Mardi Gras

Week 5: 3/2-3/8

It was a long week of class followed by an interesting weekend. I am in the midst of planning a fall break trip which could potentially include stops at both Thailand and New Zealand. Mathematical Statistics is proving to be my most difficult course – since I never took an Introduction to Statistics, I am a little behind on terminology and some of the basics. Additionally, our lecturer is fond of speaking in equations and symbols, and neglecting to use real-world examples, so I am currently at a loss. Thursday involved our weekly Ultimate Frisbee practice, where I worked on my lackluster forehand toss. There are surprisingly more girls than boys in the club, but it remains fairly competitive and fun. It’s a very laid back and honest game – a lot of the rules rely on somebody admitting to illegal contact or maneuvers. As we did the previous week, the group met for dinner at Lansdowne. I tried out the fish and chips this time and was satisfied with my $6 purchase. That night was the annual UTS “Las Vegas Party”. There’s a bar connected to a building on our campus called “The Loft” that played host. I can’t recall if I have mentioned there being a bar connected to our classroom buildings before, but I find it quite amazing – drinking is a very large part of Australian culture. Another fact I don’t believe I commented on was the language. Australians love to swear and rarely find it offensive – even during our orientation, some of the professors that would speak often swore. Television here doesn’t ‘bleep’ out swearing and there is even occasional nudity on evening programming. Anyways, the “Las Vegas” party didn’t seem to have much to do with Las Vegas at all other than the costumes people attempted to construct, which more or less resembled a brothel than anything else. I wore my super cool white pants and button-up linen shirt. After a few drinks here, we made our way to Sidebar by UniLodge and basically danced for three hours or so before going home.
On Friday, Megan and Tina (two of Luke Vincent’s friends from back home in Massachusetts) arrived, and a few of us took them on a walk around the city, which occupied a majority of our day. We made our illustrious return to Darling Harbour at a club bar called Cargo that night. As with most of these places, it was overcrowded and uncomfortable, so we eventually made an early departure. This also happened to be Mardi Gras week, which is a major, internationally recognized festival that happens every year in Sydney and is also the largest gay festival in the world. I misinformed you in a previous post when I stated that some of our friends went to (which, what I thought at the time was part of) Mardi Gras – it was just some random gay pride celebration in the park across the street. The actual Mardi Gras was much more insane. Saturday night was the big parade that went through the downtown CBD with thousands of people lining the streets. All sorts of floats and gay rights groups marched with loud music and bright lights. We spent about an hour there before leaving, after we got tired of standing in mobs of people with a horrible view. Instead, we went to Scruffy Murphy’s to get some dinner and finished the night off back at Sidebar. Sunday was spent completing reading and homework assignments – I won’t bore you with the details.