Dear Diary @ Ormond

This one also shouldn't need explanation. Just a quick update and virtual tour of my room at Ormond. Classes are in full swing now and I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester! I really enjoy the course subjects i'm taking. Lots of work ahead, but no doubt great experiences along the way too--

Outside Ormond College

Hello again. I finally worked out the proxies and worked out the internet in my dorm room. They charge about $10 per GB of usage here, isn't that ridiculous?! It's okay though, i can get wireless on campus when I'm in class for free and take care of most of my work there. And i'm learning to be conservative and not waste time surfing the net or watching youtube videos!

This clip is pretty self-explanatory- it is the same walk up to the college when I first moved in last week. Enjoy!

Technical Difficulties....

I have a few more videos of my new home, Ormond College but having trouble uploading them. I'm going to take my laptop to a cafe with wi-fi tomorrow and hopefully get some of them up!

Some things to look forward to seeing in the near future:

University of Melbourne's campus
The Tower at Ormond (the best view of the city on all of campus!)
Waterfront at the Yarra River
The CBD and downtown

Until next time!
<3

Footy!

Here's a short clip as we walked up to Etihad Stadium in Southbank, Melbourne. Aussie Rules football is by far the most popular sport in Melbourne and most of Australia. Check out the rules and more details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football

It's a fun sport, I was first acquainted when I stayed in Melbourne with a kid at my home stay during the Glee Club Australia tour '07. The boy was so enthusiastic about the sport, so I already had an idea of some of the rules. They have stadium etiquette during the games, which requests everyone to stay seated until quarter/half times. As I said before, most AFL teams are from Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs. This night was the Essondon Bombers vs. the Western Bulldogs. The bombers had the most fans by far and led the game the entire first half, but the bull dogs took charge in the second half and ended up winning by about 105-60. It was a great game!!

Here are more clips from the match




Please ignore the awful commentary


Here is the end of a short fight. It gets intense! There was probably about 5 fights this game, take that ice hockey!




hmmm i sound obnoxious, sorry. Cool clip of a player scoring a goal though. And Claire getting annoyed with me taking video of everything

Eureka Tower

Tallest observation deck in the southern hemisphere! The building also breaks the record for the highest standing residential building in the southern hemisphere. Pretty cool! Sorry for you nerds out there, I don't know the exact height but you can look it up online if you're curious :-) It's located on the southbank of the Yarra river, a 20 minute walk from Uni Melb's campus.

Oh ya, The Edge is mentioned near the end of the clip. It was $12 extra so I opted out of that, but it looked like quite a thrill!

Melbourne Cricket Grounds

This clip is a brief showing of the MCG, the largest sports field in Australia. Every national AFL championship is held here, whether or not the teams are from Melbourne - though 10 of the 16 national teams are because it's a BIG sports city. The venue also hosts matches for rugby, cricket, soccer, music concerts, and public rallies. We had the chance to see the National Australian Sports Museum before this (no pictures allowed) and tried to play a bit of footy (AFL/Aussie Rules/craziest sport on earth).

Sorry the clip doesn't have much commentary, i didn't want to sound like a wanker standing by myself in front of the other tour groups!

Good Morning

Here is a post from my third day at Trinity. You can see that I am behind on my video clips (this was taken July 15). I should catch up soon, seeing that I have convenient internet access now. Not having wireless really bugged me the first few days, but now that I have an ethernet cable it's not so bad. Still frustrating, though!

Sorry the post ends abruptly, my camera ran out of battery!

Note: learning about the price of booze is a key part of Australian culture. With that and AFL I pretty much have got this country figured out....

Here I explain a bit more why I chose to do the video blog rather than a regular blog. You can see the decorations of the person who lived in my room during the school year (it's their "recess" aka winter break) hanging above me.

University of Melbourne: Trinity Residential College

Here I am at Trinity College, where I spent 5 days with other international students. The weather reminded me much of a sunny winter day in the northwest, so I felt right at home! The time change is 17 hours ahead of west coast so I missed an entire day flying to Australia and at this time my body had no idea what time it was. I think it was about noon on Monday in Melbourne, while it was 7pm Sunday in Seattle/LA.

First morning in Oz!

This was taken as I waited for the tram to take me to a different terminal right after landing in Brisbane. I was on the plane for a solid 14 hours of nighttime and I landed with the beautiful sunrise in Queensland, Australia.

Introduction

Hello all!

I finally settled into my permanent residence at Ormond College on University of Melbourne's campus. I spent 5 day at Trinity College doing a welcome week with 120 other international students to get acquainted with each other and the city. The campus is located about 2 km north of the CBD (central business district) and the city center, so there are many places to visit and fun things to do nearby! The public transportation system in Melbourne is the best in Australia and it makes getting around the inner city and suburbs very convenient.

I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't be very good at keeping a regular blog throughout the entire five months of my exchange so instead I am choosing to update you all with short video clips. I find it difficult to frequently post journal entries and I know sometimes it's daunting to read huge posts so the video clips should provide a cool alternative. I did many tourist things during the welcome week so I have a lot of clips from the past week, but I doubt I'll post as frequently in the future. Everytime I travel or see something new I try to get at least a short clip, so you can all see what I am seeing.

Okay, so the next few posts I'll briefly explain the clip but they should be mostly self-explanatory. I miss you all, and I hope you enjoy reading/watching about my travels and adventures!