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.