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Down Under

This is going to be a long entry, might be a bit boring, but for the people I haven't told that much I wanted to summarise what I have done since getting to Melbourne in July. I can't believe I have been away from the UK for four months now, time has flown by and it only seems like yesterday that I had a BBQ and said goodbye to everyone in Hinckley! My first term at La Trobe University has been amazing and Melbourne is the best city ever!

La Trobe University & Melbourne

The campus is a 40 minute tram ride out of the city but it isn't too much hassle and only costs £2 for a day ticket. I live in Menzies College on a floor of 30 people which is a huge change from my halls at Leicester which only had 4 of us in a flat but has been a great way to meet people. I mainly live with Ozzies but have met people from all over the world since the International Welcome Week and this has opened my eyes to so many different cultures.

Studying has been more effort than I'd hoped for and had quite a lot of coursework over the term but I keep reminding myself that I am here to enjoy myself, not to get the best grades. We have done most of the touristy things in Mebourne now: seen a 360 degree view of the city from the Eureka Tower, walked along St Kilda Beach, watched two AFL matches at the MCG, been to the Melbourne Cup Horse Racing, took a ride on the city centre tram, walked along the Yarra River, studied in the city library, tried as many of the chocolate cafes as possible, browsed through the endless shopping centres, sat in Federation Square, wandered around Docklands, seen the never ending art on the city streets and visited the Pancake Parlour more than once! I love the city and there is still so many things I need to do before I leave but luckily I still have plenty of time.

Living in Menzies has been great fun and much more is going on compared to the halls at home. La Trobe has it's own 'club' - The Eagle and even Menzies has its own Bar which is right outside my window! A lot of the parties have been on Campus but have still been great fun - an army-themed bar crawl with different tasks in each room, drinking in the 'Footie Sheds' (literally just a shed), going to Eagle after endless games of ring-of-fire and drinking outside on Sportsmans Day with a live band and two hot tubs! The thing we seem to drink the most of here is GOON (boxed wine to the English - but cheaper and even more disgusting) it comes in 5 litres boxes for about £7 and the way to drink it is lying on ur back while someone pours it in your mouth - a 'goon layback'. Classy right?

The Ozzie Dialect

Most of the Ozzies still think that I speak strange, whenever I say 'you alright?' people think that I think they're upset so I am having to change this to 'How you going?'. Seeing as we speak the same language the conversations can be pretty different:
'Did you pick up?' - as in did you pull anyone last night
'Thongs' - the word flip flop is not allowed
'Were you blind last night?' - drunk/pissed etc
'It because your a pom' - I point out that this is better than a convict!

I think I have accepted the Ozzie 'culture' though. I have eaten Kangaroo steak, had numerous BBQs (even one in the rain), played a game of Lawn Bowls (apparently its cool here, whereas at home playing boules if for OAPS), seen koalas and kangaroos, been woken up by the kockaburras, tried vegemite on toast, learnt to love 'The Voice' by John Farnham and sing along everytime it comes on, worn thongs on a daily basis, nearly stopped moaning about the heat and travelled for miles to get somewhere. However I am still drinking huge cups of tea which still amuses anyone who sees me drinking it out of a big plastic beaker at least 8 times a day, I guess I am still a true Brit after all!

International Friends

Despite being in Australia one of the best things about the experience has been making so many friends from each corner of the world - Mexico, France, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Brazil, China, India, Germany, Sri Lanka, Italy, Malaysia, Holland, Ghana, Norway, USA, Mauritius, Japan...the list goes on. Although Australia is a fantastic country it has been so eye opening to find out things about all of the other internationals and find out how different, yet similair their countries are to the UK. We started off having a different International Dinner every week and it was great to experience different foods, we put on an English Afternoon Tea Party, complete with cucumber sandwiches, tea and scones and although we had a great day I'm not sure our food was regarded as highly as the other nationalities.

We had amazing pasta on Italian night, real meatballs from Sweden, strange biscuits from Canada, 'crazy' water (water and tequila) from Mexico, real crepes with orange zest from France, authentic pasta from Thailand and of course a plenty of meat and beers at the Ozzie BBQ! I have also started drinking wine as that was all that was on offer at the regular 'Wine Nights' hosted by our Canadian/Finnish friends so I had to try and swallow red wine without being sick whilst waxing lyrical about the wine I had chosen to bring - which happened to be from Aldi but suprisingly went down a treat!

'The Great Ocean Road' Trip, Echuca & South Australia

In Spring Break I gave up on my employment assingment as we hired a car on our English-Swedish-German road trip of Victoria's 'Great Ocean Road'. We had a fantastic trip, drove many miles and saw the fantastic Southern coastline of Oz and the famous 'Twelve Apostles' and beautiful beaches at Port Fairy. The highlight of the trip for chocolate-mad Steph was the huge slabs of chocolate cake we got in Warnambool, while Martin and Hanna prefered our cheap whisky and board games and Sarah was the most excited by the heater in the hostel. It was nice to get away from campus for a while and as well as taking a ferry ride back to Melbourne (across Port Phillip Bay) we saw whales swimming near the coast, saw a different side to busy Melbourne in some of the sleepy towns and woke up our first morning looking at the Sea! The winding roads sometimes took a lot of concentrating (which isn't easy with a car full!) but we came back from the trip having had an awesome time.

Since then I have been away for other weekends - my whole floor went to Echuca, in Northern Victoria, and camped outside, had a BBQ, a campfire, home made punch and a ferocious afternoon at paintballing (which I couldn't mention without telling you all that I did get the flag in one round thus making my team the winners!). A few weeks later I went home with Burch, a girl from my floor, so it was great to see another part of Australia (South Australia, between Adelaide and Melbourne) and nice to get a home cooked roast! We went on a trek along the coast, visited the beaches nearby and finished the weekend off with a party in a barn in the middle of nowhere in true Ozzie style-though the rumours about a sheep being shorn in celebration turned out to be a lie! It was worth the six hour drive to get there and makes me realise how lucky we are at home that everything is so close together

November

The last few weeks have been a bit dull because everyone has been revising for exams. I finished today and am so excited that I do not need to be back at Uni until March 1st which gives me a 3 month summer! I begin travelling the east coast on 26th Novemember so I am planning to blog every now and then so I can keep you all up to date with what I am doing.



Hope everyone is well at home and missing you all!
Catch you (another Ozzie phrase!)

Sam xxx

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