The past week!

Can you believe another fire alarm went off this morning at 10 a.m.? I was asleep (who wakes up early on a lazy Saturday afternoon?) and so it was a shocking wake-up call. Anyway, we were let into the building after 10 minutes.

That aside, these past few days have been quite interesting. Wednesday was the start of O-Week here, and apparently it's very big, with lotsa events going on all over the USyd campus. I woke up real early, at about 7 something, and by 8.30 a.m. a whole bunch of us newbies were at St. Andrew's College for the breakfast (for all new students). However, there was a misunderstanding and we missed the breakfast (we were told it was at 8.30 a.m. when it was actually 7.30 a.m.) so we were all quite hungry by the time the welcome speeches in their hall was over.

We decided to grab some breakfast, so we walked down some streets and ended up at a quaint roadside cafe called Hoochie Mamma. I ordered an iced latte, and that set me back by $3.50 (that's 10 ringgit for a little cup of coffee!!!!) but I needed that little pick-me-up.

Then it was time for the official welcome at Great Hall, so we briskwalked all the way back to the Quadrangle. Imagine our horror when we arrived only to find the grand doors closed and a security officer standing guard outside. Apparently there were very limited seats, and the doors were closed 10 minutes before the event started because the seats were all taken. So we waited outside.

And then we thought we might as well go browse around the various booths and stalls set up by the University of Sydney Union (USU) for all their 210 clubs and societies. It's really a blast of sounds and colours, hitting you from all sides.

Many stalls were giving out goodie bags (they call them showbags here) and freebies, and I managed to grab a slushie from the Access Chillout Tent and a couple of cans of Coca-Cola Zero. For lunch, we trooped over to the Holme Building where the USU threw us newbies a fantastic lunch. Well, it was fantastic to me because they served bottles of carbonated drinks, and I grabbed 2 bottles of Coke (and my stash keeps on growing, yippee!) and chicken and lamb skewers, sausage and a hotdog bun, some potato salad, and Greek salad with feta cheese. Lunch was over too soon, and I headed back to browse through the remaining booths and stalls.

I went back to the USU stalls on Thursday again, and managed to collect more Coke! The afternoon passed quickly enough, and in the evening I attended the Faculty of Arts Postgraduate Welcome & Orientation dinner. Well, it wasn't really dinner, as they wasn't really much dinner-type food. We all just stood around little tables and chit-chatted with our future coursemates. They served red and white wine, but I stuck to the orange juice, and they had little canapes and pastries and stuff.

The following 2 pictures below were taken by my friends, and they're of me receiving the certificate (for the scholarship) from the dean (at least I think it was the dean, or someone important anyway).

We IH people left at about 6.45 p.m. because we wanted to make it in time for the Newtown tour (supposed to meet at 7 p.m., but was postponed to 8.30 p.m.). Newtown's made up of little shops, restaurants and pubs, and isn't very far from Chippendale, it's just a walk of about 15 minutes. A few of us stopped at the Max Brenner Chocolate Bar, this really famous place that serves food and drinks in a concept similar to Starbucks, Bing!, and all those other expensive coffee places, but this one specializes in chocolate! I thought it was worth a splurge (it's Max Brenner!) and ordered the Cookieshake, which was really quite expensive ($7.60!!!!), but it really tastes pretty good. Rather sweet and reminiscent of cookies and cream (which is why they call it what they call it I s'ppose).

I was very hungry by the time I got back home (dinner was just canapes, remember?) so I did my first cooking in Sydney. Maggi Mee never tasted so good, and every little crumb was just so precious! I cooked it for longer than usual, so that the noodles like soaked up more water and was more substantial (sad, I know), and I'm so glad I brought the Kari Letup flavour, because it's really spicy and I miss that burning sensation of chilli powder. I also mixed in some Vegemite into a mug of hot water (have I mentioned how many times I've scalded my hand?) and that was my yummy beverage. Very yummy.

I went back to the USU stalls yesterday afternoon, but didn't manage to bring back any Coke, as it was 3 in the afternoon and they were cleaning up and closing down. I dropped into the Co-op Bookshop, and boy, was I shocked to find out the number of books I'd need to have for my classes. Yesterday was a good day, food-wise: lunch was some farfalle and beef stew, and dinner was some creamy linguine with lamb. At about 7.30 p.m. Su-Wen and I walked to Broadway and dropped into Coles. They're a supermarket franchise here, very popular because they have lower prices, and this week they're having someting called dollar dazzlers, where you can buy some things for just a buck. I stocked up on my dried pasta, got like 4 packets at a dollar each, so that's $4 for food that will feed me during the winter break (June-July, where people go home and there's no food). I might go back soon and pick up more pasta, don't think you get much pasta for a buck these days, so should stock up while they're cheap. I was searching for their Bertolli pasta sauces ($3 for 2 bottles), but apparently so was everyone, and there were none left, not even a single bottle.

Which brings me to this morning's rude awakening by way of the much-despised fire alarm. After that catastrophe, I didn't think it was worth it to go back to sleep, so I waited around till lunch came around. After lunch a whole bunch of us IH residents went to Victoria Park to try to feed the ducks. I say 'try', because there were, like, only 2 ducks, so the event was unanimously deemed a failure.

We then hiked it over to the Glebe Markets. The market has a very indie, hippie-happy feel, and if you like vintage-y stuff you'd love this place. It's really a very colourful place, with plenty of colourful wares (and colourful characters too). You can get most stuff for real cheap too (real cheap in Aussie dollars, don't think about it in ringgit and you'll be fine).

We went back for ice-cream on the rooftop, and then after dinner I headed over with a whole bunch of people to the Mardi Gras parade. I'm afraid I didn't get to see much, it was just too big a crowd, but I did hear plenty of hooting, whistling and clapping. At approximately 7.30 p.m. I got a little tired of it all and decided to go back, alone. Yes you read that right - me, a stranger in seedy Sydney, decided to find my own way back to IH (if you know my great sense of direction - or rather a great lack of it! - you'd know how dangerous and stupid a notion this is), but to cut a long story short, I asked lotsa people for directions to QVB, and then got onto the first bus I saw and asked the bus driver (1) if the bus was going to Broadway, and (2) if the bus took cash (it was, and it did). So I managed to make my way home. It took me approximately an hour and 40 minutes, but I did it, and I feel like it's such a great accomplishment heehee!

And I just watched some show called Dear Frankie and it starred Gerard Butler and I'm quite contented to just slouch here and do nothing. Cheers, y'all!