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Published: March 19th 2013
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Vegemite Anyone?
One day soon maybe I'll muster up the courage to try this. But I've heard it described as peanut butter that tastes like chicken stock, so then again maybe not. When I told everyone I was going to Australia, I received countless emails and Facebook messages telling me to be careful when I travel to Australia and to watch out for all of the things that can kill me—jellyfish, sharks, spiders, snakes, etc. In fact, when I stepped off the plane in Sydney, the first thing greeting me in the terminal was this huge display that stretched the entire walk from the gate to customs of everything in the water in Australia that could kill you. It’s ironic then, that what’s really going to kill me in Australia is my own cooking.
I was pretty lucky growing up, in that both my parents are fairly good cooks, so I never really had any need or interest in learning how to cook. I do make a mean bowl of cereal (toast is really hard because our toaster oven is kind of funky) and my dog thinks I serve up bananas perfectly, but I have a feeling that cereal and bananas aren’t going to get me through 4 months of Australia. I’ve already had a couple of explosions in the microwave, and somehow my egg I was trying to make for breakfast
Shark Nets
If you squint a little, or enlarge the picture a lot, you can see the outline of the shark nets in the water. the other day exploded all over the kitchen (still not quite sure how that one happened, I was fairly certain I had it all under control). I almost feel like I should stop with the travel blogging and just start up a cooking blog that could rival that of Julie and Julia. There’s one scene from that movie where I remember Julie almost kills herself with a lobster while trying to maneuver it into the pot, and I’m fairly certain I’m in store for numerous moments like that this semester.
Apart from slowly but surely learning how to cook (emphasis on the slowly part), I’ve started to get even more acclimated to life down under. I’ve been going to the ultimate Frisbee practices, which are actually thoroughly entertaining for both me and everyone in the immediate area. When I showed up the first day, I was the only American, which was fantastic. What was not fantastic was when people asked me where I was from or heard my “accent” (it’s not an accent if I speak the same way that all the actors and actresses speak) and then said “oh Americans are always the best at Frisbee since everyone
View from my balcony
One of my favorite places to do homework. plays it there!” I’m not sure where they got this idea from but a lot of the people in the club are professionals. And I don’t mean professional as in super good, I mean that they fly all over the country and the world competing. It’s insane! Obviously as soon as they saw me throw a forehand Frisbee throw they knew I clearly was not destined for a career in Frisbee, but I do have a blast at practices. I keep everyone entertained with my complete lack of Australian knowledge, and with my “accent”. The first day I was asked to say the word “water” so many times it didn’t even sound like normal English anymore. Luckily for me, when I was in London this summer everyone told me my British accent was actually Australian, and from years of watching Steve Irwin on the “Crocodile Hunter”, I think my Australian accent is much better than Australian’s American accents. It was hilarious listening to all of them try and do their best American accent, which usually, even for the boys, was a poorly executed valley girl accent. I’m sure it’s equally as entertaining for them to hear my Australian accent attempt,
Getting brave
I'm starting to branch out with my cooking a little bit. but I am getting much better at it. Who knows, maybe I’ll come home with an Australian accent.
The wakeboarding club also had our first meeting this week. I’m not sure if I was more excited for the free pizza or the fact that wakeboarding is finally starting now that the rivers aren’t flooded (a huge storm hit the first day I arrived in Sydney and it rained for 40 days and 40 night. Well more like an entire week but you get the point). They went out this past weekend but I decided to go windsurfing instead.
My dad’s favorite saying when we were growing up was “real Asians don’t ____” and then he’d insert whatever was going to be in his favor. It wasn’t ever useful things like something to help us get our chores or homework done, but rather really stupid stuff like “real Asians don’t like mashed potatoes” simply because he doesn’t like potatoes. As a result, I missed out on a lot of Thanksgivings with mashed potatoes until somehow Rachel magically discovered them and since then my mom’s started making mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving (on a side note those are always the most
popular dish these days). His favorite though was “real Asian’s don’t get sunburnt”, and so my mom always had to chase us to get sunscreen on us. Well Dad, I gotta tell you that in Australia, real Asians do in fact get very sunburned. I highly debated trying to sleep standing up last night because my back hurt too much to lie down on the bed.
That being said, I think it was totally worth getting sunburned for the amazing Saturday I had. After exploring Bondi Junction and Bondi Beach on Friday, Saturday I woke up early to catch a bus with some new friends to go windsurfing at Kyeemagh Beach. This beach was amazing and it was right by the airport, with the landing strip sticking out into the ocean. We spent the day learning how to put up and take down the equipment before eating lunch and then finally hopping into the warm water. I spent the entire afternoon racing 747’s up and down the runway, and to be perfectly honest I literally was faster than all of the airplanes. So, since there’s a huge monetary penalty for changing flights back to the states, I’ve decided that instead I’m just going to windsurf the entire way back to California, 51 pounds of checked baggage and all. Anyways, while my peers went for the approach of learning how to turn before going far out and fast, I went for the better approach of just going really fast and then getting stuck and having to swim the board back to shore or running into shark nets. Eventually, I figured out how to turn and go upwind, and before too long I had learned how to avoid crashing. Multiple instructors came up to me after and said, “wow. Speed demon.” Hopefully that’s not a bad thing.
In other news, I’m starting to get really excited because our fall break is in 2 weeks! I don’t want to spoil my future blogs so I’m just going to say that it’s most likely going to be the coolest trip ever. Just saying.
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