A Really Busy Week...

Saturday, July 16^th, 2011

Spent the morning relaxing and catching up with my family on Skype. Then got invited by Shae (from South Korea) to go into St. Kilda (one of the neighborhoods in Melbourne) to go to the beach with a couple other foreign students (Niklas from Finland, Ante from Norway, and Eliza from Marquette University).  Took public transit to get there and had to ask for directions more than a few times – but we successfully got there after only an hour or so of travelling. It was quite a beautiful day for a trip to the beach, we really got lucky with the weather – clear skies, no rain and a beautiful sunset (but we apparently missed the penguins coming back to shore – we must do that trip again when it’s warmer to see them!).

After the glorious sunset, we set out to find food on Chapel Street in South Yarra (another neighborhood that is very close to St. Kilda), or more or less find Chapel Street.  After a few wrong turns, and asking more than a few people for help we made it safely to Chapel Street by way of a tram.  We ended up finally eating around 9PM (after going to a grocery store, and wandering through a second hand store) at a Greek place that only really served ‘souvlaki’  (it reminded me a lot of a Gyro – meat, lettuce, tomato, onion with some sort of special sauce on it wrapped in pita bread).   They were huge (and expensive - $11.50 just for a basic one!), so Shae and I split one (which was more than enough for both of us.  Afterwards we went straight back to the train station in South Yarra to head home after a long day of walking and touring.  It was a fun trip to a new place – looking forward to more adventures!

Sunday, July 17^th 2011

Wasn’t feeling the greatest (got a cold from jetlag) which was unfortunate because I wanted to take the day to roam around the city.  Instead I spent the day relaxing, and reading up on all the places I want to try to visit while I’m here with Shae.  We also went grocery shopping at a place called Coles, which helped me to supplement my food supply with Tim Tams (original, caramel, and dark chocolate mint)!

Monday, July 18^th 2011

Not the most exciting day – no orientation events were planned and I missed the FREE BBQ on campus because I fell asleep around lunch time after waking up at 9AM.  Nah worries though, I did get a free ticket (through the Monash Exchange Club) to see a pre-screening of one of the films that is going to be premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) in the coming weeks!  We (a group of about 35 international exchange/study abroad students) saw the film “Beginners” (starring Ewan McGregor) at the Great Union Theatre in downtown Melbourne (CMD).  It was a pretty good movie, although a bit of a downer.  It is pretty cool to be able to say that I was one of the first people that saw this film!  Afterwards a group of us went to a basement bar called ‘E Fifty Five’ where there was interesting art on the wall, and a vast collection of sofas – I should have taken a picture, it was actually a very interesting eclectic place.  There I met even more exchange students – there are so many of us, and I am finding it very difficult to remember everyone’s name.  Two postgraduates (Maria and Katrine) from Denmark, a couple guys from France, and nice kid named Tommy from London.  We left pretty early to catch the train and bus back to campus – but stopped at a pizza placed called ‘Pepperoni’ for dinner, which was pretty good and only $2 per slice.  Unfortunately we missed the train, so while we waited a half hour for the next train a local, Ai (who also sets up a lot of events for Monash Exchange Club) showed a couple other exchange students (Tommy from the UK and Sean from New York) and me another bar that has a rooftop cider bar.  The staff had already closed down the roof, but upon hearing we were foreigners they happily showed us up 3 flights of stairs.  It was a pretty cool place – and it only serves cider – I think I might have to stop by there again (see picture below). 

One of the bar staff came up to the roof with us and told us about all his future plans to go to America for the X-Games because his friend is competing.  Lucky kid, getting to take a holiday to travel around the US with his friends.  Then we went back to Flinders Station to catch the train.  We found some other students had also missed the train so we had a big happy group to travel with back to campus.  The train took about 45 minutes to get to the station which isn’t very much fun, but I suppose that’s how I have to get around here.  Ai gave two other exchange students and me a ride back to campus which was pretty nice and saved us a walk across campus, while also giving us helpful information about public transit and places to go for fun.  Overall it was a fun night after a not so eventful day!

Tuesday, July 19^th, 2011

A rather boring morning and afternoon of orientation meetings and information (mostly designed for 1^st year students, so not very helpful for someone who is technically a 4^th year student or 5^th year if we are actually counting the years I’ve been enrolled in college).  Although I did meet a pretty cool Australian, Kanav, who is a first year student and I also got free BBQ and plenty of free candy, so I really can’t complain all too much about the day’s activities.  After a quick sandwich (PB&J) I took a trip into the city with a friend, Hesmond (he is from Malaysia and his full first name is actually Hesmondjeet which is pretty cool).  We wandered around the city for a bit, just allowing me to see the city without following a giant crowd of other exchange students.  Also I found an UGG store…

Restaurant and architecture at Fed Square

Flinders Street Station

Melbourne Central Station

We ended up getting pizza at that place ‘Pepperoni’ again because there was a two for one special (two slices of pizza for $2, which is pretty cheap for Melbourne standards).  We then met Amelia (another Malaysian who lives in the city and attends classes at a Monash campus in the middle of the city – she and Hesmond are inter-campus exchange students, they attend Monash University in Malaysia), and walked around until they were both really cold.  Apparently it is much colder in Melbourne than it is in Malaysia (and Milwaukee right now).  I don’t find the weather too bad here – it ranges from 6 to 13 degrees Celsius (approximately 45 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you that never use Celsius).  We ended up going to a chocolateria (more or less a coffee shop that specializes in hot chocolate – delicious!).  We went to ‘San Churro’ and each got a delicious Spanish Hot Chocolate – it was quite fantastic!

San Churro cup after I finished the delicious Hot Chocolate!

Hesmond & Amelia at San Churro!

After hot chocolate it seemed appropriate to head home and get some much needed sleep (for some reason I always get up early and want to go to bed early… it’s a bit lame).  We left from Melbourne Central Station (and I found a Mrs. Fields cookie stand there just like at Mayfair Mall – although it was closed for the evening – it’s always strange to see such places, it’s almost like I’ve never left home).

Wednesday, July 20^th, 2011

Finally was able to sleep in a bit here – woke up around 10am instead of 8am!  I didn’t have much to do, so I went for a jog around campus, and then took some time to do some beginners yoga (with the help of Youtube).  After I cleaned up and had another sandwich (PB&J again) with some Tim Tams for dessert I met up with Shae (the South Korean) to get tickets for an activity on Friday – ‘Monash Day Out’!  After we bought our tickets, Shae told me about her wonderful plan for the evening – a trip to the Crown Casino (I’ve never been to a casino before, so I told her I’d go with her, but I didn’t really want to gamble).  We ended up going with the Norwegian, Ante (who got excited when he saw a poker table that said ‘Ante’), and a bunch of Malaysians including Amelia and Hesmond. The casino is huge and expensive looking, and it was fun to be there just to see that casinos are really as glitzy as they are in the movies.  I also seemed to be the only person that really knew how to play most of the games in our group (Shae only knew how to play blackjack so that’s what she played).  It was fun to explain the games to my new friends – it’s interesting that none of them had ever played poker (Ante wants to start up a weekly poker night now that he knows that I know how to play).

Giant screens showing games for betting.

After the casino we stopped in a 7-Eleven, and a grocery store, and finally hopped a train to head back to campus – making plans to go to the Queen Victoria Market!

Thursday, July 21^st, 2011

Got up early (on purpose) and went into the city around 11AM with Shae and Ante.  Went to the Queen Victoria Market, which is a large marketplace in the city that has booths that sell everything from food to Australia souvenirs. Didn’t buy any souvenirs yet, but I did get some cheap apples, and a cheap lunch!  Ante bought all sorts of crazy things, including a kangaroo pelt which he is apparently going to make into a hat.  After a few hours at the market Shae had to leave to go make dinner with another South Korean that lives in the area, so Ante and I continued our tour of Melbourne without her.  We hopped on a free ‘City Circle’ tram that pretty much just goes in a circle around the city center and gives information about all sorts of tourist attractions.  We were trying to get to the Royal Botanic Gardens, but we got on the tram going the wrong direction, so instead we ended up going to the parliament building.  Thankfully parliament wasn’t in session so we got to take a quick tour of the building!

Being silly in the parliament building!

Catching up on some reading in library at Parliament!



After the tour we boarded the tram again and took it to King Street to a small art gallery featuring aboriginal works (I think it was called the Koori Arts Centre, but I may be completely off base with that). The artwork and exhibits there were amazing but of course I couldn’t take pictures there – I might stop back there again and pick up some postcards though.  The works were so detailed and there were some pretty amazing bark canoes. Afterwards Ante and I started wandering back towards one of the train stations (Southern Cross) but stopped at a coffee shop first to warm up with some hot chocolate.  Long trip back but we made it back just in time for the free dinner being held by my hall (dorm) for new students/exchange students.  Delicious chicken, fries, salad and soft drinks were waiting in the commons for me.  It was really nice to be able to just come back and eat a nice warm meal.  After dinner a group of us went to Harry Potter for free/on the university (which was pretty nice – it’s actually really expensive to go to movies here).  We even got a free ride from our hall director/supervisor to the movie and back after to ‘The Nott’ or ‘The Notting Hill Motel’ (which is a bar about 10 minutes from campus).  It was nice to spend some time just hanging out and socializing with other Monash students, I feel like I’m always running around and not stopping long enough to get to know more people (which is fine, but I really do want to make friends here – I’m not just here for a whirlwind tour of Australia).  Overall another action packed day – had fun, made friends, and got a better idea of how to get around Melbourne (thank goodness!).

Southern Cross Station

Friday, July 22^nd, 2011

Got up super early to go on a trip called ‘Monash Day Out’ which consisted of a visit to the Melbourne Museum and the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (MCG).  The museum was pretty similar to the Milwaukee Public Museum, although it had a much better exhibit on aboriginal history.  It had all the things that MPM has, such as a bug exhibit, and a dinosaur exhibit.  It was fun, but definitely not somewhere I would recommend going if you take the time to ever come to Melbourne. 

For lunch we headed over to the MCG for a bag lunch in the stadium seats – it was really awesome to see how big the stadium is. The MCG trip was actually surprisingly interesting; not only is it a venue for cricket games and footy (Australian Rules Football) games, it also houses the National Sports Museum.  We started our MCG experience in the basement of the building where the National Sports Museum is located.  This museum is filled with memorabilia from netball, cricket, footy, and Olympic competitions (and probably even more stuff, but I didn’t get a chance to properly examine everything).  After browsing through the memorabilia we were allowed to go a floor below to the interactive exhibit.  Here I got to try my hand playing some different sports including netball, soccer, footy, archery, and biking.  I must admit I probably don’t have a future as a professional athlete in any of these sports (to my utter dismay).  After the museum we got a tour of the MCG, which was actually my favorite part of the day.  We had a really awesome tour guide, with a great sense of humor who really made the tour interesting.  My favorite part was when he gave us a sheet explaining cricket to foreigners.  Here’s a taste of what it said “You have two sides, each with eleven players.  One side is out in the field and one side in, but not out in the field.  Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out.  When there are ten players out, of the side that’s in, the side is ALL out and comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get out those coming in.  Sometimes you get men still in and not out.  When both sides have been in and out, including the not outs; That’s the end of the game!”  (Copyright Col. Basil Bovine-Excreta).  Haha, if you understood that, well done, I had to ask a guy from the UK how to actually play the game, because I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.  Anyway the tour was great, we saw the locker rooms, the fantastic skyline, and got to go all the way to the top seats and see an amazing bird’s eye view of the whole stadium.  Honestly this has been the coolest building I’ve been to thus far, and I can’t wait to attend a footy game there soon!  It was an exhausting day, spend the evening hanging out in the halls preparing for a fun day tomorrow at Healsville Sanctuary.

Orientation Week!

So for some reason or another orientation is broken down into two weeks - one for international students, like myself, and one for the whole school.  I've become quite aware that most if not all of this is not really compulsory, although it seems the university wants you to think it is.  Don't get me wrong it's a great opprotunity to get out and meet people, but we haven't done anything that I think is overly helpful.

Anyway on to details about all the fun stuff that has gone on this week....
Day 1: Tuesday July 12th
We were welcomed to the campus by having to meet at an academic building on the other side of campus to stand in line and wait for pancakes!  Honestly it wasn't really that bad, I did get free pancakes, and we were given some time to socialize amongst ourselves (all the international students, which much be abou 200+ people if I have any skill for estimating people in large groups).  Then we had boring info sessions that I suppose were helpful, but like any univerisity info sessions were relatively boring!  A couple hours after the boring sessions (and a few hours to relax/finally set up the internet here) we had a social event for the foreign students!  We took a trip into the city using public transportation - buses and trains!  It was pretty fun to just get out, although the choice in venues was a bit dodgy.  We had dinner at a place called 'Shanghai Dumpling' in Chinatown which was a bit of a dive - it had some good food and some terrible food, plus it was $13 a meal!  Then we went to a bar called 'Eurotrash' which had some cheap-ish drinks.  It was fun, although I was terribly tired (jetlag is TERRIBLE).  I met a few cool international students there - Victoria (Norway), Shea (Korea), Janna (Sweden). 

Day 2: Wednesday July 13th

Had to get up early, which wasn't a problem due to the jet lag - waking up at 6AM for no reason is always fun!  We had orientation breakfast starting at 8:30AM and then a short meeting about how to sign up for classes.  I answered a question right about signing up for classes and got a cute little koala bear stuffed animal (the first decoration for my room!):

Thankfully the courses I want to take work out well and  none of the important parts of the classes clash!  Therefore I don't have to get any more courses approved to take!  I spent the majority of the afternoon working out a schedule (with no class on Fridays!) and then entering my preferences for tutorial times.  After that was all set, Eliza, Sean (the kid I met in the airport) walked down to a Cole's supermarket (about 20 minutes away) so that we don't have to starve while we are here! The craziest thing was just how much bananas were - $14/kg!  We then had to lug all our groceries back, which wasn't so much fun, but a good workout and saved us some bus money.  Unfortunately one of Eliza's bags broke and a jar of tomato sauce broke on the sidewalk.  Some nice Australians that were outside their business helped us clean it up - which was much appreciated!  The evening activity was a trip into the city to go to the Eureka Skydeck 88.  It's a tall building that has a viewing room on the 88th floor, it was really cool to see the city from so high up - see the pictures below:



Flinders Street Station (train station)

A cool building - perhaps a museum of some sort!

Melbourne Skyline!

 

 

Stadium (left), and I think a theatre on the right?



Day 3: Thursday July 14th

Again woke up at 7AM for no reason, when I only had to be ready for orientation events starting at 9AM.  The meetings were mostly boring and lasted the better part of the morning.  We then got a free lunch on the university (which is always appreciated). Afterwards we got to stand in a queue to get out student ids, and get some orientation information. The evening events (which I forgot to bring a camera to) were a trip into town to go to a bar/restaurant called Lucky Coq that had personal pizzas for $4 (a pretty good deal, and the pizza was pretty good).  Afterwards a couple guys from Australia that help out/hang out with the international students during our orientation week took us to a couple local places they like, including a small bar called 'Somewhere'.  It was nice to get a better understanding of the city and good places to go from people that actually live here.

Day 4: Friday July 15

I finally was able to sleep in a bit (I didn't get up until 8AM). We had a campus scavenger hunt in which we ran around like crazy to a bunch of different buildings (I still don't think I really know my way around, but I suppose that's ok). We were competing for a great prize - passes to Phillip Island and two camper vans to take there, but unfortunately we didn't win!  My team was made up of three Americans, three Swedes and four Malaysians (aka the 'Swedish States of Malaysia'). 

A spontaneous picture of the group - I don't have a posed one!

After the fun we had a barbecue which was pretty good and free!  Right after I decided it was high time to open a bank account and get a mobile handset (cell phone).  It took awhile to get it all sorted out but I got it done with plenty of time to get ready for the big welcome party at a bar called 'The Red Scooter' (although they didn't have a red scooter anywhere!).  It was a lot of fun to socialize with all the other international students, and we got 'free' food as well.  Below are a couple pictures from the event, most of the good ones are on other people's cameras :(!

That's all for now - it's already Saturday here, and I have some plans to hopefully head down to the beach and perhaps go see a movie!  I miss all of you, and I hope you enjoy my lengthy posts - I'll try to do one a week!

The Flight Over and the First Day!

So far I've been having a pretty good time here in rainy Melbourne, but not without a few bumps along the way to get here.  To put it simply, I am estatic that I was able to make it here safely and not miss any of my flights!  My flight from O'Hare to LAX went smoothly with a two hour layover in LAX to ensure that I make my flight to Brisbane.  In Brisbane at least 3 or 4 large planes landed at the international terminal causing mass chaos, and lengthy queues to get through customs.  Needless to say I had to skip ahead, jumped on a bus to get to the domestic terminal, and run like the wind to catch my connecting flight to Melbourne.  Thankfully a wonderful friendly Australian took me under her wing during this mess and helped me get there, I don't know what I would have done without her help!  Two and a half hours later we landed in Melbourne, and I made my way slowly to the baggage claim and international terminal to wait to get picked up by a driver.  Unfortunately the driver was not there, so I had to get a student help desk to call the University to send a driver (who thankfully came so I didn't have to shell out $100 AUD to take a taxi to Monash).   Another foreign student (Sean - a very intelligent young man, who is a 'Mechie' or mechanical engineering student, and attends Cornell University) was also waiting for a driver, so we actually got to catch a ride together.  He unfortunately had one of his bags lost in LAX - but don't worry they finally got it to him a mere three days later.

It took 45 minutes or so to reach the university, so it's not exactly in the center of downtown Melbourne.  During these 45 minutes I was given detailed information about all construction projects in Melbourne that failed or had something go wrong in light of the fact that I am a civil engineering student.  Apparently our driver is some sort of expert on construction in Melbourne (Also he may need to pay more attention went he's driving - didn't really stay between the lines - oh and they drive on the left here so that was scary as well!).  Upon arriving we went to residential services where we each received a key for our rooms, and a water bottle!  Then we were stuck in a small meeting room with all our luggage and forced to watch a powerpoint describing a information packed we had been given.  10 minutes later when the powerpoint ended we just sat there not knowing what to do,  apparently they just leave you there until your figure out that you can leave and go try to find your room.  I was told that I would be living in 'Farrer Hall' but it somehow escaped the MRS (Monash Residential Services)  staff that there are in fact TWO buildings called 'Farrer Hall' - Farrer Hall Lords and Farrer Hall Commons.  Unequipped with this knowledge I was completely unaware that I was in the former as opposed to the latter.  I did get into the 'Commons' building only to be stopped by a helpful student on campus and pointed in the right direction, the 'Lords' building (they also helped me carry my luggage to my room!).   Needless to say this 35 hour (or so) journey was not the smoothest, but I am quite happy that I make it here safely!

Here's a couple pictures of my room - it's modest, but I don't plan on spending all too much time in here.

After unpacking a bit Eliza called me using our lovely room phones (which can be very nice when you don't have a cell phone).  We decided to stroll around campus and try to find something to eat (since I had no had anything to eat since around 5AM in the morning)- the problem- most places were closed on campus.  Therefore we took a walk down Blackburn Road to some cheap (but slightly run down) restaurants.  We ended up at a strange Fish n' Chips place, (that had a big picture of a lobster on the wall even though they don't serve lobster) the menu (front and back)  are below!  I don't know if I ever really want to go there again...

More to come about orientation week in the next couple days!

Study Abroad!

As I'm sure you all know I am soon to be on my way across the world to Melbourne.  To help keep the lines of communication open (and reduce the number of hours I spend on Skype) I started this blog to update all of you while I am away!  I'll make an effort to update it with pictures and descriptions at least once a week!  Stay safe everyone, and I can't wait to see you upon my return!