I got a job! And it's Megan's belated birthday!

You will have all noticed one of the reoccurring themes underlying my (super interesting) blog, which is my distaste for the ludicrous price of everyday items over here. If you haven't then you obviously have NOT been reading often enough, please show more dedication. But to catch up you can refer to the post 'Free Fuel' and all will become clear. 

Anyway, my point is, I needed a job. So, I practiced my best english accent, (because as you all know, my natural (and horrid) nottinghamshire twang is not very english-sounding at all), and went into town to hand in my CV at some nice restaurants in the harbour. After maybe feeding the manager of Eastbank a small amount of misinformation - namely 'Yes, I have done waitressing before' and 'Yes, I can carry 3 plates' - I got slightly worried when he said 'Ok, great, sounds like you know what you're doing, trial shift tomorrow at 5pm'.

I arrived at 5pm, prepared for disaster. My family reading this will be amazed that I dared to even consider waitressing, as they all think I am the clumsiest member of the family, in fact, probably of any family.

But anyway, to cut a long story short, my trial shift went ok. Apparently my smiley, chatty attitude made up for the fact that I accidentally grated parmesan onto somebody's handbag, set all the water glasses upside down and could obviously not carry 3 plates, and.. I got the job!!!! I have some shifts at the weekend to get me going. 

http://www.eastbank.com.au/location.php

Today is Megans birthday! (It was supposed to be on Friday, but we cancelled it due to her having class all day and her being busy in the evening). So we are celebrating today! We are cooking a roast dinner (typical pommies) for the 21 GS members, and then we are going out to Scubar. I am in charge of the roast potatoes and the yorkshire pudding. This means that everyone will be eating quite a large portion of food cooked by me, and so there is a also a significant chance that we might not actually make it out to town.  

On another note, someone posted this photo of me and a couple of other BRAT ladies post-race yesterday. I am very sweaty and pulling a strange face, but I have just ran/cycled so please let me off.. 

I need to invest in some cycling/running shades I think!

Anyway, I will fill you all in tomorrow with the eventful mayhem that I am pretty sure tonight is going to turn into. I'm also positive Megan will end up with some kind of peer-instigated alcohol poisoning, however, hopefully there will be no poisoning of the food variety for the rest of the squad!

A boring week with an exciting weekend!

The middle of this week was super boring! If I hadn't have known any better, I'd have thought I was back in England having Birmingham Uni days. No crazy events or occurrences that usually fill up my Sydney Uni days. As a result, I didn't blog. (I know my blog is incredibly popular, but I don't think that even I have followers dedicated enough to crawl through a boring essay about going to class, going training, eating dinner, blah blah blah.)

The only slightly amusing thing that happened on Wednesday was that Jacks printer went haywire, and decided to print his lecture notes the size of postage stamps in the bottom corners of his A4 pages. Jack, being Jack (member of GS), failed to notice this huge (or rather small) error produced by his otherwise trusty printer, and had to sit squinting through the whole day like this:

Jack needing a magnifying glass.

On Thursday night, as usual, the Goon Squad hit Ivy - the bar in town. Ivy is great and there's even a pool on the 3rd floor! Unfortunately, it's quite tricky to get to, and due to the vast amount of Goon consumption at pre-game, we didn't manage to find it.

On the subject of going out, John (same John that spears snakes, hunts kangaroos and instigates tarantula fights), has invited us to his "friend from college's" 'EuroTrash' themed house party. This worries me quite a lot. Not only is it worrying that his 'friends from college' are I presume the ones that have somewhat 'derailed' him, but I am also quite concerned about the theme. None of us knew what a 'EuroTrash' party was, and so some brave Goon member posed the question to Jon. This was his answer:

John's interpretation of EuroTrash

It's nice to know what the Aussies think of us. Although, I'm not sure how this is all going to be incorporated into the party. I mean, I'm sure free pizza and Vodka will go down a treat with a bunch of poor, always ravenous students, but the 'creepy greek men' and the 'alcohol poisoning' are putting me off a bit. Not to mention the 'chernobyl radioactive pigs'. 

Friday was 'group project meet-up day'. Now, my CV (just like everyone else's that wants to even stand a chance of getting employed somewhere besides McDonalds or somewhere similar), states 'I thoroughly enjoy group work and work very well as part of a team'. 

However, also just like everyone else's, this is a total lie. I HATE group work. It is so unproductive and theres always that one annoying guy that is either really irritating, bossy and doing everything wrong, or simply just non-existant and you've never even seen him before. 

Safe to say, Friday was not a good day, and I had to call upon my calming breathing exercises learned in yoga. 

Saturday morning was another great ride with BRATs - we went down to the national park and it was (as always) a gorgeous morning. 

BRAT group ride - After Kurnell

This morning I competed at BRATs duathlon in Heffron Park. Not only did I cycle way too far yesterday, but I'm also a bit ill and snuffly, and so I really shouldn't have been racing today. But I can't say no to races, especially not my first opportunity in Oz! So I ran anyway. It went well and I came 3rd. The only slightly iffy bit was the bike - I'd answered the compulsory 'YES' to 'have you ridden on a track like this with tight corners and bends etc?' when actually, no, I hadn't, we don't ride on them at home and it was SCARY! I felt like I was on a go-kart track. 

Alex and Ailsa came to watch this morning too which was super nice, they are the best. I think they enjoyed it, although I think this was more as a result of watching, in their words, 'those really hot boy triathletes with the amazing bodies', rather than me.

 That was this morning and now it's 3pm, my legs hurt a lot, and I have a ton of 'homework' (as Justin and Kellie, our American members call it) to do.

A beautiful Saturday.

I had full intentions of writing this post yesterday evening, before going to the pub to watch the rugby with Alex, Kellie and the rest of the girls. Unfortunately, I accidentally napped through both of these planned events.

Yesterday was an early start of 5.15am. This is probably surprising for you guys as I bet you thought that students didn't even realise that such a time existed. I didn't either, and so you can imagine my surprise when I was woken up 10 minutes BEFORE my alarm was due to go off, by some students walking past my door. I was happy to think it wasn't just me getting up at stupid o'clock to go training this morning, I guessed they must have been going running/cycling whilst the sun comes up (this is very popular among the non-student population here). However, as the noise they were making got louder and eventually turned into some kind of chant I decided to stick my head out and find out what was going on. BIG MISTAKE.

Outside I found a group of students, presumably belonging to a similar organisation as our own Goon Squad, who had obviously only just returned from a night out. One ran towards my door brandishing a STOP sign he had picked up on the journey home, and starting shouting 'POST LASH, POST LAASH'. I think this is like pre-game, but for after the night out instead of before.

I slammed my door and left them to their 'post lash'. No one, except maybe the campus security guards (but it still takes them a good 30-40 minutes), can round up and move on, a bunch of sloshed hyperactive students.

So why am I up at 5.15am? I went cycling with BRATs on their Saturday morning long cycle. Was it worth getting up for? I questioned this myself as I a) attempted to get my bike past the post-lashers without it being stolen and added to their (rather large) collection of other trophies from the night out, and b) cycled to the BRATs meeting point in the DARK!

But YES! It was INCREDIBLE.

I mapped the route with my Garmin

Cycling in England will never be the same again. 3 hours of beautiful coastline as the sun came up over the water. Unfortunately, BRATs are pacey, and seeing as I didn't want to get 'dropped' off of the back of the pack (as I had no idea where I was at any point besides Bondi), I didn't get chance to get any photos.

Little Green Bean coffee stop finish!

I was super tired when I got back, so I went to the beach with the Goon Squad, chilled out, ate some peanut-butter sandwiches and a pear and surfer-gazed all day, while the rest of the squad did UNI work. (Yes this does happen sometimes).

Maroubra Beach

Jack, post-surf  -  Justin, I'm not sure

The Goon Squad 'reading'..

Me surfer-gazing and pear-eating

Justin Pryor photography (from the beach)

Loads of my blog photos are stolen from Justin's albums. When he sets up his website properly I'll link you all to it, and you should all have a browse, because he's photos are beautiful. 

After the beach, during my accidental nap, everyone went to watch the rugby. I surfaced for a few hours and went to pre-game, (which was Harry Potter themed but thankfully, as expected, everyone was so drunk that they didn't notice I wasn't dressed up). I went straight back to bed a couple of hours later when everyone went to town. I'm a rubbish student. 

Today is gorgeous, as always, and I'm sat writing this in the sunshine. Good procrastination activity from my structures tutorial sheet if ever there was one. 

Not going out.

Yesterday, there was a lot of talk on the Goon Squad Facebook page debating plans for an evening out. I knew I had a lot to do today (swim trials for the UNSW Swim Team, a full day of lectures and a BRATs session), so I definitely could NOT GO OUT. 

However, as I was walking back from track, I got a message from John, (bearing in mind it's about 6.30pm), saying 'Everyone come to The Cockpit for cash times. So cash'. I got a simultaneous snapchat from him saying 'number 4' in front on a bottle of Tooheys. I'll explain the use of the word Cockpit, but I'm not even sure myself what cash times are.. 

Basically John is part of the Goon Squad and also the most Australian man in the whole of Australia. (Out of the ones I've met. So realistically about 0.00000001% of the population). Last week, he moved into 'The Cockpit', which he named upon arrival (it was previously known as Flat 408). 'The Cockpit' as he insists I refer to it, is also home to Megan, Alex and Stan. John says he's putting a sign on the front door saying 'The Cockpit' and a sign on his room saying 'The Pilot'. He's moved in his TV, XBox and Lava Lamp. Basically the place is now like a bachelor pad.. 

John playing XBox with 2 Tooheys on the go..

I may as well tell you a bit more about John, everyone is going to get there turn at being ridiculed on here. Eventually. 

One thing of note is that his favourite pass time is catching giant (and deadly) spiders, and making them fight to their death, by putting two in a small space with no other food. He likes to tell the story of one called Tyson. This one beat all the others (it was 6x as large) so he rewarded it with a smartie and was going to free it in the morning as a prize. However in the morning not only had it not eaten the smartie, but it had also died. He says looking back it was probably the lack of water and oxygen that did it. He also likes to hunt for kangaroos on school camps. Unfortunately he has never caught one, but he has caught a snake (which he presently killed and put in some poor boys water bottle for the morning). Other things of note are that he was School Captain (what?!) and his favourite quote is 'I'm drier than a dead dingos donga'. I think this means he is feeling thirsty, because he usually says it before cracking open another Tooheys.

John under the influence of Goon, having more Goon poured into his mouth. With his chin on the table.. ?

Anyway..  Back to the message inviting everyone over to The Cockpit for cash times. I decided to go over to check it out, maybe stay for pre-game, then go home for dinner and GO TO BED. To cut a long story short I instead ate this for dinner, 

The incredible cake Alex and Megan made

stayed until 11pm, nipped home, got changed, and rejoined the Goon Squad in order to go to Ivy. (A bar in town. Very nice - Lots of good looking guys in expensive looking suits who seem to like buying drinks, especially for blond girls from England).

Goon Squad en route

John (same John as featured above), nearly got us thrown off of the bus before we even got there by continuously starting loud and offensive chants which the entire squad kept joining in with. In addition to this, when we were already over halfway there, we suddenly realised that nobody actually knew which stop to get off at, or where Ivy even was. 

Nevertheless we made it, we danced a lot, and I have been super tired all day. 

Free fuel.

You may have noticed my distaste for the frankly outrageous prices that these Australians like to place on things. If you haven't then let me give you an example. 

Facewipes. If there were prime items, like the 3 prime colours, facewipes would definitely feature. If you asked any girl to rank basic life necessities, behind the obvious food and water would come facewipes. So maybe things like clothes and shampoo would feature somewhere in there, but facewipes are ESSENTIAL. 

That's why, in England, the sensible country that we are, we offer a huge range of them and you can pick up a pack for about 2 quid. Or about 29p if you go to Home Bargains. Over here, it is a different story! You have to buy the only ones in the shop (the shop being Priceline Pharmacy, like Boots but 7x more expensive, not as good, and for Aussies), and they cost about $9!! THAT IS 6 QUID!! 

Anyway, that whole speil to show you how expensive things are. So now you understand.. LOOK AT THIS!!!!

Unleaded - $1.55 /litre

This is a petrol garage, as you can see. Unleaded fuel is currently $1.55 and all the Australians are complaining about how pricey is it at the minute! What?! $1.55 = LESS THAN ONE POUND. 

Besides my mum, who has never looked at the price of fuel in her life, (or the type for that matter - she has been known on several occasions to fill her diesel tank with petrol and then call my dad to tell him she's broken down and has no idea why), everyone knows that if the price was this low at home everyone would probably fill up their entire houses with it and sleep outside. 

Prices over here are c-razy. 

Back on track.

I had a HUGE day of class today. 9am-6pm with one hour of break. And.. the break was at the wrong time for lunch! 9am-2pm, then 3pm-6pm! No one can go until 2pm without food! It's was ok though, I took some snacks. It was made even more ok as I had a two hour block of my fave lecturer ever. 

So I'm not entirely sure if this is allowed, but I found his photo on our website. His name's Dr. Gao and he teaches us structural behaviour and design. The hardest course in the universe. His favourite quote is 'this course is killer'.

Back to the actual purpose of this post..

After class I was immensely tired and struggling to stay awake. So not much difference from when I was actually in the class. But anyway, what did I decide to do.. Go to my first BRATs training session.  BRATs is Bondi Running and Triathlon. I've been slacking a bit on the training side since I've been here (a month in and i'm still blaming jetlag), so I've been doing my own running/swimming/cycling just whenever I feel like it. 

Besides a couple of sessions a week, all of BRATs training is at 5.45am, and that kind of ludicrous hour does not mix well with hangovers. So, tonight was my first session! 

ES Marks Track

Track started badly. I introduced myself to the wrong crowd (looking back I think it was some kind of fat club, and I mistook them for BRAT triathletes.. Oops), I turned up in shorts and a vest (it's 24 degrees!!) when everyone else had their winter thermals on, and I learned that all sessions are $10. And $5 track entry on top. And I was too late to enter some of the upcoming events I was hoping to register for. EUGH.

However.. after the session, in which I showed up most of the boys in the 10 x 800m session, my luck miraculously changed. The coach seemed to change his mind about which training sessions I had to pay for, and started giving me the details of millions of events I should race for BRATs in, including the ones that I thought I was too late to enter. And.. invited me to try out all of the other training meets this week. RESULT !!

Triathletes are super friendly everywhere you go, because it is the best sport in the world, and so I made some new friends already. I think I'm going to enjoy my year with BRATs. I will make the 5.45am trainings.. Maybe I'll start next week though..  

Some super cool BRATs cooling down post 800s

I just washed and tumbled a banana.. EUUGHH

This evening I was sat in Max Brenner's, the chocolate bar conveniently located directly below my flat, when I remembered I needed to go and fetch my washing from the dryer. So I gulped down my (second) hot chocolate and packed away my nearly finished assignment, (yes, the one I had to fetch the book for when I found all the poor hard workers stuck in the library when the roof blew off), and made my way back upstairs. 

When I got my washing out of the drier, instead of being greeted with the usual refreshing smell of Front (like Persil but for Australia), I sniffed something strange. 'Oh no, I used the broken washer again', was my initial thought. But no! As I sifted through my clothes, pairing up my socks etc, I found this!!

My cycling jersey with a soggy banana in the pocket.

As everyone knows, I like to eat a lot, and can't go more than a couple of hours without some food. Or 'my snacks' as Auntie Deb likes to call them. She likes to tell everyone about one of my favourite tricks of producing jam sandwiches made and stolen at the buffet breakfast, on the top of mountains or on ski lifts when we're in the valleys. 

Anyway, on my saturday cycle my eyes were obviously too big for my belly, and I took one too many 'snacks'. I didn't eat my banana, apparently forgot to remove it from my jersey, and it got washed. As least it's clean.. The same can't be said for my top. 

Here's a close up photo for you. Euugh. 

Flora and fauna. And a bit about the last few days..

Not only do the Aussie's use an interesting selection of slang vocabulary - (arvo, Banana Benders, Bush Oyster, Budgie Smuglers.. more on that in another blog sometime) - but they also have some strange (and in my view, downright outrageous) species of 'everyday' plants and animals.

The most obvious to point out is this crazy (bird?). It seems to think it is a pigeon. By that I mean it wanders around any kind of public place, looking for naive tourists who haven't yet made the mistake of feeding it and causing it's flock of 5000 mates to swoop down and join the feast. As you can see from the photos below though.. It is NOT a pigeon!! IT IS HUGE!! And it has this unnecessarily GINORMOUS beak. Which is at first scary, but then very amusing, when it has to tip its head fully horizontal in order to pick up any of the food it has scavenged.

These ones are just chilling in the park, with the pigeons. Casual.

This one has given up with the tourists and has resorted to the dustbins. 

Second in 'strangeness' only to the giant pigeons, are the cockatoos. Why are cockatoos strange you might ask? We have them in zoos don't we? YES! IN ZOOS!!!! The ones over here swarm around like they're minor swallows or sparrows. 

I first saw one in the park when I was exploring some new run routes. I thought it had escaped from someones cagey, or maybe a wildlife place or something, as you would, and wondered if I should call someone. Then there was this huge squawking noise and a giant swarm of about 50 of them flew up from a tree they were in, had a bit of a mid air war with each other and moved to another tree. 

The tree full of cockatoos.

Here's a close up one (From Google)

Enough of the wildlife. I'll document some more strange stuff another time. 

Last night we went to Scubar, one of bars in Sydney. Yes I know, it was Monday, but we are students. We have to live up to our reputation of bumming around and sponging off of the government. I would say the night was a success, mainly due to Kellie, my American friend who never gets in anywhere due to being 'too drunk, look at her eyes', actually got in! 

Meaghan and Kellie

This is Pre-Game. We are playing a drinking game called 'Fat Bitch'. I told you the Australians have interesting slang..

I came home early because I have classes ALL day. In my break this morning me and Meagan went to STA travel to look at prices and deals for our Mid-Semester break which is in September/October. (Yes I know - I only just started UNI and a break already blah blah - just to reiterate, we are students). We think we are going to have a week on the Golden Coast/Brisbane/Byron Bay. EXCITING TIMES!!

Jack - Jon

Just for jokes these are two of my friends (both male) feeding each other chocolate coated marshmallows.

(Also, all male Australians have names beginning with J. So if you don't know someones name when you should you can just guess James or Jon and you're 50% probably going to be right. Even if you're not you can be like 'Oh I got you mixed up with James!' And they'll say 'Oh yeah, I know James'! Because everyone knows about 17 Jamess.)

The library roof blows off!

Yes it's true! Today, the University of New South Wales's library roof blew off.

As you can see, we currently have 41km/h wind. My morning run today was turned into a high resistance session. Safe to say I didn't get very far and came home to have a second breakfast instead. 

After said breakfast, I tried to fetch a book I desperately need to finish a tutorial sheet (majorly behind already), and I couldn't get into the library! They have sectioned it all of with ridiculously over the top crime scene style tape, and even locked the doors so everybody who is in there can't get out! Glad I didn't go half an hour earlier!

If you look closely at the photo you can see all the unfortunate student stuck inside! I'm going to take this as a lesson not to study to hard/ go to the library too often I think. 

It's well known that students love any kind of crises/exciting activity/opportunity to laugh at someone else's misfortune, so inevitably a HUGE crowd gathered after about 90 seconds of the event itself. 

The beginning of time.

Ok, so it's not the beginning of time. It's not even the beginning of the immense journey of which this blog has been created to document. That journey is WELL under way. 

I have been in Australia, (Kensington, Sydney), for about a month. I touched down on July 9th at 6.35am to be precise. And why have I only just started blogging? Theres a LOT to do when you move to the other side of the world you know! (Well theres that, and also I've been reading Goose and Becky's blogs and I am heaps* jealous). 

When I arrived in Sydney, Jennie came with me. We did a heaps* of touristy stuff, and I wont bore you with it all.. But here is a sample.

Jennie petting a koala..

I took this photo from Harbour Bridge.

Me feeding a wallaby!!

This is the Koala Sanctuary. We had to get a bus there, which was quite an experience. Apparently you have to flag down buses here or they don't stop. Not only that, but once you've managed to stop the bus, you have to have a prepaid ticket to get on it!

Safe to say, we had a NIGHTMARE journey and got laughed at a LOT.







Obviously, one of the first things we had to do was visit this renowned piece of architecture -->






















Jennie has left now and I am all alone. Except for all the amazing really cool new friends I have made!! Theres about 20 of us, in this one big group, and we have named ourselves the Goon Squad. I'm not sure who came up with this name, but it's fitting. Goon is like wine, except it tastes foul and comes in 5litre boxes. Unfortunately, being students, in the most expensive city on the planet, it is the only thing that we can afford. 

Last week was Heaven and Hell night at the Roundhouse. Obviously I was an angel, I didn't even have to dress up. 

Emma - Alex - Alex - Meagan - Becky - Kellie - Ailsa -  Me!

There has been various other going out/dressing up antics since this, again I wont bore you with an entire documentation.




This is Jon, part of the Goon Squad. He is already under the influence of goon, and is seen here having more goon poured into his mouth.

(Part of a game where his chin had to be touching the table for some reason or another..)



*Heaps - Australians use this all the time. 'Oh that is heaps cool.' or 'Oh I'm heaps late'. Kind of strange.