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.