To where have I gone, you might ask? Well, mostly to class, sleep, and various social events with friends, but not much to blog-writing. I shall continue, however, to make an effort to share more of the amazingness of Australia with you. Right now, for example, seems like a perfect time; it is, after all, 45 minutes past midnight. Perfect time for life updates, yes?
For a general summary of the past two weeks, they've been filled with class (Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays starting at 9 AM), wandering the city (Thursdays through Sundays), doing reading for my classes (surprisingly interesting, unless you know what a giant nerd I not-so-secretly am, in which case you'll be aware that I very often love my readings), and trying to get healthy from my lingering cough (Australia has lots of swine flu, but whatever this is will hopefully be cure-able by the antibiotics I'm now on).
Event highlights:
My friend Jodi (another of the 12 Americans living in UC (University College)) and I have begun a weekly wander, during which we head down to the city Wednesday afternoon after class and go wherever life takes us. Last week, we went to Billabong, the police station (to ask about options for non-passport identification for which we are unfortunately ineligible, since we haven't known any doctors or dentists here for more than a year who could attest to our identity), and various other places. This week, we had amazing hot chocolate at a little place in an alley-style 'mall' - a mall being a pedestrian-only street of shops - where you can choose milk or dark chocolate then select from options such as regular, affogato (a scoop of ice cream in the hot chocolate), chili, or cinnamon. I had dark chili and got to select the spicyness on a scale of 1 to 10. Given that it was my first time, I went for a 2. It was absolutely delicious with just the right hint of spicy tang.
Yesterday, I had dinner in Chinatown for the first time. The Chinatown district in Melbourne runs along one of the cross-streets to the main street and lasts about 3 blocks, with two more populated with restaurants and shops than the third. The entrance to Chinatown is marked out by a huge Chinese-styled archway over the street and the lanterns in the district are different from the streetlamps in the rest of the city. The dinner was a reunion for the Melbourne Welcome orientation we had done and I went with Lara (Jodi's roommate - all the Americans are in doubles while all Australians in UC have singles), who didn't actually attend Melbourne Welcome but was up for joining nonetheless. I got to see friends from MW, meet lots of new people here on exchange, and enjoy delicious dumplings and rice. All in all, lots of fun. Afterwards, we stopped for gelato on Lygon Street (more about that in an entry about food someday) since Lara had never had gelato before (it's pretty big here) then came back to the dorm and spent about two hours in a friends' room talking.
Tonight, I went out to a footy (Australian Rules football, as you know) game with four Arcadia friends and Lyndon, our 'student coordinator' here in Melbourne. The game was tons of fun. Carlton was playing Geelong (pronounced "juh-LONG") at the MCG - Melbourne Cricket Ground - a huge stadium which fits about 100,000 people. There were maybe 55,000 there for the game and it was far from crowded. We cheered for Carlton since we all live in the Carlton area of Melbourne (for example Lygon Street, two blocks from campus, is in Carlton) in spite of the fact that Geelong was ranked 2nd in the league while Carlton is hovering around 7th or 8th (of about 16 teams, I think). Geelong had only lost once, last week to St. Kilda in a face-off of the final two unbeaten teams in the league. Carlton had a slow start, but ended up playing an amazing game and winning 97 to 62! After the game, we walked back up to campus and three of us stopped for dessert at a chocolate place Lyndon recommended. (Perhaps you're sensing a theme in the general phenomenal nature of food options here.) We sat at a table out on the sidewalk catching up on life happenings and enjoying the cool winter breeze.
To reassure my parents, yes, I do other things than eat amazing food and wander around the city sometimes. Quite frequently, in fact. My classes are all amazing and interesting; I enjoy attending them immensely. I'm meeting lots of new people in my dorm, which is great. I may even make it to a UC footy game against Queens College (one of the other residential colleges) tomorrow morning. That, however, requires that I get some sleep, so I'd better go work on that.
Happy winter to all! (FYI, 'winter' is now defined by weather in the 60s with plentiful sunshine.)
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