Aug 2008

I spent the last week participating in all sorts of activities; some very Aussie, and others that only the international students cared to do. The easiest way to talk about everything is to simply recap my week, so here we go!

SUNDAY: Went to my first ever rugby game!! My friend Charlie gets free tickets from work, so he took Matt, Nizam, Bonnie, Mo (a new German friend) and I to the Parramatta Eels v. Sydney Roosters game. I'm still surprised how much I enjoyed it considering I'm not a big American football fan, but the way it's played is fascinating. It's much more fast-paced than football (they don't stop the clock every time there's a tackle or the ball changes possession, so you know the game is only going to last 80 minutes) and more nerve-wracking because the players don't wear ANY helmets or protective gear. I've watched a few games over at Bonnie's (because Matt and Charlie live there too and they're really into it) so I understood most of the plays, but luckily Matt sat next to me and answered all my questions. The game was close, but because the Roosters' last "try" (touchdown) didn't count, the Eels took the win 28-24.

MONDAY: Today I battled the morning train commute and started my internship at Eventful Management, a company who plans annual conferences for big corporate companies (similar to what my cousin Tara does). The conferences usually center around different aspects of the SAP-technology program and how to best utilize it within the company, but they also address "hot topics" within the office and provide opportunities for businesses to network with each other. To be honest, I arrived thinking I was going to be planning some company's Christmas party on a yacht in Sydney Harbour (to which I'd be invited, of course) but instead I spent my first day writing birthday cards for conference-goers (EM is all about the personal touches - so cute) and arranging accommodation for the upcoming conference in October. On my lunch break, I walked around the neighborhood - cute shops and small beachy houses with a killer view of the harbour (the office is in McMahons Point in North Sydney, just over the Harbour Bridge. Awesome location.)

TUESDAY: Went to Manly. See previous post for extensive details.

WEDNESDAY: Had class from 2-5 (nothing noteworthy happened before then) and then attended the screening of an Aboriginal film called "This Is Our Country Too" with Mo. The 80-minute film was a documentary shot in Alice Springs (in the country, towards the outback), Darwin and the Northern Territory (NT), detailing the lives of the Aboriginal people (Australia's first inhabitants wayyy before the English settlers; they make up 5% or so of the country's total population) who live there. The footage was incredible - the dispossession (small tin shacks for 16 people, kitchens with no walls, and whole families crammed into one bedroom), the government regulations (signs banning liquor and pornography in Aboriginal camps, and half of the support money they receive comes in the form of vouchers they can only spend at two grocery stores or Kmart) and the discrimination they face (a lot of the information non-indigenous Australians receive about Aborigines comes from the media, who often portray them as helpless drunks.) Probably the most cogent interview was with a two-time Vietnam war vet named Geoff Shaw (at this point, I was so moved by the film I grabbed a little notebook from my purse and started jotting down notes and quotes - hello, dorky journo student): "The quarantine law gives me the shits - I can't even do what I want in my own country. I can't even have a beer." It was shocking to see that this is happening in a country as progressive and friendly as Australia, but it's not the case with all Aboriginal people: many live and work in the cities too. I'm glad to be taking a class about Aboriginal people and their representation this semester so I can learn more about it.

On a lighter note, a group of us went out to a pub near campus for the UTS European Society's kickoff party that night and had a great time meeting all sorts of new people!

THURSDAY: Before my business tutorial, I met up with my friend Aimee at a coffee shop. Aimee is a UTS journalism student who studied at SF State last fall and was in my Magazine Writing class, so we had a grand time comparing the journo departments and cities over our flat whites. Similar to the response I've gotten from other Sydneysiders, Aimee loooved SF and wants to go back after she graduates in December (ahhhh!) She also told me about some fabulous magazine internships she's pursued and that I should try for in Sydney, so there's my next project!

FRIDAY: Hung out with Anja and discovered a hidden grocery store under the Broadway Shopping Centre. Not particularly noteworthy, but it was fun! That night, my SF friend Paul and I went out and joined a pub crawl around Surry Hills, an artsy neighborhood that's been likened to the Haight in SF.

SATURDAY: Went to Matt's soccer game (he plays for UTS) and finally saw the Kuring-gai campus (there's only about 500 students there studying sports management, business, nursing, etc. It's far removed from North Sydney and looks like it's set in a jungle.) The uni sports here are very different from the US: practices aren't mandatory (or at least Matt doesn't go, and he's a starter), the referees are players from the reserve teams (I think it's like the JV team), and the players aren't all UTS students (some are, but others are graduates with families, and one guy apparently goes to the Univ. of Sydney!) I'm not sure this is the case with all sports (my other friend plays volleyball for UTS and practices every day...) but it still seems way less competitive than American uni sports. Anyway, UTS lost 2-1, but Matt played great.

That night, I met up with fellow San Franciscans Bonnie and Paul to talk about American politics (haha) before heading out to the Ladyhawke/Van She concert! The music was cool - a techno/electronic dance-type I didn't really listen to in the states - and there were DJs spinning between sets. The crowd was pretty chill and everyone was dancing, so the atmosphere made it even better. Afterwards, we headed to the Wallaby Bar in Darling Harbour to meet up with our friends...at 2 a.m. Sydney has certainly turned me into a night owl!

Aaaand now that it's Sunday, I'm going to dive head first into my essay.

Today was one of those days you want to remember forever because it was - for lack of a better description - so unexpectedly awesome.

I had class in the morning until one, then I met up with my friend Nis (a sweet guy from Germany) to go shopping. We decided to grab lunch first across town at a Chinese place he loves, and because the weather was beautiful (not particularly balmy, but sunnier than usual), we sat and ate it on a bench overlooking Sydney Harbour. Afterwards, we decided to walk off our meal and strolled down Circular Quay. While passing by the wharfs, I pointed out #3 - the ferry that goes to Manly Beach. "I need to get back there," I told Nis, referring to the last time I'd visited Manly - when I was about four years old and visiting relatives in North Sydney (they have since moved to Chicago.) He looked up at the sign, then at the next departing time (20 minutes), then back at me. "Want to go today?"

The ride over to Manly was absolutely breathtaking - the sky was clear, the harbour was sapphire blue (kind of reminded me of Lake Tahoe, actually - the icy spray sure felt as cold), and the Sydney skyline along both sides of the water was incredible. Of course, since I'd come straight from class and hadn't planned on the nice weather/taking a ferry ride that day, I didn't have a camera (yes, I'm pissed about that too. We tried to buy a disposable camera at a gift shop near the wharf, but it cost more than our ferry tickets combined.) Oh well.

Thirty minutes later, we arrived to a wharf on a narrow sandbar (Nis unsuccessfully tried to convince me this was Manly Beach) next to a German pub overlooking the gorgeous expanse of water. We followed the crowd across the street and through a wide courtyard lined with surf shops and food stops (much like one you'd find in Santa Cruz or Huntington Beach) straight to...Manly Beach! To be honest, I don't really remember visiting Manly when I was younger, but I've seen photos and let me assure you, they don't do Manly justice. Being that it's still winter the beach wasn't particularly crowded, but there was a group of kids playing beach volleyball on the sand and a guy reading on a towel in the sunshine. Along the cliffs on either side were cute houses, a few hotels, and one of the Macquarie University campuses that looked like it belonged in Malibu.

[inject sounds of frustration - I should start bringing my camera to class.]

Once the wind picked up and the sun began to hide behind the clouds, Nis and I retraced our steps and found a coffee stand. With our latte and flat white coffee to warm us, we walked through the more residential area by the sandbar and picked out which apartments we wanted to live in (and who we'd like to live with us, since it would take several combined incomes for us to afford any of the flats we deemed our favorites.)

Figuring we should head back while the sun was still up, we hopped on the next ferry back to the city and walked the 30 minutes home down the ever-bustling George Street I've come to know so well.

First off, thank you to all who have emailed me about the car accident - I promise you I'm FINE now, but I still appreciate the concern.

I've been here for three and a half weeks already. Seriously? I've already done so much...

- Walked from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach along a long beautiful path over the cliffs. It was supposed to take about two hours, but Bonnie, Janett, Kevin and I stopped to take a billion photos along the way. By the time we got to Bondi, it was after 5 o'clock and dark, but the beach looked incredible with all the houses and shops lit up across the sand. Janett and Kevin headed back then, but Bonnie and I decided to walk around the shops and search for a decent fish n' chips spot (we found Monger's, which is HIGHLY recommended. Best grilled fish and potato wedges I've ever had.)

Coogee Beach.

- Went to the Sydney Aquarium! Bonnie, Erica, Matt, Nizam and I spent a chilly Friday afternoon with the seals, a saltwater crocodile (I made sure these aren't found near Sydney; thankfully, they're found in northern Australia near Darwin), super cute penguins, and an array of multicolored fish. The cool part was that I recognized several of the fish - the yellow tang, the angelfish, the lionfish, plus Nemo and Dory - from my dad's old fish tank at home . One of my favorite areas was the underwater tunnel through the shark tank because, although I was standing under rather large sharks and stingrays wider than my arm, it was actually very serene and calming. I think the harmonic background music helped, but we all sat in there for a while just watching everything swim lazily above us. I might have to head back there just before exams so I can clear my head...

Group shot in an underwater tunnel.

Speaking of exams, it's odd to think I started school in July - usually, that meant I was enrolled in summer school, and I avoided that by taking 15 units per semester. I've now had two weeks' worth of classes and I can honestly say, I like school! On Tuesdays I have Online Journalism, where we basically blog, learn about the art of blogging (it's much more involved and potentially lucrative than I ever realized) and improve our writing skills for online publications. The lecturer is a twentysomething rocker chick who writes and blogs for several music sites and magazines. She's a pretty awesome inspiration.

On Wednesdays, I spend three hours learning about Aborigines, their culture, and the hardships they endured when the first settlers (and convicts) arrived in Australia. It reminds me a lot of Native American history and, despite the fact that we're assigned at least 150 pages of dry reading each week and the professor always seems really nervous, I'm sure I'll get a lot out of the class. What's funny though is that out of 20 students, there are FIVE from California (four of us are from the Bay Area too....)

My Thursdays are spent learning about International Business on the Haymarket campus (UTS has two downtown campuses, City and Haymarket, plus the Kuring-gai campus up north and St. Leonard's a lot further away), which took me forever to find the first day. I have a two-hour lecture in the morning with perhaps 60 other students, then a one-hour discussion with no more than 20 or so people later in the afternoon. I like the lecturer - he's very knowledgeable about world history and is always asking students about their home country's economy (much of my class is from European and Asian countries, which are the regions we focus on). So far, the class has been fascinating and even the textbook is interesting. The discussion leader is great: humorous, very sarcastic, and obviously loves to teach and learn from his students. Because of his class, I now read over the business section of the newspaper (having never taken a business class, I'd never really paused to read these articles before!)

After 3 p.m. on Thursdays, I'm done with class for the week! Fridays have become my fun days when I go on random adventures around the city. This past Friday, I met up with my friend Brendan - a UTS student who'd studied abroad at SF State last semester - and he took me to Harry's, a famous little stand on wheels, in Woolloomooloo for "tigers" (he called this "an authentic Aussie meal.") It's basically a flaky pie-like crust filled with meat or vegetables with mashed potatoes, peas and gravy on top. Totally delicious. Afterwards, we walked all around downtown Sydney: through Chinatown, down Martin Place and past some shoe shops on Pitt St, onto the monorail that takes you from Darling Harbour in a loop over downtown, and around the harbor. It was funny: he'd only returned from his travels 10 days before (he was in SF for one semester, then he traveled all over Europe and Japan, so he'd been gone for 7 1/2 months), so while we were walking, he had to keep stopping to look around and figure out where we were (according to him, the culture shock is more intense when you get home.) It was great seeing him again (since he's partially responsible for me being here - he has a deep love for Australia and sells Sydney's appeal quite well) and talking to him about his travels, as well as his impressions of SF and California (he pretty much traveled the entire coast) and how they compared to Sydney. He said he could see himself living in SF, but being from a beach culture, wanted to settle down in San Diego. Figures.

Towards the end of our afternoon (I believe it was 2 p.m.), I suggested we find a coffee shop and rest. He sort of paused and smiled, then said, "How 'bout a beer? I know a great bar close to here." Oh Aussies. We walked to Roof (I think that's what it's called), a bar that's literally on the roof of a shopping center, and enjoyed a pint in the sunshine. Okay, I guess a mid-afternoon mocha is an American thing.

To further fill my spare time, I am currently hunting for a job. The minimum wage here is $18 or so, and most places pay more on Sundays, so a lot of students have gotten part-time jobs to fund their upcoming spring break and summer trips. I'm looking into restaurant jobs that might hook me up with free coffee, since I've spent a lot of money on that lately...will keep you posted. On Monday, I'll start at an unpaid internship I'm trying out for fun: it's at an event planning company in a beautiful area of North Sydney. My parents have always said I'd make a great event planner, so here's my chance to see if they're right!

This has been the coldest July/early August ever - windy, thunderstorms, and SO MUCH RAIN. I'm ready for those 300 days of sunshine I was promised...

I'll leave you with some Aussie lingo:
"Popping into the bottle-o to get some grog" = Going to the liquor store to pick up some beer. Haha.