Apologies for the long delay in posts! This past week has been quite the whirlwind, and the packed schedule combined with the lack of reliable sources of internet connection have made blogging pretty difficult.
Over the past couple days, I've learned a few things about life here which I find immensely humorous:
- When you ask people what they study, the generally tell you what their degree will read (if Bachelor of Arts they'll say "Arts") whereas in the US we generally tell people our majors. For some reason, it was hilarious to me when I asked one of the hosts what he was studying, and he just said "Science."
- People here say "how you going?" instead of "how you doing?" Confounding at first. Now I can't stop saying it!
- On the way over the Pacific, I flew on an airline called Quantas. I mentioned the swank entertainment system, but I forgot to give a shoutout to the seat belts on the double-decker beast. They weren't the lift the latch and pull kind of numbers that we've all grown to love and admire but just regular seat belts that one might find in a car with the little pushy button! Why I find this so genius, I have no idea.
- Apparently the first sunburn you get sticks with you for the rest of the year. One of the hosts told a story of her friend who fell asleep out in the sun with an ipod on her belly and had a little ipod shaped shadow on her for the rest of the summer. When we were at the beach I had lines of blue body paint under my eyes, and I think I got burned under there. Now I kind of have two little tanned lines under my eyes like a goof.
- Germans are avid backpackers and world travelers. They are everywhere you go and populate 99% of the hostels. It is also impossible to satisfy their incessant beer-pangs with non-German beer.
Hilarious Story of being told a story: The bulk of my entertainment these past few days has derived from the time I've spent with my two German friends from Munich Business School. It's fun to say "McDonald's Mighty Angus" with a German accent. These guys are the finest of gentlemen and just so funny. Probably the story that's most worth retelling is one from when we first met. Before coming to Melbourne they spent a few weeks traveling around Australia. At the time, even they didn't know how ubiquitous the German backpacker really was. One night, they were in a bar and German A was talking up a girl and German B comes up to him and says in German, "Get away from that girl; she is so ugly." Bar Girl's response: "By the way, I am also German." Some lessons are best learned the hard way! (German B's comment after telling the story: "It's ok because she was so ugly.")
Summation of the last nine or so days:
The first four days that I was here I participated in what is known as the Melbourne Welcome Program for international students. It's basically four days jam-packed with all the touristy stuff you can imagine with parties every single night. It was a great way to meet a lot of students and a few quality Aussies and a great way to get a feel for the city.
Melbourne is a fantastic city. It's kind of like a mix of Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco. After London and Boston, it ranks third in the world in the number of international students it hosts every year. It's pretty small and walkable, yet it is a major cultural and educational center of Australia. There's a great music and sports scene as well. The weather is crazy as it undulates from hot as Satan's Snuggie to wet as the lost city of Atlantis. Your skin can be melting one second, and the next second you could lather, rinse and repeat in the downpour that's threatening to drown you.
Day 1 of the program was a photo scavenger hunt in the city in our host groups followed by a night at a local pub. Day 2 we bused out to the beach where we played some touch rugby 7s and got surfing lessons! That night we hit up three different bars in a pub crawl. Day 3 was a tour of Melbourne Uni, the Queen Victoria Market, the tallest building in Melbourne, and the city laneways (basically little alleyways full of shops and nice cafe's). I forget what we did that night but it probably involved leaving the Queen's campus and drinking beer. Day four we went to the Melbourne Zoo, separated for a few different tours (mine was an aboriginal perspective on the city of Melbourne), had a formal prom-like dinner at Queen's (lots of free wine), and then had a closeout party at some other local pub.
Definitely one of my favorite parts of the entire program was surfing. It was crazy hard but so much fun to catch a wave and have it throw you around. It started raining when my group was out there and the waves got pretty chubby. So much fun! That day in general was awesome because I was able to play an hour or so of rugby which I haven't in at least three years. The pub crawl was also a basketful of fun because each pub was really cool and different. My favorite was probably the rooftop reggae lounge kinda deal.
After my time at Queen's I had a few days to kill before I was supposed to move into my permanent housing (which is also at Queen's...), so the Germans, my friend Chris and I shipped out to a hostel downtown called Nomads.
During the three or so days at the hostel I got some time to explore the city which was excellent and I also hit up a Cornell Entrepreneur Network event at the Lonely Planet headquarters where I got to meet the CEO of Lonely Planet, Matt Goldberg, and hear him speak about his experiences to an audience of Cornell alumni. Something that he said that I really have to chew on more is that he has never focused his career on making money. Rather, he wants his work to be about making meaning. Another takeaway from his talk was embracing and growing from failures.
Yesterday, we moved our stuff out of the hostel and all the SAEX students at Melbourne Uni had Enrolment Day. Basically we sat in a room from two and a half hours listening to the standard safety and whatnot lectures. Highlights of that time were these hilarious safety videos and a rap done by a local Australian comic Candy B. After that we grabbed some free lunch and we met up with people who told us how to set up our class schedules and all that good stuff. Later that night was--surprise!--a giant party for all the SAEX students at a local pub called Turf's.
So that's what I've been up to! Tomorrow is the first day of orientation for Queen's College, which I'm super pumped for! I can't wait to meet the people who I'll be living with and seeing every day. It's very exciting! After that we'll finally kick off our twelve-week long semester of classes!
Thanks for reading guys! Please let me know what you all are up to and let me know if I can be supporting you or praying for you in any way!
Until next time!
Geoff
Beck's is a terrible beer. I'll buy you something proper to drink when you're back.
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