Just livin my life

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So I joined the Melbourne University Chorus last Wednesday. It’s a lot like Emory with about 250 people in it. We’re going to be singing Mozart’s Requiem for our concert. We started rehearsal last night, which sounded awesome. Our director is really young and energetic, so it’s a fun time. Plus I was able to finally meet some Australians, which is actually really hard to do on a personal level. I sat by a girl from Canberra and another girl from France, so we had a great conversation about how we all got to Uni (that’s what they call the University of Melbourne).

Thursday I spoke with the neuromarketing professor on campus. He was especially nice and helpful. He wished he had room in his lab to offer me an internship, but he’s already used up his funding for this semester. He gave me a bunch of schools and programs to look up though and was really encouraging.

That night Rosa, Sarah, Jen and I went to the Moonlight Cinema. It’s an outdoor cinema on the lawn of the Royal Botanical Gardens. On the way we picked up Lord of the Fries, and I got a hot dog, but we decided the fries from Grill’d are much better. After all having a slight stomach ache, we got to the movie area. It was a really cool set up being in the middle of green and trees in the city. As we watched the Wrestler, hundreds of bats flew over our heads. The movie was great except for the fact that it was really quite cold. We were all shivering and trying to bundle up as best we could. I was really envious of all the couples that had a bean bag and blankets to cuddle up in. I definitely enjoyed the night though and will remember next time to bring warmer clothes.

Friday after my class I met up with the girls and Guy (yes his name is Guy) in Brunswick. I was really proud of myself for finding them because I had to catch 2 trams and find random streets with no map. We walked around the town for a couple hours. It was kinda sketch area, like a non-Asian Chinatown with a lot of really random shops and thrift stores. I had a really amazing blueberry bagel with sugar on top from a New York whole sale bakery. It was awesome!

I’ve decided that I don’t think I’ll be able to live in Melbourne after all. As you know I’m a super cold person and thought that I’d be coming to the land of warmth. However, apparently the awesome weather we had the past week was rare. Normally you can experience wind, rain, cold, and sun in any given day and it’s really annoying. The past week I’ve been drizzled on everyday and been regretting all the warm clothes I brought because I’ve been freezing! I’ve decided I need to find a place where it’s sunny all the time and move there!

For dinner we went back to try get in Movida. We had to wait over an hour, but it was well worth it! It was such a cute little, authentic spot and the food was amazing! We had chorizo, lamb, squid, prawns and ham/cheese stick sortof thing. It was delicious!!!

Saturday Sarah and I thought we’d venture out to the Docklands to see all the shops, food, harbor, etc. we'd been hearing about. Well it doesn’t actually exist! We took the tram and were dropped off in the middle of buildings and construction. The Docklands park was only a small playground for kids on the side of the road. So, it was fairly disappointing since I thought it’d be like the Rocks in Sydney. We decide to walk over to Southbank, which is what I thought the Docklands would be like. It was definitely a cool place with tons and shops, stores, and a nice view of the Yarra River. We stopped for key lime pie ice cream at Trampoline, which made me miss Florida. All in all, it was a nice walk, just not what I expected.

For dinner we went to Pelligrinis, a very small Italian restaurant owned by a cute old man from Italy. It’s kind of like a diner, with no tables only stools. You order off a small sign in the middle of the restaurant. The food comes out quick, steaming hot, and fabulous!! I had traditional penne with bolognas sauce and loved every bite! It was really cool though because it’s a word-of-mouth place and most people eating were regulars that had their food brought to them the moment they sat down. Random note when ordering Italian… marinara sauce is not tomato sauce, it’s seafood.

The Moomba festival was last weekend, so we decided to go see the famous birdman show. Locals dress up in costumes and make airplane-like wings that they propels themselves off a dock with into the river. It was funny because all of their contraptions failed and they dove straight into the river. One person tried to make wings with balloons, which failed entirely, but was an interesting site. At night there was a huge fireworks show over the river. It was really pretty with the city behind it and the fair rides in the distance.

A crazy thing happened to be this weekend, for the first time I actually said “no worries” to someone. It kind of stopped me dead in my tracks to hear that come out of my mouth, but no one else seemed surprised haha.

Because people want to know…I cannot see any stars in the sky because I am in the middle of the city, but hopefully when I take a road trip sometime they will be clear and I can let you know. Also, there was no time change here, so now I’m 15 hours ahead. And another few observation…I feel like there are a lot more smokers here that in the States. Every time I walk outside, I am in smoke. I think the whole non-smoking initiative started more recently here. Also, surprisingly, Australia is supposed to be one of the most obese nations in the world, even higher than the US. This may be true, but I don’t see how. I really haven’t seen that much obesity at all compared to the US.

So I joined the more advanced latin class yesterday, and really LOVED it. It was a lot of fun and everyone was Australian! I also met this girl from Malaysia, who was very nice and fun to talk to about traveling. She told me where I needed to go in Asia and I told here where to go in Europe, so it was a good exchange.

It was Labor Day yesterday, so no one had work, although we still had school unfortunately. There was a huge parade down the street that my apartment is on. It was funny watching all the silly floats on the way to class. Australia’s history is actually really interesting to learn about with the Aboriginal and convict background. Their idea of independence and settlement is very different from the US story. For the convicts who came to Australia it was a place to start over, a worker’s world away from England. For the Aboriginal people, it was an encroachment on their land and their lives that eventually development into their severe mistreatment. Surprisingly only 1 year ago, the Prime Minister announced an apology to the Aboriginal people (many of whom were part of the stolen generation when children were taken from their families). It’s really amazing to see how young the country is.

Another perspective is the aspect of conquest. While America sees the adventures of Lewis and Clarke as prosperous and successful because of the fruitful land they happened on, the conquest of the Australian land really meant death. The whole inner part of the continent is really not able to sustain life, so there is this underlying theme of death that is present in the history. Anyway, these are just some opinions I’ve heard about, so it may not be factually sound, just interesting.

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