take a lesson from down under...

Here's a short list of things that Australia does better than home:
1. The drinking age is 18. Enough said.
2. There are no pennies. Your total gets rounded either down or up to the closest 5 cents.
3. The money is made with plastic so it lasts longer. Their bills are also colorful.
4. All lectures are recorded. You know, in case you want to listen to it again, or something...
5. Tax is included in all prices. The price written on the tag is the price you pay.
6. They use the metric system. It's a little pathetic that we don't yet in the States.
7. TimTams. The greatest cookies in the entire world.
8. Minimum wage is around $16 an hour.
9. Public transportation is much more accessible and easy to understand.
10. AFL. Aussie rules football is much more entertaining than American football.
           10a. The USA has an AFL team... and we beat South Africa last week. Who knew?

Wednesday Already?
The most precious picture of the night award goes to:

Me and Lindsay. Too adorable.

Dunmore Lang College gets Classy... Kind of.

Friday night was the night of the Ball! We left college at around 5:30 to our unknown destination. We took a ferry to get to the venue for dinner. It was beautiful, and it had an open bar. We had a delicious three course dinner and then the most spectacular desert in the entire world.

Our table! Goal of the night: Finish the drinks on the table before they bring you refills. More difficult than you would imagine...

Me and Andrea on the ferry to the Ball. Excuse the red eyes...

There was also a photo booth with the classic strip of printed pictures. There were some excellent ones taken, I'll be sure to get copies of them. 

After the Ball we had our after party at the Cargo Bar in the city. This is where the classy level seemed to drop a bit, but we still had a fun time. In fact, some of us might have had too much fun...

Eric, Saturday afternoon, still in his suit after sleeping in the common room. 

USA Australian Football League Team?

On Sunday Aly, Jessie, Tom, Collin, Jarryd, and I went to a Sydney Swans footy game. The game was at the arena the Olympics were held in. So unbelievably awesome. When we walked in a different game was ending. After about 30 seconds we realized it was USA versus South Africa. USA has an AFL team? apparently, and they're good. well, they beat South Africa. After the game we got to take a picture with one of the players on the US team.

However, we think he might not really be American... Pretty sure he had an Aussie accent.

The Olympic stadium was beautiful. And giant, even though it has been slightly remodeled after the Olympics and many of the seats have been removed. The Swans were behind for the majority of the game, but they pulled through and beat the Saints!

Me Jessie Jarryd Collin Tom and Aly

Adorable.

Academia. 

BBE101- Evolution and Human Behavior.

Three hours of lectures and a two hour practical. But it's interesting. 

ENGL106- Literature and the Screen

We watch movies and then talk about them. Sometimes we read. I like it.

ANTH140- Myth in the Ancient World

According to one myth, Zeus ate his wife to prevent her from having children that may or may not try to overthrow him, but then he felt guilty and gave birth to Athena, the goddess of thought, from his head...

PHIS131- Mind, Meaning, and Metaphysics

A class on thinking. Thrilling. But actually, I like it a lot.

the metric system...

This past week has been amazing. It started on Sunday with my 20th birthday! It was a fairly laid back birthday but one of the best, it lasted about 38 hours (24 hours in a day + 14 hour time difference).

Hanne brought be a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a box of TimTams, and a bag of Twistys! 

Elliott sent me tulips, a bottle of wine, and a fantastic Teddy bear. It was VERY nice to walk out of reception carrying my flowers and gift.

Australian to American translation of Hanne's gifts:

TimTams- The most delicious cookies you will ever eat. 

Twistys- Similar to Cheetos, but better, obviously.

My birthday is always my favorite day of the year, but this year it was particularly extraordinary. The friends I have made here have already become some of my closest friends and they made sure I had a wonderful day.  I went to get my mail and left with five birthday cards from back home, one from a family friend, one from my parents, one from my sisters, one from Andrew, and one from Kelly! In true Glassman family tradition, all of the cards were cat cards.

Overall, my birthday was, and still is, my favorite day of the year.

THERE IS SAND IN MY MOUTH. Wednesday night.

Rhys Alan Hobbs graced the residents of Dunmore Lang College on Wednesday night with his presence. As usual, he was the life of the party- until he got lost and then I got lost and eventually we each went to our separate homes, unaware of where each other were. However, before we lost each other it was an extremely enjoyable evening, with some winning photographs to prove it.

This one is cute, but my personal favorite:

The winning text message of the night goes to "There is sand in my mouth." sent by me to Aly. That was all it said, no explanation, nothing. Just making her aware that there was, in fact, sand in my mouth. For those of you who haven't heard the story (Mom and Dad), don't worry, I only fell face first jumping over a fence that I didn't actually need to jump over, and into a pit of dirt and sand. Moral of the story: I'm not coordinated.

TOGA NIGHT. Ubar Thursday night.

Something that still baffles my mind- there is a bar ON CAMPUS. The Ubar (University Bar) is so very conveniently located on campus, I can see it from some of my tutorials. Last Thursday night was Toga Night at Ubar, so those of us who wanted to go dressed ourselves in bed sheets and walked to campus. Twenty minutes later we walked back to College because it was really crowded at Ubar and we weren't having that much fun. Besides, hanging out in the common room in my pajamas is much more fun than wearing a bed sheet. However, Aly, Jessie, and I looked quite good in our Togas: 

Me, Aly, and Jessie

ALUMINUM VS. ALUMINIUM. Saturday night babysitting.

I got myself a job as a nanny for a family who lives a few train stops away. There are three kids, Ryan, 9, Tara, 7, and Jade, 5. These kids are fantastic, and they are so amazed that I am American. Every question the first time I met them was about America and if we had certain things and how we said certain things. I brought each of them a one dollar American bill because in Australia there are no dollar bills, just dollar coins (and two dollar coins, which I find strange). They could not have been more excited to have a piece of American money. They held onto them all night and before bed put them some place special. 

I will be their Nanny on Monday and Tuesday afternoons from 3:00-6:00ish. I have to take the 2:08 train to Artarmon, and I will normally take the 6:41 train back, so it's a bit longer but I don't care, the kids are great, and so is their mom. They also have two cats, and I mean, can't get much better than that...

14k, NOT IN MY WAY. Sunday 14 August, 2011. 

The City2Surf race in Sydney is one of the biggest fundraising races around the globe. It is a race that starts in Sydney (CITY) and ends at Bondi Beach (SURF). The race totals 14k, for those of us not on the metric system yet it's about 8.6 miles. A few of us from DLC decided to go in the walking group, which we were told had 20,000 people entered in it- and that was JUST the walking group. 

The sea of people while coming down the hill at Kings Cross.

14k's later we were done! Walking from Sydney to Bondi was an excellent way to see more of Sydney than I had seen thus far.

Clare, Collin, Drew, Jessie, and I after we finished!

We all got medals for completing it!

The line to get on the bus to get on the train to then switch trains to get home. It took us longer to get home using public transportation than it did to walk to Bondi.

SUPER NANNY, MY IDOL.

I started my Nanny job for real on Monday and went back on Tuesday for day two. The kids are fantastic! Since I wasn't able to go to camp this year, taking care of kids is something I really missed, and these three are the best I could have asked for, I got very lucky. And it doesn't hurt that minimum wage here is close to $20 an hour.....

AB BLAST.

A couple of us from DLC went to the ab blast class at the gym tonight. I hurt. End of story.

I am having more fun here then I could have imagined. Next post I might even talk about my classes at uni. Maybe. 

old versus new experiences

Over the past two weeks I have noticed that my old experiences have come in handy with some of the things that I do here... just with a twist. Here are some examples.

1. OLD- waking up at 9:22 for a 9:30 class. NEW- breakfast at DLC ends at 9:30.
2. OLD- leaving the gas tank empty when Dad would be driving the car next. NEW- somehow managing a free bus ride from the city to the entrance of Dunmore Lang College, even though the bus wasn't planning on going to North Ryde.
3. OLD- clipping coupons to go grocery shopping. NEW- printing free drink vouchers every Wednesday night.
4. OLD- being able to take super quick showers because hot water runs out at camp. NEW- our showers have four minute timers.
and lastly, my personal favorite:
5. OLD- chasing the cats back inside. NEW- chasing a bird out of our dorm....

So it's pretty easy to see how the talents that I mastered from life back in the States have helped me on my Australian adventure.
Cheers, mate!

unreal. absolutely unreal.

These past two weeks have been nothing less that spectacular. The first few days I was lucky enough to stay with my friend from Marist, Rhys. It was an excellent way to ease into life in Australia. Then I arrived at Dunmore Lang College, where I am living while attending Macquarie University.

Orientation Week at DLC was full of fun and alcohol. On Tuesday we also had a scavenger hunt in the city of Sydney. The dares and challenges were really funny and some of them really embarrassing... At the end of the week we went on a pub crawl in Sydney to four different pubs.

Some of us went to Toranga Zoo on Saturday:

Just a snapshot of how fantastic this place is. My birthday is this Sunday 7 August! My address here is:
Hallie Glassman

Dunmore Lang College

130-134 Herring Road

North Ryde, NSW 2113

Australia

Cheers!