STAN has been busy!

Hello again Wildcat Nation!
My sincerest apologies for the extended hiatus on my international posts. Mother Nature has been trying to sink the part of the world I'm in so I've been a little distracted.

What I want to do with this post is to sort of bring you all up to date on what I've been doing while giving a taste of what Australian college life is all about. But first just one more thing on my absense from the blog. The New Hampshirite's posts have been quite important and I figured I shouldn't really post immediately after t hem just to make sure that you are all absorbing the message that that s.o.b. is trying to get across. Now that I have left a reasonable amount of time in between that dick's morally sound posts and my not so much moral crap, I feel no shame in filling you in on the silliness that has been my Aussie life.

Where to begin? I suppose orientation week (o-week for those who can't pronounce big words). Orientation here is not at all what it is at UNH. Almost every single day the older residents of my dorm, or the "fossils", would hold some sort of drinking activity for everyone 18 and older to enjoy. Granted "fossils" are mostly younger than me because this is my first year at James Cook University so I got labelled as a freshman. Whatever. Free booze! This is how o-week went. Monday: toga party. Tuesday: fossil-fresher meet and greet, with a lot of alcohol. Wednesday: sports day with an alcoholic finale. Thursday: keg party. Friday: pub crawl. And then we got the weekend to do whatever we wanted to. One hell of a week let me tell YOU!

Then classes started which actually hasn't stemmed the flow of drinking at all because Tuesday is a big party night as well as Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Also my classes never assign work to do which leaves me a lot of time to screw around. For example, asking Australians to say "squirrel" is the funniest thing ever! Their accent just does not allow them to spit it out without them sounding like they have a serious speech disorder.

Another way to keep myself occupied is to investigate the Australia stereotypes. This is what I have discovered so far.

KANGAROOS! Believe the hype! They actually are all over the place here! Unfortunately, they are not big enough or cooperative enough to ride around. I tried.

I am devasted to report that Australian toilets do NOT spin the other way. Something I was looking forward to seeing. Disappointing to say the least.

G'day mate! They really do say it! Makes me feel like I'm in a Crocodile Dundee movie! Except nobody carries a knife and the only leather pants you see are ass-less... moving right along...

Vegemite is disgusting. Do not believe anyone that tells you it's good. It's basically brown salt paste that tastes like dried sea-weed and sticks to your teeth so you have to taste it all day. Avoid at-all-costs.

Here's the biggest shocker that is actually not a big shock. Australians never ever put shrimp on the barby. Probably the fault of Americans. Well done everyone!

Now I can't not talk about drinking games!!!
From what I noticed, the only game that the Australians played was circle of death. Otherwise known as King's Cup. Needless to say the Americans (mostly me) felt obligated to teach them how to play beer pong/beirut (I call it whatever gets it going faster). However, the Aussies seem pretty universally surprised to hear that we actually use the "red cups" that they see in movies. They don't have em here. I DO feel the need to give them credit on a few "games" that they have taught us. They are played throughout the course of the entire night and losing requires you to FINISH your drink on the spot. I'm not going to say what they are because that will ruin the fun for me when I get home and want to get the New Hampshirite and my other roommates completely blitzed!

So all in all I suppose I'm trying to say that I'm having a wonderful time representing USA and UNH and Nonsensical HQ in the land down under.

From now on I'll try my best to post more often so that the posts have more of a central theme. That is unless another dorm-sponsored pub crawl with a charter bus taking us to reach bar gets anounced. In that case it might be a while :)

Stay Classy. AUSSIE! AUSSIE! AUSSIE!

PS Australians don't know what Reese's cups are. wtf?

STAN in the Land Down Under

Good Morning Nonsensical Nation!

Well, at least it's morning for me here in gorgeous, sunny, 82 degree Townsville, Australia! Yes I realize that Townsville is the most generic snap decision couldn't-think-of-anything-else-and-my-homework-was-due kinda of name for a place but there are kangaroos here so I can let it slide. So the time difference will put all my favorite UNH residents at about 7:10pm on Friday night, Saturday morning here. While I hope readers enjoy my first contribution I especially hope you're all getting silly after waiting in line for hours in the cold for your ticket to Wiz, as you damn well deserve. I have been doing my fair share of drinking here and already have some interesting, cross-bow guy free thank god, stories to tell about the night scene in Aussie land. HOWEVER, those stories are for later becaue the ridiculous crap Australia does started before I even got there.


Yes I'm talking about Qantas airlines. I was sitting in my seat next to a 17ish looking Australian guy who was wearing a Cincinnati Reds baseball had and a Kobe Bryant jersey... what? I thought it was an odd combination of teams to pretend to like but hey, to each their own. After fully contemplating what in the hell that kid was wearing I tried to reach for my book at the same moment the chick in front of me decided she needed to recline her seat as far as it could go. Bad airplane etiquette since she didn't ask first. Always ask first! It's just a dick move if you don't and makes the person whose lap you're in pissed. Anyhoo, couldn't reach the book so i reached for the only thing I could read. The flight safety card. Most amazing safety card ever! Apparently nostalgia is a big problem in Australia because this gem was staring at me from the front cover.Right?!? All I could think of while I was laughing to myself was "This is your captain speaking uuuhhhhh we're are now headed to the runway uuuuhhhh please turn off your FU%@ING FURBY!" I didn't even have time to think of a witty blog worthy retort before I turned the page and found this!
Alright now what the hell?? This was in the "in case of a crash" section. Note the proper bracing postures of the adult drawings. Now notice the complete disregard for the wellbeing of the baby!!! Granted drawing baby is still smiling like all of us would be in a freefalling airplane headed for doom, but come on! Nobody is gonna turn around and think "Oh, maybe I should help that infant that can't even hold it's own head up but apparently has a higher chance of survival here than me. Where are his/her parents?" Fortunately the plane didn't crash and nobody had to use an indestructo-baby as a flotation device. Qantas never crashes, good call Rainman. Okay, I know Australians actually DO care about their babies' safety in any situation, but this was one awful first impression. Hilarious though it was.
I have more stories to tell, but for now I need some food to get rid of this hangover...
I hope you enjoyed my first post, just trying to make Mr. New Hampshirite proud!
As always,
Stay Classy, AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!