Monday, August 25, 2008

for all those parents and grandparents out there...a 100% G rated post :-P

finally, what you've all (well, most of you i'm sure) been waiting for!! tales of my non-bar related adventures. i know my posts have been a bit "dodgy" (aussie for iffy, or questionable) at times, but i can safely say that the last 2 weeks have been filled with nothing but G rated Aussie-ness. Since my last post i completed a paper (my 1st real assignment as a grad student!!) and have observed some beautiful australian sights. today i am sitting outside on a campus bench in the beautiful sunshine and will tell you of all i have seen.

my paper was to be a letter to cardinal pell (archbishop of australia). he spoke at world youth day, commenting about how the western world's population of at risk and people should have more babies to maintain it's growth rate. my class was to respond to this in letter form and focus on how this action might affect the world on a global scale. i did not agree with cardinal pell, and personally felt he was more worried about increasing the number of catholics in the west, rather than the overall population. with the earth rapidly exceeding it's carrying capacity, i told the cardinal it would be a better idea to adopt children into good, catholic homes, and work on improving the morals of those already living on earth. (if you would like to ready my letter...don't feel bad if you say no, i prob wouldn't be too excited about it either...let me know and i will send you a copy, it is supposed to be an excessive in public advocacy, so i'm interested in seeing what a 'lay person' would say). that letter took up most of my week and weekend, but i did take a little break sat night. i met up with christine, hayley and frank to watch the end of the rugby game at frank's place. and we waited to hear from shannon and chris (who were at the rugby game) about a house party a friend of theirs was having. after the game was over and they were back home we went to their place for a few drinks about met up with paddy and dave (remember hayley's irish friends), and steve and dave (2 of frank's irish friends). please note that i am constantly surrounded by irshmen and canadians...i'm such a minority! hahaha. we then walked a few blocks in coogee to eva's house (it was her birthday) and split into 2 groups along the way. christine, frank, shannon and i (aka the slow ones) got a little separated from everyone else en route. a few blocks from where we were supposed to be, we saw that someone else was having a fun party and shannon and i decided to go make friends. we walked up to the house and started chatting away. i met a guy on the stairs and our conversation went like this:
me: hey what's goin on. is this eva's house?
him: no. how are you?
me: i'm good. how are you?
him: fine. are you canadian?
me: (very confused/amused) no hahaha i'm american, everyone keeps asking me that! i don't get it? do i sound canadian?
him: well i can't really tell the difference
me: well why do you think everyone keeps guessing candaian? i heard they get offended when you ask them if they're american so it's just safer to assume candadian.
him: well you smile alot...american's don't smile and candaians do.
me: really? i know lots of americans that smile all the time

that was about the time christine decided it was time to find our real party and shannon and i said goodbye to our new friends. when we arrived at eva's house we spent most of our time on the back patio talking to the people we came with, because everyone else was either really drunk or already knew everyone. there were also a few people in costumes (apparently 1/2 of them thought it was a costume party, and the other 1/2 didn't get the memo). there weren't many highlights worth mentioning from the party, and afterwards christine and frank walked me home (i later found out they got lost on their way home...lesson: don't follow a drunk irishman home). sunday night i finished my paper, and thus concluded my studious weekend.

on tuesday i received some great news. my student loans had cleared!! i finally had some money i didn't have to pay to spend! :-D i also found out that dodo aka my crappy Internet service, had refunded almost all of my money :-D (they only kept about $50). so with all this new money burning a hole in my pocket i headed to the mall. i didn't spend it on new clothes or anything fun like that, instead i bought ink, new proactiv stuff, a yoga mat, and some groceries. on wednesday i started getting ready for my big trip. my austrlasain mammals class was going on a camping trip to the cowan field station thursday night. since i didn't come to aus. with camping gear i had to go buy a sleeping bag. it was supposed to rain thrusday night and i was worried about freezing, but i decided to save a few bucks get a cheap sleeping bag and wear lots of clothes to bed.

thrusday was a great day. we arrived at cowan around 9:30am via train, after getting up at 6am! (i def don't miss being up that early, but i DO miss cheering, esp after seeing the olympics and watching football movies on tv) it was a cool morning but once we were moving around it got warmer. our 1st task was to catch tammar wallabies with nets. we were instructed on the best method, but it was REALLY hard. i ended up being last to attempt a capture, but i was unsuccessful. we didn't want to keep trying because the wallabies were getting stressed out. it's very dangerous to get wallabies and kangaroos stressed because once they reach a certain point they can die with in an hour. the wallabies start to lick their arms and bellies to try to cool off, so when we saw them getting "wet" we let the pros handle it. we placed each trapped wallaby in a burlap sack and tied it shut. our next task was to examine each wallaby. we had to hold them (in the sack) between our thighs, reach into the bag and cover their eyes. if they see day light they will try to escape. once their eyes were covered (which most of them hated, but they don't usually bite, so that was good) we lifted their heads out of the bag and examined their ears and jaw. we then flipped them over on their backs, and examined their feet, tail, and pouch while their heads were hidden in the bag. i did have a female wallaby to examine, but she did not have any pouch young. other groups did have joeys (look @ my new pics!) and it was really exciting to see. we had a lunch, watched 2 female red kangaroos be released after examinations (again, see pics), watched the grey kangaroos get fed (pics), set up our tents, and went for a walk around the station. we had a bbq dinner and made a camp fire. now many of you know i have years of camping experience. however though out my many years of camping i had very few opportunities to use my fire building skills, so i decided now was my chance to prove to myself i could do it/show off a little. after all, not every girl knows how to build a fire. after only two lighting attempts my fire was up and blazing. :-D i was very proud and everyone seemed equally impressed. after dinner and a few drinks (after all, what's a UNSW bio event with out drinking?!) we went spotlighting. i was in james' group and he walked us around with a huge high powered flashlight scanning the trees. the idea is that if there is a nocturnal animal around it's eyes will shine back in the light. we were able to see a few possums, which was pretty neat, but after seeing 5 it's novelty wore off. we later attempted to play a few callbacks (sounds played over a megaphone to try to get animals in the area to call back), but it was unsuccessful. turns out everyone's "few" drinks were not quite so few, and it was rather difficult for everyone to stay quite. we re tuned back to the camp fire and played a few rounds of charades, told a few jokes, and tried to think of games we could all play. i thought the group how to play maffia, and all my patahontas memories came flooding back. it's amazing that it's easier to get a group of 20 13year olds to focus compared to the group of 21 drunk 20 something grad students. i attempted to teach a few other games too, but it was pretty useless. later in the evening, when i went to crawl into my tent, i saw that there was no room letf for me :'( i thought i would have to resort to sleeping just outside the tent on our "porch" (see the pics), but it all worked out because amanda and christine had and extra space in their tent. which was quite lucky because around 4am it started to rain and the temp dropped about 10 degrees. in the morning we were supposed to go catch wallabies again, but since it was raining it didn't really work out. a park ranger came to talk to us, and we watched james and snoop show us a black footed rock wallaby and a potaroo, and had lunch. the rain was on and off all day, so we didn't really do much. when i got back home i planned to shower, eat dinner and go to bed asap...however i had no hot water :'( i made myself a HUGE batch of alphabet soup sans alphabets :( watched a little tv and went to bed early. i knew i had to get up early again on saturday.

earlier in the week i purchased a ticket to go on a tour of the royal national park. we had to meet on campus @ 7:45am which meant i would have to get up @ 6am...again. our tour was amazing. our guide angie took us to the park where we canoed for 2 hrs, walked along the gusty cliffs, saw amazing views of the beach, and hiked along a waterfall. we also "learned" how to through a boomerang. i was NOT very successful, however i did manage to knock down the other tour guide with my amazingly terrible aim (boomerangs used to be used for hunting kangaroos...i was just practicing hehehe). i took TONS of pics during the whole trip so make sure the check them out...it was truly beautiful, however i was having trouble getting my camera to do what i wanted, so if the color is off, just use your imagination. when i got home i finally took that warm shower, ate dinner and again went to bed early. i was exhausted! and there was a good possibility i was going to have to get up early AGAIN!

i had signed myself up for a 2nd tour from spit bridge to the manly beaches. which are said to be some of sydney's most beautiful. it also included a 2-3hrs hike through the bush, and a ferry ride back to circular quay. we were too meet in town @ 9:20am...but when my alarm went off @ 7am...i knew it wasn't going to happen. i'll just have to take my own trip through manly some other time. when i'm not still recovering from other adventures :)

and that ladies and gentleman pretty much catches us up with my life. i hope you're proud :) a full 2 weeks filled with studying, education, and sightseeing. i know i'm hear for more than the sydney night life :-P (well the bar life...cause i will be doing my project on possums...which technically are night life ;) as soon as i start w/that i'll be keeping you posted as well).

**once again i have added new photos. sorry for all the confusion from before, but now that we've got all the kinks worked out i hope everyone will enjoy them. since there are so many i will try to upload them in groups, but sometimes it takes a while. 1st up will be my pics of cowan.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

love hate relationship

the honeymoon is officially over. the rose colored glasses are finally off, and i am now seeing sydney for what it really is. don't get me wrong! i still like it "heaps" (aussie speak for a lot, or any large amount), but i AM noticing things i do NOT like. as i give you the highlights of the last week or so, see if you can find them from now on.

my last post left me even more penny-less (or 5cent less, because they don't have pennies here, they just round everything up to the nearest 5cents, a loaf of bread costing $4.91 would then cost you $5...hint hint for all those playing the "find things trystan hates" game, that's not a +), but glad i had found internet service for my house. it was to arrive on tuesday. friday i had my "formal" meeting with des about our research projects. everyone from the class, which is only 6 girls, met up with des, and one of his assistants, andrew aka snoop (i asked him why they called him snoop and he had no idea...weird), to talk about which projects everyone was going to be working on. it was a VERY casual meeting, which consisted of 5 min conversations about each person's project, 2 bottles of white wine, and a bunch of bs'ing about random semi-science related topics. not a bad way to start the weekend if you ask me :) i "rang" (aussie for called) shannon and chris to see what they were up to that coming weekend, and found out it was shannon's bday on sunday. chris, being a sweet bf, had bought tickets for he and shannon to go see phantom of the opera (i was immediately jealous for 2 reasons, 1 my bf wasn't there to hang out w/me :( and 2 I WANT TO SEE THE PHANTOM IN SYDNEY! how cool!) they said they might go out to an ISS event in coogee when they got home, and they'd call me. so i sat around on the sofa watching law&order until 11ish when chris called. he said the party in coogee was no good and they were going to bed. we did however make plans to go out for shannon's bday saturday night.

earlier in the week my romanian roommate ioanna (pronounced yo-ahna), had said she and her friends wanted an excuse for a house party so they had decided to "welcome" me to sydney. they were all going to come over sat night around 7, which i was a little iffy about because i would have rather spent the night w/people i knew. i decided i would stay @ home for a few hours, then meet shannon and chris when they were going out to the bar. i was still in search of a cheap printer, so i headed to bondi junction (HUGE mall in bondi). there, i wondered around looking at all the different stores they had, and bough shannon a small bday/house warming gift, and found a store with the best printer i could find. it happened to be the post office! (they have post offices everywhere). they also had a pet store in the mall...with puppies in the window! just like the song! it was horrible! i had NEVER seen a pet store window with puppies before, and i immediately wanted to buy them all! how sad for those cute little puppies :( i thought that had gone out in the 50's with soda shops or something. and really, who just walks out of the mall with a dog? go in for a sweater and new shoes, walk out with a dog? weird. since i had never been to bondi before i was a little unsure about which buses when were. i THOUGHT i had gotten on the same bus i took there, but i did not. i told the bus driver when i got on that i needed to go to carrington and carr, and asked if he could let me know when we were there. he did let me know when we were on the last stop on carr st...which was nowhere near where i needed to be. since i was now lost somewhere near my house i figured i'd just star walking up hill (my house is at the top of a hill, almost the highest point in the area). after a few wrong turns, and reorientation via the semi-familiar skyline of the city i found a park. there IS a park "near" my house, so i was on the right track. however, it was dark, i was only half sure of where i was, and i could hear voices coming from the pick black park. trying to stay calm and keep an ear on the voices and an eye on the guy walking behind me on his cell phone, i finally made it back to my street unharmed. ::sigh of relief::

ioanna's friends were mostly people from work, all of whom already knew each other, which made the evening a little awkward for me. however, there were 2 other americans there from springfield va! they were originally from chicago and had gone to college @ university of wisconson! (small world!) ioanna and her bf jeff, made fish and prawns for dinner, as well as steamed veggies and a salad. all our guests brought appetizers and drinks and it was quite a feast (a few things to note...amazing things to note, if you don't think it's amazing you don't know me very well :-P 1 the 2 americans brought small baguette slices with oil, tomatoes, and scallions on them...DELICIOUS...try not to pass out yet, but they were really great. i'm getting the recipe later. and an even bigger kicker, 2 ioanna made a sort of guacamole dip with avocado, feta, and ricotta...also DELICIOUS! i don't know who this new trystan is, but apparently she likes tomato bread and avocado cheese!!) over all the food was great, the company mediocre, but it was time to party!

shannon had said that i could invite whomever i wanted to join (ashley and liz were the only takers) and we were meeting at the beach palace @ 9pm. around 9:30 i walked to coogee (i missed the bus...sometimes there are SO frequent you get 5 buses @ once, then sometimes you have 1hr btwn buses...grr). shannon and chris' friend paul was visiting, and they had made some new friends: frank, irish; steve, aussie; and hailey, canadian (she lives w/christine! again small world...all the white kids have found each other and have made their own little clique...like the asian kids in high school, but in reverse. we walk around speaking english and have family guy on our binders...lol. jk...kinda). after a few glasses of wine from shannon's purse, we headed upstairs where there was loud music, drunken dancers, and sticky carpeted floors (fyi NEVER put carpet in a night club...i was scared i was going to loose my shoes!) we wondered around most of the evening, a little dancing here, a few random shots there. met a few random people waiting in "que" (aussie for line) at the bar.

guy #1, the polite guy: very nice. started a conversation with me about sydney. if i was liking it, where i was from. then he asked me if i was here alone. i said no, i had come w/my friends for shannon's bday. he said he did not want to offend any boyfriend/significant other, and i told him i DID in fact have a bf was in iraq in the US army. he said that he didn't want to intrude, and said goodnight...which wasn't really goodnight. BUT i thought i was very polite of him to ask if i was "taken". after the 2 guys i met last weekend it was a nice change of pace. later i saw him again and he offered to buy me a drink. **side note: i've been on a mission to have a random guy buy me a drink @ a bar. it know it's crazy, but it just doesn't happen to me** i agreed and we walked to the bar, the "que" was quite long so when 2 guys with a tray of coronas walked past he grabbed one for me. the 1st guy was disapproving, but his friend said it was fine. i asked "polite guy" if he knew them, but he said he didn't. even cooler! i just had a guy @ a bar steal me a drink! :-D he said he didn't want to be pushy, since i had a bf, he just wanted me to have a good night, and he'd be back to get me another drink when i was done with that one. he didn't come back, which was fine with me.

guy #2, steve...the "gentleman": our new friend steve, was the only local we'd met so far. he was frank's roommate and had his arm in a sling. i'm sure he was quite drunk that night because he introduced himself to me several times throughout the night. i later asked him what had happened to his arm and he led me over to the sofas, presumably so we could hear each other better. we sat down and he started telling me about his gf, who was in the army and that they were doing the long distance thing. she understood that he was going to "do his thing" and she was going to do hers. i told him i was in a similar situation, with my bf in the army as well. he asked me if i had met anyone nice in sydney and i told him about the 2 kiss attempts i had gotten last weekend. he was appalled and hold me he'd show me how an australian gentleman said hello to a pretty girl. i was thinking i'd get a simple kiss on the hand or cheek...but that was not the case. he started slowly leaning in...me:still hoping he'll turn for my cheek @ the last second...but he didn't...and he kissed me. immediately i said "HOW IS THAT YOU BEING A GENTLEMAN! YOU JUST TOLD ME YOU HAD A GF, AND I TOLD YOU I HAD A BF! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" he drunkenly apologized and said "oh, sorry, let's still be friends, i don't want this to be weird, let's just keep it @ just once" i cautiously agreed to brush it under the rug...then he leans in again! i backed up "steve! you said just once!" "ya...just once" "no...that was the just once...that's all you get" "oh...that didn't count, i thought we meant just once more" "no!! once is once!" he mumbled something about how he was sorry, fell off the sofa a little, then started talking to some other girls, so i left. that was enough for me!

guy #3, the technology guy: after dancing a while with ashley and liz...guy #3 showed up. he dragged me out to dance...awkwardly. and i tried to make the best of it. he smelled a little, and was w/his 3 friends, one of whom was a priest who the forced out to "meet people". we danced for a while and when he had to go he asked for my #. i told him it was a brand new phone and i didn't know what it was yet (very true). he said "i'll give you my number and you can call me and then i'll have it. i told him my phone was dead and i couldn't call anyone (not so true). he then insisted that i must know my email address and that he really wanted to show me around the city so we had to talk through email. he gave me his (which i convinently lost...) and i gave him "mine" which also conveniently was catherine's email (sorry cath! i figured out of all the email addressed i knew you'd be the most understanding ;) love you).

after all that excitement liz, ashely and i left the bar and called it a night.

the saga of my crappy internet:
on monday my dodo internet arrived. i was VERY excited because it was a day early :-D i called to get it activated which would take 15min-24hrs (quite a range!) i tried it though out the day, but it didn't work. when i woke up on tuesday, it still wasn't working so i called their tech support. i spent several hrs on the phone (my phone actually ran out of money...they charge cell phones by $ and then charge you accordingly to the different phone calls you make...sucks). i recharged my phone and then called on the house phone the next day. again i spent several hours on the phone with an overly friendly tech support guy (he kept saying creepy things like, you have a nice accent, where are you from, what did you do this weekend, where do you go to school, just really inappropriate). after 2hrs he suggested i take my computer to a computer store and have them help me. which told me that he couldn't do anything else to fix the problem. it was either an issue with my computer, or the modem. he said if i had an other computer i could just use that one...like i've got a spare computer! that's buddy, real helpful. he said he wanted to make sure the problem had been fixed and wanted to call me later. but after the creepy comments he'd been making i said i didn't want him to. on thursday i brought my computer to IT services @ school. it was free, and i figured they would be more understanding. after 2.5hrs of trying to get the service to work, i gave up. i gave it until 2:30pm and if it wasn't working by then, it wasn't worth the hassle, and i didn't want to give a bad company my money. i would just return it and get my money back...or so i thought. went i called them on friday to demand a refund they said they would have to check the modem first to make sure it was a problem w/my computer, ie. not their fault. and they could only refund me for the modem, not the delivery fee, and not my monthly service charge, and if there was no problem w/the modem i could only get partly refunded. i was furious!! i had not used a second of their service and i saw NO reason why i shouldn't get a full refund! i was VERY short with the woman on the phone who then said "we can go around in circles like this all day but you'll just have to accept that there is nothing we can do. you'll just have to send the modem back and maybe we can give you a little money" !!ahh!! (there weren't words for how i was feeling...or at least no appropriate ones). i mailed it back today, but who knows if i'll ever see any of the money again.

other random updates:
on wednesday my class took a trip to the fish market. one of our assignments in my conservation biology class we are to pick a marine organism sold at the sydney fish market and write about how the fishing industry has affected it (positively or negatively). we were supposed to meet des @ the front gate @ 8am. since the fish market is downtown and i have never been there before i made plans to meet ashley so that she could help me get there. i woke up at 6am so that i could meet her for the 7:10am bus and then we'd walk to the market. unfortunately i was ahead (ahem...please note i was ON TIME) and got on the bus before ashely. i did meet up w/her and jess later on after i got off the bus. from the bus stop we walked for 15-20mins to the fish market after briefly getting lost. we arrived @ the fish market around 9:30am. luckily we had des' phone number so we were able to meet with him. the fish market wasn't really anything i had never seen before, having been to quite a few in my day. we walked around taking pictures mostly and then des was nice enough to buy us some delicious prawns and "french sticks" (aussie for baguette...or maybe just des speak). it wasn't the most amazing thing i've done since i've been here, but i thought it was worth mentioning.

friday night shannon had rounded up hailey, christine and myself for a little "girls' night out". chris was out of town and she thought it would be fun to all go out to dinner. we met up at five o's which is in coogee and serves great food for very cheap. while at dinner hailey's 2 french friends julian and (guy whose name i don't remember...) sat with us for a few drinks, then we all went over to shannon's new apartment (which is beautiful might i add. hard wood floors and an AMAZING view of coogee beach...i'm VERY jealous). we sat around having a few more drinks (eventually frank came to join us. he mentioned that steve was "scared" because of what had happened last weekend and frank told him my bf was in the special forces. hehehe) and for at least an hour i tried to explain to 2 canadians, 2 frenchmen, and one irishman every detail of greek life @ CNU and why on earth you'd ever want to be part of a sorority. i felt like i was back @ recruitment! i really didn't mind, but it was a very difficult concept to explain to people who had never seen greek life before. when we discovered it was already 12am we hushed out the door to head for town so we didn't miss all the fun for the night. the next bus didn't leave until 12:56am and we didn't want to miss another hour of excitement so we bid adieu to the 2 frenchies (who didn't bring any ID's with them) and headed for argyle (a cool bar downtown) via cab. when we arrived and were next to enter, i realized that I had forgotten my ID too!! :'( the bouncers were VERY strict and would NOT let us in :'( i was worried i had ruined the whole night! we devised a plan for me to use hailey's birth certificate and old school ID to try to get in to the next bar (btw...i look nothing like hailey so this plan was very shaky). the next bar did not require ID but they were also closing in a few mins. a few phone calls were made and we then had plans to meet up with dave and paddy (2 of hailey's irish friends...i know...an irish guy named paddy...but it's really his name!) who had also forgotten their ID's. shannon really felt like having a crazy evening and wanted to go to king's cross (remember...that is where my 1st hotel was) to some of the strip clubs or gay bars or drag bars or any crazy bar. next thing i knew we were on our way to the gaff bar. when we walked in (again they didn't check our ID's) there was LOUD techno music playing and almost everyone was in a crazy costume! i vowed that i was NOT going to let anyone kiss me that night, and actually had to dodge a guy giving out cheek kisses @ the door. it was quite the experience. after trying to enjoy dancing w/out being on drugs (it appeared that was only way these people could have been having fun) we eventually ended up just standing around watching a man dressed in a puppy costume "dance" on the bar. shannon made the comment that "you go out thinking you'll miss the single life, but after seeing how crazy it is you can't wait to go back to your boyfriend". i couldn't have agreed more. shannon and christine said that i should go dance on the bar because i was a cheerleader and had the experience of dancing in front of a crowd. THEN a guy (we assumed he was a bouncer) grabs my hand and starts leading me toward the bar! the girls swore they didn't say anything to him but i was sure they had suggested he get me to dance up there. i was so embarrassed but was up for the challenge. suddenly, i look over and the guy (obviously NOT a bouncer) was NOT leading me on stage but was trying to lead my had toward the "puppy's" crotch!!!!! i pulled back and ran away to my friends. they were just as shocked as i was! (well shocked and laughing hysterically...i didn't know what to do). we thought that seemed like a good cue to leave, so we walked up the street to the next gay bar. it was getting really late by then and there weren't many people around, but we continued to drink and socialize. around 4am we realized that the bar sucked and was bad, gay bar or not and christine, shannon, frank and i headed for home. we had the cab driver take shannon home but drop christine, frank and i off @ a "petrol" (aussie for gas) station so she could get some chocolate. they were closed...even though they were supposed to be open 24hrs (we suspected the guy on duty was sleeping somewhere), and frank and christine walked me home. i tried to warn them about the large hills involved, but like good friends they didn't mind :) i attempted a little bit of homework on saturday night, but the library closed @ 6pm leaving me to sit outside in the cold and work until my fingers were too frozen to type well anymore. i watched a few movies on tv with my french roommate sophie (she's become a GREAT tv buddy) and went to bed.

today (monday) i met with ashely to do the outline for our conservation project (we ended up w/the possum trapping gig), and look for suitable internet. it's looking like iiNet will be my best choice, which sophie agreed to share with me. now i have to do is find a modem/router cheaper than the ones they are offering @ $200...there's gotta be something better!

ps. i have also, finally, added my pictures! there were too many to add to my old photo page (which still had pics from the summer/before) so i have a new one. i'll be adding them as often as i can :) ENJOY!