Attack of the Night Stalker

Days 24 & 25: 2/24 & 2/25

My long day of class wasn’t very much fun. Math Statistics will be challenging for the first few weeks – I never took Introduction to Statistics, or any form of statistics for that matter, so I will have to a little reading to understand what our instructor was talking about for three hours. I bought a few books and supplies and got a hair cut during my short break in classes. We grabbed some dinner at Broadway Café and went back to Scruffy Murphy’s at night (this time I remembered not to wear a hat). Before we left our rooms for Scruffy’s, however, there was a little scare in UniLodge, when a known resident above us, that we call the Night Stalker, showed up at Julia’s door (two doors down) with a wooden baseball bat. We call him the Night Stalker not because he spies on people, but because this 200+ pound, bald (except for a strategically placed round blotch of hair on the bottom half of the back of his head), tattooed, Australian man, had been in our hallway on two prior occasions to tell us (in as an intimidating fashion as possible) that our “door has hinges for a reason” and to keep our doors closed because we were being too loud and the sound was rising. This time I approached him as he was talking to Julia and Evan outside Julia’s door. He was quite a bit angrier this time and said “…you’re looking at 108 kilos of pure testosterone [with distaste for American and an inferiority complex]”. As I attempted to communicate with him, he decided to interrupt me by swinging his wooden bat into the door frame next to us. This scared everyone a little and when I told him that what he just did was not okay, and that he was now waking everybody else up, he announced that he could be much louder and hit the frame harder this time. As he swung I immediately pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, dialed 0-0-0 (Australian 911) and put it on loudspeaker as I explained to the operator that we had just been assaulted by a man with a baseball bat. I was fairly certain this wasn’t the first time this happened, so the call was motivation enough for him to walk away and back to his room. We ended up talking between floors awhile as I waited for the police – this didn’t accomplish much, and by the time we had finished, the other girls (that were down the hall as this was happening), arrived with the UniLodge late night security. We filed a joint complaint and the security notified us that the police would probably be coming, but not for a long time since calling 0-0-0 isn’t the best option in less it’s a life or death scenario – he explained that there was a good chance they might not come at all, and that if they did, it wouldn’t be for at least another 3-4 hours. I gave him my mobile number in case they did and we went to Scruffy’s, as we were all anxious to forget about what just happened. I had a good time, although neither Chuck nor Luke came out on this particular night, and got back to learn the police had never come. I went to bed and wasn’t awoken by any calls, so my complaint was actually disregarded in the end.
Wednesday classes consisted of only one Rethinking Culture lecture and tutorial. The class is interesting and should be relatively easy. I figured out how to print documents from the UTS Library (at 11 cents/page), had a long overdue workout with Chuck at Broadway Gym, and had a quiet night, getting some much needed rest.

Tropfest + School Starts

Day 20-23: 2/20, 2/21, 2/22, 2/23

I woke up at 6:30am today and couldn’t fall back asleep. I decided to take advantage of the morning, catch up on my blogs, and take care of a few tasks. I had some coffee and watched the sun rise besides the UTS Tower building from our rooftop, which provides a spectacular view of the city (pictured). As I waited for my laundry to finish (at an outrageous $3 per load and $3 per dry cycle), I managed to FINALLY catch up on my blogs. By the time I had completed all the items on my list it was nearly noon and time to get ready for O-Fest (a live DJ show put on every year in the Alumni Green behind the UTS Tower). We stayed for a while, but the show ended at 8pm so we all went back to UniLodge and hung out on the roof for the remainder of the evening. The Canadian girls (from before) met us, we played some cards and we had some drinks until it was time for the roof to close.
The following morning we decided to find a park to play disc golf and discovered one that was located in Olympic Park where the 2000 Sydney Olympics were held. Chuck, Chris, and I boarded a train at central station and took it out to Olympic Park. During the ride, we were witness to one of the funnier bickering matches I’ve heard in a while. An Irishman and an Australian lady, with two of the most incomprehensible accents I’ve ever heard, were yelling at each other for about 20 minutes straight and I could maybe understand every tenth word. The Irish man would occasionally utter loud noises in the form of grunts, and something I can only compare to Damon Wayans in “Blankman”, between his name-calling which included ‘f*ing dog’ and ‘bushie’. They both got off at the same stop and continued as the train pulled away from the station. When we got to Olympic Park it was completely empty. We checked a map to figure out where the course was and couldn’t find it, so we asked a guide at the station. He pointed out a spot on the map that seemed relatively far, but told us it shouldn’t be any more than about a 10 minute walk. One hour later, after some additional help from the locals, we found the small green hut that rents/hires discs. This wasn’t the first time an Australian had misquoted walking time – the lady that directed us to the RTA to get our Aussie ID’s told us it was about 15 minutes from the building we were at and it took about 45 minutes. Anyways, we played nine holes and started back to the station. Interesting to note is how empty Olympic Park is now. It kind of reminded us of zombie movies where a whole major city has been abandoned. The remnants of the old stadiums and facilities still stood (location of many large concerts and shows in Sydney), but there were hardly anybody to be seen. By the time we were leaving, more people had shown up, but it was fascinating to think about how packed this place once was and the revenue it must have generated. That night we took another trip out to Bondi Beach for the after party of an international skate competition that had occurred earlier that day. We met up with the Canadian girls and my friend Danielle (and her friends who had arrived about a week earlier) from back home, and hung out until about 2:30am before heading home.
The next day (Sunday) was a large independent film festival called Tropfest. It is a free event where you bring your own food and beverages, and enjoy the screening of several independent short films, along with some other music and entertainment. We took the bus out to Circular Quay at the Sydney Harbour and made our way to the Botanical Gardens where the festival was being hosted. In the center of the park was a large, three-sided monitor supported above a stage. The gates opened at 3pm and the show ran all the way until 11pm. We set up camp and enjoyed our picnic for a few hours – after that, Luke and I found some open space and tossed a Frisbee around for a while as some bands and DJs performed. At dusk the films began to play, and after they were done, some prizes were presented. One of the awards for the “best actress” was $3000 donated by Nicole Kidman, who is a large supporter of the festival, and in the past, celebrities including Russell Crowe have served as judges for the competition. Every year there are two Tropfests: one in Sydney and one in New York, so it’s a pretty respectable event.
Monday was the first day of classes for me and also the Academy Awards. Every year our family and friends get together and vote for who we think will win each category. The person with the most correct guesses gets the prize of all the money from the entry fees, which goes up $1 every year. I joined in via Skype, but was unable to figure out who won because I had to leave for class before it was over. I don’t think I did because I haven’t gotten any e-mails from my brother yet, who’s responsible for the details of the event. I am currently writing this blog, will be working out soon, and calling it an early night, as tomorrow is a big day for me. I have class pretty much all day from 9am-6pm with a two hour break at 2pm. I also need to take care of a few payments and emails for the clubs I have just recently joined, including: the Outdoors Club, DOUTS (Dive Organization of UTS), and Ultimate Frisbee. Also, new pictures will be added to my blogs soon. Cheers!

Bondi Beach II

Day 19: 2/19

We went back to Bondi Beach today. We had intended to go to Manly Beach today, but it was pretty late in the day already, and Manly is pretty far away, so we decided we’d leave it for another day and settle for Bondi. It wasn’t as packed as last time, but still quite a bit of people. The waves today were great and we had a lot of fun swimming. We ran into some Canadian girls we had met a couple days prior and enjoyed hanging out together until the sun started to descend at about 6pm. We kind of disbanded and went home in smaller groups. When we got back, Chuck and I got another workout in, and I went and swam a little and did some hot tubbing in UniLodge with Luke. We got word later that the girls at Gumal were making some cookies so we went over after our swim and had a few and hung out. We came back at about 1:30am and went to bed.

Cocktail Party

Day 18: 2/18

Where to begin? What a crazy day…today was the annual O-week international students cocktail party. Yes that’s right, the University sponsors a cocktail party for all of its international students that provides free beer, wine, and mimosas for an hour and a half. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, because obviously something like this would be considered scandalous in the United States, yet it is completely accepted here – faculty were at the party drinking with us! I definitely got my fill before the pub crawl that was scheduled for afterwards. On an interesting side note, I met a small white girl with a British accent named Sarah at the party. As we chat she tells me she’s Kenyan, which I found bizarre, but very interesting. Next, hundreds of drunken students boarded buses that were to take us to three different bars around Sydney throughout the night. I can’t remember any of the names of the bars, but the first place we stopped at was a good time. Luke, Liz, and I participated in a shout together (a shout is basically just when a group of people takes turns buying drinks for each other – it’s considered very offensive to back out midway through shout). Anyhow, when Luke’s turn had arrived, he bought us all a liter of some dark beer (similar to Guiness) and I drank mine within about 5 to 10 minutes. I wasn’t really trying to chug it, but I just thought it was pretty tasty and got it down quickly. Needless to say, I was quite intoxicated by now and after a very brief visit to the next bar in the crawl, we decided to head back home. Luke, Jenna, Emily, and I got on a bus that I don’t recall paying to board, and by the time we realized what was going on, we had passed our stop by about 15 minutes. Fortunately, Jenna noticed before we were halfway to the next town, we got off and walked home.

Opera House

Day 17: 2/17

I got up early today so that I could run to campus and sign up for some “sessions” for Orientation Week. These “sessions” are basically informational meetings intended to teach us about whatever it is we sign up for. Some sessions included a library tour, advanced excel tutorial, and IT systems tutorial. I signed up for these plus a couple more but ended up attending none of them anyways. When I got back, Chuck had arisen and we got in another workout before a BBQ at the UTS Tower building (considered an eye sore, because it’s just a large stained tower in the middle of our suburb of Ultimo – one of the largest educational building in the world I believe) as part of O-week. The food wasn’t too great and consisted of sandwich bread, butter, sausages, and some small pieces of chicken. We decided to take a walk this afternoon to the Sydney Opera House to buy tickets for an upcoming showing of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and journeyed through the Sydney Botanical Gardens along the way. It was a good little trip and was topped off with some snacking at the ice cream and gelato stands along the wharf. We all voyaged back to campus and got ready for the evening’s events. Tonight we went to a pub called Scruffy Murphy’s. It was a cool place, but not what I had expected. It was more of a club-like atmosphere again with live music upstairs and a DJ and dancing below. I wore a hoodie and a hat expecting a more relaxed and subdued venue. They kept making me take my hat off and told me I would be kicked out if I didn’t obey, but I basically just kept putting it on and getting warned all night. I danced in the sauna downstairs most of the time and left with Chuck at around 2:30am, stopped off at McDonald’s for a late night snack and went home.

Chinatown

Days 15 & 16: 2/15-2/16

Chuck and I went shopping in the morning while others went to Australian Mardi Gras (largest gay festival in the world apparently). By the time we were done everybody was back and were totally weirded out (including a gay guy in our group). We grabbed lunch at Broadway Café and decided to get a gym membership at the club across the street because they were offering a deal for a four-month student membership at $200. We toured the facility and it was really nice – all the equipment was old but very well-maintained and there was plenty of space and open machines. Not a very eventful day, but we went to Kmart and bought Cranium to play together that night. This was a lot of fun, especially since it was made for Australians. Questions involving descrambling the name of a Cricket player I had never heard of and answers including lingo I had never used such as ‘monobrow’ instead of ‘unibrow’. Despite our team’s poor effort (me and Lauren Devane), we ended up winning and went to bed deeply fulfilled. The next morning Chuck and I hit the new gym. When were done we wanted get everybody together and go to another popular beach called Manly Beach which is on the North side of the harbor. It had been raining everyday for about a week now, and right when we were about to leave, it started again. Luke, Chuck, and I used this time to go to the Gumal rooftop where there is free internet and work on our blogs and check e-mails. Luke and Chuck still both can’t get the internet at UniLodge to work, so I went with them for the heck of it. After a couple hours we had all grown hungry and discussed getting some food in Chinatown. We walked to the center of Chinatown in search of a decent place to eat and when we couldn’t agree on a spot, we just went to the mall there and chose something in the food court. Chuck and I got similar Chinese dishes and I scarfed mine down within 10 minutes – it was delicious. The girls of course complained and ate about a third of their plate. On our way home something crazy happened: there is a gum tree right in the center of Chinatown and today there was a young, half naked Asian man sitting on a crate with some kind of broken plastic bat in his hand. To him though, it was a fishing rod and he kept imaginarily casting and reeling with it. As we walked by, a couple Australians stopped to get a picture and when one of them put there arm around him, the Asian man erupted. He stood up, elbowed him away and started relentlessly attacking him and his friends. He nearly tore off one guy’s shirt and kicked another in the stomach. The Australians, who didn’t seem to know how to fight, finally realized that if they all restrained him simultaneously that he couldn’t do anything. The Asian was still resisting and attacking until one of the Australians punched him pretty hard in the jaw, dizzying him and causing him to fall down. Meanwhile, as everybody stood and watched in disbelief, the Asian got back up, tore a bag of papers out of one the Australian’s hands and hurled it into the air, causing papers to scatter all over the street. The Asian then turned around, walked back to his crate, and continued fishing. This made for a good discussion topic on the way home. That night, for some reason, everybody decided to go back to the night club Scubar. It was much worse this time – I didn’t really dance, got beer spilled on me again, and left early. Good night.

Valentine's Day

Day 14: 2/14

Valentine’s Day! We woke up before our checkout at 10am and considered another activity in the Blue Mountains before going home, but the weather was even worse. The only option was to take a cave tour, but when we discovered that it would cost us $70 and that we wouldn’t be back to the hostel until 5pm that night, we decided to just grab some breakie and go home. We had some Belgian Waffles at a quaint little Waffle House in town and enjoyed a nice relaxing meal with coffee and tea (pictured). We hopped the next train to Sydney and went home. While we were away the girls all bought red and pink dresses for Valentine’s Day and made reservations at a restaurant along the wharf in view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. This was actually my first in-person sighting of the two famous landmarks and it was pretty cool. The service was very poor here: our waiter made us split the bill ourselves and never came to our table once besides taking our orders and serving our meals (which were nothing to brag about). That night there was a Stoplight Party at the Gumal residence which is just a party where single people where green and those in relationships wear red. It was about as lame as anticipated and was actually stopped by security after about an hour. We walked down to Land’s Downe again for a few drinks. I spent my whole time here talking to an Australian band called Serenik and they were pretty cool. The next thing I knew everybody was heading out and so I joined them and went to bed.