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! :)
