Frisbee, Pub Crawl, Community Dinner, and the End Approaching...

For the first time, I can say that I have less than a month left in Australia. I can't believe it has gone this fast, and I'm going to make the most out of the rest of my time here. I would say that the last week was an example of doing just that, and I'll let you in on some of the great things that happened during the week.

Mon-Thur

On Monday I took pictures of everything that happened to me, and those will be on Facebook soon. The rest of the week was full of lots of great food at community dinner, a couple of Footy practices, hours and hours of film editing for my final project, and all of the other normal activities. Then Friday and the weekend came...

Frisbee Friday


Friday turned out to be one of the busiest days that I have had here in Australia. It would have been a great day to do a day in the life because it was jam packed full of interesting events.

I woke up about 6:45am to help out Nic with Friday breakfast for Cleos, but I didn't see Nic anywhere. She said that she would be up at 6:30, so I just waited a bit and took out the dishes that she had been preparing the night before. At 7am I knocked on her door upstairs, and she had missed her alarm due to taking Nyquil for a fever. Everything turned out great though, we cooked breakfast enchiladas (ham, eggs, onions, salsa, avacado) and had bananas and oranges on the side. It was a delicious way to start the day. After brekky I went to Australian history for two hours, sent a package at the Post Office, rushed back to class for another hour, and then went with Robyn, Alissa and Crystal to the University Games frisbee tournament.

Each year, all of the colleges in Western Australia come together to compete in different sports, and on Friday it was frisbee! Notre Dame had never fielded a team before, and none of the people that we brought along (7 Americans, 2 Australians) had ever played frisbee together before. Only 3 of us had ever played a game of frisbee, so from the beginning the odds were heavily stacked against us. In the first game we fell behind 5-1, and then came back to only lose by one point 5-6. Also, the game ended abruptly, when we were supposed to play one more point. But for a team that had never played together before, let alone played frisbee before, it was a great showing. The next game we played great and won 7-2. Notre Dame's first frisbee win ever! Then we got smashed 11-1 or something awful, and lost by one again in the last game 6-7. By that time, we were so tired it was hard to play frisbee. While the other teams had multiple rotations, we had 1 sub for guys and girls. A couple of the guys played every minute of the four 30 minute games, something that is extremely physically demanding.

Overall, it was a ton of fun, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. The other teams kept saying that we had a lot of potential. Well, I would say yes and no. First of all, we had never played together before that day and almost won three games. So that is potential. But no because the 7 Americans will be leaving in about a month, and by then the team will cease to exist. Regardless, I missed frisbee a lot, and it was a ton of fun. We played from about 1pm to 5pm, and then the team went their separate ways. As for the Cleos people, we were heading off the pub crawl. =)

Fearless Friday


I was sore and starving after frisbee, so I ate some dinner when we got back to Cleos, took a shower, and started getting ready for the Pub Crawl. Two of Nic's Australian friends had decided to put together a pub crawl for everyone in Cleos. They made a list of bars that we were going to go (six), had rules as to what we had to drink and how to act at each bar (for instance, cider beer and you can only speak in three word sentences) and punishments for breaking the rules (spinning around three times, or something like that). Also, each person who was going had a partner, and had to dress with that partner in some sort of theme. Julia and I went to Good Sammy's on thursday, and I found a ridiculous green polo, and decided that I would try to be some sort of Columbian drug lord for the night. Julia decided to be my drug lord queen, and it worked out really well. This is how it turned out:

(If you can't tell, I've got some gold chains around my neck, and my hair is slicked back and to the side. Pretty awesome night. This picture is at the very end, when we were definitely both feeling the alcohol.)

Here a rundown of the places we went, the rules, the drinks that I had, and how I was feeling after each one. 

(click on this picture to see the full image and all of the rules)

Bar 1) Feeling: 100% Fine. Had to do 10 pushups.

Bar 2)  Feeling 100% fine. And then I had to spin around 3 times, and that was rough. 

Bar 3) I had a bottles of Peroni. $5 beer, so we bought it, but it tasted terrible, as you can see below. Feeling about 80% ok. The alcohol was definitely starting to kick in, and everyone was having a lot more fun. 

Bar 4. A live band! Everyone was dancing, and speaking in three word sentences was hilarious. I think I did it about 95% of the time, and the bartender was laughing at me. Having a great time. 

Bar 5. More dancing, and even more fun. By now, everyone had consumed a lot of alcohol, and time was flying by. 

Bar 6 (back to the first bar). The night ended amazingly! The band at the Orient was great, and everyone was glad to have come on the pub crawl. It was about time to head to bed though (about 1am), because I was exhausted after such a long day, and had definitely had a lot of alcohol. Before I went to bed I helped Alli clean the kitchen a bit, drank a lot of water, and finally went to bed. After such a long day, it wasn't too long before I was sleeping very soundly. I woke up the next day at about noon with a surprisingly clear head. It was an amazing night, full of great memories. 

(A tourist, desperates housewives, a bride to be, and the drug lords)

Saturday and Sunday

I took it easy on Saturday and went to a maritime museum with a group of friends. It was a cool place, and they were running an ANZANG photography exhibit, with some of the coolest nature pictures taken that year from across Australia. That was easily my favorite part of the museum. Today I had a nice walk along the river and a small picnic, and then went shopping for Community Dinner! This is the first dinner where I am actually coming up with everything, meaning the recipes and organizing people to help me with the food. It's going to be Fondue, Weiner schnitzel, Mashed Potatoes, Salad, and Caramel Oatmeal Chewies, which I made tonight with help from a recipe that my mom gave me over Skype. It's going to be great. 

All in all, a pretty amazing week and weekend. The next blog post might be about two or three weeks away just to warn you, but I'll try to get one in between the trips that we have planned. Here's a preview of my last couple of weeks in Australia

Mon 24th - Friday the 28th- Last week of classes, turn in last assignments. 

Saturday the 29 to Thursday the 3rd- Hiking and exploring Tasmania with Megan!

Friday the 4th to Wednesday the 9th- Road Tripping to Ningaloo reef, camping, and snorkeling. 

Wednesday the 9th to Thursday the 17th Studying for and taking four finals. 

By the 19th, I'll be back in America. Should be a fun month =)

Jokes, Footy Road Trip, Poker, Day in the Life

First of all, I would just like to start off and say that it is Sunday night, and I'm ending one of the best weekends I have had in Australia. Ever since I turned in a 2500 word theology paper on Thursday I have been in a great mood, and the experiences that I had in Port Lodge, Cleos, and at Bruce Rock only made things better.

Popsticle Stick Jokes

First of all, I would like to bring up something that happen about a week ago that could signal a change in my career path. Alissa and I were sitting up at around 1:30am, and I got the idea to start making up jokes using things that I could see in the room around me. Together, we invented about 9 ridiculous jokes in a 20 minute period. After finishing, I realised that I might have a new career as the guy who writes cheesy jokes on Laffy Taffy. Here is a preview:

What do you call it when a park ranger mis-labels a path?

Trail Mix  (Pause for laugh break)


What did the servant waving the palm branch say to the emperor?

I'm your number one fan! (laugh break #2)

A man cuts his arm on a wardrobe and says:

Dang you're a sharp dresser!

Anyway, just wanted to give you some of things that we think of in Cleos on random nights. It really and truly is a great place to live.

Poker


For the first time since I've been in Australia, I finally got the chance to play poker! Patrick Berry came over to Cleos to borrow out set of poker chips, and he invited me over to play a Texas Hold Em tournament with the guys from Port Lodge, another American dorm on campus. About an hour later I walked down to Port Lodge, and actually ended up jogging about half the way (party because I was excited and partly because I was a bit late). The buy in was five dollars, so it wasn't exactly the World Series of Poker, but any chance to play again was great for me. Seven guys ended up playing, and if you are interested in a quick recap of the game, read the next paragraph. If not, skip the next paragraph =)

We started around 9:30pm, with about 400 chips, playing 1/2 blinds. Ok, so I started off pretty well, winning the first couple of hands and building up a decent amount of chips. Then I lost most of it from playing too deep into bad hands and not getting much money out of hands where I had the best cards. One guy got knocked out around 10:45, and it took about 2 hours for the next person to get beat. For about an hour, I was down to 50 chips, folding as much as possible and waiting on a good hand. I got KK, and went all in, and double up, and then tripled up a couple of hands later. Still not having much chips, I kind of tried to bide my time until there were only four people left. Then I started winning a bit, and finally knocked the fourth guy out. Since the game was set up to pay only the last two, I had to stick around, even though by now it was about 3am. Eventually, I knocked out the third guy and made a deal with the last remaining guy to split the money, since it was 4:30am.

Anyway, we finished at 4:30am, and I won $13, so not bad. Which leads me to the next part of my story

Kurt's Klubhouse


I was waking up the next morning to play footy at 6:30am, so I figured that I should hurry back and get to bed. Still, I was in a great mood with the combination of some guy time and playing poker. I got back to Cleos, and after climbing the stairs to my room I noticed a note on my white board that said "Welcome to Kurt's Klubhouse." My only thought was "hmmm, did the girls do something to my room while I was gone?" I opened the door, and to my surprise, this is what I saw:

 I know it is hard to tell what that is, but if you look back on my blog and see pictures of my room normally, you can tell that they had built a dome out of blankets over the entire whole of my room. Probably one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen. I started laughing, still flooded with endorphins from poker, and couldn't stop. I head breathing in the middle of the dome, and realised that people were sleeping in my room as well. My laughing woke them up, Crystal and Alissa, and they smiled as I surveyed the glorious creation that my room had become. I still had to get ready for Footy in the morning though, so they helped me grab everything around the room and pack everything. At one point, I laid down on my bed, looked up, and saw:

Yep, it is exactly what it looks like. I know have a bunch of random girly things to look at everytime I go to sleep and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I started laughing again when I saw that though, just because it took me so long to notice, and it was a great touch. Finally, around five am I went to bed, and woke up an hour and half later.

Footy Road Trip


I had breakfast, grabbed my things, and went over to the P and O to meet Tony and the three American guys that were going with us, Steve, Pat, and Jake. We drove over to the rental car place, and waited for Tony to fill everything out so that we could get in the rental car and drive out to Bruce Rock, and small country town about three hours away. We finally got the car, and I did not volunteer to drive. First of all, I was dead tired at this time, although I hadn't really slept enough to feel too tired, and I needed a nap in the car. I slept a bit, and also spent some time looking at the cool country scenery.

 After a three hour drive, we arrived at the Bruce Rock Footy Oval. Basically, every Saturday two towns from the bush meet up to play Field Hockey and Footy. My American friends and I were there to help out Bruce Rock's reserve team, and play our first footy game ever! I was so excited getting ready in the locker room. I haven't put on a team jersey and been a part of a serious team sport like that for so long! All of the exhaustion that I had felt up until that point went away, and all I felt was excitement about the game. They put me at center half forward, so my job was catch the footy, take my time, and try to kick it through the middle two goal post. Up until this time I had spent a lot of time practicing, but I hadn't played in a actual footy game.

It was intense! I wasn't prepared for the physical play, for the pace of the game. In the first ten minutes Steve and I both scored a goal, but I'm not really sure how it happened. Just kind of going with the flow and being lucky I guess. We were up by ten after the first quarter, down by a goal at half and 3rd quarter, and ended up losing by 5 points. So a super close game, and we had chances the whole time to win it. I would say that I was about an average reserves player, and I really struggled at some times just because it was my first game and it is hard to know what is going on. Also, I got elbowed in the face and hit pretty hard a couple of times, so that kind of woke me up and made me realise how physical the game can be. But I had some good moments, and the whole time I kept thinking about how great of a time I was having playing the Footy.

After the game we hang out with the older guys that we played with, ate some food, and drank a decent amount of beer. We hung around the club and watched the A team play, and then stayed in the bar all night meeting Australians, drinking, and having a pretty good time. It is really hard to drink when you are that tired though, and I was wiped from both the Footy and the lack of sleep. By eleven we were back at the house we were staying at, and I was out in about 5 minutes.

The wife of the guy we were with made us a delicious breakfast in the morning, and we started our journey back to Fremantle. I drove for the first time yet in Australia! It was kind of scary, but I got comfortable after about half an hour and ended up alright. The blinker is on the other side of the steering wheel though, so a lot of time I turned on the wipers while trying to signal. It was an amazing weekend, I had a great time, and I can't wait to play in another footy game.

Day in the Life


I'm writing this so that I remember to do it, and that so if I do not do it I can be reprimanded in some way. Tomorrow I'm planning on doing a day in the life of myself in Australia, so just pictures of what I do all day for one day. So hopefully I'll do that tomorrow, and those will be up in a couple of days!

Love from Australia,

Kurt