Why this is the greatest place on earth.

I don't actually have a list of reasons - but the statement still stands.  After this week I'm 100% convinced that I'm in the right place.  Not much of that has to do with classes themselves...I go to them, they're even interesting (NOT my ecology lecture...although in class yesterday I had to stand up and pretend to be a tree, that was fun), but it's all about the people I've met and the places we've been.  People are so active here - they want to do something every night, doesn't matter what, nobody wants to sit in their rooms.  And my advice (passed on from Chris Turner, the Australian exchange student in the BC theater department last semester) to any student in a foreign country, or even your own country - you have to be a yes man.  Say yes to everything, just go, experience it, you will get so much more out of your time, wherever you are.

Some highlights from the last week:

Open mic night on Tuesday - Keith and I ventured into Northbridge and he played a set at the Impact Bar, then we explored the city for a little while and ended up walking home from the Murdoch station, but not a bad time at all.

Keith's birthday on Wednesday - I made a cake!  In our terrible oven.  And it actually turned out moderately well, given the circumstances...the way our oven works, it cooks the top of the food first, but doesn't cook the inside AT ALL.  So before I could safely say that the cake was totally baked, the top had burned...but I peeled it off, frosted it, and covered it with gummy snakes.  Totally fine.  Keith's flatmates had gotten him a cake too so all our bases were covered.  Jess made really yummy pasta with chicken and pesto, Darren made mushroom sauce - I don't know if I've been that full in the last month.  We went to the Newport, did some dancing, went home, stayed up way too late...just a great night overall, and I think one of the best birthdays Keith has ever had.

Thursday - Class at 10:30, not fun given the five hours of sleep I'd gotten then night before.  Oh well.  Keith had another open mic gig, this time tons of Australians came along - so many new friends.  Keith won a bottle of wine that night for playing - the "No good reason" award, now he has to sing a Doris Day song next week at the same time...eeeks.  Another beautiful night.

Friday - Ecology at 8:30 (death...this was when I had to be a tree for Professor Ladd), then auditions for Wounds to the Face (the show I'm stage managing) in the afternoon.  Boy, was I nervous.  Audition day isn't terribly stressful for a stage manager, this became clear pretty early on, but I was so worried about not knowing anyone, not having any authority, us not being able to cast the show, whatever.  They went so well.  Everyone who auditioned had clearly put a lot of work into their pieces, we were able to see characters for everyone, it was just great.  And I got the hang of it, eventually.  Now I know names too, which is really good.  And the director told me I did a good job (: yay.  Did a little face painting in the afternoon with the Aussies (I became a butterfly) and went out afterwards, butterfly and all.  THAT was fun - lots of strange looks, but we had quite the motley crew - Lauren was a fish (obviously), Keith was a shark, Anna was Spiderman, Rachel was a baboon...good times.  There is so much to do around here at night, so many places to just walk around or go inside and sit if you want to.  And public transportation is really reliable and really easy to get from point A to point B.

Today was Fremantle day - I just got back, did a little thrift store exploring, got tickets for Earth Dance, which is this music festival happening at the end of September - it's kind of like an Australian Woodstock or Bonnaroo, but on a much smaller scale.  It happens on a farm, everyone camps out and there's just music and dancing the whole weekend.  I tell ya - if you make friends with Australians, you find out about EVERYTHING.  It's great.  So I went to the market again today, helped Krystal find a dress to go salsa dancing in, had lunch with John, Jessica and Heather at a Mexican restaurant...another successful day.  I'm going to have so much reading to do tomorrow (after tree planting and a volleyball tournament - this is the life), but it's worth it.

Uncle Mike - get down here.  You're gonna love it.  Anyone else who can - get down here.

Can't wait to hear how Back to the 80s went...miss you all!!!

PICTURES, finally.

For anybody interested in pictures, there's a link on the right-hand side of the blog, under a handy little title "pictures from down under!"  These ones are just from the first week, I've got more I'm gonna post now...I'll try to keep you guys updated about when I put more pictures up (:

An unexpectedly perfect day.

G'day mates!  Well, g'night mates from down here...but what a day it has been.  If ever I doubted my choice of city or even country for studying abroad, after today, no more.  I've got details about the last few days that you may or may not be interested in, but first - my wonder-full Sunday.  Lauren and I planned to go to King's Park, this HUGE (we're talking 450-ish acres) park in Perth, full of native trees and wildlife...but forecast was not so good.  So we decided to bus it to Freo instead, with a plan of finding a cafe to eat lunch in and maybe do some reading.  We walked around Freo a bit, enjoying the 100% perfect weather and clear-blue sky (not a threatening cloud in sight, thanks a lot weather.com), happened upon a "garage" sale.  Some girls trying to sell a bunch of clothing and shoes - I got a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt for an oh-so grand total of $9.  Both items of clothing very ripped and worn (but wearable!) - gotta love hand-me-downs.  I also got a really cool leather bag (from Indonesia?  I think that's what she said) for free - part of it is torn, but I will find a way to fix it.  I hear duct tape can do anything.

We found ourselves at Merchant Coffee, a very cool little cafe on the main strip in Freo, and had a great, inexpensive lunch.  We decided we were too full to read, so we wandered around Freo a bit, and here's when I decided that Fremantle, WA is the raddest city this world has to offer.  We went down a side street we had never seen before and first found a store themed entirely around Alice in Wonderland.  It sold teapots, soaps shaped like teapots, costumes for little kids (some shaped like teapots), lots of Alice-themed toys, and it even had a little room in the back, behind a pink and green curtain, WHERE YOU COULD HAVE YOUR OWN TEA PARTY.  Two miniature tables with miniature chairs and a miniature tea set.  There was even a miniature television playing a regular-sized version of Alice in Wonderland.  We could have spent days in that shop, but we had studying to do, so we moseyed out.  THEN we found Fairy World.  A whole store about fairies.  The cashiers were wearing wings and fairy skirts.  They sold fairy dust by the kilogram.  Oh. My. God.  We found an Irish pub too - didn't go in, but earmarked it for a later date.  There was a busker in there playing some sweet guitar - okay by me.  On our way out of the street of magic, we came across a store called "Recycled Clothing."  Turned out to be a thrift store (and a pretty expensive one at that, boohoo), probably the most well-stocked and Kelsey-friendly thrift store I've ever been to.  I didn't buy anything, but if I ever come into a lot of money while I'm down here, I will...probably put it in the bank.  And then wish I had spent it at this store.

We were still too full to read, so we wandered to the Fremantle market.  When I get older and have a money tree growing in my backyard, my house will contain the following things: a huge, Beauty and the Beast-esque library, a planetarium, two or three Australian shepherds (they're a breed of dog, don't worry) and the Fremantle market.  It's full of stalls of clothing, cds, bars of soap (everyone in Australia sells bars of soap...I have not yet figured out why.  I can only hope this means that everyone down here is clean.), incense, scarves, boomerangs, probably some blackmarket body parts...EVERYTHING.  We probably spent an hour just looking at the stalls.  PS Mol - at this antique stall there was a necklace with a Freemason's symbol on it...think Wainey knows anything about that?  However, my favorite part of the market, the piece de resistance if you will: the produce section.  Free samples everywhere, fruit and vegis are way cheaper here than at the supermarket, everything is local and DELICIOUS, everything is fresh, there are people yelling and weighing and bagging and eating and laughing and IT WAS HEAVEN.  We bought some apples, bananas, and strawberries, and I probably consumed at least one whole apple with all the sampling I did.  We're going to make this a weekly trip - and let me tell you, as far as my list of "things to do" goes, "buy produce at the Fremantle market" may top "go to the pub."

Fruit in hand, we decided we were still too full to read, but that we needed dessert.  We found an Italian pastry shop called Fiorento's (or something else Italian), bought gelato, and ate outside in the sunshine.  MAYBE we should go read now...we headed over to the park, found a bench, and read for about twenty minutes before deciding we should get back to Murdoch if we want to make it to church on time.  And there ends our perfect day.

Church was AWFUL.  I have never been so uncomfortable and so angry at the same time in my entire life.  We had met some people a week ago, all very friendly, and they told us about the church services they ran on campus.  The church itself is Christian, and not affiliated with Murdoch at all, but they have their services in one of the lecture halls on campus.  So we decided today would be a great day to test out the waters.  AND WE ARE NEVER GOING BACK.  It seemed innocent enough - every person we saw wanted to meet us, asked us what we were studying and where in America we were from - great.  I made a few friends.  Then a rock band came out and started singing Christian music, also fine.  Everyone was really, really enthusiastic about it.  Everything really was okay until the pastor started speaking.  I have never heard a more chauvinistic, self-righteous, ignorant man at a podium.  He read a bit and then he just kept telling stories, all about himself...and they were degrading to women, to men, to people who didn't believe in Jesus...and everyone just accepted it!  The insides of my cheeks must have scars from how hard I was biting them.  Lauren and I declined to stay for coffee, and instead booked it home to complain about the service.  Here's the thing - worship whomever and however you want.  But when your worshipping interferes with or patronizes someone else's well-being, or their GENDER?!, for Pete's sake, it's not okay.

So we were angry.  We ate strawberries and felt better.  And that was my day!  I practiced my monologue, did not do anymore Shakespeare reading, and wrote this.

Here's some Sparknotes for the last few days...

Thursday - Festival Day - I had high expectations for this, no luck, but I did manage to sign up for a bunch of clubs (including Bedlam Theater Society, which is putting up a performance of "Sweet - a new musical based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer!" at the beginning of September...they had auditions last semester, so I won't get to be in that one, aw shucks).  Went out that night to see Keith do two open mic gigs in two different pubs - NICE.

Friday - Ecology class in the morning, an interesting Skype conversation with Mols (I didn't have sound but she did, I felt like Helen Keller), went to a yoga class, then off to my first Acting and Production II class.  Actually at the start I thought about dropping it...but instead, decided to stage manage our show.  And maybe act in it too?  I don't know how that's going to work.  But it's called Wounds to the Face, by Howard Barker, and rehearsals start on Friday.  YES.

Saturday - TREE PLANTING DAY!!!  Lauren and I joined thirty other earth-lovin' kids (including several adorable four and five year-olds, gotta start 'em young) and adults and, in our group of eight, we planted probably 350 seedlings.  And got some free sausage.  Saturday night we went out to a club/bar place called The Newport Hotel - that place was a' hoppin'.  There was a live band (they played all American music...Good Charlotte and Blink-182 and Bryan Adams), really cool lighting, just a great atmosphere, and no cover charge - we're going back.

I think that's it.  Sorry for the long-winded wordiness of this one, I haven't written a long entry in awhile.  If you made it all the way to the bottom of this (or of any of my super-duper long entries), remind me to give you a hug when I get back.

Love you guys...and I'm looking for reviews of Llama Tsunami's performance the other night if anyone caught that - be brutal, they can take it (:

And I thought Australia was about relaxation...

Just kidding - it totally is.  I'm relaxed 24/7 down here.  But I did emerge from my first Acting and Production II class today with a position as stage manager as well as a small acting role in our class production that goes up at the beginning of November.  And I've still got auditions for Twelfth Night to contend with on Monday.

That long-awaited butterflies have returned to my stomach...I'm officially busy again.

(Look for a longer entry tomorrow or Sunday, I've gotta get some reading done tonight.)

PEACE - go see the Llama T show tonight in Groton!  Hottest ska this side of the Thames (:

Something I forgot to mention!

Oh yeah - vegemite - check that off the bucket list of '09. Twice. It's not as bad as most Americans make it out to be...it's super salty, you eat it on toast, it kind of sticks to your throat on the way down. And it looks like poop on bread. Maybe it is that bad. But I survived the encounter, was even naive enough to try it again. It's actually worse the second time.

I'll try to smuggle some home.

And so it begins.

I've officially gone back to school. At the beginning of August. There's something wrong about that, but actually, I like it. I've always thought summer was too long - my brain needs some structured stimulation after two months of FRIENDS dvds (although I do love them...). First though, our final weekend of freedom. I went to a pub! Saturday night, I went out with Keith and his roommates (Malte, German, and Kirsten, Danish) to Perth to meet up with some other German exchanges at the Belgian Beer Pub on Murray Street. We got off the train in Perth around 9:30pm, and after a LOT of walking in the wrong direction, came upon this European look-alike pub, full of twenty-somethings and other college students. It took a bit of convincing to get the bouncer to let us in, because I was the only one with a passport (I hate carrying it around, but that's usually the only ID they'll take at bars and pubs); luckily, it was his last night on the job, so we were eventually let in, with instructions to "not stay longer than an hour." Keith bought the first round of Stella Artois, a popular beer in these parts (and one of the cheaper varieties) and we squeezed in at a little cafe table with the five people we were meeting up with. What a nice night. They turned the lights on around midnight and we began our long, cold journey home (the buses had stopped running, so we had to walk from Murdoch Station - not fun), but the few hours we spent in the bar were great. It felt very adult, but not in an intimidating way. And not in an unsafe way either, for all my relatives who are unhappy they started reading this entry (:

Sunday was pretty quiet, except that I played volleyball for a total of four or five hours I think. Lisa, a friend from Germany, got us started that afternoon, and I played with a huge group of people I didn't know after the barbecue we had that night. I didn't suck! Not anymore than anyone else at least. Somehow I end up in the sand after every single hit though. Not sure why that happens...I just like falling down I guess. Lisa is going to try to get a game going every Saturday.

Monday: time to go back to school. First I had to go see Emma about the North West trip, this big excursion during one of our weeks off for the international students to explore a bit of the Australian coast. I tried to sign up but had an issue with the bank...ended up being a bit stressful, so I wasn't in a great mood to start off my first day. THEN I got lost. I thought I knew just where my class was, I wrote down the room number and everything...well turns out, it was my professor's office room, not the lecture room. Great. A very nice woman in the enviro office found a time table on her computer and directed me to the right room. I was only about five minutes late to ecology, but not happy. I had to sit at the back of the room and it was difficult to pay attention/understand what Professor Ladd was saying - the accent, the distance, not a good combo. It was pretty boring, mostly introductory business stuff, but we do have a field trip in two months that should be fun.

Went home, had lunch with Lauren and Tina (another German friend), and then went to my marathon Shakespeare lecture and workshop - slated to last three whole hours. Well turns out, college theater departments in Australia and America are very similar. Full of best friends, and the "outsiders" have NO CLUE what's going on. It'll be alright, I just gotta get to know some people and become involved...I did meet a few, and everyone is, surprise surprise, super friendly. I think the class is going to be very entertaining - the professors are very casual, everyone goes by first names, lots of joking around...not at all unlike DSTP or Acting II at BC. The best part of class was the announcement that we would be putting on a production of...dun dun dun...TWELFTH NIGHT!!! My favorite Shakespeare, and coincidentally, the show Scott is directing on Mainstage this November. I was so bummed when I learned that I wouldn't be able to see and/or work on Twelfth Night at BC this fall, but auditions are on Monday, and because it's a totally student-run show (directed by our professor), it looks like I'll get to work on it in some way no matter what. There's a part I'd love to play, but I have no idea what I'm up against in this course...maybe all these students have been acting professionally and studying Shakespeare in all their spare time (believe me, we have a lot of it) for years, and I'll end up on stage management or lighting or something. That wouldn't be a bad thing either. The only downside to this setup is that my other acting course, Acting and Production II, puts up a performance the week before Twelfth Night. Gulp. So I'll have two tech weeks in a row. Not impossible, but I'll be tired. After last semester at BC, with Real Thing, Oleanna, and Charity all in a row - I think I can handle it.

Tuesday and Wednesday I have NO CLASS, so yesterday Lauren, Keith and I ventured into Freo to investigate the Fremantle library, in hopes of finding a solution to the "paperback copies of Shakespeare are wicked expensive at the bookstore" problem that I discovered. Seriously - $30 for a copy of Henry V? No thanks. The texts are all available online, but I sometimes like to read outside, in the grass and sunshine, so I was hoping for a few hard copies. We left Keith to do some busking (street performing, he plays guitar - more on that later) and headed inside. Boy, what a failure. First we inquired about library cards: $20 deposit for a "temporary membership" if you're not a citizen of WA. Okay, fine. We hunt around for books, I had a stack of five or six (including Twelfth Night, yippee!) that I wanted to check out, but oh wait, if you're only a temporary member you can only take one at a time. Well no thanks, not for $20 - so we're outta there. When I run out of books in my room I may venture back, but I've got friends with paperbacks and we'll do some swapping until then. The library on Murdoch's campus doesn't have anything but course reserves and reference books, so there's no help there. I have definitely developed a greater appreciation for the library system in the United States, especially BC with it's huge stacks of available reading. Don't be alarmed if you find me hugging the shelves on the fourth floor of O'Neill in January.

We found Keith on a bench in a street square, with a good five bucks in his guitar case and still playing...what a perfect afternoon that turned out to be. He's good - he sings and plays lots of Dispatch covers, State Radio covers, Jack Johnson, and some originals. Lauren and I harmonized when we knew the words (and sometimes when we didn't) and had a wonderful time. There were some people advocating for the Wilderness Society hanging around, and I asked if they were hiring - they were, but only fulltime positions, aw shucks. They pay $16.50/hr too. I shall have to look elsewhere.

We stopped at the chocolate shop on the way out - another good decision - white chocolate macadamia cookies and chocolate covered cherries MMMMM. I should see if that place is hiring. I still have some of the cherries in my fridge, though I doubt they'll be there for long; good chocolate is hard to come by in Australia. Then we hustled to the bus stop to go grocery shopping before Coles closed. We barbecued chicken kebabs and fries on the outside grill for dinner, then accompanied Keith to an open-mic gig he'd landed in Floreat, a town north of Perth. We took a bus, a train, and a cab to get to the bar, which turned out to be a pretty hip, modern place in a suburban area - very young management, very cool. I had the Beez Neez, Lauren had the Stella, Malte had the Carlton Dry. I'm no beer connisseur (nor do I know how to spell that word), but I may be by the end of the semester (just what you were hoping I'd say, right Mom and Dad?). Again, so sweet to see Keith play, even though the crowd could hardly be called a crowd...some more Dispatch, some more originals, even a little Shakira and Slightly Stoopid. What a night.

Today is another day off (tomorrow might as well be too, I've got an hour-long class at 10:30), so I'm looking for volunteer work/a job, making too much rice for lunch, and hopefully making a better batch of cookies with Lauren in a bit, maybe some pancakes in Keith's flat later on tonight. Our internet hasn't been working for the last two hours (I've actually had to rewrite half of this entry from the library), so that's frustrating, and I'm still not enrolled in my third unit...efficiency is really lacking around these parts, but I'm learning to roll with it. If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. If you can't do it yourself, you gotta be persistent and sometimes a bit creative. It's a good test of patience anyway.

Looking forward to a Skype conversation with my family tonight (if my internet ever kicks in)...I hear Jakey's canoe trip is going forward tomorrow, and Mol dyed her hair - lots going on at home that I wish I could be around for. Tomorrow's Festival Day - I'll have more to report after that, and after my remaining two days of class for the week. Until then, peace out, cub scouts.

"I'm in Beauty Land!"

Keith gets credit for the title of this entry - but man did he hit the echidna on the snout with that one.  The international kids got to spend the day at Forest Hills today (fo' free!), which is a national park, comprised mostly of jarrah forest and 'roos.  We had several sessions organized for us, so we were split into groups and moved swiftly through our afternoon.  Session one was "Meet the Marsupials" - OH WOW.  Two joeys, a very, very endangered creature called a woilie (forgive the butchered spelling, if anyone out there actually knows what I'm talking about) that looks like a kangaroo rat but is actually the smallest member of the kangaroo family, a python (not a marsupial, but super cool), and an echidna, which is something I've been dying to see since we got to Australia.  Still haven't met a platypus, but I have officially seen one half of the monotreme family.  YES.  Fun fact - echidnas are the oldest species of mammal on the planet.  And I met one today named Snorkle.

Session two was "Raptors" - birds of prey.  Forest Hills is an animal rehab center, so all of the birds we saw were in the process of being fixed up enough to return to the wild.  The unfortunate side of the coin is that the birds that cannot be rehabilitated have to be euthanized, because it is illegal to sell or trade animals in Australia.  Only about 10% of the creatures they find are able to be rereleased.  So that's the Debbie Downer part...today was much cheerier than that - we met a Peregrine falcon, which is probably my favorite flying creature, and is the fastest bird in the world, a goshawk with one eye, a barn owl, and a red-tailed hawk (in Australia it's some kind of eagle).  We'd only been at the park for an hour and I was already pretty positive that this is what I want to do with my life.  Maybe not birds specifically, but work at a rehab center, give tours or presentations, teach people about the animals...that'd be the life.

Session three was a bush walk - a walk through the jarrah forest with a guide pointing out interesting trees and wildlife.  Felt just like camp.  I picked up two books in the shop, one about trees in WA and one about plants...if I have to be away from the trees in America for this long I might as well learn the ones down here.

Session four was "Indigenous People."  I don't know how much the rest of the group enjoyed this one, but I loved it.  A man of Aborigine descent spoke to us about the Aboriginal culture...he was a little spacey, and a bit hard to follow at times, but my overall impression of the Aborigine people is definitely more informed.  He spoke about how every child is given a totem by their mother, some animal or plant growing on the earth, and that creature lives in their eyes, and needs to be taken care of.  The part I most related to was when he talked about how the Aborigines teach their children that eagles, frogs, humans, jarrah trees, grass...they're all on the same level.  They all need the same amount of care, the same amount of respect.  No one creature is higher than any other.  Then he taught us how to throw boomerangs, and THAT was fun (:

I think tonight will turn into another night of board games with some other international students...Lauren and I played Pictionary against Jared (crazy man from South Africa), Alex (from Australia) and Mark (from Georgia), and I think they want a rematch.  We destroyed them.  I try not to let people know how competitive I am, it's not something I'm proud of, but I think that came out a little last night.  Oh well.  Last night we also had the tour of the Fremantle prison - definitely worth the $20.  Uncle Mike, you HAVE to do this when you get here.  It was a night tour, so it was extra spooky, and of course they do a few "jump out and scare you" stunts, but our guide was so captivating that I actually enjoyed getting creeped out.  I really enjoyed the whole tour, a lot of the prison is in the condition it was when it was opened in 1855 (it closed in 1991); it's been extremely well preserved...the only part I really couldn't handle was the visit to the gallows.  I don't know why I didn't think it would be that bad, but my stomach just went to my feet as soon as we walked in.  I won't give you guys the details, but the stats and stories we heard about that place were just loathsome.

Sorry to end on a bit of a sad note...here's something happy - Lauren and I ate at a sushi bar in Fremantle the other day; you sit down on a vinyl stool and there's a circular conveyor belt rotating around the joint displaying plates of deliciousness, you take off whatever plates you want and pay for them according to the color of the plate (pink is the cheapest, green is the most expensive, etc).  SO GOOD, and so un-Australian.  Ah well, there'll be time for vegemite in days to come.

Peace to CT, and wherever else my readers hail from.  Miss you guys.