereal. At 5:15 Emily, Jared and I went to Randa's kick boxing class. It was an alright work out even though I was uncoordinated throughout the whole thing. After words I worked on the web site a bit and took a shower. We met Katie and her friend down at the bus stop around 8:45. We made it down town and walked around a bit down Brunswick street. We went into a pub and relaxed a bit before meeting more of Katie's friends. Then we went to another pub for a couple minutes, but I had decided to go home, I wanted to make it on the tram rather than pay for a taxi. We found the 86 line home after running for about 4 minutes straight. I was tired before, now I was tired and hot. The beer I had at the bar wasn't helping either. We made it home after a while and now it's 1:25 am. I think I'm going to go to bed and get ready for the pub crawl tomorrow. Holy Crikie! Ok, so I woke up around 10 or 10:30 and eat some more of those wonderful Kelloggs Rice Puffs, or whatever they call them here. It seems like I've been here for much longer than 10 days. I think part of the reason is because it is summer here and back home it is winter. I went to the sports BBQ at the Sports and rec. area. It was alright I found out more information about fencing, and I also found out a little about Kung-fu. I'm interested in these groups, but I don't want to become over committed. I also want to leave time for me to see Australia. After words we went to the library and I researched some travel website in Australia. It soon became 3:30 and it was time to leave for the tram line discovery tour or a.k.a. pub crawl. This was it my first pub crawl. So at 3:30 we met at the bottom of Tower 1 and headed to the Agora. We all were handed playing cards which we had to pin to our clothes. Here we all got in a big circle and turned to the right. We had to sit on each others knee's until someone fell. Katie was the first to fall and had to skull a beer right there in front of everyone. Actually she didn't fall, Nacho and Cici pushed her. After that we did ring around the Rosie, and the last 2 standing had to skull beers also. At 4:15 all of about 50 or 75 of us got on one tram and headed to the first pub, "Normandy". At that pub we had $2.50 Crownies, which I refer to now as the worst beer ever. We stayed there for 50 minutes or until 5:50. I had 3 beers in 30 minutes and the future was not looking good for the rest of the night considering I hadn't had lunch. In that pub you could only talk to someone with the same suit on their card, if you were caught talking to someone else you had to skull your beer. Also, if a whistle was blown you have to hit the deck. The last person standing had to skull their beer. Everyone with the same suit as the person standing had to skull their beer also. From 6 - 7 we were at "Irish Murphy's" and here is where the game got interesting. The rules were a little different here, the whistle rule was still in effect, but now you can talk to anyone you want. When you drink, you've got to be grabbing someone of the opposite sex's ass. Additionally, if one of the CRAC team members came along and put a $.20 piece in your beer you had to skull it. That only happened to me twice. After that from 7:15 to 7:45 we headed to the "Royal Derby" pub which had $1.50 pots of West End. I can't say I remember this pub to well so we'll just move on to the Provincial from 8-9. Here I know I had a Corona which was pretty expensive so I will never have that again. From 9 - 9:45 we had $2 pots at "Evelyn". I think this is when some girl started talking to me and somehow I convinced her to start dancing with Aaron, because he proclaims he can't dance. I just think he hasn't tried before. He got pretty pissed at this, but what the hell we were drinking. I Can't remember to much of that place to well either, so lets talk about the "Purple Turtle". We spent 9:45 to 10:30 at the "Purple Turtle", which I remember running into Nacho and Cici, also Jill showed up then too. Finally we headed to the "Perseverance" for dancing and Tooheys specials. Tooheys is a beer, which isn't too bad, but it's also not a specialty beer. Here they had a horse racing game competition put on by Tooheys. I raced Aaron, and Emily each and beat both of them. I made it on the leader board at second place. Later I was moved to third place by another person. I did receive a cool hat though, which says Melbourne on it along with a Toohey's slogan. Unfortunately I missed the tram after running once again. Parini, some other people, and I took a taxi though and I got home for only $5.00. Once home I hung out with Jared for a bit. We waited for Emily, or Aaron to come home, but we were buggered out so we decided t o call it a night.
I woke up feeling quite fine. No hangover or anything real bad. Once again I try to get my internet hooked up, but the ITS guys haven't entered me in the system. I spent most of the day doing utility things like laundry and working on the web site. I was frustrated because the damn dryer was working then stopped working then started working again and then stopped. So I decided to give up and just iron out the dampness on my clothes. It worked too, and I think I don't mind ironing that much. It takes a while, but I believe it is worth it because after folding you save so much space in the drawer. Everyone talks about how Thursday nights are the big party nights here on campus and especially at the Eagle Bar. We've been told to get there at 7:30 otherwise we might not get in. I'm talking about a bar that has 2 huge rooms, one which has a court yard which is also very big. I've heard different estimates on how many people actually show up there during the year, the one I think is most accurate would be 2,000. I'm not lying either, we tried to get beer, but it takes 30 minutes to get through the line and then you've got to get the attention of the bartender. Once you are up there you get 2 jugs otherwise there is no reason for standing in line for 30 minutes. I went to the pub around 9 and hung out there until 12, I was tired so I gave up and came back to go to bed. Nothing really happened, just standing around talking to people. I didn't feel like dancing so, I just watched. In fact I really didn't feel like doing anything, which is probably why I left so early. |
This site was last updated 05/05/03
