O Week

From February 23-27, UNSW has “O Week”, or Orientation Week where all the clubs and organizations set up stalls around campus and try and give you a bunch of free stuff to entice you to join their club. During this week we also had some mandatory exchange orientation sessions, as well as unofficial exchange excursions throughout Sydney.

Monday we decided to be super keen and go check out all the stalls around campus to see what clubs there are. We were mainly interested in finding out about the rowing, but it seems as though they aren’t as intense as home. We signed up to be on the email list, but don’t think we’re going to be able to get on the water for another couple weeks, and even then, things seem a little bit confusing! We are quite anxious to get on the water, especially after seeing the crews down the Yarra River in Melbourne this past week. Needless to say we walked away having given our emails to way too many clubs, and a bag full of brochures and information which we quickly threw out.

The main University Mall full of all the clubs stalls

Tuesday was the start of our mandatory exchange orientation which was supposed to start at 9, but ended up being around 9:45. We all gathered in one of the lecture halls to learn about life in Sydney, our health care, courses and various other seemingly useless things we had already read from the several packages we received. After they provided a BBQ lunch for us and then there was supposed to be a scavenger hunt. Team Canada, as we are known, opted out of the scavenger hunt for a day at the beach. It was finally nice and sunny and our previous experiences with beaches had been full of clouds. One of our aussie friends kindly drove us to Curl Curl, a beach North of Sydney and we relaxed there for the day.

Curl Curl Beach

On lifeguarded beaches in Australia you are supposed to swim between the red and yellow flags. When we first went out, we were in between the flags but decided that we wanted to experience some of the really big waves so went to go swim in them. Despite being able to swim and most of us having been a lifeguard at some point, the waves were a little big and the current was a little strong. We were being tossed around, losing bathing suit pieces left, right and centre and finally got whistled in by a lifeguard to come and swim between the flags. Apparently he could tell we were stupid foreigners and didn’t want to have to come save us!

The red and white flags you are supposed to swim between

The waves we wanted to take on

Wednesday morning was another boring morning of mandatory orientation but in the afternoon they had planned another excursion to “The Rocks”, a part of downtown Sydney right at the waterfront. The mission was to do a pub crawl starting around 1 in the afternoon. We decided that was a little bit too early for us to start drinking so we toured around the area. This is where we had our first up close experience with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Needless to say the cameras were out in full force and we were amazed! After walking around for awhile, we stopped for a nice lunch and some gelato and then joined up with the rest of the pub crawl group. The evening ended off at the Opera Bar, the bar between the water and the Opera house.

Harbour Bridge

First sight of the Opera House!

The views from the Opera Bar at night are amazing

Tropfest

Sunday the 22nd (yeah, we’ve gone back in time a bit here) was Tropfest, the world’s largest short film festival. We’re not sure if this was in terms of entries or competitors, but either way it was a great day! We met up early with the other exchange students and headed over to the Domain (a big park) in the early afternoon to grab some lawn. The pictures below pretty much sum up the day. Lounging, munching and living it up like the Aussies do best- chillin’.

Once the sun set, the movie screenings began. Each short film was limited to 7 minutes and had to include the year’s theme, spring, in some way or another. This meant a number of the 16 finalists had surprise endings that were “sprung” on the audience. The evening was also scattered with a couple live performances and air guitar competitions.

The winning film was called “Be My Brother” and used a light-hearted approach to addressing prejudice of those with mental disabilities. The main character was played by a man with down syndrome who was needless to say incredibly excited when he went up to receive his awards (also winning best actor). If you’re super keen on learning more about the film festival (there’s a New York version as well) you can check out the following link: http://www.tropfest.com/



Hanging out in the sun awaiting the official Tropfest movie showings to start. Note the number of umbrellas- contrary to what many people think, Aussies are actually very responsible about their sun exposure. There's a very big "stay out of the sun" campaign by the government, and locals are diligent about wearing sunscreen and hats.


The movie screen and the surrounding crowd. The stage was multi-sided with thousands of people sitting in front of each of the 3 screens.

View of downtown at night

NCV and Interesting Food Encounters

So we know many of you are anticipating these posts. We know it’s been awhile since our last update but we have been super busy as you will see with all of the explanations to follow. Some of you don’t even know what kind of place we are living in so we’ll talk about that first now that we have been settled in here for the last two weeks.

We are living in a university residence. It’s called New College Village. It was just finished being built in January, so brand spanking new! It was mainly intended to be for post-grad students but they hadn’t filled it when we went to ask so they were letting in some poor homeless exchange students which is how we managed to get it.

It’s right across the road from the main entrance to the “uni” (as they say here, none of this “campus” or “school” talk) meaning we have no longer than a 10 minute walk to most of our classes! The bus stop is also right outside the entrance with buses that go basically everywhere we would need to go. In terms of location it’s perfect except it’s a 15 minute bus ride to the nearest beach. Although the shark sightings are holding us back on swimming!

The unit we are in has 6 individual rooms and we share a kitchen and living room. There is no tv in the living room, but there is a common room right outside our door that we can use with a massive wide screen tv. We haven’t had much time to watch but are anxiously wanting to see two shows we have heard about. “Border Security” – an actual broadcasted show on problems the customs people encounter with people trying to get in to the country. And “Bondi Rescue” – a Baywatch like show, but with hot Australian male life guards replacing the babes in red swimsuits and detailing the rescuing they do at the beach 20 minutes away, Bondi. Laura and I are in the same unit right across the hall from each other. Each room has their own ensuite bathroom with shower, toilet and sink. The only thing we had to buy was towels. Each room comes with sheets, duvet and pillow and the kitchen is all equipped with plates, cutler, glasses, etc. This may be the best part though. Our rooms and kitchen get cleaned by the housing staff every Monday and our sheets are replaced. It’s more like a hotel than a university residence!

Our own individual bathrooms!

Half of Morgan's room

The shared kitchen/dining table

Most of our roommates seem to want to have nothing to do with us. We are still waiting for the 6^th one to move in, but two of the ones who have moved in haven’t said anything but “hi” to us yet. There is one nice aussie girl who has moved in and she actually speaks and doesn’t hide all the time. I think they are all done their undergrad though, or at least the one we have talked to is!

As for grocery shopping, we have been adding to our list of crazy Australian food that we are contemplating trying, but have to build up some courage, or also stuff that is just crazy! The list includes: kanga bangas and all variations of kangaroo meat, aussie pizza and burgers which seem to have eggs on them, cheese and bacon balls, yo yo and anzac cookies, pies – possibly from a store called pie face and tasty coon cheese. We did get to experience vegemite at orientation and will not be going out anytime soon to get ourselves a jar!

Pies at Pie Face actually have faces on them!

One of the various Kangaroo meats you can buy.

Our experience with vegemite ended with faces like this!

Disspelling Australian Myths in Coogee

So many of you are all wondering a number of things including: how many hours have we logged on the beach? How many cute aussie surfers have we picked up? Do people walk on their feet? and, most importantly, which way DOES the water flow down the toilet? Hopefully this post will answer all those itching and burning questions. If not, you might want to get that itching and burning checked out.

In regards to the beach: sadly, since arriving on Monday morning (Aus Monday morning, that is) it has been cloudy and pissing rain every day. This has been great for avoiding the beach in order to get things done (like finding a place to live or running around campus a la chicken sans head trying to find four courses that fit into one timetable #$@! arts and science), but is quite obviously terrible for our tans. Today we did manage to squeeze in about 40 min before the clouds started forming overhead.

Aussie boys. Enough said. Well, not quite. It should be illegal to have this many bronzed men on one continent. If you've ever wondered where all the cute, tall and charming boys are in the world, they're here. This is only what we've observed from afar, though. Most of the friends we've made are other international students, many of which are Italian. Apparently, as one of them told us, alfredo sauce doesn't actually exist in Italy so they're dying to try it! This is how we've gotten suckered into hosting a dinner before we're even moved into a place with a full kitchen.

People do not walk on their hands here. It is impossible to go down stairs without the gravity and all.

As for the water drainage myth, we've got a 3-part mini documentary thing that answers the question once and for all.

Part 1: Canadian Toilet (Vancouver, BC)

As you can see, the water was in fact flowing counter (or anti) clockwise! Could this be a defect in the BC plumbing?

Part 2: Australian Toilet (Coogee, NSW)

Note the water flow is neither clockwise nor counter clockwise. It is in fact straight downwise.

Part 3: Australian Sink (for verification in Coogee, NSW)

Taken to clear up any potential mishap from part 2. It appears as though part 2 was a valid trial (alright, so we're not following the scientific method exactly)

Shocking, isn't it?!

A dorky friend provided the following links to explain our findings:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/equator/5264326.stm

http://www.discovery.com/area/skinnyon/skinnyon970523/skinny1.html

However, this is the same dorky friend who's trying to convince me that by crossing the date line only once on this trip that we'll arrive home a day younger. Read and decide for yourselves.

Some other fun stuff we've encountered in Aus so far includes:

• Crossing the street (and seeing children get out of the driver's side of a car)
• Teeny tiny spiders the size of your hand
• The flat terrain in Coogee, with hills at a wimpy 80 degree incline
• Little children with accents!
• Locals who wear jeans and sweaters when it's 25 degrees out (and yes, it's very humid too)
• Rubbish bins, the little gent's room and the bubbler (water fountain)

That just about sums up everything you should all know for now, so please enjoy the pictures! I did have far more, but while on the phone I somehow managed to delete all pictures from the first 3 days. Typical.

One of the gates surrounding the UNSW campus

Streets appear to have been designed for tourists. OCASP people would be glad to know that the Australian government is working hard to reduce all potential hazards for Canadians abroad.

Overlooking the Quadrangle Lawn. See? The sun does shine brighter here!

We tried reading a local newspaper, but had to quit when we realized it was written in a foreign language.

We finally arrive at Coogee Beach! Within half an hour of taking this photo, the pictured friendly clouds peaced out to make way for the giant, dark rainclouds.

Accepted into rez by the seat of our pants!

What a crazy two days it has been!

We arrived Monday morning around 9. We sat on the plane for a while for them to come in and spray all the overhead bins so we don't let anything illegal into the country! We managed to squeeze all of our bags into the taxi and were on our way to the hotel apartment with smiles all over our faces! Our hotel room wasn't ready, so we unpacked our bags in the middle of the entrance to find a pair of shorts and flip flops and head to the university. Only a short 15 minute walk away we made our way to the university and headed to the International Student Service Centre where we got a welcome package. We then told them that we were exchange students, so technically not international and the woman was a little bit confused so then we went to the the Exchange office where we picked up another package. The woman there was very nice and gave us our student numbers and showed our classes. My classes were all fine and I managed to get Friday off, possibly another day too if I want to rearrange things! Laura still has to work on her schedule but the exchange lady seems very helpful. We then went to get our student ids where they had to take a picture of us for the card. Keep in mind we have now been awake in Vancouver for about 14 hours, followed by a 14 hour flight and now have been walking for about 3 hours. Needless to say the pictures are a little bit ugly, and we are starting to smell!

After the IDs, we went to the bank on campus and set up an account. We had been looking at the list of available accommodations at the International Centre and realized that it was useless to call people when we didn't have a number they could call us back on. So we headed into the nearest suburb and got set up with phones. However, having worn boots for the last couple months, our feet were not used to sandals and we had a couple blisters and raw feet to deal with. We stopped for a pair of flip flops each at a wonderful $2.50 and were happy for the rest of the day!

After a quick call home with our new phones we grabed a bite and headed back to campus. Here we proceeded to write down every possible available apartment, shared accommodation or house for 2 people and started calling them. We managed to get an appointment with one woman who claimed she had 2 rooms to rent so we thought it would be awesome. We found this apartment, after getting rained on, and knocked on the door. There were cardboard boxes all over the entrance hall stacked as high as the ceiling, so we thought people may be moving out. But no! The boxes were in fact the wall of the "room" that had no door, just a space in the boxes. And there was only this one room, not 2 as she had said. So we quickly left and headed back to our hotel. Our room was ready so we were able to finally shower and change out of our clothes! We made the rest of the calls to the apartments, most of them taken or only available for 1 person. We began looking on websites and everything too without much luck.

Our hotel room balcony faces a dominoes pizza across the street. Being very tired we decided to walk over there and pick up a pizza for dinner. We finally went to sleep around 10, seemingly void of any jet lag and having accomplished a lot more than we thought in less than 24 hours in Australia!

Tuesday was almost just as busy. We headed to the university again and decided to check out the residential colleges to see if they had any vacancies. The first two sort of laughed at us when we asked and said no. We then walked to the "New College" residence and asked if they had space and to our amazement the guy said yes of course. We went on a tour of the building and filled out an application form, hoping to hear back as soon as possible.

We went back to continue to search for places back at the International Centre incase this one didn't work out. We went and saw a place at 3, but it was not great so we decided not to take it. Finally around 4:30, James, now our hero and named St. James, called to offer us a place at this New College. We managed to get into residence! The place we are living is similar to Marine for those of you at UBC. We will share a kitchen and living space with 5 people but have our own separate rooms with individual bathrooms. It is right across from one of the main entrances to the university, on one of the major streets and bus routes. So basically perfect!

We headed back to the hotel very relieved and excited. Tonight we went to see Slumdog Millionaire with a couple other exchange students and then went for dinner at a Thai place with these students as well. We have just arrived back at the hotel and are getting ready for bed. We appear to not have many effects of jet lag. I guess when the time difference is so large it's not much of a problem!

Tomorrow we have an arrival session for international students in the morning and then an Afternoon Tea for any early arrival exchange students in the afternoon. Thursday and Friday we are hoping the weather is nice and we can finally enjoy and explore some of the city and beaches. We will move into the residence sometime on the weekend.

Vancouver

Hi Everyone!

We're just about to spend our last night in North America, waiting to get some take-out with Morgan's old floormates. We arrived yesterday morning around 9am and checked into the Sheraton Wall Centre. After a quick nap, we walked around campus for most of the afternoon. Laura thinks the campus is really pretty. We met some of Morgan's friends on campus and then we went to The Noodle Box for dinner. Amazing! We came home around 7 and managed to stay up until 11 watching Grey's Anatomy. Today we woke up and went for a delicious breakfast at Cafe Crepe. We then rented bikes and biked around Stanley Park for the remainder of the afternoon. The views of the city, mountains and water were absolutely gorgeous. We took a quick tour around the Vancouver Aquarium where we saw some great sea life. Morgan and I took turns holding a cute and cuddly millipede (see pictures below). After a stroll downtown, we went back to the hotel where we find ourselves now. It looks like everyone has arrived, so we'd best be off for dinner! We'll see you in six months, North America! Try not to miss us too much!

The clock tower at UBC

One of the beautiful views on the bike route

Morgan braving the millipede

Laura being... not so brave

A sea lion showing a gull who's boss at the aquarium

Welcome!

Welcome to Morgan and Laura's travel blog!

Be sure to look here for regular updates on our semester on exchange at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and on our journey back home. With only three days left before leaving for Vancouver, we've been squeezing in plenty of shopping, appointments and goodbyes. It's hard to believe that with over a year of planning from the start, we are so close to finally heading down under!

The map below shows the route we'll be taking around the world. We'll be travelling Westward, with New Zealand as a side trip over reading week in April.

Sorry for making you all jealous. A more detailed itinerary will be put up soon, so you'll have an idea where on Earth we'll be finding ourselves each day. For now though, we wish you all the best from Toronto!