Rafting!

So the next weekend (we are now on March 6th), I went white water rafting for the first time! I went with my friends Allana and Lauren, who are from Canada, and we had to meet up with the rest of the rafting club at 8 am to drive to the shed where they keep the rafts and wetsuits. We had to pick out a wetsuit for the day, which was a more daunting task than anyone would think! The wetsuits owned by the club were all in pretty bad shape; they were still damp from the last trip and a ton of them had holes in them... the first one I tried on was too small but the second one fit. I didn't realize until later that the second one had a GIANT hole in the butt. oh dear. Nobody cared though because we all looked ridiculous. :P

After loading up the vans with all the rafts and pumps and lifejackets and our backpacks we headed off! We stopped at a bakery for breakfast and then drove for another half hour or so to the Picton River. It took us a while to blow all the rafts up and get our wetsuits on and pick out lifejackets and helmets and paddles, but we were finally ready to go around 11.

Before we could get on the river we had to listen to a safety talk, given by our friends Owen and Will. I wasn't nervous before the talk, but after hearing about the many ways I could potentially die and seeing all the ways to rescue people, I was getting anxious to just get on the river so I could see how deadly the whole thing was going to be. So finally, after what felt like forever, we got the rafts on the water and got in. With white water rafts, you don't sit IN the raft. You sit on the sides of the raft, rather than the bottom, and at first it felt really unstable. We were allowed to put one knee down when we were going over rapids, so I was doing that for a while, but eventually I got used to it and it wasn't so scary. The rapids weren't that big either, which was nice. The worst part about the whole thing was that during the stretches of river where there weren't rapids, people in other rafts would sneak up on you and grab you by your lifejacket and pull you into the water! It was SO COLD. We only had one moment where we thought the raft would tip... we were going down a rapid sideways and our raft got stuck on a rock and the water pushed one side of the raft underwater! We were all kind of standing on top of the raft and our guide Will was able to somehow maneuver us out... Allana and Lauren and I called it our Titanic moment. It was pretty scary, but afterwards we just laughed about it. Even if we had tipped, we wouldn't have gotten hurt. haha.

We stopped for lunch after about two hours and sat on some rocks in the sun and it was so gorgeous. It was really cool getting to know people too, since most of them I had never met before. After lunch we had another two hours or so to go on the river and we had many splash wars and a few more rapids and towards the end of the river we got to a big calm area and Will insisted we try something called a Helicopter. He stood up on the back of the raft and held onto a rope that was attached to the front. Everyone else had to sit as far back in the raft as we could, so that the front of it was lifted out of the water. Then one side of the raft paddled forwards and the other side paddled backwards and as the raft was spinning faster and faster it lifted off the water even more and eventually tipped. It was so much fun, but by then it was starting to get late and we were all freezing so we had to keep moving.

We finally reached the end of the river and changed into our warm, dry clothes. We drove about twenty minutes to a park where we had a really amazing barbecue. There were some cool hollowed out trees that were made into playground equipment at that park, so we were all climbing up them and looking out from the top and it was really cool. It was a nice relaxed evening. After we drove back to uni we had to hose down the rafts and all the equipment and by then we were all so tired. But it was an amazing day and as soon as I heard there was a three day rafting trip the following weekend I signed up! Rafting is so much fun. :)

Amanda Palmer and the night of pure awesomeness.

This entry is so long it even beats the O Week entry! I wrote it mostly for myself because I get obsessive when I write about concerts, but anyone who wants to take on this massive amount of text is welcome. haha. :P

The doors to the show finally opened around eight and Marcus and I rushed inside and got a spot right at the front. Everyone was totally relaxed and we all just sat on the floor and talked to each other for another hour or so. Finally the lights went down and we got up and squeezed as many people up front as possible and it was time for the show. Marcus and I were SO excited.

The first artist was Kim Boekbinder, who I’ve actually seen with Amanda before in Boston, but it was still really good seeing her again. She was wearing the most sparkly dress I’ve ever seen, with this really cool gold jacket and her hair was dyed neon pink. She looked awesome. She did a sing along with us first, to her song “The Impossible Girl” (also the name of her album), which was fun. Then she played a bunch of stuff I didn’t know, mostly just playing guitar and singing, but they were all really good. Her last song was my favorite, though. She recorded herself playing the guitar, and then had a pedal by her foot that she would press and whatever she recorded would just start looping itself. She started with the guitar, did two layers of background vocals… and then the weird stuff started happening. She had a rubber alligator toy that squeaks when you squeeze it, so she did some stuff with that, and then she had a cool keyboard thing that you blew into kind of like a harmonica, and then she had a tambourine… then she sang on top of all the layers and it sounded incredible. She danced around the stage in her sparkly dress and it was a ton of fun. Kim is so great. :)

SO SPARKLY.

The next band I had never heard of before, but when they played it was one of those moments where I knew they were absolutely  brilliant from the very first song. They’re called The Jane Austen Argument, and they’re a two piece band, just a guy singing and a girl on piano. The pianist Jen is really awesome (she did some vocals as well and her voice is beautiful), but let me tell you, their singer Tom Dickens totally blew me away. Even though he came out wearing an upside-down pair of wings and had this silly messy blonde hair, he was completely mesmerizing with the way he sang and the way he moved. They had just released their first album, The Birthing Pyre, and they pretty much played the whole thing (which was only five songs haha). I was completely in love with the song “Here in Melbourne,” and their last song “The Debt Collectors” was really amazing too because they got the entire crowd to sing along. They were a fairly low-key band, but I really, really enjoyed them.

Tom is one of the best singers I've ever heard. really.

The next act was supposed to be this guy called Mikelangelo, but he came out and said something like “Oh I’m so sorry, ladies and gentlemen, we’re having some technical difficulties, please wait just a few minutes…” and a few minutes later he came back out and was like “We have a special guest! We did not know they would be playing, but this is a special occasion indeed…” and I started freaking out because I knew that Amanda’s friend Jason Webley was at the show and they had done some collaborative work recently. So Mikelangelo continues, “This is so amazing, these performers are the only known conjoined twin musicians…” and I completely lost it. I had a feeling this was going to happen, but when it did… oh man. I was exploding from excitement. Evelyn Evelyn were going to be playing! Evelyn Evelyn are conjoined twins that Amanda and Jason found on myspace, and with their help, the Evelyn sisters were able to record and release an album last year titled “Elephant Elephant.” It’s pretty much an autobiography album, telling stories of growing up as conjoined twins and eventually joining the circus. It’s a really amazing album and although I had a feeling they would be there, I was still so excited. Sadly they only played one song, “Have you seen my sister Evelyn?” but they’re really shy so it was more than I could have asked for! They both looked so lovely in their purple dress and they sang beautifully. :)

Evelyn and Evelyn looked so beautiful! (Alright, so maybe it's just Amanda and Jason in costume, but the story is too much fun to give it away that quickly.)

THEN Mikelangelo came out with his band The Tin Star and they played a few songs. Mikelangelo is… interesting. He has a Johnny Cash sort of vibe about him, definitely referencing performers from the past, and his voice is really deep and sexy. Haha.  He’s so full of himself and at first I didn’t like him, but he really grows on you. He’s a great performer and he’s incredibly funny. He also had some dancing girls come out during his set, which was quite fun. Everything was straight out of the 60s.

THEN Jason Webley came out! Gosh. So many opening artists, but Amanda always picks really interesting people so it didn’t really bother me. Jason came out in his cute little hat and played his accordion and stomped around the stage and generally just made a ton of noise. It was fun. 

After playing for a bit, he introduced Amanda and we could all hear her singing, but we had NO idea where she was… then someone started pointing and we all looked… Amanda was up on this really high balcony, well actually it wasn’t even a balcony, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to be up there. haha. but she was wayyyy up high singing this funny song called “Makin’ Whoopie.” The entire setlist of her show went like this:

Makin Whoopie

Missed Me

Astronaut

Doctor Oz

Bad Wine and Lemon Cake

In My Mind

Such Great Heights

Australia

-Red Cross Donation-

Glass Slipper (request)

Drover’s Boy

Guitar Hero

Coin-Operated Boy

Formidable Marinade

Runs in the Family

Oasis

~~~

Map of Tasmania

Leeds United

~~~

Drinking song

Up on the balcony Amanda was wearing a dress of some sort, and then when she came down to the stage she was going to make a costume change but something went wrong, apparently, because she ended up running across the stage just in her frilly black underwear at one point. Not even a bra. Hahaha. She’s the absolute best. Then she got changed awkwardly behind an Australian flag while Mikelangelo tried to distract us. When she emerged from behind the flag she was all decked out in a lacey black bra, blue corset, a strange white frilly skirt, and knee high stockings with boots. She had attached ribbons to the corset to make it look like an Australian flag and it was really fantastic. See, she had just released an album called Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under, based on her recent fascination with Australia, so of course EVERYTHING was Australia themed. She looked gorgeous as always.

changing behind the flag...

and looking lovely!

“Missed Me” was cool because she had The Tin Star backing her up the whole time and Jason playing accordion. After that came “Astronaut,” which was amazing, and she banged on her piano like nobody’s business. “Doctor Oz” was alright, I’ve never liked that song that much, but then came another moment of amazingness. Also known as the emotional part of the show. Tom from Jane Austen came back out to do “Bad Wine and Lemon Cake” with Amanda (it’s his song, technically) and their voices work so well together and they just fed off each other and the amount of emotion they were able to put into that song was so awesome. Then Amanda got out her magical ukulele and played “In My Mind.” That song has always stuck out to me on the Down Under album, and I actually got really emotional while she was playing. I love that song so much.

 

After that Kim came back out and played Amanda’s ukulele and they did a cover of the song “Such Great Heights” by the band The Postal Service. It was absolutely amazing. I can’t really describe it, their voices were just perfect and especially since the song is about missing people it meant a lot to me. I was so transfixed on Amanda, I could tell she was thinking about her husband Neil, who she JUST married a few weeks before and she was already on tour on her own. Neil Gaiman is an incredible person; he’s a well known science fiction/graphic novel author and I had actually just finished his novel American Gods. I was hoping he’d be at the show with Amanda because I would have loved to meet him. American Gods is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It was so humbling seeing Amanda so vulnerable on stage, I adore both her and Neil and it must be so hard for them to be apart from each other. <3

The most amazing, most artistic couple ever to exist. <3

Then Amanda played “Australia” and it was beautiful. She was back on her piano and she sounded incredible and the fact that I was IN Australia with her was just kind of surreal. After that Amanda talked about the earthquake that had hit New Zealand the week before and how terrible she felt that she had to cancel her show there and she encouraged us all to donate to the Red Cross if we had any money to spare. She also told us about a fan named Laura who had lost her parents in the earthquake. After the show there were these huge pieces of paper and everyone was writing things like “Stay strong, there are so many people praying for you, things are going to get better!” It was really, really great. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote but I signed it “love from a fellow Amanda fan all the way from the United States.” :)

“Glass Slipper” was an interesting request because it was a song on the very first Dresden Dolls album ever, but Amanda still played it flawlessly. “Drover’s Boy” was interesting as well; apparently it’s a really old Australian song told from the point of view of an Aboriginal woman who had to pretend to be a boy to be with the man she loved… something like that. It was very sad. But then to cheer things up a bit, Amanda played “Guitar Hero,” which was fun, and “Coin-Operated Boy,” which was even more fun. Everyone was ready to lighten the mood so we were all being silly. Mikelangelo came out and did “Formidable Marinade,” from which I had really disturbing dreams the next night, and Amanda played “Runs in the Family” during which I exploded again because I love that song so freaking much. Then the dancing girls came back out for “Oasis,” which was really quite funny.

Then Amanda left the stage and Marcus and I finally turned to each other and were like “THIS IS SO AMAZING” and freaked out for a few minutes. Mainly we were discussing how badly we wanted her to play “Map of Tasmania.” A few minutes later she came back out onto the stage, with EVERYONE else behind her: Kim, Jason, Mikelangelo, dancing girls, backup band, EVERYONE, and started up “Map of Tasmania.” The entire place exploded. “Map of Tasmania” is ridiculous enough to begin with, but suddenly there were balloons and people dressed as koalas (who eventually took the costumes off danced around pretty much naked) and it was completely insane. I was dancing so hard and screaming so loud and it was so much fun. “Leeds United” continued the insanity. On the set list that I grabbed from the stage after the show it literally says “LEEDS UNITED (total madness)” and they didn’t disappoint. They closed the show with a drinking song in true Amanda style and then everyone finally left the stage for good. By then I was completely worn out and I just hugged Marcus and we laughed and skipped around a bit and drank a ton of water and then went out into the lobby to buy merch.

All I ended up getting was a cd by The Jane Austen Argument, and Marcus got Kim Boekbinder’s cd and a shirt that said “I <3 AFP” but the heart was actually Tasmania. Haha. We ended up meeting Kim and Mikelangelo and Tom and Jen after the show, which was so much fun, and we both got lots of hugs and pictures. We were some of the last people hanging out at the venue to meet Amanda, and eventually we were getting kicked out so she had to speed through the rest of the people and couldn’t take anymore pictures or anything. But I got her to sign my mp3 player and I think I blabbed something about “I’m from Boston and I’m all the way here and I love you!” and she just laughed and hugged me. She’s so great. :)

Jen and Tom were the sweetest people in the whole world. :D

After the show Marcus and I walked back to our hostel, talking the entire time about how amazing everything was, and we crashed the second we got back. It was such an amazing show. This was my sixth time seeing Amanda and every time is so much fun. It was really great being all the way across the world and still being able to see her.  I love her so, so much. <3

In my mind, I imagine so many things,

Things that aren’t really happening,

And when they put me in the ground I’ll start pounding the lid,

Saying ‘I haven’t finished yet! I still have a tattoo to get,

That says “I’m living in the moment…”’

-In My Mind, Amanda Palmer

and why are you not in Melbourne?

My god I'm awful at updating. Today I'm going to do a massive blog dump and write like three entries. READY SET GO.

So let's start at the very beginning of this journey. I was sitting on facebook one night and out of the blue this kid messages me and says "do you want to see Amanda Palmer with me?" and I knew instantly that we would be best friends. haha. But really, that's how I met Marcus. Then we met for real a few days later at the art school, where we have Printmaking together. I think the second time we met was on the way to the airport! haha. So we really got to know each other waiting for our flight from Hobart where we giggled about The Dresden Dolls and Amanda for probably two out of the three hours we were waiting there. haha. We were SO excited. We had booked our flights just a few days before and reserved rooms in a hostel and it was all so impulsive that I think we were both in shock that we were actually flying to Melbourne for a concert. The flight only took like an hour and we arrived in Melbourne around 10 pm or so. Then we had to get a bus into downtown Melbourne, dodge all the drunk people on the streets, and get to our hostel for the night. The hostel was... interesting. haha. it smelled funny and we were in a room with six bunks, but luckily no one else came in the two nights we were there so we had the room to ourselves. There was a pretty nice view of Melbourne from our room and the beds were comfortable, so despite the dingy walls and funny smells, it wasn't too bad of a place to stay. :)

We got up pretty early the next day and went down to breakfast, which was quite awful. Then we wandered around Melbourne for the rest of the day and let me tell you, Melbourne is one of the coolest cities ever. I will give you a photo tour of our day!

Right outside our hostel was some cool grafitti...

downtown Melbourne had cool art all over the place...

we found a gorgeous old church...

and Marcus was really excited and whipped out his fancy camera. :)

 

 

we didn't eat lunch at Burger King... I mean Hungry Jack's...

 

 

 

but we did eat lunch in a cool little alleyway that we found!

look how cute the signs and lights are! :D

At the end of the alleyway were some really cool buskers, so I gave them money :)

and I actually bought a cd from this guy, his name was Tim Scanlan and he was playing the guitar, a harmonica, a cymbal, and a drum all at the same time. he was amazing.

Flinders Street Station was really pretty

and I don't know what this building was, but it was really cool and artsy so I took a picture anyway!

 

 

 

Then we found this street. It's one of the most amazing places ever. The entire thing was completely covered in grafitti. Every wall was completely coated top to bottom and it was incredible.

there was SO much cool art, we spent probably about an hour in that one street taking pictures and I have dozens more that I could upload. hopefully they'll all be up on facebook eventually. :)

we spent the rest of the afternoon in this pretty park

the trees were absolutely amazing

and I found mushrooms! :D

by then Marcus and I were getting antsy, as evidenced by this lovely picture, so we headed to the venue to wait.

And then it was time for the concert. We got in line and talked to some cool Australians and got super anxious and sang some songs and held our breath and finally the doors opened. My next entry will be about the show. :)

Oh and the title of this entry I got from the song "Here in Melbourne" by The Jane Austen Argument.

Oh and why are you not in Melbourne?

It's colder here, you know,

And the stars are obscured by the sky.

 And why are you not in Melbourne?

There's art in the streets.

And your feet should come darken my door.

Oh and why

are you

not in Melbourne?

O-Week (aka the longest post that this blog will ever see)

I'm so sorry I've been neglecting my blog! The first week here was absolutely insane so I haven't really had much time to actually sit down and write. I've been having a ton of fun, though, and I've been meeting really cool people and Tasmania is gorgeous. Okay. Here we go.

ALSO, the internet connection here is awful (or my computer is awful) and I can't upload pictures. AT ALL. so I'm sorry this blog is horribly boring. hopefully if I figure out what's wrong with my internet I'll be able to add some pictures later.

I arrived on Sunday the 13th and got all moved in. My room is really nice and the view from my room is nice too; it looks out over a courtyard area and up a hill and there are lots of trees and pretty houses and stuff. The view from the other side of the dorm is so much better because you can see down over campus and to the water and over all of Hobart. It's gorgeous.

On Monday I met up with some friends and we went into Hobart for a Regatta on the water... regatta just means festival haha. It was sooo hot out and we all got sunburned but it was so worth it. We got to go on some really awesome old wooden boats and we got ice cream (mine was Huon Berry flavor... whatever that means) and we saw a cool sand sculpture and looked at a bunch of travel brochures and stuff to figure out what else to do while we're in Tasmania. Everyone we talked to was extremely nice. We eventually went back to our dorm to eat and relax for a little while and then we went back down to the water later that night to watch some fireworks. We didn't feel like walking all the way back into town so we stopped on a beach closer to UTAS (they just call it uni here) and waited and waited.... then we heard the fireworks going off and realized we couldn't see them from where we were because there was a giant hill blocking our way. Oh well.

Tuesday morning we met up with the other freshman (called freshers here) and the O Week leaders and we got split up into teams. I was on the pink team and had to wear a pink ribbon around my wrist or in my hair or wherever I wanted it for the next week. We played some games to get points for our team and we learned the "Fresher Dance" which the O Week leaders choreographed to The Wombats' song "Let's Dance to Joy Division." It was pretty fun. That afternoon we took a bus to Seven Mile Beach and went swimming. After swimming I hung out on the beach and met a bunch of people but there were people playing rugby and frisbee and stuff. I was having fun just watching, although I did end up playing catch with some people later with a rugby ball. haha. Then we had a barbecue and I realized that in Australia they don't use mustard. On ANYTHING. It was very odd. And they look at you really funny if you say "ketchup," apparently here they call it "tomato sauce." Overall it was a really fun evening. :D

Wednesday we went on some tours of campus and some O Week leaders took me and a few other art students downtown to see the art building. It's so adorable on the outside; it's pink with gold trim! When you walk in there's a big courtyard with these really cool wooden sculptures and then you have to walk up a giant stairway to get into the actual building. The art school used to be a jam factory, so there are all these old pieces of machinery around and they left all the old wooden support beams visible. It's a really awesome place and even though it looks small from the outside, inside it's huge and there are four floors of rooms and galleries and libraries and things. I'm definitely excited to spend more time there!

Later that afternoon I went on a tour of Cascade Brewery with my friend Katie, which was pretty fun. The tour was interesting and we got free drinks at the end, which was nice since it was another really hot day. Katie's American too and we were talking about how strange it was that for an orientation activity UTAS would have a brewery tour... since the drinking age is eighteen here they seem to just take it really lightly, whereas in the US colleges would NEVER encourage drinking alcohol or provide it at any of their functions. At all the barbecues we had this week they always had this cheap wine that they call Goon. Apparently it's really popular with college kids and all the O Week leaders were drinking and most of the freshers and nobody cared. Oh, and unlike how cheap wine in America comes in boxes, Goon comes in a bag. Interesting!

Wednesday night there was a formal dinner and all the girls wore dresses and all the boys wore suits. The boys went in for dinner before the girls and stood in a row and when the girls entered they all applauded. It was nice. haha. The food was really good, but I was kind of bummed because we just sat at tables and didn't really get to mingle as much as I was hoping to. Oh well. After the formal dinner there was a Scribble Party, where everyone had to wear a white shirt and bring markers and we all wrote and drew on each others' shirts. It was fun but eventually it turned into a full scale party and my friends and I got tired and left. haha.

Thursday morning the O Week leaders came banging on our doors at 6:30 and made us stay in our pajamas and we went for a tour of Hobart. All the freshers (and the abroad students) got together and the first thing they did was made us hold hands with a person of the opposite sex. So I ended up holding hands with this kid named Ben who had lots of freckles and really curly black hair. He was really nice, but it was awkward because they literally would not let us stop holding hands. So we walked around Hobart all morning, in our pajamas, all holding hands and walking in a line. We got breakfast at a bakery and that's when the real torture started. The O Week leaders made us sing our orders, so I awkwardly opera sang to this lady that I wanted a fruit bun and some orange juice, while my friend Brooke tried to rap about a muffin. After breakfast the O Week leaders tried to cram as many freshers as they could into a telephone booth, and then they made us race up and down these awful giant hills with lots of stairs. Then back to holding hands. Oh, they also made us carry buckets of water and bricks and a giant plastic goose head, which they said was our mascot.

Eventually we got into town and they made us race more, and then once we were right in the middle of downtown they made us do this thing called "dead ants" where we laid on the ground on our backs and wiggled our arms and legs in the air. All while STILL holding hands, of course. The last person to do "dead ants" had to wear a giant red collar and someone had to lead them around on a leash. After all that, we played a game called The Amazing Race, which is based on the tv show The Amazing Race. haha. Each team had to do certain tasks and then go to a new place and turn in whatever the task was to get the clue to the next location. The first task was to collect ten business cards, so my friends and I were all running around, going into banks and doctors offices dressed in our pajamas and carrying various strange objects and asking for business cards. I was with a girl named Rachel who was from mainland Australia and we got a bunch of business cards and went back outside... and everyone was gone. Apparently we had gotten lost. A while later we found some other people from the pink team, deduced that everyone else had gone on to the next location and had stranded us, and decided to walk back to the dorm. We were all tired anyway and didn't feel like putting up with more torture in downtown Hobart. haha.

By the time we got back to our dorm (which is called Christ College, so I'll just be calling it Christ from now on) it was still only 1:00 so we relaxed and took showers and finally had a moment to breathe before moving on the the afternoon activities. At 3 we all got on a bus again and drove to Port Arthur, a town that was about an hour and a half away from Hobart. We had a barbecue there and waited around until 8 when we were going to go on a Ghost Tour. Port Arthur is documented to have a high rate of hauntings and supernatural activity, and we went on a tour of an old convict prison. My friend Brooke and I were chosen as two of the lantern bearers, so we had to stick close to the guide and do what he told us to do. We went into a chapel area and into one of the residences on the prison site and then we went into another building and down into the basement where apparently they used to do autopsies. The tour guide was a really good storyteller and definitely set the mood. It was cool hearing about the history of the prison and it was really creepy and I HATE scary stuff, but overall it wasn't too terrible. Probably only because there were so many of us on the tour and I was clinging to Brooke the whole time. The tour guide kept referring to us as "Brooke in the black" and "Brook in the blue." haha. It was really fun and on the way home I spotted a few Tasmanian Devil Crossing signs on the side of the road. :D

Friday morning we got up even earlier! At 5 am we met up to get on a bus to go to the top of Mount Wellington, the mountain that overlooks Hobart. We were hoping to see the sunrise on top, but after the drive up there it was too misty and we couldn't see anything at all. The sun rose, but the mist was still too heavy to see anything. It was freezing up there, though, and so the O Week leaders decided that they would have a competition. Two leader boys and two fresher boys each got naked and stood on top of Mount Wellington to see who could last the longest in the cold... of course none of them wanted to give up, so after half an hour of everyone shivering they finally called the competition off and we drove about halfway down the mountain and had breakfast at a little camp place. We had eggs and bacon on toast and it was soooo good. I was starving. Finally we got to go back to Christ and everyone wanted to go back to bed. I got to my room and laid down... and then the stupid worker people here started doing construction on our building. They're putting in a fancy new basement level, so every morning I wake up to the sound of jackhammers and drills. Usually I don't mind too much because they don't start until 8:30 or so, but since I had been up since 4:30 that morning I was very annoyed that I couldn't take a nap. At least the rest of the day was pretty relaxed; that evening on the schedule it said "historic tour of Hobart" and my friends and I found out last minute that it was actually just a bunch of house parties, so we all stayed in and watched movies instead. :)

I had been looking forward to Saturday morning ever since arriving in Hobart because every Saturday they have a thing called Salamanca Market. People from all around Hobart come to sell clothes and jewelery and artwork and food and produce and it's a TON of fun. Sadly, it was raining, but we went to Salamanca anyway. It was really fun looking at all the stuff and there was so much that I wanted to buy but I only ended up getting a cheap bag that says "Tasmania" and has some pictures of animals on it that I intent to turn into a pillow once I get home and a silver ear cuff. The ear cuff is really cute. I'm looking forward to going again, since they have the market every Saturday, and eventually I'll splurge and buy more things. :D

On Sunday we were supposed to have lunch in the botanical gardens, but it was raining again so it got cancelled. My friends and I explored Hobart a little bit more but really didn't do too much. I spent a lot of that day relaxing and doing laundry and figuring out my class schedule. It was really nice to just sit and do nothing after the crazy orientation week. There were quite a few things about it that were dumb and awful, but overall it was a ton of fun and I got to know a lot of really cool people. I've written way too much now, but I'll write again soon! Hopefully from now on the entries will be shorter and more timely; I was just dreading writing the O Week entry because I knew it was going to be a monster. Also, hopefully pictures will be coming soon! That's all for now, adios! :)

arriving in Hobart!

So the flight from Sydney to Hobart was nonexistant. I fell asleep and it felt like we were there in ten minutes. I was really surprised that they gave us food on the flight, since it was only two hours, but it was SO GOOD. Alright, let's compare American plane food to Australian plane food. Well, on United I had dinner (pasta and salad, it was pretty good) and breakfast (pancakes and sausage that were.... decent), but they did give us a sandwich for lunch. It was smoked turkey and swiss cheese on a classic white roll, and it was dry and flavorless and the cheese was definitely American, not swiss. Oh and with that came a pecan cookie. Mmmm lunch. Now American lunch, meet Australian lunch. On the Qantas plane we got "Egg Mayo with Za'tar and Baby Spinach on Multigrain Bread." Egg mayo was just egg salad, but Za'tar was a spread made from sumac, sesame seeds, thyme, oregano, and marjoram, and the baby spinach was fresh and the bread was really good. We also got mini Toblerone chocolate bars and tea with milk in the most adorable little red mug with the most adorable little white spoon. I was really, really impressed.

Anyway. I fell asleep after eating and then woke up when the pilot said to prepare for landing, and I looked out the window and we were flying over Tasmania and it was AMAZING.

I didn't take this picture. ha. but isn't it beautiful?

Sydney was very green and then very shiny and fully of buildings and such. Tasmania is a giant expanse of rolling brown hills with the occasional river and patch of trees. There weren't many buildings at all, and we had to fly over this marsh to get to the runway and I swear it looked like we were going to land in the water. And the entire Hobart airport was one room. haha. There were actually a lot of kids from UTAS arriving, almost all of them from China, and after getting our bags we got into a van for the drive across the Derwent river and into Hobart itself.

Our driver drove on the wrong side of the road,

everything was INCREDIBLY GREEN,

we saw a bunch of pretty boats,

and then we crossed the Tasman Bridge over the Derwent River into Hobart! That's Mount Wellington in the background. :)

And that's basically it so far. I didn't have much time last night to walk around Hobart, but from the little drive through town I can tell already it's a really cute little city. Today I'm exploring with some friends so I'll have a million more pictures to share later, along with pictures of my room! Adios!