Root Beer Floats

I started a long journey early Thursday morning to Bryon Bay for the Blues and Roots Festival. It is around 7-8 hours north of Newcastle. I went with an Australian friend of mine, his girlfriend and six other girls. An interesting crew. We stopped a couple places on the way, and mostly drove along the coast which made for some amazing scenery. We arrived at our destination later than expected, and went grocery shopping. It worked very well that $25 in groceries and boxed wine would get me through most of the weekend. We stayed in Balina, a town outside of Byron. We had hoped to be sleeping on the floor of one Kevin's (the Australian) friends house, but unfortunately last minute the plan fell apart. Luckily we were able to snag a cabin/trailer thing on a campground about 20 minutes from the festival.

The festival was a great time. It went from noon to midnight for five days. We only went Friday through Sunday. There was obviously a ton of live music and a lot of people. Luckily, my Australian friend had been to the festival before, and told us that we could sneak in bags of wine. The catch was, we needed to put the bags of wine: in our pants. Having a bag of "goon" (what they call wine), was an interesting way to enter the concert. However, it saved us a lot of money, just like the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we also brought in. It was kind of ironic since I remember all the times on family vacations I would be mad that my parents would make us sandwiches to bring to places, like Disney World, and here I am at 21 doing the same thing and loving how much money I was saving. Byron Bay, where the festival was, is notorious in Australia because it is one of the true Australian towns that hasn't been "Westernized", meaning there are no McDonalds or Walmarts. It is on the ocean like most of Australia, and the weather was nearly perfect, just under 80 degrees and sunny the whole trip. The nights were the best, as each act seemed to build on the next, and even come out on stage together. I was able to see Don Mclean (the bye bye American pie guy), and numerous Australian bands who were great. One band from Los Angeles, Ozomatli, went as far as to jump into the crowd (a like 15 person band), and play two songs as they walked around in the crowd.

It ended up being a long, dirty five days, but very enjoyable. The drive was beautiful, going from outback to ocean views the whole trip. On the way home we stopped by Nimbim, a notorious hippie town in the mountains. You can google it for more fun information on that. The night after I got back, I headed down to my friend Hank's with Phil, to try and formulate a Spring Break plan. Basically, we we're off track the whole night, swapping stories about each other's trips we had been on. Phil brought up that he wanted a root beer float. It was random, and funny, but I also agreed that I wanted a root beer float. The one thing we really don't do here is eat deserts or anything of that nature. Thats just not in the budget. We decided to go on the two block trek to the grocery store, dodging rain drops on the soggy walk over. When we got to the soda isle, we found no root beer. We asked the woman working and she replied, "what is root beer." We had been in a country for seven weeks that didn't have root beer, and we didn't even realize it. Sometimes I don't know if I should just laugh, or miss home, or maybe a combination of the two. We bought ginger beer and another, what we thought were either root beer or cream soda knock offs, but unfortunately they were the worst two drinks we had ever tried. No root beer floats in Australia.

In 27 Years....

(I have updated photos up to the left)I spent most of Tuesday doing a "trial" at a coffee shop on campus. I had received free coffee and an offer to trial the day prior, which basically consisted of me being a coffee bitch (for lack of a better word, I guess slave would work) for most of the day. It was unpaid, and was for them to see me work for five hours and decide if they wanted to hire me. Luckily, they asked me back; so far so good. A little extra cash working in between classes would be clutch. The money just seems to fly. Wednesday went by rapidly as every day seems to, and I finished it with a night on the town. Wednesday night is student night, so all the bars (including ones on campus), have drink specials and a lot of students go out. This is unusual since besides one night a week student specials, it is illegal for bars to promote drinking by giving discounts. The violence is a big problem, primarily with Aboriginals attacking Australians. Although either way the Australians tend to get very crazy when intoxicated. I mean, at least they don't bring a shotgun into their lecture halls.

Friday brought Commencement, which is event attended by over 200 International House residents. It's a formal dinner where they show pictures, give speeches and pass out awards to celebrate the beginning of the school year. Two Australian friends and I prepared a few songs, they played acoustic guitar and I sang. People enjoyed it, which is of course the point with something like that. We then had a free bus downtown. The next morning, the music was very loud at 10am. Everyone in International House started drinking at 10am, the RA's grilled eggs, bacon and such for 200 people, and we had a pool party. They call it "recovery day." We all got shirts that say, "I'd rather be a liver, than have one." I'd like to have a shirt that said, "I'd rather have my money, than to have wasted it all in Australia."

After a few hours of "recovering" I made my way to my friend from home, Phil's house. He and five other guys are renting a house by the beach. It is an older classic home. There are only three rooms, so the guys are each sharing a room, and a bed. You can imagine this makes for some funny stories. Phil had a small gathering that night, and I headed back to my friend Hank's place. Hank scored a verrrrry nice apartment overlooking the harbor. A real estate agent made note to him that the reason a lot of college students were struggling to find housing is that no one wants to rent to them. Hank decided to make a very nice cover letter detailing his intentions as a "hard-working graduate student." This is why Hank has two balconies, a 50-inch plasma TV, and a stainless steel grill. Unfortunately, the TV only gets four channels.

I spent the night at Hank's, and we got on a train very early on Sunday. It was my friend's 21st birthday, from Iowa. Christina had gotten down a few weeks ago and I had been meaning to go see her, so i figured her birthday would be a perfect time to go. She lives in Coogee, which is a small sect of Sydney. Her apartment is only three blocks to the beach, great location. Coogee beach is the most calm beach I have seen here. There is a large rock and coral reef about 500 years off the shore, so it keeps the beach very calm. Hank, Christina and I decided to make the hour and a half walk to Bondi beach, the most famous beach in Australia. We ended up taking about four hours to get to Bondi, stopping at all the beaches on the way. The walk was overlooking the water, so it was beautiful, and on the way to Bondi there was about seven other beaches. There was even a cemetery on the walk, overlooking the water (look at my pictures up to the right for an image of that, very cool). We went out to dinner with her and some friends and had a nice night in Bondi. I decided to take a personal day from classes today, and headed back from Sydney late Monday night.

I had an interesting encounter with a bus driver that got me thinking today. When Hank and I asked him which bus to take, he told us and then asked if we we're from America. We said yes, which isn't always the best answer. He said, "oh, well I was in America in 1981. I went to San Francisco and traveled up California. Then I went to Oregon, Washington, traveled some in Canada and came down through Chicago." I said that of course I was from Chicago, and he replied with the fact that, "hey, they dye the river green today!" Obviously, the man was very excited to talk about the time he spent in America, even though it was 27 years ago! It made me think, even though I am still sometimes dumbfounded with what I am doing, and just in complete awe of it all, that in 27 years ago, when someone brings up Australia, I will say, "I went to Australia in 2008! I traveled..........." And that, is what this kind of experience is all about.

Offending 750,000 people.... and counting...

This past week has been verrry uneventful, well it is Australia so there's always something going on, but uneventful compared to the last month. It was the first weekend I didn't travel anywhere. I had plans to go to the Blue Mountains, a mountain range two hours west of Sydney, but the trains from Newcastle to Sydney were under construction. I ended up spending Friday by the pool, followed by my first game of "Australian Rules Touch Football." They really don't like the American football game known as "gridiron." The rest of the weekend was low key, which worked out well since I had my first project/speech due in my Introduction to Aboriginal Studies class.

I worked relatively hard on the presentation and figured I would earn a high mark. I'm pretty good at PowerPoint so I whipped something together. When I went to give my speech, the teacher started by saying that he hoped mine would be a good example for the class, since I was one of the first ones to go, and the remaining students would do them each week the rest of the semester. I gave my speech, rather well I must say, and had some pictures, a video clip of Aboriginal students singing and another clip of their initiation. Everything went well, the class applauded and I asked if there were any questions.

My teacher, from the back of the classroom of 25, sat sort of staring into space. He replied, "Well I don't have any questi(mid-word), mayyybe this would be a good time to tell you what NOT to do in a presentation." I gave me a questioning sort of look and immedietly pulled my jump drive out of the computer, I figured I was in for it. I have a kind of history with getting yelled at by teachers. "Showing images, or videos," he continued, "is not only imoral but also illegal. There are some of us, including myself that needed to leave the room. It is also illegal to show images of children. I don't even know where you could have gotten those clips. I don't even know what I'm feeling right now, I'm kind of in shock." Students in the class began giving me awkward, I feel bad for you - this is so uncomfortable - I can't believe your still standing in front of the class, look (come on, you know that one). He continued for another ten minutes, and finished his monlogue with, "alright, maybe I handeled this incorrectly." You think? I spoke with him after class, and he understood that I had no idea the rules/laws and regulations of Aboriginals in Australia. To bad I had already offended a group of 750,000 people. A friend in another tutorial (the smaller classes to accompany a lecture), said that an announcement regarding my speech was given to his class. Then, to top it off, the lecturer in our lecture, made an announcenemt saying, "it might be better if we just don't use PowerPoint."

Asian Invasion

Sydney, Australia is infested, with Asians. My second trip to Sydney started with an early morning train ride from Newcastle to Sydney. The weather was beautiful so the views from the large windows on the train we're amazing. It is truly a beautiful country. We arrived in Sydney early afternoon, and after three hours, we were all starving. Of course, we found the $7 steak, salad and fries deal that we had eaten the weekend before because our budgets are extremely small (and the $8 pitcher helps the cause). After a good meal, we started walking to where we thought our hostel was. We knew the vicinity, but didn't have an address (genius). We'd stop people on the street, excuse me do you know where the Base Backpackers Hostel is? They'd reply, do you have an address? No, we're just tourists. Anyway, after missing the hostel by six city blocks, we finally made our way back to the correct spot. Much to our surprise, we we're actually only a block from Darling Harbour which is a major hot spot in Sydney, and beautiful during the day and night.

The hostel didn't have our reservation, but luckily was able to fit us in an 8-bed-room. They cut the rate slightly and gave us free breakfast (a bowl of cereal). After settling, we headed over to Darling to try and find a happy hour, since it was later in the afternoon. Unfortunately this country only charges more, never less. The Harbour is very beautiful, very similar to a larger Navy Pier with more bars and restaurants. Of course, also more people since Sydney is packed. After a few cocktails we got ready and headed for Gay Mardi Gras. Gay Mardi Gras was actually a week long celebration and the big event was the parade on Saturday night. The event was packed. The most amount of people I had ever seen at a free public event like that. The Asians we're suffocating though, and basically ruined the night. Now, I love my Asian roommates, but the ones in Sydney are some of the most rude people in the world. We would come around the corner and be jammed in a swaying crowd of hundreds. Eventually we made our way to a less crowded area and saw portions of the parade.

After the parade we headed back to Darling. We went to a cool bar/bowling alley/karaoke place called Strike. They had $14 Red Bull Vodkas on special, so that really helped my checking account. Unfortunatley, the group had been drinking far to long, and we lost members along the way. Eventually there was only about four of us left. The problem with going out in Sydney is the proximity of the bars and clubs. Once your in one district, its hard to get to another. Each little neighborhood is its own portion of the city. It ended up being a fine night, but I got home way to late to wake up way to early.

The morning came quickly, with an early checkout and rain outside. I decided to head back with Phil on the first train we could find. As we walked though, the weather seemed to change for the better, and we met up with a friend who was at another hostel. We decided to stick around a little longer and hit a few of the places we still hadn't seen. This was the best decision, ever. We made our way to King's Cross, which is the "Red Light District." I had seen it at night, but its much different during the day. From there we made it to the large park in the middle of the city (a smaller Central Park), and the gardens which also fill a portion of the center of the city. We then hit the oldest part of Sydney, the first areas of colonization. The buildings are extremely old, but have beautiful architecture and obviously wonderful elements of history.

We continued on our long journey to the Opera House and Sydney Bridge. The area was filled with lots of people, many taking pictures of the beautiful scenery. The Opera House is huge! It looks very small in pictures compared to when your standing next to it. The weather had gone from terrible, to perfect, as did our attitudes. We headed around the pier and went to a restaurant in the "rocks," another very old district in Sydney. By that time, it was nearly 5 pm, and we had seen almost all of the city. I now realize the importance of the Fodor's guide, and will never leave home without it.

Left Turn on a Red Light

The week was relatively uneventful. I spent Tuesday at the beach, all day. I unfortunately needed to attend a few classes on Wednesday, but skipped my late lecture in order to go to my first Australian Kegger! At home, I'm sort of a pro when it comes to that sort of thing, but down here is a whole new ball game. At home, a keg cup costs $5. In Australia, it costs you $20. They don't have normal tappers either. Instead, the put this box containing ice on top of a table, with a hose connected to the keg, and somehow it comes out easier and quicker. Definitely a better device than in the States. The night was fun, every Wednesday night is "Student Night", so seemingly everyone in Newcastle is downtown.

Thursday was spent slightly hungover, needing to attend four hours of my Business Finance course. Not exactly where I wanted to be. Luckily it was raining, so I didn't feel as bad being inside. Not having TV has been very strange, sort of. It means I don't waste portions of my day doing something relatively mindless I guess (although my episodes of NipTuck and the Wire can be seen streaming on the Internet). My Thursday night was going to be a quiet one filled with some NipTuck and Chardonnay, but as usual it led to some "cooking with Koreans." My roommate CK, from South Korea, has another friend from Korea living with him in his room. I don't care, cause he doesn't bother me, and they make incredible food all the time. This particular night, my roommate Emma and I, stumbled upon them making a shrimp filled omelet like Korean dish. As usual, they also had rice, noodles and this other Korean thing. It's always delicious and they love talking to us. They said that before us they we're scared to talk to Americans. When CK got to Australia, the only English he knew was from fourth grade (and they say this perfectly, while laughing): Hello, how are you?, I am fine, thank you, and you?

Friday held my funny moment with an Australian, as a simple trip to buy fabric for a toga party turned into an Australian adventure. My roommates (Emma and Val, the Mauritan), two Australians, and myself headed to the fabric store. The Australian girl driving said, "I need to stop for some Petrol, I'm running low." Petrol is what the Australians call gasoline, and it's not the same I guess, I can't understand them when they try to explain the difference. Five seconds later her car stopped in the parking lot. "Nooo! She screamed, I've ran out of Petrol!" We had only moved a few meters. (Note my use of meters) Val and I pushed the little Australian vehicle into a spot, we borrowed someone else's car, drove to three stations until she could find a container to hold the petrol and made it back to the parking lot. Even though she had a tin, she had no funnel. So I jammed a stick into the gas hole, my Mauritian roommate held a makeshift paper funnel, while the Australian poured the petrol, all over the place, and some went in the tank. Luckily, it was just enough to make it to the Petrol Station. I eventually found some good, cheap fabric and the entire dorm dressed up for a good night out (in Toga's). Unfortunately the two bottles of chardonnay I thought would be fun to finish before the bus arrived for downtown, ended my night slightly early. (which worked out well since I had an early train to Sydney on Saturday morning)