The comforts of home: in Australia

The comforts of home:  I wasnt able to bring many things from home that had sentimental value because of the luggage restrictions but I did manage to bring a few things.  

The small Legolas figurine was hand painted by my cousin Bryan and it means alot to me!  Its only about the size of my thumb!  But it sits on my Macbook and looks at me!  

The Donkey, is actually a pez dispenser key chain my friend Kami gave me this year! It still holds my keys together.  

And I also brought a 

wooden desk plate that I got from my friend Heather last year that says "A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind!"  The sign sits on my very messy desk!

Fruit and Veggie Co-op

So I got a great job at NUSA, the Newcastle University Student Association.  One of the services they offer students is a Fruit and Veggie Co-op!  I pay $10 before wednesday, and then thursday morning 2 guys from Nusa, Eduardo and Oscar go get fruit and veggies from the local farmers!  

For $10 I got:

- 1 Pineapple

- 1 Eggplant

- 1 Spinach

- 1 Whole Garlic

- 2 Bell Peppers

- 4 Tomatoes

- 3 Onions

- 5 Oranges

- 4 Apples

- 3 Carrots

- 3 Zucchinis

- 8 Avocados

Its AMAZING isnt it!  Great deal.  And the selection varies every week with what is in season and what the good deals are!  So fun! 

Im going to make feta cheese and spinach rice, and some sort of eggplant dish tonight!  

I have already had 2 omletes and used the avocados and tomatoes!  Yumm

English, German and Korean

So as a way to help me learn German and Korean, we are putting the words on big pieces of paper around our place!  These are in the kitchen!  

Some of the signs are more practical then others!  Overall they make great decorations!  

Dancing, Cooking, and Picture taking

Sorry I havent written anything in awhile, for some reason the internet was not working for 4 days last week so I couldent add any new information!  

Dance Crew

So I have been getting together with 3 guys a couple times a week and dancing.  Its alot of fun.  As most of you know I love to dance, and used to swing dance in high school quite often, and have also dabbled in salsa, hip hop and contemporary dance!  

The guys I dance with each have their own style which makes it interesting.  Mickey is from South Korea, and he is in the picture with the hood zipped up all the way, hes a popper and waver in his dance style.  Woosungs the guy in the white, hes from Australia, and he is a break dancer which is really fun because hes teaching me how to break dance!  Then theres BG who is from Kenya and has a really cool freestyle Africa style! Then theres me!  Its a fun group, and we get together about 3- 4 times a week and dance and teach each other moves.  I taught the guys some ballet, and how to swing dance... watching the hip hop boys try to learn ballet was hilarious!  

We have gone out twice now as a group and went dancing.  The first time we went out was on Olympics night, and we were all dressed up for the olympics and a photographer for the club saw us dancing and actually asked to take pictures of the 4 of us!!!  it was alot of fun! 

The second time we went out we ended up having a dance battle with another group of guys!!!!  All very fun. Some of the guys that we danced with thought I was a "B-Girl"  which is slang

for breakdancing girl.... crazy! I guess my dance sessions with the guys are working out!

Frozen people on Hunter Street

So that same night we went dancing, some of us got bored at Fannys, and walked over to the Great Northern another dance place!  We decided to stop and take pictures with the frozen people on hunter street.  Needless to say that the frozen people are located in center divider of hunter street, so as we took pictures the cars passing kept honking at us! It was pretty funny!

  

Mexi- Night!  Enchiladas!!!!!

So Australia has the worst Mexican food.  Being from California, and living off great Mexi hole in the walls through college has me missing Mexican food in a major way!  The Mexican food here is very bland, un spicy and is basically only tacos and burritos...  but the sauce is horrible.  So I decided I was going to host Mexi- night at my place for all my Aussie friends, Roomies, and a few Americans who also missed Mexican food! 

My Mom sent me her recipies for her home made salsa, and her enchiladas... I had to make the sauce from scratch as they dont have Enchilada sauce in the stores here!

It was an awesome night!  I actually had a really relaxing time making the salsa the night before and getting most of the food prepped!  Then Sunday I started cooking around 3:30ish and everyone came and ate at 6:00!  

I made my sisters famous nachos in a frypan!  That was the appetizer and everyone loved them!  I also made enchiladas for 20 people! I had about 6 left over which I am still slowly enjoying!!! SO good!!!  I also have salsa left over, and as soon as it runs out im going to the store to get more ingredients to make more! Its so good, and the salsa here is really not good!  

This is me and Steffen in the green, hes one of my German housemates, and Justin the guy in blue is my neighbor who took me slacklining....(see previous blog)

I think im going to try and cook flautas this weekend.  I looked up the recipe... dosent look too hard!  My German roommates are going to cook for us this sunday! SO that should be good!

I think we had the most people at our place ever on sunday.  IT was alot, and our place is smaller! But it was worth it. Everyone really liked it which was nice since I worked hard on the meal! I cooked it all by myself... Im quite proud!

Thanks MOM and Melissa for the Recipes!  Everyone loved them!!!!!

Olympic Games: International House Outing

Happy Olympics Everyone!!!

So the Olympics have started, and the International House decided to start off the celebrations by dressing up Olympic style and going out to a Club in town called Fannys!

I decided to go dressed Equestrian style.  It was the easiest thing I could put together with the clothes I had! I borrowed riding gloves from my friend Jen, who actually happens to ride horses!  Shelby also helped me with specifics of the outfit... Thanks Girl!  

The guys in the picture are Woosung and Ryan.  Woosungs dressed as a martial artist, and Ryans dressed as part of the Aussie TV film crew.  Our other friend Boom dressed as an Aussie Commentator.  Below he is seen "interviewing" me for Aussie channel 7 Prime.  

Most people dressed up like they were tennis players, or Aussie Fans.  However a couple of guys dressed up like they were on the Shooting team, and made fake guns out of cardboard.  There was also a guy dressed up like the torch carrier!  He was awesome.  There was a couple of swimmers, a discus thrower, and track and field athletes.  

Overall we had a very good night.  So far I have watched

 cycling, rowing and beach volleyball as that is all that has been on so far today.  Not to exciting. 

Tomorrow my friend Allie and I are going to catch a bus and go to the beach as its starting to warm up a bit.  There is a used book store that were also going to check out!  

I also added a picture

 from when I was walking through 

campus on friday! 

This is the path I take to get back to my room from main campus!  

Im planning on posting more pictures of campus soon!  

Miss you all, and please let me know how America is doing in the Olympics, all the coverage over here is focused on the Aussies!  

Cheers

Dancing and Slack Lining

So Friday night was Latin Dance night at the campus bar, which is really a big venue where the campus has alot of events!  I was really excited about it, but I only brought one set of heels, which are black and make me probably 3 inches taller.  Which means I was taller then most of my potential dance partners.  I know how to salsa, and I love to dance so I tried to teach my german roommate Steffen and his friend Mike....  They tried but never got the hang of it.  They were sports and danced with me for a little bit. 

Im in the picture... can you find me? You can only really see my hair!

 However they couldent keep up so they gave up.  The whole experience was very funny!  We ended up leaving an hour after we got there cause we were all quite bored.  I was too tall, and I didnt really know that many people, so I didnt dance much :(  

On Saturday I went slack lining with about 10 others.  My Aussie neighbor Justin is very active, and is interested in all kinds of activities.  So he took about 10 of us to a nearby park to go slack lining!  

If you dont know what Slack Lining is, it is when you take a line which is about an inch thick and tie it between two trees about waist height off the ground, then you get on and try to walk on it.  

Its a really good exercise in balance!  I fell off quite a few times, but I had a great time!  

Week 2: Rain

Its been raining almost all week.  It has been sunny for the last couple of days, but its still pretty wet here! 

Second week of school went well.  I really like 2 of my classes.  I have the same professor and he remind me alot of my high school Drama teacher Mr. Grebel.  Ive been a little sick, so thats not fun, but I am feeling better!  

Friday night im going to the Bar on the Hill, on campus!  They are going to have a Latin dance night, so my friend Jen and her boyfriend and a couple of our friends are going to do some Salsa, and other kinds of dance!  Im very exciting.... although I have no idea what to wear! 

 

I attached some pictures of my place.  

This is what I see when I leave my front door.  

My housmate Lee, from South Korea, is teaching me a new phrase is Korean every week.  This was this weeks! 

This is a picture of our lounge area, were we hang out, eat, and watch the 5 channels of Australian TV that exists! 

This is a picture of our kitchen.  We have a freezer on the left and a Fridge on the right.  Its pretty nice.  And surprisingly for the 6 of us we keep the place very clean!

***Auntie Jo Jo, I hope you feel better!***

Week 1 and Autonomy Day

So Week 1 was alot of fun.  It started with classes, and ended with a huge school wide celebration! 

Classes were good, I am taking 4 right now, 1 political science class, 1 culture class, and 2 religion classes.  The religion classes are definatley my favorite.  I have the same teacher in both classes and hes going to be great!  

On wednesday night my friends Timmy and Natalie held an Army party for there birthdays, so everyone showed up in army gear!  It was pretty funny! 

Friday was the big day however!   Autonomy day!  Auto day is a day celebrating when the University of Newcastle became its own university and not a satelite campus of the University of New South Wales.  The whole campus celebrates, and everyone gets really into it.  

This is what my Auto day looked like:

Waking up at 4:00 am to make brekkie (breakfast) and play auto day games.

At 7:00am all the International House students met in the courtyard for music.

Around 9:00am all International House students go to the Bar on the Hill, the on campus pub.  The University hosted games, 3 bands, and tons of food!  

Around 12:00pm I walk back home and sleep... till 5:00 pm I was really tired!  

At 5:00 I wake, go have dinner.

At 8:00 a few Aussies and I run around the International House.

At 9:00 pm I get a snack!  

at 10:00pm Kevin, Jake and Tom break out the guitar and we spend 2 hours sitting around and singing songs.  

In the end the rule was to stay up till 4, then the celebration would have happened for 24 hours... However I couldnet make it and went to bed much sooner then 4!  

Aussies have crazy holidays!  

O Week

O Week, or Orientation week just happened and it was full of fun!  The first day was quite routine with lots of sessions talking about saftey, class structure and academic topics.  The second day of O week we went on tours and walked around our large green campus, and also got more information from clubs and organizations about how to get involved... so far myself and a few friends signed up for the Ultimate Frisbee team!  Free play starts tonight!!!!!  We went on a Winery tour of the Hunter Valley which is very similar to Sonoma Valley in California!  Its only 45 minutes away from school, so we all got on a bus and went to 2 winerys and 1 brewery!  It was alot of fun, and it was very pretty in hunter valley!  I didnt like most of the wine, but I had 2 favorites that were both desert wines!  I didnt like anything at the brewery, Im not a fan of beer, but it was still a blast!  

At the Brewery they gave us 6 samples, I tried them all but ended up giving them all way to the guys!  

Thursday of O week was our day to do whatever we wanted... which meant I slept in!  I also then walked around campus, and then ended up being a couch potato with an aussie friend and we watched the Amazing Race on TV!  

** Fun Side Note: Most TV shows that are in America show over here, they are just delayed by about a month or two, so I will be able to watch So You Think You Can Dance, because its just starting over here!  

On the last day of O week we went to Blackbutt Reserve and once again played with Koalas, kangaroos and I fell in mud!  

Look Closley at the picture, theres a Joey on the Mama Koalas back!  It was soo cute!  

We walked around blackbutt, and yes I went exploring, and stepped into a big mud bog, and got it all over my shoes and pants, but luckily as soon as we got back home I threw them in the washer and everything came off!  

*** Some of you were wondering what my address was, here it is!

Angela Meyers

International House Rm. 144

University Drive

Callaghan, NSW, 2308 

Cheers!