Can't You Hear, Can't You Hear the Thunder?

first 2 pics: notre dame australia campus
3rd pic: perth
4th pic: south beach in fremantle

Well a full week has passed down here in oz. this post might be a little disjoined as i have a lot of days to cover but hopefully i'll remember to write about all the interesting things.
a few general notes on australia after a week of observation: they say "how you going" instead of hi or what's up, when you walk in a store or pass someone on the street, its "how you going". they say cheers instead of thanks, always say no worries and sometimes say "good on ya" and i'm still trying to figure out the context of that one. on the whole aussies are very friendly, passing by the cleaning lady in the hall or standing in line with someone you are guaranteed a conversation. i'm also digging the two dollar coin and the fact that they have no 1 cent pieces.
the hardest and frankly only culture adjustment we've had to make is getting used to looking right when crossing the street. its been a real struggle to look the correct way since we are used to cars coming from the opposite direction.

unfortunately underneath all the sun and friendliness i've definitely noticed a darker side to australia. almost every homeless person you see is aboriginal and almost every aboriginal is homeless. pretty much the only time i see police are when they are hassling the homeless aboriginals, making them move on or arresting them or whatever. ive seen things get physical between police and aboriginals a few times already. i think there is a drinking problem among them also.
but lets move on to happier things such as what ive been up to the past week. we still havent started class yet. its ming boggling to realize that our friends in south bend have spring break in a week and we havent even started class yet. last week was orientation week, so our days consisted of tours and information meetings followed by the long walk or bus down to south beach followed by homemade dinner and going out. i dont know if anyone is interested but i've got to include stuff on meals, just for you mom. i had a much more successful trip to the store, bought ham, cheese, pasta, sauce, eggs, chips, sausages, burgers, maybe more but i'll do much better for myself from here on out. tmr we will go to the market and get cheap fruits and veggies from the vendors.
we've checked out a lot of the hot spots for nightlife this week since we don't have class. we've gone to a couple of the freo bars and went to a full out club last night which was different, with techno and neon lights and what not. we also took the train to the cottesloe hotel on tuesday night and went to up claremont to the claremont hotel on wednesday. they are both burbs between freo and perth... oh and the drinking age in australia is 18 so no worries, nothing illegal going on here.
One day of orientation we took a day trip to Perth, the big city a 20 min train ride away. so much to do and see there, when we get familiar with Fremantle i'm sure we will start exploring perth. one cool part of that day was the aboriginal performance. we got to see a man play the didgeridoo and saw some authentic native dancers, which was cool.
last night dan, kate, bridget, shannon, elyse and i went out to dinner at a thai food restaurant and it was really good. my dish had both curry and coconut milk in it and was deliciously spicy, creamy, and sweet at the same time. there are a lot of asian restaurants around since we are so close to asia.

that's all for now, we are going back to cottesloe today, apparently it has a popular weekend beach.

kate harrington, shannon traeger, briDget blum, and elyse muratore yelled at me yesterday

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Where Women Glow and Men Plunder

finished up my second full day today. someone commented on how it seems like we have been here much longer than that and i would have to agree. yesterday, sunday, we (the same general group i've been hanging out with) hit up a nicer beach than the one we went to on saturday. the old one, Bathers Bay, is really small and the sand and water isnt that great (but it is close). the new one, South Beach is about a 25 minute walk from port lodge but it is entirely worth it: white sand, and just amazing views... the water is beautiful and clear, and there are some islands off in the distance... with the sun blazing it was just gorgeous. the weather has been sunny every day here and it is hot, but there is also always a stiff ocean breeze that negates the heat. the breeze can make it a little chilly later at night but then it just feels like spring instead of summer, both of which are quite preferable to south bend in february. after the beach we came back and did whatever. two new girls came in so i helped them with their luggage. there are about 35 people in port lodge, 18 ND kids-i think- and then there are some from iona, catholic, and sacred heart. only 5 guys total, and in all of the other american dorms there don't seem to be many either. i took a nap and then we went to Little Creatures for a late dinner. little creatures is a microbrewery across the park on the harbor, another 2 minute walk. i got kangaroo shish kebabs (heavily marinated/seasoned and very tasty. the other ND guy, dan murphy, said it tasted similar to venison). they make 3 beers, a Pale Ale, Pilsner, and Bright Ale. The bright ale was the best. the place was really cool, i'll put up pictures of it and every thing else one of these days. then a few of us got some wine and hung out on the beach, as it was one girl's 21 birthday and most places were closed.
today, monday, we had our first orientation sessions, mostly tours and talks and such, then later we went shopping and exploring, walking up to the grocery, mall, drug store, electronics. caught the free orange bus back home. grocery shopping was definitely an adventure. i had frozen pizza pocket things for dinner and yes mom, i made vegetables and had an apple also. everyone is exhausted from going out the past two nights and obviously the time change and travel, so we're all just relaxing tonight. more O week events tmr, and hopefully some beach time

I Come From the Land Down Under

Well I made it. The land down under. Bonus points to you if you know why I named the blog as I did. My two day travel bonanza is finalllly over. As I’m still a newbie to air travel, bare with me as I go over some of the things that stood out during my travels. First I flew out of Dayton to St. Louis. My plane was absolutely tiny: two seats per row on one side of the aisle and only one on the other. Luckily I got one of the singles. Sky Mall officially has the most random crap ever, such as a remote control car that can fit two beer cans in it. Interesting idea, but really… not necessary. My flight to LAX was pretty uneventful until we were flying into the city. It was interesting to see how close the city is to mountains, now I see why the call the show The Hills as such. Off in the distance I saw the Hollywood sign, which was pretty cool. When we were landing the people next to me asked if I was from LA which I found to be funny, I guess I’ve just got that cali look (haha). I had about 8 hours to kill in LAX so I pushed 4 chairs together and took a short nap/watched stuff on my laptop until a few hours before departure, when I went to the Quantas gate and met up with everyone else. If the American flight to St Louis was the smallest plane ever, the Quantas flight was the hugest; it had 3 sets of rows; 3 seats next to each window and a middle section of 4 seats. I’m most of you seasoned travelers don’t really care about that but too bad. The flight was terribly long (14 hours), I watched several movies and several episodes of different tv shows on the person entertainment system each passenger gets. Didn’t sleep much at all, which really sucked. Airline food SUCKS. The highlight of this flight was getting a Victoria Bitter, or VB, beer with dinner, my first legal drink. Finally getting into Sydney was a huge relief. Saw the opera house from the air. We had to go through customs, quarantine, etc so we didn’t have a whole lot of time there, but enough to get some money from the ATM (aussie money is very brightly colored with each bill a different color and also with a small see through plastic part unique to each denomination of bill which is very odd) and get a whopper meal from Hungry Jack’s aka Burger King. Next up was a 5 hour flight across Australia to Perth, which was pretty uneventful. Getting out into the fresh Perth air was great; it was in the 90s but with a really nice ocean breeze that I guess the area is famous for. A bus came and took us on a really long and circuitous route around the Perth area to Fremantle. We got room keys (my single is about 8 ft x 7 ft, no exaggerations involved. also every room is a single), dropped our stuff off and then a group of us went to the beach, which just so happens is only a 2 minute walk away. Our dorm is right by this nice open park and on the other side of that is the harbor and a bunch of fish and chip restaurants right on the water and beach is off to the right of all that. It was really breezy and windy so we didn’t get in all the way but it was nice to just relax in a completely stretched out position after all that flying. Then we came back, showered, and hit the streets of Freo. The beach group and I went out to dinner, unfortunately as it was 9pm at this time most places were packed. But we finally found a little Mexican place that could fit us downstairs. It’s really cool in that all the restaurants are open to the street with tables and chairs out on the sidewalk. Going out to dinner is going to be quite expensive as everything was around 20 AUD even at this casual place. Tried Carlton Cold with dinner, not bad. Then we walked around looking for some place to continue the evening and found some bar/club whose name I don’t know. I had to go back to the dorm and change into shoes because they wouldn’t let me in with sandals. Had another Carlton Cold and a Carlton Draught but I decided I didn’t like them that much. I was feeling realllly tired and the few beers weren’t sitting well with me for some reason so myself and a few others went back early to try and catch up on sleep. And here I am at 7:30am wide awake and writing a blog entry… I hate jet lag. That’s all for now, sorry it’s so long but I’ve got nothing to do. We have a week of orientation before classes start so that will be nice. Today, Sunday, though is still a free day as we are waiting for a few more kids to get here. We will probably go out exploring the town today and hit up the beach again at some point.