Semester in Australia

Australia E-Mail #2 (2.27.06)

Hello,

It has almost been a week since my last long e-mail, and I have done a lot.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I finished the International Student Orientation. This involved sitting through numerous talks and demonstrations intended to orient me to the University and Sydney. By the end I believe that I did in fact know more about how the University works and more about Sydney. As well, by the end I finally had it confirmed that I was enrolled in some classes and I got my fantastic student ID with possibly the worst picture ever taken on it.

After Orientation on Tuesday, a few friends and I went to go find some Thai food for dinner. It is without question that Thai food is the most popular and numerous food in Sydney. We walked a few blocks West from where I live to a place called King Street. King Street is a very interesting place, and we ended up walking down most of it because we could decide on a cheap place to eat. King Street is just that, it is a street, and it is lined for a few miles with little shops and restaurants. In the area we covered in about thirty minutes, there must of have been at least fifteen Thai places and a bunch of bookstores, music stores, shops, convenience stores and other restaurants. It looked like a fun place and looked to have a bunch of great food. I am sure I will find myself back there often.

On Wednesday Orientation was done by mid-day and I was able to run some errands and do some clean up work. I also got a chance to take a peak at one of the two University run Museums that are on campus and what I saw was fantastic. I spent just a little time in the Nicholson Museum, full of great antiquities, but it was a surprisingly enjoyable experience. I usually do not read the descriptions in Museums, but rather browse. However, the descriptions in this Museum all contain very interesting and neat stories about each piece.

At 4:00pm some friends and I took a tour offered by the University. It was called A Walk to the Water. We paid five dollars and got a walking tour from the campus through back neighborhoods, which I probably would not have ventured through if I had not been made aware of them on the tour, all the way to Darling Harbor (this is Sydney’s second big inlet, after Sydney Cove, and it houses the convention center, where many Olympic events were held, as well as many trendy bars and an IMAX. If you are looking at a detailed map it is directly West of Sydney Cove and the Harbor Bridge and Opera House). On the tour we passed through a very interesting neighborhood called Glebe. It has a great flea market on Saturdays (which I did attend on Saturday) as well as many popular, yet somewhat hidden, bars, coffee shops, book stores and restaurants. Next we walked through some other nice neighborhoods and then passed part of downtown Sydney. Finally we arrived at Darling Harbor and received a beer for our troubles at the Cargo Bar on the wharf. As I said earlier Darling Harbor is home to a few massive convention centers, which housed many Olympic events in 2000. As well, it is the location of the famous Aquarium, an IMAX, at least two dozen popular bars and restaurants, as well as a maritime museum and a large shopping center.

Although the tour ended there, two of my friends and I decided it would be nice to walk to Sydney Harbor and watch the sunset instead of walking back the way we came. So we grabbed a quick dinner on the water in Darling Harbor and got some great directions from our tour guide. Instead of sending us directly to Sydney Cove, he directed us to a popular neighborhood pub, which is well hidden from tourists. This pub not only had a great view of the Harbor Bridge, but also out back it had a wonderful view of the sunset over Darling Harbor. After watching the sunset and quenching our thirst, we wondered through the streets under the Harbor Bridge (an area called the Rocks) until we found our way to Sydney Cove (also called Circular Quay). On our trip we found many more hidden bars and restaurants and got a better feel for the area. After spending some much necessary rest on the water outside the Opera House, we headed home for a good rest.

This rest was much needed as I had a bike tour the next day that was organized through the program that brought me here. My bike tour started a little after noon, following a short lunch on top of Observatory Hill (aptly named for its observatory and it being a hill). I had chosen the advanced bike tour, which meant more of a distance at a faster speed. We started by biking across the Harbor Bridge, an amazing ride on a beautiful day, and then biked through Milsons Point. Milsons Point is a very effluent neighborhood on the North shore of Sydney. It not only houses Luna Park, a seventy-five year old amusement park on the Harbor, but also is home to the Governor of Australia (a figurehead position above the Prime Minister) and the Prime Minister. Both of whom have spectacular, million dollar, taxpayer maintained mansions with a great view of the Harbor, Bridge and Opera House. After biking through Milsons Point and Lancaster neighborhoods on the North shore, we ventured back across the Harbor Bridge, down Observatory Hill and through many of the same neighborhoods I had walked through the day before. We took a ride on some old wharfs that had been converted into million dollar apartments while integrating many original pieces of the wharfs and docks. Next we biked right through downtown Sydney at rush hour (very thrilling and chaotic, especially on a bike, going up hill). Hyde Park was our next stop. It is a three block long, two block wide park right off from downtown Sydney. It is home to the ANZAC Memorial (Australia and New Zealand Army Corp) and many great places to lay out in the sun or the shade. We continued passed the Australian Art Museum and through the Royal Botanic Gardens, which are located right next to downtown Sydney and are beautiful in their own right, but are even more so when seen contrasted against the massive steel skyline of Sydney. From throughout the Gardens we looked out onto several suburbs of Sydney and had great views of the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge. After spending some time in the Botanic Gardens we made are way to the Opera House where the tour ended. One of my friends was lost on the tour, but it only took about two hours of my time to find her and her stuff and get her back to our College. In the two years this bike company has been around, she was the first person to ever get lost! I am sure she is writing home about it right now.

That night the Student Union threw a free party for all International Students at the campus bar and it was lots of fun.

The next day I woke up a little later than usual, but after doing some errands I was motivated enough at 3:00pm to explore some more of the city. Most everyone else I knew had already headed to either Manly or Bondi Beach, but I declined to go (I will go soon; I hear they are both beautiful and are open all year round). Instead I decided to walk from campus to Hyde Park and take a little more time looking at the beautiful churches that lined it (especially St. Mary’s Cathedral, it is unbelievable) and the other attractions in the area. By the time I had made it to Hyde Park most Museums were closed (everything closes by 5:00pm here), but it is for the best, as I have been advised to leave the Museums for rainy days. Next I walked to the Botanic Gardens and got to spend a little more time walking through them and along the water. Then I walked through Circular Quay/Sydney Cove (passed the Opera House and Bridge) and walked through the area called the Rocks and up Observatory Hill. From the Hill I watched the sunset, unfortunately it sets to the West (obviously) and not over the Opera House or Bridge, but nonetheless a beautiful view. Then I continued on to Darling Harbor hoping to grab something to eat, unfortunately I was too sweaty and underdressed for the hip Friday night crowds. So I continued through Darling Harbor and took the same route through the back neighborhoods that the walking tour had taken me on. Finally making it back to campus a little before 9:00pm, I grabbed a quick dinner and proceeded to pass out. The nine mile or so walk had worn me out, especially after the previous two days of exercise.

On Saturday I spent some time getting things together and then wondered over to the Glebe Street Flea Market, which was huge and very interesting. I did not buy anything this week, but I can see it coming in handy at some point during my stay here. Then I had to get home and get dressed because the kids from my group were throwing a house party for one of my friends here who turned 21. The party was fun and we all got to meet some new Aussies and even some Germans. I even met someone from GWU.

On Sunday a bunch of my friends had a barbeque (or barbi) on the roof of a friend’s apartment and then we all made our way to the Sony Tropfest at the Dominion in downtown Sydney. The Sony Tropfest is the world’s largest short film festival and it has been going for fourteen years. This year they held it simultaneously in six cities across Australia and had an estimated 130,000 people watching live, outdoors (90,000 were at the Dominion in Sydney). The film festival is meant to be a jumping point for rising Australian film makers and the winner is sent the US to work with bigger film makers and all sorts of other things. There are only three rules to enter the Tropfest; first the Tropfest must be the first time the movie has ever been shown, second, the movie must be seven minutes or less, and finally, the movie must contain, at some point, the Tropfest theme. This year the theme was bubbles. We had to sit, pretty bored, for about an hour and half, as the Aussie ‘humor’ before the movies was not quite up to par. Finally though, we got to watch the movies. We watched the first eight movies (there are sixteen finalists out of seven hundred submitted), which were great, three especially. However, it had been overcast and raining for most of the night. I was under a tree and did not feel most of the rain; however by the third movie of the second half the skies opened up. It rained so hard that it was impossible to sit it out and then lightening and thunder came. Shortly after the downpour and lightening, they had to shut down the Sydney venue and this sent 90,000 people scrabbling for shelter. It was quite an experience as my friend and I ran for cover, trying to keep are valuables dry with only one small umbrella and no jackets. By the time we found some shelter we were both soaked and finally made our way to a bus stop where we caught, for the first time, the one bus that goes from downtown directly to the door of our College. It was a long, wet night, but an interesting one. I am hoping that they put the short films online so that I can not only see the last four, but also so anyone interested can watch them. When I find out the answer I will let you know.

That pretty much sums up my week. I will try to write slightly more frequently in the future so that I do not continue to write three or four page e-mails.

In the coming week I have Orientation for the University, as well as Matriculation for Saint John’s College. I will finally start classes next Monday and I have an adventure weekend to the Blue Mountains with my program coming this weekend and will be traveling to see Canberra the weekend after (I am told there is not much to see, but I feel a need to go to the Capital).

I now am slowly getting more access to the internet and certainly more frequent access to e-mail. As I mentioned in my e-mail from yesterday I am going to try to set up a web page blog so that I can not only post these types of messages on it but also I can easily post tons of pictures for all who are interested. Thanks to some very helpful advice I have been turned onto several different options for doing this and will hopefully have it up and functioning soon.

I hope this finds you all well and again thank all of you who have read my messages and have taken the time to write back. I had never fully appreciated receiving an e-mail until I came here. It really is a great thing; it is almost as good as getting a letter.

Best Wishes,

Jon