Finally Home

It has been a LONG time, but I am now back in sweet home Chicago. I can say that studying aboard was truly a once in a life time opportunity. You cannot even put a price tag on the unique experiences I under went and the countless new insights, knowledge, and habits I picked up along the way. No, and I mean NO, college student should ever pass up an opportunity to study aboard.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my experiences in Sydney. I REALLY hope that you consider traveling to this amazing place. There is so much more to learn and see.

"If there is a will, there is a way."

Vivid Festival

A "Festival of Lights, Music, and Ideas"; this festival is simple yet impressive. The festival lasts roughly a month during which they light up the Opera House and Macquarie street with an array of coloured lights and projections. I thought seeing the Opera House was amazing, but Vivid takes it to another level.





The festival also features musical events and lectures about the creativity industry. The "Bienniale" is taking place throughout the city. This art exhibit expands throughout the city and features many works of art about worldly concerns and issues. I found many of the themes were about westernization, immigration, commercialization, and sexuality. The Museum of Contemporary Art in the area known as "the Rocks" had the most impressive pieces. This was a perfect time for the festival as winter starts in Sydney. The weather in similar to Chicago's autumns. I could still go on the beach to get some sun and it's winter!

America...the catered to Country

The longer I been here, the more and more I realize how advanced and catered to America is. For instance, Australia is still under going the process of going to broadband internet services and transitioning to HD, while America is already in Digital. Television programming is also different, often programs are catered to American Prime Time television even though prime time in America is early morning in Australia. I've experienced these with the 2010 Olympics and now during the FIFA World Cup matches. The matches going on all throughout the late night and break of dawn. My roommate loves watching the games and actually stays up to catch the 4:30am game. Can you imagine waking up to watch a "Chicago Bears" game at that time?




It is also evident how popular Soccer (aka Football or "Footy")is in foreign countries. People go crazy over it. I visited the International FIFA Fan Festival in Darling Harbour. They literally had giant screens playing the game. The street lights were soccer ball lights. Everyone was having drinks and watching the game; and all this is happening before sunrise.

Australian Television

There are plenty of American influences in Australia television. Although Australia has probably the most diverse selection of television in the world, American programming is seen all the time. My apartment television only has 4 channels so I do not get to see the full extent of Australian programming. Some of the American programming I have seen here include: House, the Good Wife, Bones, CSI: Mami, NCSI, Survivor, the Amazing Race, Desperate House Wives, Glee, Lost, Late Show with David Letterman, and much more. Considering that these are just the basic channels, I can not imagine what the extended basic channels are provided. Now knowing this, I can understand why the world always seems to know about America and why America does not know much about the world. This must be partially because American popular culture is part of Australian television programming. Much like, how the Vietnam war was brought into peoples living rooms via television.

Even in class lectures, America is constantly brought up or used in some statistic. Ironically, I travel around the world to learn about a different country yet I am constantly learning about America. However, it is interesting finding out the different perspective people have of my country. When it comes to world understanding, I feel many Americans are “out of the loop” compared to the Australians and Europeans I have met here. Perhaps this is because American television dominates the airwaves. I feel like if there was a CSI: Paris than I would know more about France just by watching.

Going back to television, Australia does have its own programming too. My favourite is “Talkin’ About My Generation.” It is a game show where the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y battle in trivia and interactive games. It is quite humourous, but I am not sure if it is a 100% Australian program. It may be an English program. Other Aussie programs include Sea Patrol, Border Security, Master Chef, and Bondi Rescue. I work on Bondi Beach so it is interesting that they can make that into successful programming. It’s really not that exciting of a beach. Border Security is all about the day in the life of working as a customs officer in Australia. It is great watching people trying to smuggle things out or in to Australia. People get really angry when customs checks them out. There are also America shows that Australia made their own version of like: So You Think You Can Dance? Australia, Australian Idol, Deal or No Deal, etc.

The Differences in culture….

•Australians pronounce the letter “H” like heyh and the letter “z” is zed.
•“Taking the piss out of you” means like making fun of you; it’s a good thing.
•Biscuits are cookies
•Favorite is spelled favourite; Behavior is spelled Behaviour; etc
•Lemonade is a Sprite or 7up
•“I reckon” is commonly said
•Fact: the Australian government made a law that force all cigarette companies to have the same black and white packaging. That way no brand stands out or looks appealing. A pack of cigarette cost roughly $30.
•Organization is spelled Organisation; etc.
•Skinny jeans and short jeans are commonly worn by men
•Aussie men (including heterosexuals) own and wear Uggz
•Money Bills vary in size. The smaller the bill the less it is worth. Notes (or coins) vary is size and colour. The smaller the gold note the more it is worth. Gold notes are either $1 or $2. Large silver notes are worth more than small silver notes.
•Pepperoni is know as Cabanossi.
•Raspberry is big in Australia. Usually when you go to a 7-11 store, you can always get cherry or cola slushies. In Australia, you always have raspberry and cola slushies.



( A Mexican Family Dinner; very Australian, but not really )

The Drinking Culture

Alright, I haven’t wrote some culture blogs in a while, but now I finally got some time on my hands. I been loaded with papers. Maybe, I’ll blog about them later.
The more and more I am immersed in the Australian culture, the more and more I find out about how significant alcohol here is. I am not saying that Australians are a bunch of drunks. I am merely stated that this culture revolves around drinks, much like America revolves around food. Of course, drinking and driving is not tolerated. I’d say even more so than in America. Every Australian I know that had been drinking, whether it is just a few drinks or a lot, is VERY responsible and never goes behind the wheel. They always ended up getting a cab or had a friend come help them. I like to see this happen in America more. I believe the consequences of drinking and driving in Australia are vastly worse too compared to in America. I am not certain though, but I see tons of advertisements about not drinking and driving.
As I said, Australian is a drinking culture. In America, if a guest comes to your house it is normal to offer them a drink (water, soda, beer, etc.) and a snack (not a meal, but more like cookies or chips). In China, a guest is commonly offered just food (like a meal). In Australia, they commonly offer just a drink (beer or spirit). It is also proper to bring the host of a party a bottle of booze and not just booze for yourself. This is proper manners here that you rarely see at home.
When I went to the Outback, I mentioned we stopped at the “Daly Water’s Pub.” At this pub, you could find money from around the world posted on the ceilings and walls. This tradition of taping or nailing stuff to the walls started off because locals would sometimes forget their wallets when going to the bar. There is not much in the Outback so I’d imagine you have to take a pretty far drive to get to the pub after work for a drink. What would happen if you took that long drive and realized you forgot your wallet after making that long drive? Well, what the locals would do is that when they visited they would tape money to the walls of the bar and write their name of the money. That way, if they ever forgot their wallet again then all they have to do is get their money off the wall so they could have their drinks. The tradition evolved to much more than money at the “Daly Water’s Pub.”

SHOUT!!!! This is a common term and thing to do when drinking with “mates” (mates are your friends are called). A shout how many locals drink. Pretty much, it’s where one person in your group buys a round of drinks for everyone in the group. Then it is someone else’s turn to do a “shout.” I like this because your not just buying for yourself, but treating others to a drink to. It’s nicer then making everything 50/50. You buy this time, and I’ll buy the next time sounds better than lets split everything 50/50.

When I went to the horse races, Jon Organ, our guide, told me that the horse races were not really about the gambling on horses. It was more about socializing and drinking champagne, wine, and beer.


(random picture of me jumping off a cliff near Neielson Park)

Australia Day, which is a big holiday here (go figure), is pretty much a day to drink a lot of booze and barbeque. I guess that’s what being the stereotypically Australian is all about?

ANZAC is another reason to go out and drink. ANZAC (Australian New Zealand Army Corps) Day is like the 4th of July except more people go out and drink; mostly the younger generation. It is also a time to play “two-up” which is an old gambling game. This game is otherwise illegal any other day.

There are more examples too. I will write them down as I remember them

Cheers!

The Fashion Forward Festival

This weekend I spent my entire time at working at the internship. It was worth it because there was actually heaps of fun work to do. I got to edit a couple runway shows for the “Fashion Forward Festival” at Paddington Town Hall. Paddington is the leading fashion district in Sydney. The festival is about bringing together new and emerging designers and models in Sydney. The festival has amateur models to model designer’s clothes. It’s a sponsored event. DND media, who I work for, was one of the sponsors. I got to hang out with some of the people behind the scenes, which was cool because I felt like a VIP. Later, I got to edit the runway shows, which are being streamed live on the internet now. Click the link below and check out some of my work.

http://www.fashionforwardfestival.com.au/runway-shows.html

I made all this videos. My boss was impressed with my first full & REAL project for the company. The people at the FFF were also were happy and wanted copies. :)

Alice Springs

I was staying at the Haven Backpackers Resort an extra day so I decided to make the most of it. I booked a tour to visit the area. Went to see the McDonell Ranges and stopped at Desert Park. The Ranges were beautiful. It was just one really long, not tall, mountain. Aboriginals called it the “caterpillar” because they it literally what it looked liked. Parts of the range were rounded and consecutive. There are two ranges. I went to the West ranges, and not the east. The story goes that during the time of dreaming, giant caterpillars came from the ocean. Two of some ended up in dessert and stopped to drink some water. Interestingly enough, the two ranges stop at a small water source. So there goes the story.



I learned about the “Flying Doctors Service” a lot. What’s that you ask? Let me tell you. Imagine living in the Outback back in the day or even now for that matter. You hurt yourself on your farm and need a doctor. Well, there are no hospitals. So you had to call the Flying Doctor Service and a doctor would fly out to a designated landing area, where you would have to meet the doctor. Other highlights included Stephen’s Chasm and Simpson’s Gap. During the trip, I had tea with some local elderly Australian couples. It’s interesting because I feel the older generation is very European-like, and the younger generation is more Americanized. American television is everywhere on Australian television, and does effect the Australian culture to a degree. I only have 5 channels in my apartment. Two of them are only worth watching. There are always good movies on Saturday night though.



ANYWAY after cruising more of the outback, I was dropped off at Desert Park. It’s like a zoo dedicated to just the Australian Outback. Although I got to see kangaroos, I never got to see a baby joey in its mother pouch. Well, I was luckily enough to get to see that at this park. It was pretty cool. The baby just hopped in there and had his head and feet sticking out of the pouch. The park had tons of aviary’s to walk through. I love birds so I enjoyed myself. I got to see a Kingfisher finally. The park also had an endangered species exhibit. The exhibit was neat and filled with many mammals. This simple says that mammals in the desert are running out food sources and are now very few in number now. We ended our day at the park by seeing a Bird’s of Prey show.





Only one more night in a hostel and I’d finally get to go home and do some laundry. I was in need of some clean clothes.

the Outback

The first thing to keep in mind when traveling in aboriginal lands in that nearly everything is sacred. During my time at Uluru, I had to hear this word over a hundred times. Uluru and the surrounding area are known as the red centre. That’s because the sands and stones are literally RED! It’s really beautiful. We were fortunate to see the colour green, which is rare because it is a desert. April is about the ending of Wet season and the beginning of dry season. The weather was pretty much great the entire trip because the forecast was rain rain rain. I am glad weathermen are wrong here too.



The night before we departed to the desert outback, I was booked in at the “Haven” hostel resort. It was much nicer than the place in Darwin, but I didn’t get a fridge and television after my trip from the desert outback. We had another early start to the day around 6am again. We met our guide Miles , who looked younger then he really was because he had a big black beard. Miles took us to the “Adventure Tours” station to make sure we all paid and got all the food and sleeping bags for the trip. I learned from the road trip down from Darwin to Alice Springs that I torch (aka flashlight) was a good investment for the nighttime. We had a bit of a drive Jsmuni (pronounced “SSHH-moon-e”) and I grabbed the back of bus, which was nice cause we didn’t have to sit next to anyone so we were able to stretch a bit more. Our first stop was a Camel farm. So what did you think I did???? No, I did not eat camel this. I rode them instead. Camels are pretty fun to ride. Their “yelp” is amusing as well. It felt pretty cool being high on top a camel hump and it only cost a few bucks. At the little barn café in the farm, I got the best chocolate chip biscuit (aka cookie). It was worth every 5 cent! I would say “every penny,” but pennies don’t exist in this country. After a couple hours we had another stop at “Elmunda.” It was just a Shell gas station, nothing special. However, our next stop was camp! We got there and did a quick sandwich lunch. I feel like every time we had a meal, I got stuck with washing the lettuce. That’s okay though as long as I did not have to do dishes. I hate doing dishes! Mostly because I feel like I am the only one who does them in the room sometimes HA HA. However, they all do dishes somewhat.



Anyway, after lunch we hit Kata Juta. This site was so scared to the Aboriginal people that no one knows why it’s so scared. I laughed when I was told that. I was really ready for a good story. However, the hike through the rocky area was pretty nice. It was a pretty cool day, but the flies were still out. Now, the Outback flies are the worse kind of flies. They literally attempt to go into the sides of your eye lid. No JOKE! They were annoying, but a pair of sunglasses fixed that problem till nightfall. I was also happy to test out my new hiking shoes. They are the comfiest shoes I think I ever had. Worth every penny! I can say that cause my mom got me them in the US.




The night ended by a loving sunset over Ayers Rock.



That night I feasted on some camel sausage and kangaroo steak that Miles made. It was awesome! Camel is alright in sausage form. This was the first night I got to sleep in my “swag” and it was not going to be the last. A swag is this big burly sleeping bag. Think of taking a small mattress and covering it over, that is what a swag felt like It was the best I slept the entire trip thus far because I was so warm. Not to mention I got to sleep under the endless amounts of stars.



The next morning was an early start. The campgrounds are a huge bathroom area, which was clean and warm with almost no bugs! It was a nice change for once. I had my typically peanut butter, nutella sandwich. Nutella is a chocolate spread for those who don’t know. Soon we were off to catch the sunrise at Ayers Rock. It was a cold morning, but soon heated up.



Miles took us up to the base of the rock. He began telling us stories about the rock. Most were about the geography of the rock, and not too much about the Aboriginals that view the rock as a scared site. The thing with Aboriginals is that their stories are very secret. Very few outsiders know the stories about Ayer’s Rock and for those who do know only know parts of the stories. Interestingly, each tribe holds parts of a story so you’d have to visit them all throughout Australia, gain their trust and respect, to even be considered to be told the story.



Ayer’s Rock was more impressive then I thought it be. It was HUGE! It took a 3 hour walk just to circle around the rock once. Areas of the rock were considered scared so you could not take pictures. As I mentioned before, I do not know why they are scared, but they are.



I ended that afternoon with a climb up the rock. I did not make it far due to time constraints plus I was super tired! It is a difficult and steep climb. Our next stop was camp for the night near our last stop of the tour “Kings Canyon.” However, before we got there we stopped for milkshakes. Now, when Australians say something they literally mean what they say. For example, the “Harbour Bridge” and “Sydney Opera House.” Very creative names, right? Well, a milkshake in Australia is literally milk with a scoop of ice cream. It’s a disappointment, I KNOW! They remind me more of root beer float just with milk instead of the root beer.



At our new campsite for the night, we had a campfire. It was a lot of fun roasting marshmallows with my new friend from Perth, Renae. She is a pretty funny and cute Australian. I enjoyed her random humour throughout the trip. After making a few jokes about how Dan, this mate from England, has the most pale white skin in the Outback, it was time for bed.



Again it was an early start to the day. This was probably my favorite hike. Kings Canyon was beautiful. It was a prefect place with perfect weather to do an amazing hike. Being tired from the day before, Tom and Catrina the couple from the UK, asked me to improv tour as we hiked up the canyon so we would get distracted from how swore our legs were. Needless to say, I was funny and I really miss improv. Anyway, the canyon was great. The rock was all sandstone. You could literally take two rocks, rub them together and create piles of sand. Miles talked about the local vegetation and wildlife. Ask me how Aboriginals kill, eat, and utilize kangaroo when I get back. It’s pretty cool and disgusting. The canyon was additional huge. It is scary getting close to the edge.



This tour we ended up back in Alice Springs, where I had a free day to do some more touring around the area. So of course, I went out.

The Stuart Highway Roadtrip

The Stuart Highway is a rather large highway that stretcher from the Northern territory to South Australia. My tour went from Darwin at the very top of the Northern Territory to Alice Springs at the very bottom of the northern territory. Our first stop on the tour was at some hotel near Adelaide River for some breakfast. Typically, Australian breakfast sandwich is bacon & egg on toast, but I asked if I could have sausage instead of bacon. I got three big pieces of sausage with egg on toast. IT WAS AWESOME! You’d be exited too if you were an American living here. Anyway, the Bull from Crocodile Dundee was here too. Next was a lot of driving through the tropical landscape.



We stopped at Katherine Gorge to do some hiking. The gorge was beautiful. I took a cruise down the river to see some scared aboriginal area including the resting place of Bulong, the Creator and Destroyer. Bulong is a giant rainbow serpent fyi. I really enjoyed all the aboriginal stories.



Our next stop was camp. Camp was pretty sweet. They had permanent campsite with tents. We ate a good meal and that night played some cards. It was a REALLY great time. It was a good group of people I was traveling with. Three ladies were from Austria and didn’t speak clear English. So it was really interesting communicating with each other to play some card games. For example, we call the cards a “spade,” while they called it “pic.” It was a lot of fun. The best part was the stars. I never seen so many stars in my life. I could in the entire Milky Way and the Southern Cross (like the stars in the Australian flag). It was truly a site to behold. I’ll never forget it.

We were up bright and early next morning. Unfortunately, someone did not turn off the lights over night in the bathroom so in was infested with bugs and frogs. When I went to the toilet, the frogs are just chilling in the toilet bowl and on the flush handle. Well, when you got to go…you got to go! I did not even want to brush my teeth because the amount of bugs were really bad. Literally, the sink was full of bugs.
After some good sleeping on the bus, we ended up at a thermal pool. It was a natural spring. Soldiers have build walls around the spring during the war to make it more like home. It was nice cool swim on a hot day.



The bus rides were always fun. I mostly hung out with Renae from Perth, Lawa (pronounced “Lava”) from Germany, and Jsmuni (pronounced Shh-moonie) from Switzerland. There was also the UK couple, Tom and Catrina. There was the funny Vancouver couple, Gordon and Mariam. Another couple was Christian from Scotland and Karan from Australia. Lastly, there were the three lady friends from Austria.



For lunch we stopped and cooked at the famous “Daly Waters Pub” in the middle of nowhere. It was the most random bar ever! Each wall had random stuff from around the world of it. The tradition now is that if you visit the bar, you leave something behind for next time. Therefore, I left my SXU ID there. Some walls were full of pictures; others school ID’s and one full of various currencies from around the world. On the ceiling hung signed t-shirts and bras. The patio was equally interesting. The Australian have such a blunt sense of humor. The highlight of the patio had to be the “Thong tree.” Thongs in Australia are what we call “flip-flops.” It was a small patio in the shape of a tree with a thongs nailed to it. It was a bit dirty and smelly, but worth sitting under and reading peoples smelling footwear. It was “heaps fun.”





After stopping for gas and holding a Black-headed python our group once again hit the open road and a bird too. R.I.P poor birdy. We had a long drive and it was a good time to call shot-gun and talk to the tour guide, Ruth, for a while. I really liked her, but not many others did. She had a strange-sense of humor that I enjoyed. She also loved Kakadu and hated Ayers Rock, which was a bummer since I did not get to see Kakadu, but planned a trip to Ayers Rock. I was all in good fun though. She just seemed bored seeing the same rock over and over again. Ruth loved to sing too. We plugged in my Ipod for awhile. She enjoyed my taste in music.

The next stay was on a horse farm. We ate dinner and I ran into the owners Dalmatian. Made me miss Poscha, my dog, a lot. The farm was my favorite campsite thus far. There were termite mound in front of my tent. Termite mounds are HUGE and feel like concrete.



The next morning we went off to my favorite place of the tour, the Devil’s Marbles. I was like a kid in a candy store. I just climbed about every rock there was to climb I had so much fun. It was the start of seeing actual desert and not tropical trees.
We ended our trip at Alice Spring were we ate at “Bojangles.” It was another random bar. The bathroom was really funny. Ask me why?





Tomorrow morning I left for the Outback!

Scuba Diving

Diving in one of the wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef, is simply indescribable. I surprisingly did very well for my first dive. Breathing underwater is easier than you think. It is something everyone deserves to experience at least once. It's an entirely different world underwater.

Darwin

After my break from Cairns (pronounced “Cans”), I had one day to relax and pack my things for my week long trip to the Outback and Center of Australia. I was most looking forward to seeing what a hostel is like, and how Aboriginals as well as the “white fella’s” lived in the desert-like terrain. Aboriginals were called “black fella’s” and the Australians “white fella’s.” It’s not racist, its just what they called each other. Me and Amanda had a late night flight to Darwin. We arrived at the small airport, grab a shuttle bus, and arrived at our hostel, the Nomeds on Cavanagh, around 2am. I felt bad waking up the two people, Jasper and Rosanne from the Netherlands, who were there earlier in the day. We all slept in and after being able to take a shower, I hit the city of Darwin.



Darwin has about 3 main streets and a waterfront. The area is more up and coming in tourist attractions. The city was very small. I felt like I pretty much seen the whole city in less than 3 hours. Darwin is most known for the city that the Japanese attacked in WWII because of their large oil depots. Some of the only big attractions in Darwin were related to this attack. However, this attack really made the land what it is today as far as population goes. I’ll explain what I mean more later when I talk about Alice Springs.

We took the heritage walk around town. We passed this old outdoor movie park, which looked nostalgic and heaps of fun. However, they were not playing any movies that night. The told the story of the attack on Darwin and lead us to the waterfront. The waterfront was very modern and new. They had a wave pool you could pay to go into. I laughed inside as I thought I work next to a beach that gets better, natural waves and it’s free. It was a humid day.



Darwin had some funny graffiti. In fact so did a lot of the towns in the Outback. However, it was not vandalism. It was art made by young kids. I again saw more graffiti in Alice Springs. There were paintings of kangaroos, lizards, and cockatoos. At a first glance though you would think its “bad” or gang-related graffiti, but after look into it that was not the case.



We ended the night at a local bar called “the Tap.” I was talking to one of the locals earlier in the day and she said it was the place to go for a good “Fishbowl Drink.” She was right, it was very good!



The next day we had the whole day free to do whatever we wanted. So naturally, I wanted to go swim with the crocodiles and I did. After come hotcakes at McDonalds, me and Amanda took off to the Oil storage facility near the waterfront to pretty much look at giant oil storage tanks underground and learn some more history. The tanks were HUGE! Inside the tank, they had old pictures of Darwin back when it was first being developed and of the aerial attack on Darwin.



After the oil tanks, we were off to Crocsaurus Cove. This was a mini zoo found in the center of the city mainly designed for crocodiles and reptiles. We saw fishes, rays, lizards, snakes, and a whole bunch of crocodiles. The cages with the baby crocs were crazy! There were so many of them in such a small area. Baby crocs are pretty cool. They can even make their entire body jump straight out of the water to catch their prey. However, when they get bigger and heavier they won’t be able to. However, when you’re a full-grown croc not many people or animals are willing to mess with you. Just look at the video below.



Feeding time was the best time at the cove. We ended or visit at Crocsaurus Cove by getting into a glass cage and put smack in the middle of the 3 croc exhibits. The first one had a croc couple, Houdini and Bess. Houdini was the most fun because he actually swam around us unlike the other two that just sat there. Crocs are a lot of huge close up. One of the crocs, Denzel, had his jaw open so I was able to look inside. He’s got a big mouth, literally.



Knowing we were to be picked up at 5:40am the next day we hung out in our air-conditioned hostel for the remainder of the night. It was the first time I slept in an air conditioned room since I been to Australia. The hostel was very bland and the bathroom had ants. However, there was a working television with about two good channels so I was content.

It's Common to eat.....

My favorite topic, FOOD! Now everyone puts different things on their burgers, but you ever put a fried egg and beet root on it? Well, that is pretty common here. Beet root is just slices of cranberry. The only time I see cranberry in America is during Thanksgiving dinner. To be honest, its all pretty good and worth trying.

When you go to 7-11 at home, you can get a Coca-Cola or Cherry slushie always. However, here everything is raspberry. You can get either the Coke or a raspberry slushie anywhere you go.




Almost any chicken sandwich or kebab is served with some type of chili sauce. I REALLY like the sweet chili sauce. It will defiantly be one of the things I miss. There is also a variety of what I consider exotic meats to try. Kangaroo is one of my favorite meats her. Similar to steak, but has a unique taste. Roo burgers are pretty common and delicious to get in Australia too. Crocodile is also delicious. When I was in Cairns, I ate this awesome croc-burger. Lastly is camel meat. Camel is a bit dry and chewy. You really have to cook camel to loosen up all the meats fibers. I had a camel pie (seen below) at "Bo-jangles" bar in Alice Springs. It was okay, but even better was camel sausage that my tour guide cooked while I traveled in Outback.



Today, I felt lost in translation when I went in the local Woolworth's grocery store. I wanted rice, but I never knew there were so many types of rice. Uncle Ben is not in Australia. Thinking about it, I haven't seen Aunt Jemima or Mrs. Buttersworth either.

It's not Ketchup, it's tomato (ta-mate-a') sauce here. For breakfast, most places offer bacon & egg Sandwiches rather than sausage & egg sandwiches. The bacon is not dark stripes either. It's more like Canadian bacon. It's more thin, pink, and round.

Random Pictures around Sydney

An Average Weekday

What do I do on a weekday? Mondays and Thursday I wake up around 6:30am to go to work. The internship usually takes up my whole day between the 8 hours of work and the nearly 4 hours of commuting. Sometimes I have a special GLP lecture to attend from 6-9pm on those days so literally off the train to the lecture. GLP stand for the “Global Leadership Program.” It’s a program with a series lecture. Themes of the lectures vary from this like Cross-Cultural Communication to Effective Writing to Sustainable Leadership to Global Intelligence (like CIA or KGB). It’s pretty interesting and I’ll get a reference letter at the end to add to my resume. I am lucky to fit in dinner sometime I these days. On Tuesday, I usually sleep in and do laundry. My parents usually call and skype, which is nice. After my afternoon class, I tend to go into “prostitute courtyard” on campus to do homework among other things. There a odd statue of a white stone women leaning on a post in the courtyard hence the dubbed name. The courtyard also has stands to plug your laptop in so it’s an ideal place to do homework while enjoying the weather. Wednesday I start class at 11am so I am up a bit earlier than Tuesday. I usually meet up in class with my buddy, Sam. He is a cool local guy. We did our Consumer Behaviour group project together. His vocabulary and knowledge of the course is more vast than mine, but his grammar and writing skills kinda suck. Luckily, that is more my forte. I have a 3 hour gap in between my Consumer Behaviour and Russian class, so I usually end up going to the gym and killing some time till Russian class.



Most nights, me and Amanda cook dinner together. It’s nicer eating with someone than not. Amanda’s specialty is Garlic Noodles and mine is Tuscan Eggs, but we attempt to switch up the menu frequently. The carrots here are incredible! They taste really sweet and are extremely affordable. I could be a vegetarian in Sydney with no problem. However, I love meat to much. Kangaroo is so good fyi. It’s better than eating out all the time. It’s almost impossible not to spend 10 bucks when you eat out. Most of my roommates are not around or are off doing their own thing, so I end up in Amanda’s room. I get along with her flatmates pretty well. I am the unofficially 5th flatmate. Thursday night is U-bar night. The U-bar is the universities on-campus bar. They have themed parties every week. The patio there is a really great spot to sit and socialize among other things. I don’t count Friday as a weekday so I am not going to write about it.