Cooking is going to have to happen.

So another week has come and gone...

Not too much to show for it either, except from the clubs and bars that we seemed to gravitate toward last week. Basically if you want to fit in with the Australians, better yet, if you want to locate the Aussies you have to go to the bar. Young and old, they will undoubtedly be there on any given day of the week, particularly Sundays. So this week, we (most of us girls from school) made an attempt to meet some Aussies and go out like they do. Fortunately for my wallet, liver, and head, I was sick from weird food all week and didn't drink a ton (one of the best decisions I've made here yet).

So since it is such a part of the culture here, I'll give my best attempt at describing what happens weekly by night since last week I described my days.

Starting with Monday night... The bars are full for dinner because there are a lot of good food specials etc. in town, but for me this is grocery shopping and gym night. The only bad part is the grocery store closes at 6, and taking groceries on the bus around 5:30 (because I can't seem to pull myself out of bed to go before my class that starts at 1pm... yeh Mom I know this doesn't work at home...) is not the easiest on a crowded and smelly bus. But I've come to accept it and so I do that then head to the gym and come back by 9-ish to catch up on some work or reading and hang out with roommates if they are around.

Tuesday night... Same scene with the bars, but for me it's the gym and a meeting with my student advisor and actually cooking a real dinner (which is ending up to be more of a problem than anything...)

Wednesday night... Standard night for all college kids to go out, no matter sober or not. There is a bar on campus that throws a lot of different themed party as well as a small bar right off campus that does kareoke every Wednesday night. The Elvis impersonator with his gold sparkly vest that DJ's and announces the kareoke on stage is one of the most memorable parts of every Wednesday. So this has come to be known as "Waterford Wednesdays" since the bar is at the Waterford shopping plaza. This usually means hanging out with friends and having some drinks outside (since it's too hot inside being we have no AC and it still hasn't cooled off from the day's heat) and then walking to the bar around 9. Another great part of this all is that it closes at midnight... meaning I don't have to feel bad for going to bed early since I'm always the tired one! And, there is a bus stop right outside the bar that takes me right back to my room :-)

Thursday night... not too big of a night here, so we try to watch a movie or cook out on the grills at one of our housing areas etc. Once a month we've decided to do a dinner out in the city, most likely on Thursdays since we don't have class the next day.

Then comes the weekend... and basically Australians start drinking when they get off work Friday and don't stop till they pass out Sunday night. This weekend we went to BBQ's, a pool party, out to dance in the city, and to a brewery on Sunday (all of which during I felt sick from the chicken nuggets I thought were safe to eat...wrong). Needless to say after the weekend, we've decided we just can't hang with the Aussies and are all exhausted. So this week it is St. Patricks Day celebrations and that is it.

So there is plenty to do at night here, but it's not always up my alley of what I want to do every night. The other lesson learned last week was the fact that healthy fresh food is universal... and fried food is not great if you aren't used to it in another country. So I made the mistake of eating chicken nuggets that I thought would be a standard meal. Well that was a mistake. Whatever they fried or breaded the chicken in definitely did not agree with me and has left me with an upset stomach for a while now, which is most likely because I ate like 4 meals of the nuggets. So now my challenge is cooking.

It's no hidden truth that I am a picky eater, so finding the ingredients for the foods that I like has been a little troubling. And I can't keep eating out because that costs an arm and a leg. So I've resorted to the Rachael Ray website to find some recipes. My next problem is that the only meat I ever see in the grocery store is chicken and hamburger meat (which I just found today). I believe I'm going to have to drag myself out of the bed in the morning because it looks like there is room for it on the shelf, there is just nothing there. For now I've located all the ingredients to make Chicken DiVan, so hopefully that will last me a few days. So if anyone has any easy recipes that have pretty simple ingredients, well I'd love it if you could share them!

Just some other random facts that I recognize as the days go on...

They have some fastfood places here such as:
Dominoes, Subway, KFC, McDonalds (which they call Macky's), and their version on Burger King which is called Hungry Jacks over here

Mullets are by far the most popular hair style still...

Most Americans get obsessed with these chocolates called "Tim-Tams" but they are almost like a kit-kat bar with more wafer and not so much milk chocolate. My friend eats a pack a day, and thank goodness I don't like them that much because they aren't exactly on the healthy food list.

There is a great hostility from the Australians held against the Asian people that are swarming here in huge masses. In one specific scenario a older man got on the bus and there was not a lot of room so the bus driver yelled back, "Please move down the isle" like they normally do. The old man looked at the bus driver and said, "They aren't going to do it cuz they can't understand yeh... they can't understand and they don't even belong here." So in a huff he finally found a seat near the front of the bus and every Asian just stared at him being that almost all of them understand and speak English perfectly well...

The Indigenous people of Australia have been repressed, much like the Native Americans, but here they still act out in many ways of violence toward everyone else. Teenage kids and 'aboriginees' from the area walk on to campus, especially late at night, and attack students (typically Asians) and anyone in the area for no good reason. Recently there were a few attacks in a different housing area where an Australian guy was almost beat up with golf clubs by a group of aboriginees if it weren't for his running into the laundry room. So there is a lot of violence and hostility still among the different communities.

No grape jelly, but I did find Ketchup

When you go out to a restaurant and you want a side of sauce for anything, you have to pay at least 2 dollars for it.

The fries are called chips here and chips are called crisps

The fries here, if served with anything, come with aioli sauce... basically garlic mayo. We thought it was great until we realized we were eating gobs of mayo on our fries, so then we cut back.

You have to pay 1 dollar to use a shopping cart... so we carry baskets in the grocery store instead.

You have to pay for internet usage by the megabyte... that is annoying.

If you give the peace sign, or actually make a V in sign language and motion with your hand up-wards it is a very offensive hand gesture here

Boxed wine is called "Goon"



I know there are a ton more things, but none are coming to mind right now. So I'll just keep adding as I think of them. This week I'm making travel plans for our break which is the week before and the week after Easter and hopefully going to the pool Wednesday for some laps and time in the sun.