New Zealand

Well, updating certainly hasn’t been a priority as of late. I’m currently right outside of Wellington, NZ, staying with Callum, who’s a friend I met years ago and has become my special someone. In short, it’s great! We’ve been bumming around the city, hanging out with his friends, being stupid, and watching The Life of Birds. Aside from being covered in bug bites, I’m well and completely happy, although I do miss my Melbourne mates. I’ll be home Dec 20th, with the love in tow!

Last minute!

Well, I’ve got a bit more packing to do, and then I’m walking over to Whitley College (one of UniMelb’s housing) to meet up with Amanda and Rosie so we can go to Tassie! I’ll be back Saturday night, but Lora and Josh are taking me adventuring and then we’re staying at Josh’s and they’re giving me a ride to the airport on Sunday and then I’m off to New Zealand!

So dear Melbourne, I guess this is goodbye. Our last night together. It’s been good, but I think it’s time for us to start seeing other places. If I didn’t need to have my room empty in hopefully 20 minutes (so I can 6 hours of sleep), I’d linger over our parting, but I’m a busy woman. Thanks for the good times and really odd weather. And view of the hospital? I’ll miss you most of all, with your mysterious cranes in the background (always at the same angle, I don’t think they’re actually ever used) and your very annoying helicopters. 

Bye Melbourne. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again at some point, but until then, I will remember you fondly.

Flashbacks con’t: Relay For Life!

Alright, well here’s the deal. My internet will be cut off in 59 minutes, so I’m gonna do an abbreviated version of Relay and try to upload pictures I haven’t had the chance to do.

In short, in spite of all the stress, Relay went AMAZINGLY. I was in charge of ceremonies, entertainment, and survivorship for the first annual Warrandyte Relay For Life. We were hoping for 8 teams and when the Relay started, we had 16. By the time it finished, we had 20 and raised over $12,000. Pretty amazing!

The whole community really embraced the event and it went off without a hitch. The bands were amazing and professional and great, everyone was really invested in the event, loads of fun was to be had, people walked all night, and even though the teams had to camp under the eucalyptus trees, not a single branch or drop bear fell on anyone. (Eucalyptus trees drop their branches spontaneously. Seriously. It’s killed heaps of people.) 

But, my pride and joy? The ceremonies. I had heaps of help from the two MC’s, Alan and Kevin who were newbies, but really understood what was going on. The opening ceremony went well, with something like 15 survivors and carers, and the closing ceremony had quite a big, energetic, happy crowd. But the candlelight ceremony? That’s where it really worked. For those who don’t know, the point of the candlelight ceremony (“Luminaria ceremony” at home) is to remember those who’ve lost the battle against cancer and to take the time to grieve, yet look forward to the future with hope. Peter, the pastor of the community church, spoke (looking over a script I’d provided), and moved everyone to tears. Yes, tears. As we did our silent lap and I noticed people hugging and saw the luminaria (quite a fair amount, by the way!), I leaned in to Josh (who was sweet enough to come to the whole thing and let me crash at his place for the night) and quietly squealed “It’s worked! They get it!” And they did. Apparently, people are still talking about how moving the ceremony was, and how powerful it made the event. After the silent lap, a few stringed players from a local school played Pachabel’s canon softly and eventually brought the party back. It was really quite amazing, and in spite of all the stress, I really am proud. It’s just going to take off in that community and it’ll be really exciting to keep in touch with everyone to see how it grows!

Terry (on the committee) made this for me!

Look at the montage! (It’s worth jokingly pointing out how violently bright those committee shirts are. Gooodness.)

Flashback series 3: Great big fascinators and tiny top hats.

November 4^th is the Melbourne Cup. Sure, it’s the informal public holiday where all of Melbourne goes to the (horse) races. However, informal public holiday means that EVERYTHING closes for the day. Everything. It’s ridiculous.

Grace and me at the races!

 

 

But, it worked out well, since Grace and I were going to the races too. We packed a picnic, donned our frocks (well…I had a sundress and she wore a skirt), hopped onto an increasingly more crowded tram, and went to the races! The races are not just an opportunity to watch horses run and bet on them, but are a fashion event of classy dresses and lovely hats and fascinators. It’s a great community event and a chance to have good classy fun on a lovely day.

Well, or at least that’s the idea. In real life, it’s the perfect opportunity to gamble away your year’s savings, get wasted, hook up, and if you’re a girl, it’s the chance to find all the best ways to dress like a slut while still maintaining the initial classy façade. Apparently short dresses are in this season. That’s all well and good for things like the theatre when everyone is sitting and it’s in a dark room. At events where many people are sitting down with picnics, short dresses are…well, a chance to see a lot more than you would ever feel comfortable seeing if you happen to be sitting down and looking up. Combine that with lots of liquor and it turns into a pervy party.

But, we’ll pretend that hasn’t scarred me for life. Yeah, it’s quite an event though, and hats are very stylish. There’s all kinds of hats and fascinators (headpieces that sit in your hair either with hairpins or a comb) and Grace and I saw quite a wonderful range from hats with ENORMOUS feathers (not conducive to enormous crowds), and then tiny top hats; the kind that are perfect for circus or steam punk dresswear.

Grace and I wandered around for a bit to enjoy the people watching and to get our bearings. There were an absurd amount of people all crammed together on the lawn in all sorts of dress. We saw two girls in men’s shirts (and nothing else), a pope (accompanied by a group of white angels and devils), endless numbers of kilts, a bright orange suit, a lime green suit, a group of guys dressed up bogan (like hicks), and so on. For the most part, men wear button up shirts, ties, and slacks. After we go to the other side of the concourse, we found the betting area, so we set our bets down without exactly knowing what we were doing. I put two dollars on #4: C’est La Guerre (great name, right?) and one dollar on #15: Guyno (yes, it’s pronounced exactly how you think it is), and Grace bet on Guyno and another horse, #23, whose name I can’t remember.

Pretty horse!

 

 

After a bit we settled down in a spot to enjoy our picnic of crackers, cheese, apples, juice boxes, and lamington fingers. Lamington is a really traditional Aussie dessert, which consists of a 2 inch cube of sponge cake that’s been soaked in chocolate and rolled in coconut. Sometimes it’s cut in half and stuck back together with a layer of cream or jam, but usually it’s just plain. Lamington fingers are the exact same thing, but in a different shape, like a skinny rectangle.

There were a bunch of races before the main race, so we had a fun time watching them go by (before you can even see them approaching you can feel the thunder of their hooves in your chest) and Grace cooed over how pretty they are. (She’s a rider.) The main race was actually quite fun because we got to watch the horses parade around (Guyno was EASILY the most beautiful horse of them all, he was a dark black and just gorgeous) and then the race is two laps around the concourse. It was amazing to watch because the commentators were talking and people were screaming and you could watch it on the jumbotron and could see them fly by. It ended up being the closest race in the entire history of the Melbourne Cup, and the horse that won literally only won because his face was tilted up ever so slightly, which put his nose just further than the other one’s. Needless to say, neither horse was 4, 15, or 23, so Grace and I didn’t win anything, but it was fun to watch anyway. 

This post is not relevant to my being abroad..

…but I have to share anyway.

Okay, so on the news just now, there was this chimpanzee with two ADORABLE baby snow tigers who obviously think it’s their mother and the snow tigers kept doing that thing that cats do when they want to be pet so they rub against your leg, and the chimp started snuggling them and it was so cute I almost barfed.

And then the chimp fed them with a bottle.
I’m not even kidding. Obviously, the state of the world is not that bad.

Oh, and today is Remembrance Day. I don’t know what this means. Neither does Josh, who’s the only person I asked. From what I gathered on the news, it’s in remembrance of when the Australian army helped liberate a town in France. I will look it up and report back.

Flashback series 2: Cthulhu night and the freeze

The day after Halloween, I brought Cthulhu Night to UniMelb! For those not in-the-know, Cthulhu night is an event that happens at midnight on May 1. The idea is to go around drawing Cthulhu (an elder god, created by the sci-fi writer H.P. Lovecraft, fictional, obviously) in chalk and trying to summon him. The legend has it that Cthulhu lies dead but dreaming in the depths of the water, and when he awakens, he’ll basically destroy everything. The goal is to awaken Cthulhu so he’ll destroy everything so we won’t have to do our finals. (Admittedly, it’s an imperfect plan, but it’s fun.) Anyway, I mentioned this to Lora ages ago, and she really liked the idea, so on Nov 1 (six months opposite of May 1 and also right before finals) I picked up some chalk and we drew a bit. We didn’t have the numbers that come out for Hampshire’s Cthulhu night, so we only chalked up the space in front of the library and by south lawn. Still, it was pretty good.
And then on Nov 3rd, Improv Australia arranged a freeze at Flinder’s St. Station. This was an idea first put on by Improv Everywhere, which is a super awesome group  centered in New York City. The idea was to create a flash mob and at 7 pm we’d all just freeze for exactly 5 minutes and then go about our daily business. Improv Everywhere did it in Grand Central Station, and it was simply epic. Granted, andrand Central is a lot bigger than Flinder’s Street. And we had a lot more people, which meant it was one heckuva mob. I think it was something like 2,000+ people participated. However, it wasn’t pulled off with quite as much finesse as Improv Everywhere. First, there was a countdown. And after the 5 minutes, half of the mob cheered. Kind of made it a bit less inconspicuous, but we still caught a bunch of people by surprise. Lora, Grace and I met up and were photographed/filmed several times. There’s a picture here, although in a picture no one is moving. You just have to trust me that it was cool.

Flashback series 1: Halloween

 

The full dress! (Hand sewn. Every stitch.)

One of the things about Australia that baffles me is Halloween, mostly because Halloween seems to baffle Australians. Which is to say, they don’t do it. This is quite a bit of a culture shock for me, given how Hampshire Halloween is one of the parties of a lifetime. But it seems that no one here gets it, which is kind of sad, and quite surprising. Mom sent me a package with some Hershey Kisses and candy corn and “Yummy Mummy Potion” (to be mixed with soda for a fruity Halloween drink), which just seemed to astound all the Australians who were around as I opened the package before class. Grace got super excited about the candy corn (although I was quite insistent that we had to wait until Halloween), which apparently doesn’t exist here, and it led into a whole conversation about Halloween.
Now, it seems to me that Australia would love Halloween, if nothing else than as a reason to drink. (Not that a reason is needed. I know the Irish have a reputation as big-time drinkers, but I think Australia’s about equal on the drinking culture scale.) But yeah, no one does it. The only marketing I saw was in the grocery store by the candy bars there was a little sign (the size of the price tags) saying “Get some candy for Halloween”. That’s it. No mixed candy bags, no pumpkins, no nothing. I went and bought some candy to hand out anyway. As it turns out, Sugar Ball was on Halloween. Sugar Ball is an event hosted by FASS (?) which stands for something like fantasy and science fiction club. Lora and I wanted to dress up, so the plan was that she’d go as a mad scientist and I’d go as the half human half bear genetic monster creation gone wrong. I’d been making a dress out of some extra sheets I had, and figured I could make heaps of fake blood, get it all over that dress (and thus not ruin any of my normal clothes) and I then made a bear hat out of a tan fleece blanket. All in all, it took about a week to make.
Once Sugar Ball rolled around, Lora seemed to misplace her lab coat (which was kind of a key part of her costume), so she ended up just making her hair look goofy while I donned my dress and let about two cups of fake blood dribble out of my mouth and all over myself. I skipped the bear hood ‘cuz it was too cute to mess up. Oh, and I just forgot it.

 

That

Sugar Ball itself was fun. A few rooms on second floor [of the union house] had been reserved, and there were some snacks and music and some other costumes as well. It was mostly a hang-out event, with not nearly enough sugar, considering its name. I did hand out nearly all of my candy though, and as it turns out, Josh is the only other person who appreciates candy corn as much as I do. One of the highlights of Sugar Ball was the reading of The Eye of Aragon. I’m not sure how many of ya’ll are familiar with it, but it is SOMETHING. Apparently, it was written by this 16 year old back in the 70’s and was submitted as a serious sci fi piece. However, it is so bad that it has won the award for worst sci fi 6 years in a row, after only being submitted once. (I don’t know who awarded it.) Anyway, so the reading of the Eye of Aragon is an event in which the story is handed around and the goal is to read it out loud without smiling or laughing. Doing so means you lose and you pass it off to the next person who picks up and tries to continue.
I cannot emphasize how bad this piece of writing is. Aside from the grammatical issues (you’re supposed to read what is written, which means trying to sound out some of the typo’s), it’s just…bad. If you want, feel free to go read it here. Anyway, so the first person who read got two or three paragraphs in before smiling. The next got a few sentences in, as did Lora, who followed. When she laughed, she handed it off to me. I looked down at the piece of paper, scanned for where she left off, and didn’t manage to say the first word before I cracked up. Needless to say, I lost big time. Gill however, is a master. He can read through the whole thing quite seriously without once cracking a smile. No one knows how he does it. The kid who went first had managed to go the longest without laughing (apparently Gill is exempt) got an award, and then I got one for going the least without laughing.
Quite a bit of fun was to be had. Below, I’ve included some lists.

 

Candy I have found to be quite tasty: (and all Cadbury’s brand, unless otherwise mentioned)
-Crunchie (in VERY small doses. Half of a bite size candy bar is plenty. It’s honeycomb coated in chocolate, but the honeycomb is of an interesting texture. Solid, but with a million tiny air bubbles, so it’s very light. When you bite into it, some of it melts straight away, but some of it hardens and gets stuck in your teeth like toffee or Butterfingers. I don’t like it when it hardens.)
-Freddo’s (chocolates. The frog shaped ones are solid chocolate, the koala shaped ones have gooey caramel inside, and the other ones which I can’t remember what animal they are have strawberry crème inside.)
-Flake (flakes of milk chocolate in stick form)
-Time Out (Flake, but with two wafers on top and bottom and coated in chocolate)
-Boost (I can’t remember. But it’s good. Chocolate and stuff.)
-Milky Way (3 Musketeers bar. Not Cadbury’s)
-Mars (Milky Way bar, also not Cadbury’s)

Candy I do not like:
-Haribo. Not Cadbury’s, also not chocolate. I got a “party pack” ‘cuz it was fairly cheap. It’s German fruity chew candy, so there were gummi bears (but not tasty, and sort of stale) and other gummi’s (Coke flavoured, also not tasty, similarly stale-seeming), and this thing that was like a Starburst, except tasted like men’s deodorant (which is QUITE confusing. I prefer to smell, rather than taste it), and this other thing that was gummi and came packaged like Smarties (U.S. Smarties, not Aus Smarties, which are like M&M’s) and tasted like body odour with a hint of fruit. I thought maybe I could put them and those Starburst things together and maybe they’d even out. They didn’t.

Fake blood recipe:
Glucose/corn syrup
Red food dye
Water
Coffee
Milk

Put heaps of glucose syrup and some water in a glass, and microwave for a few seconds to mix. Add food dye for colour, coffee to darken (and make a bit more realistic), and milk so that it’s opaque. Looks pretty good. Smells awful, tastes worse. Congeals in very sticky beads that will essentially glue clothing to your skin. Becomes awfully painful to remove clothing from skin. Seems to wash out of sheets without staining, but not socks.

American politics from a foreign perspective

So, it’s 1.25 pm and I’m doing something I’m sure a bunch of you are doing right now…staying glued to my TV and constantly cross referencing three other news sources, waiting for THE word on the election.

Australia’s definitely got an opinion. Channel 9 news (which has been switching between the US’s abc news coverage and their own perspective) has declared Obama the next president by a comfortable, if not landslide margin. They’ve called Florida, Penn, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia for Obama. I’m not quite sure if they’re just  being really optimistic.

Things are a bit stressful over here, but since the election is on almost every channel (they’re covering it almost as well as they would cover their own!) I’m doing alright. Let’s see if Australia’s predictions come true!

Edit: The future has spoken the truth!

They bounce, carry their young in a pouch, and are amazingly tasty on my dinner plate

I am so excited for dinner tonight. Assorted veggies and herbed kangaroo steak. Yuuuummmm. Kangaroo steak is a lot like beef, except that it must be cooked rare, since the only other option is burnt beyond a crisp. It’s got heaps of protein, and is really super lean. I was looking for emu at the grocery store, but couldn’t find any. I suppose I could look for some emu sausages at Vic market next time, though.
And I have to say; the stock market crash has been awfully convenient as an American abroad. When I got to Australia, the exchange was about 83 American cents to the Australian dollar. Yesterday it was just barely hanging on to 62 US cents to the AUSD and it’s been steadily dropping. Needless to say, that makes this a very handy time to go Christmas shopping…or to just spoil myself a little. I think part of it is that I’ve also gotten used to how much things cost here. When I first got here, I was shocked at how expensive everything is, and how there’s always added costs. (For example, if you want ketchup with your meat pie, it’s usually an extra 50 cents. 30 cents is a bargain. Those little extra charges end up racking up big time when you want a sandwich since every little fixin’ has an added cost.)
Oh, speaking of money! I’m not sure how much you guys know about Australian money, but here’s a quick run down.
5 cent coin (about the size of a dime)
10 cent coin (nickel sized)
20 cent coin (size of a quarter)
50 cent coin (octagon shaped…no, wait, 12 sides. Whatever shape that is. And about the size of a silver dollar)

$1 coin (gold coloured, smaller than a quarter, but maybe a bit bigger than a nickel?)
$2 coin (a little smaller than a nickel, I’d guess, and about half again as thick as the $1 coin. Also gold coloured.)

$5 bill (blueish/purple, about ¾ the length of a normal US dollar bill)
$10 bill (orange, about normal length)
$20 bill (red, normal sized)
I think the $50 might be yellow? I haven’t seen it a whole lot, obviously. And I have no idea what $100 looks like, I have yet to see one.

(Edit: $100 are green.)
Ah, also, fun fact: the bills are plastic with a transparent bit. I have no idea who’s on what, but I know two of the people on the bills are actually outlaws. Australia’s values are perhaps a little…unconventional. Ah well, one of their biggest national heroes is Ned Kelly, who was a murderer who escaped the law and got in a legendary shoot out with the police (well, this was back in 1840’s, I think). In most places, that gets you the death sentence. In Australia, it makes you into a pop icon with heaps of museum space dedicated to you!

Adventures and snuggly trees

Man, my days are just full to the brim lately. If you looked closely, you’d see impending exams, Christmas shopping, final papers, one more week of classes, plans for a trip to Tasmania, doing laundry with Grace, sewing a dress, adventures, and not enough time to hang out with my friends.

Last Friday Lora, Josh, Corrina and I went adventuring. I was leading the way and we ended up at St Kilda beach because it was a beautiful day. As Corrina pointed out, going to the beach with two Welsh kids (er..Welsh and Scottish…okay, so pale UK kids) is hilarious. She wasn’t too far off, it did end up being pretty funny. We started out by going to Maccer’s (McDonald’s) because they have 50 cent ice cream cones. Each of us bought 4 ice creams, and promptly devoured them, with the goal to each all of ‘em before they melted. First two ice creams were easy enough…the third got messy and the fourth just got absurd. But we found really creative ways to deal with it, involving licking down to the cone, and then sticking two cones together so that the open sides were facing each other. The melting ice cream actually ended up making a seal, so then you could go ahead and eat the other ice creams. Josh managed to finish first, and Lora came in with a drippy, sticky last. I strongly advise trying it some time. Devouring four ice cream cones is just hilarious. We ended up spending a few hours rolling/wrestling/falling/wrestling/wrestling/wrestling down this great hill we found and all three of ‘em ended up pinning me down, removing my shoe and sock and writing “Made in China” on the bottom of my foot in ballpoint pen, which tickled so badly I thought I was going to die. I think the people walking by thought I was going to die as well, until they noticed that I was screaming in laughter. Then they started laughing too.
Our adventure progressed really organically. We walked down to the sand, and the two pale kids immediately ran for shade, so Corrina and I followed them and we played a game where we had to jump from shadey spot to shadey spot, which then progressed into a handstand contest, and then a handstand walking contest in which you tried not to walk on the cracks on the sidewalk. And then that progressed into me and Josh practicing stacks. Considering he hadn’t really done ‘em before, he wasn’t a bad flier.
Then Corrina made me a ring out of wattle leaves, and showed me how so we all started making them, and I made myself a crown to go with all my rings and bracelets. That was a truly excellent day.

However, now my days are mostly filled with doing research for class, going to class, missing my family, trying not to grow apathetic about the end of the semester, and getting super duper excited about going to New Zealand.

Oh! And Relay For Life, of course. That’s coming up fast. And Grace and I are going to the Melbourne Cup, which is the social event of the year in Melbourne. It’s a horse race (fun fact: thoroughbreds are the most common horse in Australia) but also ends up being a big deal for fashion and being social. It should be quite an event. I’m really glad I’m going with Grace, because she’s pretty much one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, and it’ll be fun to watch her get all excited about horses, while I’m getting all excited about culture.

And a quick little homesick moment…I know I’m only here for another six weeks, but I’d really appreciate getting letters please! I got a package from Mom on Wednesday while I was heading off to class so I ended up carrying it around all day and it was just really comforting. I really miss home..my family, Hampshire, and just the feeling of home and family. Going to Lora’s helps, and it’ll be great to get to NZ since it feels like home and I’ll be with people I have loved and been friends with for years.

I promise I’m not wallowing, there’s just brief moments. I’ll leave this post on a really happy moment from Thursday. After my tutorial, Grace and I bought our tickets for Melbourne Cup, and then I started walking aimlessly until I found myself in Fitzroy Gardens, by the Melbourne Museum. The gardens are just gorgeous, especially now that the leaves are all out. There are these trees that I love, I’m not sure what they’re called, but you can just snuggle right into their roots, so I did that and had the cool dirt beneath me and the snuggly trees around me and the sun coming in through the leaves and they were all bright green and I put on my music to block out the traffic and it was like being in a fantasy, so I napped and wrote in my journal and wrote messages on the sticks that were on the ground, so that the next person to sit in the snuggly trees would have happy things to read.

The view looking up

Oh! And by the way: bonus points to whoever knows what flower is the banner of my blog. The challenge is on!