Traedogg Down Under

Since I’ve posted last, its been a mello few days. Me and the roomates have spent a lot of time with one another, and unfortunately time has been spent on SCHOOL. But, since we decided to forgo the Paddington Markets for the day because 1) we stayed out late last night in downtown Sydney and 2) the budgets are already getting tight after booking a massive spring break trip up the East Coast of Australia, I have time to reflect on a few things I’ve learned since being here. So here goes:

1) No one is EVER on time here. I’m sitting in class wednesday, and being who I am, I show up 10 minutes early for lecture and am not surprised to walk into a completely empty lecture hall. The class is supposed to start at 1:00 and run till 2:00, and after talking with my friend Rachel for 20 minutes, the teacher finally strolls in at 1:15. When she does arrive, she has forgot something that allows her to play a video she wanted to show us, so she leaves and comes back another five minutes later. When she does get back, she cant get the video projector working and it is now 1:35 when she decides to give up and start to lecture. She talked for about 10 minutes, gave the video another attempt, played it for about 5 minutes and let us go at 1:55. So apparently, 1 hour lectures here can be condensed quite nicely into 15 minutes:)

2) LOOK RIGHT! Upon arriving in australia, that is one of the first things you learn as an American. Look right when crossing the street. I realize it doesn’t seem challenging to cross an intersection without getting flattened by an oncoming car, but here, when the cars are driving on the left side, making left hand turns on red, and turning across traffic from the right lane, it gets pretty confusing. Not only that, but instantly people can tell I’m not from the area because on the sidewalk the first few days, I kept walking into people! Here I am minding my own business, walking on the right side of the sidewalk… trying to be polite, yet in a country where everyone walks on the left side of the sidewalk, I found myself running head on into quite a lot of disgruntled australians.

3) “A night out” in Sydney will always be interesting: Last night when the roomates and I decided to go into the city to the bars, we learned very quickly that “The bar scene” in australia is not limited to college students. More then half the bar patrons were men and women between the ages of 40 and 60, that were not just out to sit with friends and have a beer. They were SLOSHED, dancing and (when not in the company of a significant other) hitting on younger women and men! I couldn’t help but thinking of my own parents and grandparents out side by side at the bar with me and my friends. Kinda wierd;) Not only that, but the bus system is an EXTREMELY popular and safe way for the drunks to get back to where they live. .. so needless to say, each bus ride home will have a story of its own I’m sure;)

4) (my personal favorite) GUYS TAKE AEROBIC CLASSES!: I show up for my first class “Body Attack,” (apparently outlawed in the states b/c it is so intense… or so they say;) ) Thurdsay evening with my friend Alex (a girl), and was shocked to see nearly half of the class were men! In my American fitness classes, if a man was anywhere CLOSE to the Aerobics room, he was just scoping out the ladies in spandex. Even more impressive, was that the class required an incredible amount of rhythm and coordination, and these guys were just nailing the routine! I was floored! Although, in all fairness, I do have to add, these “men” were not jocks, BUT STILL!!!!!!!

So there you have it! There are SO many other things I have learned about the culture, but I have rambled on quite enough for one day. (get used to the word “quite” in my vocabularly) They use it quite often here and that is one thing I am really picking up on! Tomorrow my roomates and two of our friends Rachel and Gina are going on the Hunter Valley Wine tour before a long second week of school! Miss everyone at home…keep sending the updates!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2005 at 10:30 pm and is filed under In Australia!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.