School Has Begun, But Not Before a Little Fun

Hey everyone…hope everything in the states is going well. Sorry for my delays with posting, I’ve been pretty busy over here lately.

So I’ll start off with a little bit of background of my Uni. The University of Newcastle is a large public university ranked 9th in the country. Unlike the US, Australia only has 38 universities with only 2 of those being private. So going to a public university with 30,000 students is in stark contrast to the 3,000 students at Elmhurst. Although I love that Elmhurst is a small school, I’m really enjoying being able to experience what it’s like to go to a big university for a semester. I think the biggest difference so far is that it takes me about 20 minutes to my classes or the train station, compared to the 3-5 minute walk to classes and the train that I was use to at Elmhurst.

On Friday the 17th, we were finally able to move into our places for the next 5 months. After living out of our suitcase for almost a week, we were all very excited to get settled in. About half of the people in our group choose to live off-campus about 20 min from Uni and right in the heart of downtown Newcastle. The other half of us (including myself) decided to live on campus in the “colleges.” In Australia it is not nearly as common for students to “go away to Uni” as it is in the states and most students commute. So the spots on campus are mostly reserved for Aussies who live too far to commute and international students.

I live in Edwards Hall (a.k.a. Teds). Teds is approximately 75% Aussie students and 25% international students. The set up of Teds gets kind of confusing because Edwards Hall is divided up into 4 separate buildings. The main office and dining hall are in the first building. This building also has a large basement called the cellar which is where we host lots of activates or where people meet before going out. The two main houses are Bernett House and Cutler House (where I live) and then there’s also a third building across the street (Tunra House), which is self-catered. Bernett and Cutler house get 16 meals a week; however, we only get breakfast and dinner and then lunch on the weekends. And by breakfast I mean cereal and toast. I miss Elmhurst’s cafeteria food. By the way, when I say “House” don’t think house, think dorm, it’s just what they’re called here. Then each house has 3 floors, the first floor is ground floor, the second floor is the first floor, and the 3rd floor is the 2nd floor (confusing!). But people here just say ground, mid, or top. Then each floor is divided into 3 different corridors or hallways: North, West, and East. So when someone asks me where I live I would respond, “Teds, Culter, Ground, West.” Each corridor is co-ed and is your basic communal bathroom, traditional dorm style hallway. We also share a tea room (kitchen), but you gotta be careful what you put in the fridge or it might not be there the next day. The only huge difference is that all bedrooms in all of the colleges on campus are single and you’d never have a roommate here. This picture of my room is from the first night that I moved in. It kinda looks like a jail cell huh? (I’ve decorated a little bit since then). Even though the room seems pretty small, I actually feel like I have a lot more personal space then I did sharing a slightly bigger room with a roommate. Teds also has a swimming pool behind it, but that doesn’t open till spring, so not for about another month.

This past Monday marked the beginning of Semester 2 at the University of Newcastle. While in the US everyone is still in the middle of their summer vacation, in Australia everyone is returning for second semester from their “holiday” (winter break). However, the entire week before classes started was dedicated to O-week (Orientation Week). Since it’s the middle of the school year and there aren’t very many new students, O-week was mostly devoted to the international students. The week was VERY fun with numerous activities planned for everyday, but it was also very tiring and I’m happy to settle into somewhat of a routine now.

Sunday night started off O-Week where we all met in the cellar for meet and greet type games and lots of lollies. Then Monday we had a formal uni orientation session for all new international students, which we were warned would be “bloody boring.” And oh it was. However, we were also given the hot tip that STA Travel would raffle a free 16-day Spring Break Trip worth about $2000 but you had to stay till the very end of orientation to get it. So I sat through the entire boring day in hopes of winning the trip and some other American girl named Kimberly won…go figure. At least with got a free barbie lunch. Then Monday night Teds hosted a nibbles/drinks meet and greet at a local pub and that was a cool way to meet some more international and local students from my college.

Tuesday morning started off bright and early with a free pancake brekie. I guess that sometimes they do put syrup on their pancakes but another traditional way to have them is with lemon juice on top. I had never heard of this before, but I tried it and it wasn’t half bad. Then we were off to some more orientation sessions, another free barbie lunch, and we also went to the Hub (basically the student union) where we got our student ID’s and were finally able to register for classes. Then Tuesday night Bar on the Hill (yes, there’s a bar on campus…werid right?) hosted a Welcome Party for all the new and returning students and that was also pretty fun. Bar on the Hill is a pretty cool place to hang out between classes and they also have pretty cheap food for lunch as well.

Wednesday afternoon I went on a bus tour of the city of Newcastle. The Uni is actually located in the suburb Callaghan, and is about a 20-minute train ride from downtown Newcastle. This was the first time that I had been into town and I was really excited that we stopped to get off and check out two of Newcastle’s beaches which were absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to go back and and hang out there when it’s a little bit warmer. I was amazed that even though it was pretty cold there were still people surfing and playing volleyball in the sand. Then Wednesday night Teds hosted a Trivia night, but I didn’t go to that because I was still showering and getting ready to go into town for the night. Like I mentioned earlier, Wednesday night is the big night to go out here because it’s student night everywhere and basically everyone goes into town.

Thursday morning I woke up early again because Teds was taking us on a little field trip up to Nelson Bay. Nelson Bay is about an hour north of Newcastle and is a really nice area on the beach with a lot of restaurants, cafés, and shops. After about an hour of walking around town, we went on a dolphin cruise. I wasn’t able to get any good pictures of them, but I was able to see a few swimming around the boat which was a pretty cool sight. When we got back to campus, Teds was hosting a Pancakes and Popcorn Move Night where they played the movie Castle, a classic Australian movie.

Friday morning was another early one because Teds took another field trip about an hour north to the Hunter Valley Region for a Winery Tour. We went to three different wineries throughout the day. The first one we went to was Lindeman’s and that was my favorite. They taught us the proper way to actually taste wine and let us sample a few white wines, red wines, and dessert wines and gave us some cheese and crackers in between. The third winery we went to was really fun because we got to try some unique things like this one liquor called Chili Schnapps or “Dragon’s Breath.” The lady told us that we all had to try it at the same time as a shot and it basically tasted like hot peppers in liquid form and burned your throat as it went down. Luckily the lady gave us some chocolate afterward to help the burning. A few people in our group were lovers of hot, spicy things actually really, really liked it and some even bought it.

Then Saturday night concluded the O-Week activities with Ted’s Rockstar Party. One thing that I’ve quickly noticed is that Australians love to have themed parties and dress up in crazy costumes. This past Wednesday night Ted’s also hosted a Uniform Party. Maybe I should have brought more costumes to Australia and less normal clothes? A lot of people went shopping at the op-shop (thrift store) to buy some things, but I didn’t wanna spend any money so I just made do with what I had for the Rockstar Party and I borrowed an AFL (Australian Rules Football) jersey from an Aussie for the Uniform Party.

Well, I’m off to do some homework for class tomorrow. After a few more classes, I’ll update again and tell you all about those. Also stay posted to hear all about my amazing day trip to Port Stephens from this weekend. Finally, feel free to leave comments on any of my posts; you don’t need to have an account or anything.

Cheers!