Planning Melbourne, Good News, Getting Through, and FUN FACTS!

April 16 11:57pm

Today was the end of week six of the semester down here in Australia. Surprisingly, the semester is going faster than I thought it would. Coming from a quarter school, I am used to the quarters just flying by, as they are only ten weeks compared to the fifteen of a semester school. Since I have never experienced a 15 week schedule before, I was expecting the semester to drag on and seem like it wasn’t going anywhere. However, this has not been the case. Between my class schedule (I have Monday’s and Wednesday’s off during the week) and everything else that has been going on, time is flying. There is still so much that I want to see and do too, and at this point, with much of my schoolwork coming due in the next month and a half or so, I do not know when I will find the time to do everything. A week from today I will by flying down south to Melbourne, which is located in the state of Victoria. This is a trip I have been looking forward to, as it will give me a chance to do some exploring and sight-seeing completely on my own. I went online tonight and made a sort of sample itinerary so that I’ll have some idea of what I’m doing, of course, I still need to book everything so we’ll see once how everything works out when it comes down to it. The plan would entail me staying overnight in Melbourne on the first day, then driving across to the city of Mt. Gambier. There are supposed to be a lot of cool things to see around there so it seemed like a good stopping point on the western front. The next day, I would drive along the Great Ocean Road, covering such sights as the Twelve Apostles and the Great Arch. I would then stay in another city about an hour outside of Melbourne, and then spend the last two days in the city and seeing all that Melbourne has to offer compared to Brisi. Then on the twenty-eighth, I would fly back home (well, my home here anyway) where I would have about one day to put together a paper that is due on Thursday.

I had some good and welcome news the other day: my brother may be coming down to visit for my last three weeks here and then we could each possibly catch the same flight home. I think this would be a rather cool experience for both of us, as neither of us have really spent time together outside of the US of A. He has been to Europe and I Puerto Rico and here (even though PR is still technically the US, I’ll consider it not so we’re even on travelling out of the country), but we have never been to the same place together. This would also work out great because I would have next to nothing to do for those three weeks anyway. Since the school gives us three weeks after classes end and before finals are over (one week for revision and two weeks for actual finals), this would give me a good chance to show him around the best sights that Queensland and possibly even more of Australia has to offer. Since I lucked out and only have one final, I can reasonably assume that I will have a good amount of free time where I won’t need to be studying for it (cross our fingers on that one, mate). But we’ll have to see how everything goes and hope things work out for both parties.

As you can tell from my last post, I just got back from Easter break in New Zealand. Again, as you can tell from the previous post, it was a great adventure and full of fun. Unfortunately, the return to Australia was somewhat lacking. New Zealand had some of the best weather I have experienced since leaving home, offering temps in the sixties (short and sweatshirt weather) which is by far my favourite weather. Not only that, but it was a good reprieve from the day to day life that tends to feel rather mundane after a while. You know that feeling you get though, after living out of a suitcase for about 3-5 days you start to get sick of it and just wish you could be back home with your closet and real bed? Well, even amidst all the fun, that feeling swept over me around that time. Needless to say, I was somewhat happy to get on the plane and head back to Brisi (even though NZ was a great country and I would live there in a heartbeat), because it meant I would finally be able to shower with good, hot, untimed water and be able to sleep in my bed and not have to worry about sleeping arrangements in an RV. However, there was something about returning to Brisi that was somewhat of a disappointment. You know how it’s always somewhat of a good feeling to get home again after a long trip? Well I think that was some sort of double-downer for myself because I wasn’t actually returning home-home. I think something in my mind told itself that vacation was over and we were going home, but when it wasn’t Ohio-home, it was disappointed and a slight feeling of misery came over the whole situation. I have been feeling better the last day or so about the whole situation, but for the first couple days back it was really hard to get back into the rhythm I had gotten myself into before we left. For those first few days back here, I think it was about the most homesick I’ve been since leaving the US, and they were not fun days at all. Couple that experience with all the schoolwork I now have facing me, and you get pending disaster. All I can do is hope that the library agrees to become my friend while I’m here and that I have enough internet to do all the research for my different papers. If it weren’t for the school part of it now, I think things would be 100x better. As I’ve said before, Aussie school is hard and they seem to hold you to a standard that is similar to that of a Masters or Ph.D. program. No wonder a 50% is considered passing down here.

Anyways, I don’t want to give the wrong impression that I’m hating my time down here and just want to come home, because that would be wrong. While there are ups and downs, this has been one of the best experiences of my life thus far, and I hope it continues on that way. But while that is the case, there is that small part of my mind that still misses home and everything it has to offer: people to cook and buy food, family, friends, Charlie, and the motorcycle have to be the big ones. There’s just something about getting on the bike after a long, hard day and just having the wind blow all your problems right out of your head. And having the dog come up and sit with you while you try to relax and he knows something has upset you is very comforting as well. Even though he likes to bark, Charlie is one of those dogs who knows just what to do at certain times to bring a smile to your face and make you feel better.

I’ll end this post with some long awaited facts about Brisbane, Queensland, and Australia in general:

• A person who lives in Brisbane is called a “Brisbanite”
• Only 1% of Australia is rainforest, but it holds 80% of Australia's bio-diversity
• Last year, New Zealand moved 30cm closer to Australia. In 7.5 million years they will be connected
• There are between 500 to 3,000 Bull Sharks in the Brisbane River, depending on who you ask
• Aborigines own 53% of the land in the Northern Territory, yet still waste their time sniffing Sharpies
• Queensland is now operating a 3^rd party policing campaign, where other social programs are becoming involved with troubled young adults
• There are 15 City Cat ferries operating on the Brisbane River, with the 3^rd generation commencing on February 22, 2010
• Australian’s pronounce Mocha, ‘Maacha’, with the same enunciation on the ‘ch’
• The largest religion is Roman Catholic
• The Brisbane River is named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, and the city was named after the river
• Brisbane started out as a penal colony
• Two years ago, Brisbane was in the middle of a drought, with time limits on showers and other limits on how much water a family used...steep fines awaited those that went over the limit...
• ...This summer, Brisbane’s dams are 98% full
• A can (like soda) is called a stubbie
• A tank-top is a singlet
• A sweater is a jumper
• Australians don’t take showers (may be true or false, we’re really not sure)
• There is no such thing as unlimited internet
• Minimum wage for someone 20 years old is $15/hr
• The Australian Liberal party operates under similar philosophies to America’s Republican party, not the Democrats
• It is common to call professors by their first names
• Airport security is lax compared to the United States
• EVERYTHING has at least some protein in it
• Nearly every urinal is a “zero water” urinal (they don’t flush)
• They have the stainless steel troughs everywhere (something I haven’t seen since elementary school)
• Cars have the right of way (better learn this fact quick or you won’t be around long)
• Koala bears can be lesbian but never gay
• Brisbane is one of the top 5 most spread out cities in the world
• Perth is the world’s most isolated city
• The City Kitty ran over a rower at 5am about 3 years ago

These are obviously not all the facts I have uncovered during my time here, if so that would be slightly embarrassing, but I just did not want to spoil the fun and lay them all on you at once. So stay tuned for more in future posts!