Nimbin & The Magic Bus

I don't care if I wasn't alive in 1969, I have officially seen Woodstock. There's an unbelievably strange little town quietly existing in New South Whales at the base of "mystical" Mt. Warning. Although it is tiny in size, the town of Nimbin has managed to attract every form of an Earth Mother, hippie, "hortaculturalist," burnt out artist, anarchist, creative expressionist, alternative lifestyle practitioner, tree hugger, and all around peace-loving human beings on the planet to this one street town. This tiny enigma of a settlement has it's roots in alternative lifestyle advocates as it's rise to popularity began in '73 when it hosted the Aquarius Festival which was described to me as "a mini Woodstock." I think you see where I'm going with the descriptions of this town, and can at this point reach some accurate conclusions of your own. A recent blog on Lonely Planet had Nimbin ranked within the top 20 places to visit in Australia, purely because there are so few places in the world that come close to it in character, making it definitely worth a visit. Fortunately for me, Bond organizes a trip that runs once a semester with a shuttle down to Nimbin...but not just any shuttle; a Magic Bus - the Magic Bus. The Magic bus is a completely revamped double decker tour bus, painted entirely with flowers and fittingly psychedelic colors on the outside as well as the inside. As if the paint job was not enough to turn heads, the bus also blasts reggae and other similar sounding music throughout it's entire journey announcing it's arrival into whichever lucky town it may pass through. You know you're causing a scene when even the cows stop eating, look up, and stare with an even more dumbfounded look than usual on their faces as the bus crawls by them.

So anyway, I obviously careened some friends to take this trip with me, and our day started at 8:30am with our first encounter with the Magic Bus, not to be confused with the Magic School Bus as there was no Miss Frizzle on this vehicle, that's for sure. Diane, Molly, Angie, Jane, Lacy and I were amongst a group of around 15 other Bond students who had signed up for this Magic Bus journey, not really knowing what the day was going to be like, or further, what Nimbin was going to be like. The bus pulled up to campus already pumping music and seemingly ready to go, and all we could do was laugh. What else do you do when you're about to spend a day on a  massive psychedelic double decker tour bus with two gears at best? Adding to the entire image of the bus, was the "pilot" of the bus who could not have been more fitting for his task of driving a crazy looking bus probably filled with crazy people to an even crazier town, populated be the craziest of all crazy people. He was the type of guy who at 32 years old, had no career, but probably held more jobs than he knew what to do with at one time. His hair was pulled back into a pony tail, he had a necklace with some rock symbol thing, a dirty button down with cargo shorts and a seriously unkempt beard. What he did have, however, was a pretty quick wit and some offbeat comments that were far more entertaining than he originally intended. So we scrambled on the bus and up to the second level and settled in for our reggae filled ride down to New South Whales. The best part of the ride was watching the reaction of people on the streets as we passed them. I saw one woman drop her groceries and shield her child's eyes, amongst the strange combination of confused and jealously delighted stares that we got as the Magic Bus rolled through various towns. It was better than any in-flight entertainment I've experienced.

Two hours later we pulled into Nimbin and began our exploration of the town that wouldn't last a day in the United States. There was one police station located at the very edge of town tucked behind a few big trees - it was boarded up and totally deserted. After happening across this, the microcosm of a town seemed to make a lot more sense. There was simply no police presence at all within miles of the town, and this became even more apparent as we wandered the one street of the little town. Our jaws were practically hanging open as we walked and almost everything that we saw was well worth laughing over. There were shops called "Happy High Herbs," the "Hemp Emporium," and "Bringabong," to point out a few highlights of Nimbin style creativity. Due to the very clear commonality that runs through the veins of the town, every person on the street or shopkeeper who we spoke to was blindingly friendly and bubbly, making the experience as a whole even more fun because people were easy to talk to. One man I spoke to came to Nimbin for a visit when he was 22 years old, and simply did not go home. There were men clearly in their later years (much later years) hanging around the streets with dreadlocks and all sorts of earthy looking jewelry chatting with anyone who would chat back at them, and women with fortune telling devices and dread lock sporting children everywhere. It was honestly like walking down the set of a Hollywood film - places like this aren't supposed to actually exist in the real world, but it's somewhat comforting to know that they do. It's nice to know that true creativity and places that aren't totally tuned in with the pulse of the world and regional politics still exist, even if they exist in pockets. I was pleasantly surprised by the local art museum that we wandered into as well. There were a lot of works on canvases that appeared at first glance to be typically Aboriginal in their characteristics, but each one had a pair of 3D glasses next to them. The common looking Aboriginal art was immediately hippie art upon closer examination with the help of the 3D glasses. It was a pretty cool fusion of cultural art with a Nimbin twist. So anyway, we killed about an hour and a half just wandering in and out of strange little shops selling even stranger things, all of which was pretty cool to see and totally worth the long southern haul.

Our next stop on the Magic Bus ride was the Sphinx Cafe, where we stopped briefly for lunch before continuing down the road towards a local swimming hole. Upon arrival, the Magic Bus puttered to a halt and we hopped out and headed down towards the river. The river was a murky green and was apparently infested with platypus. I'd take a platypus infested river any day over a crocodile one. That being said, it definitely looked like prime snake/crocodile/leech/snapping turtle/loch ness monster conditions, especially being that you couldn't see anywhere close to the bottom - something that Molly would have no part of and I don't blame her for choosing life. While the six of us lined the river weighing our options, I glanced behind us. The rest of the Bond students were all lounging around in the sun, clearly devoid of any and all ambition to take a plunge into the questionable river. I made up my mind however, and headed into the great unknown to make my way across the river to the rope swing on the other side. I looked back one more time at the semi-conscious group of other Bond students, all of whom were dead asleep by now, with the pilot of the Magic Bus walking amongst them asking, "Anyone dangling on the edge of reality?" Three hands went up. Clearly, they had done a fairly extensive job of embracing the Nimbin "culture." By now, Lacy and I were about waist deep and hadn't been attacked by anything yet so Diane deemed the odds of survival to be favorable and followed us into the alarmingly cold green water. We forged the river, Oregon Trail style and spent the next 45 minutes or so swinging out over the river on the make shift rope swing and then crashing down to the water like a ton of bricks in the least graceful manner possible - over, and over again. I guess I can cross trapeze artist off of my list of possible career paths, it's just not in the cards for me, as sad as it is.

After the swimming extravaganza, it was back to the Magic Bus to head north. On the way, he had a great view of  the ever so "mystical" Mt. Warning, and a lot of Australian farms until we were back in Queensland. I think it's safe to assume that these farms are less than productive. They all looked particularly sun scorched and seemed to be entirely free of human beings...just cows. They were some happy looking cows though. Not exactly Papen farms if you ask me! Anyway, from here the Magic Bus continued its homeward bound journey and we were back in our buildings by around 6:30pm, exhausted and a little in shock that we had really just witnessed everything we saw that day. I'm definitely glad we made the trip, it was wonderfully bizarre in every way possible and I know I'll never forget the town that just doesn't care about the outside world.

This is class?

Most of my classes that I'm enrolled in as of now are at least relatively school like, such as a major Australian writing class and history of the civilization of Australia - which yes, was accomplished primarily by convicts. There is one class however, which is totally illegitimate, and had to have managed to fly so low under the radar that whoever the academic dean for humanities is, clearly overlooked it throughout it's construction period. This class, which I consider myself a genius for even enrolling in, is called Australian popular culture. The class is comprised entirely of American students and the professor is very much aware of this, and plans accordingly with a splattering of momentary pauses to let us chuckle when she talks about Steve Irwin in total academic seriousness - which no, I will never not laugh at....excuse my double negative, it was warranted. Anyway, the class enrollment is huge, as every study abroad student was scrambling to get into this class having been told by whoever came before them that the class legitimately exists around kangaroos and typical Australian icons, which, interestingly enough, also includes beer according to our professor. Because of the overflow, our lectures take place in the biggest theater (spelled theatre of course) that Bond has on campus, which is pretty monstrous to describe it in a word. The class only meets once a week with a killer 3 hour lecture that would usually make me nauseous to think about. The saving grace however, is the fact that the first hour is a lecture and the remaining two are spent watching movies, I'm pretty okay with the schedule, and will therefore swallow my complaints with the class length. We spent the majority of our class last week watching Ned Kelly, which, by the way, is my new favorite movie -  and will spend next week watching - wait for it - Crocodile Dundee (1, not 2, thank goodness.) This "class" eventually finishes at 1pm on Wednesday, which also coincidentally is the start of my four day weekend. If I ever complain about anything again, I deserve a swift knock to the chops, no questions asked, no explanation necessary. I'll understand. Anyway, to continue my joke of a day, we've been typically spending the rest of the afternoon bumming around at the pool, carrying some of our books with us - but not to actually read them - mostly to just make ourselves feel less guilty about our day and more productive on the whole. Perhaps it's the illusion of having the option to be productive that is reassuring to us. (Not that we're particularly stressed.) Granted, this is all taking place in weeks 1 & 2, so I have to assume that come week 9 or so there will be a few more things on my plate, although at this rate, I'm not so sure...which is fine. But the best part, is that I'm getting four credits for that whole Wednesday! 

The interesting thing though, about taking classes in a different country, is that you pick up more than just whatever the teacher is firing at you, assuming you're at least half paying attention. For example, in this major australian writing class, a poem called "Bell Birds," which is apparently like the Australian staple of poetry which every Australian has grown up hearing, contained the phrase, "fiery December." Find me an American poem that describes December as anything but cold, freezing, unreasonably frigid, and or miserable. (Cheery Christmas poems that compare snow to sugar aside.) Also, in that same class (which is also 3 hours, but Crocodile Dundee free unfortunately) I found myself zoning out - no surprise there - but immediately engaged when my professor said, I quote, "Anyone who doesn't think Australia is a racist country doesn't know us very well." Come again? You just described your people as what? I wrote that down the second I heard it come out of her mouth in big letters on the top of my notes page because I knew it was worth remembering. Ultimately, she was referring to Australian humor and what types of things the culture as a whole will most likely regard as entertaining. I personally don't think Australians are racist. That's a pretty harsh adjective to assign arbitrarily. It appeared as such an odd thing to say because as far as I can tell, they're exceptionally more tolerable and comfortable with all walks of life, thus creating a relatively normal humor towards virtually anything, which is quite enjoyable. Anyway, according to her, Australians, Aborigines in particular, take great pleasure in watching someone do something unintelligent and then injure themselves as a repercussion for their stupidity. I would be a great Australian. Lastly, while I'm on the topic of the professors, I have a really hard time addressing them because I just don't know what to call them. They all tell us to call them by the first names...which none of the Americans have been able to get used to. I don't think that they even refer to themselves as professors, as I am yet to hear an Australian even say that word. It's sort of a bizarre thing for me to be able to do because calling someone by their first name seems to level the playing field in my head, even though the playing field is clearly not level. Which is fine.

The last thing worth mentioning for now, are the birds of the Gold Coast. First of all, Disney was dead on when they made the sea gulls of Finding Nemo not only reminiscent of a bowling pin in shape, but also intolerably irritating. They are not only actually shaped like a bowling pin, but they also waddle so violently when on land that they look a lot like a pin does right before it finally stops wobbling and falls over - except they're way less satisfying to watch. There are parrots all over campus as well, which is awesome in itself, but the bad news is that they sound like something being brutally murdered when they chat amongst themselves. (Which happens often...usually on my window sill at around 5:15am.) It's immediately startling as it obviously rockets me out of sleep, and eventually maddening towards the end of the 45 minute ordeal, but how mad can I possibly be, they're parrots? It's not like some big ugly Long Island crow is cawing at me while it's still dark out...and  I can only hold a grudge against a red and green parrot for so long. Three little birds are sitting on my door step, but they're not singing sweet songs - nice try Bob Marley, you're lying to the public and I caught you. Lastly, the pelicans here are literally the size of small humans. Their heads are definitely hitting me about mid elbow range and their massive bucket beaks are a good foot and a half long. They're like feathered dinosaurs, but less threatening than a pterodactyl. They're also like pigeons in the sense that they have no fear of humans, but I suppose when you're that size, not much needs to cause immediate alarm. It's funny watching mothers yank their children away from the roided-up pelicans, because you know it's for totally different reasons than the mothers who haul their hyperactive children away from the pigeons in Central Park. The pigeon fearing moms are terrified of whatever diseases the pigeons will obviously and immediately pass on to their children should they come within a foot, while the mothers who avoid the steroid taking pelicans are afraid that the animal will literally consume their child - which appears to be a very valid fear. They're that big. At least the giant pelicans are one Australian animal that is indeed massive in size, but is not poisonous, nor does it have a genuine, invested interest in biting me. Or at least that's what they tell me. I'll hold on to that notion for now in the name of sanity. 

How to Spot the Americans

If anyone has a sudden urge to send me something, let it be known that ketchup (preferably Heinz) has jumped to number one on my list of basic necessities which I am currently craving. This is not because ketchup is extinct in Australia. It is simply because what forms of ketchup do exist here are either entirely American-proof in their packaging, or are much closer cousins to pure tomato sauce. The union of tomato sauce and french fries, I mean, "chips," is a relationship that I hope to never see. There's a growing list of things which we have now deemed to be American-proof, starting with the ketchup packages that physically do not open without a knife or an explosion of the entire package, or both if you're really lucky. The light switches have made the list as well, as it is plainly not possibly to wrap our heads around the idea of pushing down on a switch in order to turn it on. The most recent addition to the list of things that Americans do wrong here, is something which, without some kind of physical impediment, should be be far less challenging than it has become. The simple act of walking in public places has proved to be a genuine obstacle for the greater portion of the American population. Without knowing it, the fact that we drive on the right side of the road at home has literally trained us to automatically travel on the right side of anything while going anywhere. Think about it. When we walk through a mall or an airport, we always walk on the right because that's just the way movement is conducted. Down under on the other hand...they drive on the left, as do most places of British influence, but they therefore walk on the left. This disastrous combination of Americans walking on the right side of the sidewalk and Australians walking on the left side will ten times out of ten result in a collision when walking towards each other. Unfortunately, reason and applied understanding alone did not tell me this. The experience and subsequent confusion caused by constantly smashing into people every day made me wonder if I was even walking improperly. The actual realization occurred to me only after accidentally playing chicken with a small child at Seaworld while we walked towards each other in the penguin exhibit, waiting for the other move. (Neither moved and a collision did ensue, however all parties emerged unharmed.) While the whole light switch thing may get easier with time, I'm fairly confident that I will always be walking on the right side of anything and will just have to get used to dodging oncoming humans. While Americans definitely stand out less in Australia than they may (and do) elsewhere, they are nonetheless very noticeable and easy to pick out in public spaces. It's definitely warm here right now, and temperatures this week have been pushing 85F, so most sensible men are in shorts.  Any male who's knee cap and/or lower thigh are visible, is clearly not a descendent of the Pilgrims. The Australian man's short shorts are made even more noticeable by the fact that the American men here tend to wear those longer board shorts, if not basketball shorts which hit them mid calf, if not practically at their ankles. Clearly Rafa Nadal's capri shorts look is catching on whether the Americans admit it or not, because another eighth of an inch, and those "shorts" are most definitely capri pants. The beach is another place where the Americans stick out thanks to their apparel, as no Joe the Plumber would be caught dead wearing a speedo - whereas they are all the rage amongst the older generation of Australians. The women are just as terrible at camouflaging as their male counterparts unfortunately. Apparently, Australians do not tan the way that many young American females are quite keen on, and it is rare to see Australians lying on the beach soaking up the melanoma the way Americans do...probably because they know that the hole in the ozone layer is literally above our heads, and death by sun is unpleasant. Further, American women are the only ones who "angle their chairs" in accordance with the sun's rays, as if laughing in the face of the non-existant ozone wasn't bad enough. Accents aside, even the American's word choices while speaking stand out next to the Australian's. Australians never refer to a location as it's proper, full known name, and everything is either given an "y," or an "ie" at the end. The Gold Coast, for example, turns into "Goldie," turning Brisbane into "Brissy," relative into "ressy" and university directly into "uni." For example, someone recently said to me, "Yep, my relies live in Brissy, so I see them a lot while I'm down here on the Goldie at uni." I'm sorry? Your what lives where? It took me three days to decode that sentence, and I'm still not entirely sure if that's even the intended meaning. The American world may never know.

Week One: Survival and Adaptation

Coming from someone who doesn't fly from New York to Dallas without a hitch, a slick 15 hour hop from LAX to Brisbane, Australia was not high on my list of easy things to accomplish in life. Luckily for me, and for everyone on board, I kept myself quiet and relatively asleep for most of the flight until the last four hours where I may have made a flight attendant hold my hand for 45 minutes of turbulence...but that's neither here nor there...I made it to Australia in one piece and relatively without incident. Mission accomplished. I waited for Lacy and Molly outside of the arrival gate for quite a while, but soon remembered that there were over 200 people on board, leading me to the decision that my time would be better spent making forward progress, so I headed for customs. My two obscenely oversized and beat up bags were part of the first set of bags on to the carousel and I definitely received my fair share of odd looks as I lugged them back to my little bag cart and struggled to balance my next three months of living materials in a suitable manner. It was fine - I would have stared at me too. I waited against the wall for Molly and Lacy to clear customs and come collect their bags and watched the drug sniffing beagle trot around and invade everyone's personal bubble that his handler would let him near. I chuckled when he deliberately sat down next to a bag belonging to a man with a suspicious toupee and then laughed audibly as he was carted off to a back room for what was sure to be hours of dead end questions over a muffin or a sandwich that he probably had in his bag which Snoopy clearly took an interest in. It's amazing what's entertaining at 5:50am two days later after a 15 hour flight. That reminds me, how was everyone's September 2nd? I have been robbed of a day seeing as we took off a little before midnight on September 1 and landed on September 3rd. Bizarre. I hope it was a decent day. Anyway, when the other two finally emerged with their bags we made a break for the exit just as Snoopy and his handler were coming out of the back room. He marched over to my bags, did a few loops with his trusty sniffer going full throttle, and then walked away. Sorry, Snoopy, no drugs for you. Molly was suddenly not behind me so I turned around and low and behold the damn dog was sitting down starring at her bag, burning it with his beady little beagle eyes. I was positive this meant that it would be days before we saw her again as someone had clearly slipped their daily heroin or cocaine into her bag without her knowing. Instead of dragging her off to the dreaded airport back room, Snoopy's handler shooed Molly away upon reaching the decision that she was most likely not someone's drug mule. Maybe the Tory Burch gave it away? Molly had arranged for a driver to pick us up from the airport to take us to our hotel which he had to stay in for the night so that we didn't have to deal with cabs at 6 in the morning in a strange country. We located a nice little 5 foot nothing asian man named William holding a sign with her name on it and followed him to his van. Watching this poor little man try to load all of our oversized bags into this car was literally like watching the worst game of Tetris ever, but he somehow made it work, Tim Gunn style. We were immediately on the lookout for Kangaroos as someone in the airport told us that they were "just like deer in Australia," and that they were "everywhere." Yeah, everywhere in the Outback and the suburbs, buddy. Reason told me that no self respecting kangaroo would ever be seen bouncing around the side of a highway, but then again, deer in the States are all about highways, so I guess it was a toss up. Anyway, about 20 minutes later we made it to our interim hotel and proceeded with the terrible task of moving these monstrous bags out of the van, up the curb, up the steps, through the lobby and into the elevator. Talk about a spectacle. Things were falling out of bags, bags themselves were falling, we were falling, it was a mess; but at 6am, everything is a mess.

It was at this point that I learned Australian Lesson #1: They Don't Tip. Ever. Unfortunately for me, my father taught me well and I always tip people who do me a civil service, don't hassle me, are nice and accomplish the task incident free. William accomplished all of those things, and fortunately for William, in my semi-sedated overtired and confused state I was feeling very generous. I proceeded to tip William a cool 15 Australian dollars, which he practically ripped out of my hand and then dove into the car and sped away upon receiving. At the time I remember thinking, 'wow, he must really have somewhere to be.' Now, looking back, I know his thought process was something more along the lines of, 'JACKPOT: Stupid American too tired to use discretion!" I am yet to live this misunderstanding down as Molly and Lacy have quite loudly reminded me every time we go anywhere NOT TO TIP. I guess I deserve it. After having to make two elevator trips because our luggage not only weighed too much, but also simply would not fit into the elevator, I mean, "the lift," all at once, we collapsed into the hotel room. We soon learned Australian Lesson #2: the light switches here are backwards, or upside down, or what have you. In order to turn anything ON here, you press the BOTTOM of the switch, which is just counterintuitive and simply should not be. Immediately after that, we learned Australian Lesson #3: In order to actually use the electricity in the room, you have to insert the spare key card into the little slip on the wall by the door, forcing you to turn out the lights when you leave. These Australians are clearly ahead of us on the whole Green Planet thing...although most people seem to be these days, so I guess that's a moot point. I am sad to report that we figured neither of these little nuggets of information out on our own, as Molly eventually called down to the front desk after we admitted defeat to the electricity. After taking a brief but life giving nap, we headed out into downtown Brisbane to explore and walk off the jet lag. Our first stop was a sushi restaurant a few blocks down the hill. Australian Lesson #4 was learned here. Australian sushi is remarkably different than what we're used to in the states. For starters, the "tuna" that they use for any type of tuna roll is actually the type of tuna that you find in a tuna fish sandwich for example - that mushy grayish colored sushi/mayo concoction that has NO business being in a sushi roll - yeah, that kind of tuna. Also, if you ask for a spicy anything, you get whatever roll you ordered with some sort of chili pepper around the outside of the roll in place of spice. Bizarre. After that little experience, we headed down to what looked like a huge mall in the center of town where the other two began their epic search for "a regular cup of coffee" which is still going on as we speak. Australian Lesson #5 (we learned a lot of lessons on Day 1) taught us, or the coffee drinkers of the group, that you cannot just order a coffee. You can only order a cappuccino, or a frap, or something with a description word in front of it, as a simple cup of black coffee for example, is not easy to come by or at least commonly ordered. From here we found an electronic store and bought ourselves some pathetic Go phones for $30 that would work in Australia. Now that I'm using this phone every day it's literally like having a phone from 1995. I've forgotten how to text on anything where there's a big number with three little letters underneath it, T9 is the most complicated function ever, and it takes me 25 minutes to construct a 10 word text. Mom, I'm sorry for ever assuming you could text on a phone like that. You were right, it was way out of your league, as it's way out of my league now that I'm part of the iPhone nation. After that shopping experience, we did a little more wandering, then made our way back to the hotel to nurse our jet lag and check out Australian TV. It was the most perfectly stereotypical experience I have ever had. We pressed "ON," and who's voice do we hear before the picture shows up, but the late, great Steve Irwin. We concluded the eventful day one by walking to the bar across the street and had some good fried comfort food for dinner before crashing pretty early. Our arrival to the Sunburned country coincided with the Brisbane Festival so we capped off the night with some fireworks over the River that we could see all over the city. It was definitely a great welcome to the country. Of course, I just assumed that they were celebrating our arrival, but the bartender shattered my high hopes by explaining that it was for the festival. Nonetheless, it was a great end to the night.

The next day, we finally made our way to our new home, Bond University located on the Gold Coast about an hour outside of Brisbane in Robina, about a 30 minute bus ride from Surfer's Paradise. If I ever complain again, someone should hit me with a blunt object. The school is incredible. It was built in the 80's, so things are very modern and massive and clean. There's an awesome lake and tiered waterfall right in the heart of campus with a huge arched building stretching over the waterfall that sprawls down and flanks the lake on both sides. Molly and I are both living in the South Tower that overlooks the lake and the rest of campus - well, Molly's room does at least. My room on the other hand, happens to look down onto the school dumpster and loading bay for all dining machinery which is lovely at 5am - however I'm not complaining. My room is massive. I have my own bathroom and full shower attached to my room, and more floor space than I know what to do with. AND! "Housekeeping" comes in every thursday and takes our "rubbish bins" and vacuums. It feels like a hotel at times. The building itself was pretty quiet until about a week later when the Australians came back from their "spring holidays" aka spring break, as most of my building is comprised of Australians, not study abroad kids. Anyway, we spent the next week basically playing. "O-Week" or orientation week started right away, but was basically complete by the first day so we literally spent the next few days going down to the beach at Surfer's Paradise, dodging jellyfish by day and getting our fill of clubbing in by night. No complaints - Ever. It's a big change relying on public transportation to get from point A to point B, and we soon realized that a bus schedule needs to be checked, double checked and triple checked before it is deemed reliable. We made some new Canadian friends right off the bat who live in an apartment down in Surfer's Paradise so we spent a lot of time with them that week and had a ton of fun. It was thanks to them that we first experienced the wonder that is Vegemite. Australian Lesson #6: Vegemite is foul. This stuff hast to be radioactive or at least toxic in some way - nothing digestible should ever taste like this. When you bite down the initial horror is slow to take affect. At first it unpleasantly burns your taste buds and is then very slightly reminiscent of a vodka shot with a terrible after bite. To add salt to the wound, it sticks to the back of your teeth in the most solid way possible, and by the time you realize that, you're too afraid to get your tongue near it to scrape the congealed substance off of your teeth. It's a terribly stressful ordeal that lasts about 35 seconds per bite, and it doesn't get any better the second time around. Cross that one off the list: Tried Vegemite, Chose Life.

Classes have started by now, and apparently Australians are trained at a young age to be content with 2 and 3 hour classes. Australian Lesson #7: Australians are very obedient people. Only the Americans and other international students seem to be horrified by the idea of a 3 hour class, whereas the Australians show up with rations of food and the occasional red bull to make it through the class without even batting an eye at it. By the time I hit hour 2 I'm practically a homicidal lunatic, but these Aussies can just cruise right through to hour three, then walk across campus and do it again. Speaking of walking across campus...allow me to quickly address the layout of some of these buildings. The buildings are all very clearly labelled numerically to make life easy for us challenged international students, and the classrooms are also very clearly marked as well. So building 6, floor 3, room 27 should not be hard to find at all. Unfortunately, the rooms go from 26 to 29 with no warning and rooms 27 and 28 seem to exist in the ether. I was literally at the point where I was giving myself a half hour to find these rooms before class as many of the entrances to these rooms are actually located outside of the building. WHO MAKES A BUILDING LIKE THAT?!? It was like something out of a Robin Williams skit where he impersonates the jerk who designed the building as he chuckles to himself knowing that anyone looking for these rooms is totally screwed without a GPS locator or a yellow brick road. I might as well have been looking for Platform 9 and three quarters at times. Anyway after finding the damn rooms the lecture halls were actually pretty impressive as they were massive in size and very modern in design with BOND UNIVERSITY written in neon blue lights above the lecture stand and all sorts of cameras and lights capable of doing practically anything. (I had 3 hours to stare at every nook and cranny of these rooms, I know them well by now.)

The last thing I've experienced this week worth mentioning was our trip to the Canberra Wildlife Park. The desperate, aching urge to hold a koala while in Australia was finally satisfied, but first, we had to get into the park. It was quite the task moving a group of 9 people through a very slow ticket counter when we can literally see the koalas just past the gate. After buying our park tickets, we were all given bumper stickers that said, "No Tree, No Me." with a big koala head in the middle, and the phrase itself provided  endless entertainment despite it's morbidity. When we finally got to the koala picture-taking-holding-zone we were like a group of giddy school girls dying to hug Bugs Bunny at six flags. The koala we held was conveniently named, "Harry," but "Stinky" would have been far better suited for him. Australian Lesson #8: The one thing that people commonly fail to mention when they discuss koalas, is that they smell - really, really bad. Not exactly a faint aroma of eucalyptus wafting from its fur. Instead, it's definitely the distinct smell of rotting wood, must, and dirt. Fortunately though, they're so freaking cute that it just doesn't matter if you're ever that close to them because all you want to do is squeeze them. They are quite literally a ball of fur with ears, that wants to sleep and eat all day. I'm totally coming back as a koala in my next life. So we all took turns holding Harry and getting our pictures taken and the tiny fleeting moments with him were cruelly short lived, but glorious regardless and I would do it again in a heartbeat...even though we practically had to scrub down with hand sanitizer afterwards, it was still awesome. After Harry, we went and quite literally hung out with the Kangaroos. We spent about an hour petting them and feeding them and wondering how on earth somebody took a rabbit's body, gave it steroids and then crossed it with a llama's face and neck. Such a weird animal, but I absolutely love them. Nobody lounges around better than a kangaroo. They literally stop walking, fall over and sprawl out in whichever way they please, whenever the spirit moves them to do so. After the roo experience, I insisted on finding the Dingo exhibit to see some Australian wolves. They were surprisingly orange. I guess I always thought that in the pictures they just seemed red or something, but these dogs are about as orange as the fruit, and much more dog like than I thought. Definitely clarified some of questions I had about the origins of my mutts at home...Kita has most definitely got some dingo in her, apparently they come in black too. The wombats evaded us, but we were able to see a tasmanian devil which is literally the least threatening animal ever. Warner Brothers took that idea and ran with it when they designed the Taz of my childhood. They didn't even get the color right, these suckers were definitely black, not brown, and also did not move one inch in 20 minutes, let alone run around in a tornado the way Taz allegedly does. While waiting for the tasmanian devil to move, I encountered life threatening animal number 2 (the first were the jellyfish at Surfer's Paradise.) We discovered a spider a little larger than my pointer finger sitting, poised to attack me under the railing of the enclosure. Australian Lesson #9: Google was right - Australian spiders really do hide in unfair locations, and are also unreasonably large. There's just no plausible reason for a bug to reach that size. In fact, sizes like that shouldn't even be classified as bugs anymore, they should fall under the "small rodents and animals" category. That thing belonged in the Amazon of Ecuador with it's tarantula friends I met a few years back, I'm sure his family misses him.

Anyway, that's about as far as I've gotten in Australia, I'm only about ankle deep and I love it already. The people really are as nice as they say which was a really nice surprise. I guess New York has just hardened me to assume that it was just an exaggeration of a few tourists who had some nice guides, but the people in general are definitely a kind and genuine group that I've encountered thus far. My fingers are crossed that the spiders stay at bay until the next time I update this blog, so that I won't have to dedicate another paragraph to my bewilderment that they even exist. It's definitely called a rugged country for a reason!