The Who

I’ve never been more excited about moving to a new place than I was to get into my current abode. That’s right, more so than getting out of Riverpark (but not by much). Living in the hostel in the city wasn’t bad, but it’s so much nicer to have the space that I have in this place. For starters, I don’t need to go outside to get internet access. And right now, I’m sitting at a desk, something I took for granted until I didn’t have that privilege. There’s a couch, in front of “Pay TV” (cable television) that includes ESPN. It’s great being here.

Contrary to expectations I listed at the end of my last post, learning the bus system hasn’t been as difficult as I thought. All the route maps and stop times are listed online. I even managed to find my way to a park outside the city through a bus transfer – arriving at the destination on time to play some touch football with a university team. I’ll get to that later...

The more I dissect it, the more I love the idea of bus systems. It’s nice here because students get a discount. Multi-trip tickets cost $9.10 and allow for 10 two-hour trips – so you can ride anywhere you want as long as your ticket is punched before that two-hour limit is up. So theoretically I could ride to a place two hours away and it would only cost me 91 cents ($9.10 divided by 10 trips for the non-math majors). And the buses advertise that they’re better for the environment because they operate using natural gas. Sounds like a huge win on my part.

There’s a bus stop basically right outside the house, the tickets are sold at a TON of locations, there are a few services that run late on Saturday nights and I haven’t had a ticket malfunction (yet). All in all, good experience there.

My next experience of which to speak is orientation. I didn’t skip any of the freshman orientation stuff at OU and I paid for it. Long, boring speeches and few other things that really mattered. If nothing else, that helped me realize that giving out a schedule of orientation events shouldn’t be seen as “necessary things to do,” but rather “here’s the menu... find what you want and show up.” So I haven’t exactly attended every session here. I mean, how many times do I need the “this is what college is” type of stuff. We got what we needed and got out of there.

Meeting people, however, was a different story. There is a nice program here called “The Exchange Society” that consists of a group of Australian UniSA students that help out the foreign exchange students by organizing events where they can all meet together and enjoy a good time. It helps that these students know the best drink specials around town ($6 champagne bottle night, for example) and the better places for students to see movies. And they do all the advertising and organizing for it, we just have to show up. A beautiful service.

The Exchange Society helped me meet a Canadian, a few Germans, a couple from England and even some guys from San Diego. Plus, I met the Frank twins’ twins. Not really, but Sameer and Sohair are from the United Arab Emirates and remind me in many ways of Kris and Nic. Some of us met up for a bowling night to celebrate the birthday of Breelyn, the girl from Canada – an opportunity only afforded by meeting people in the same boat as each other. These are most of the people you’ll find in my photo albums on facebook. It might sound corny, but coming here has already allowed us to learn about some aspects of a bunch of different countries – not just Australia – which is pretty cool.

And those are just the exchange group students that we met, still leaving an introduction for the housemates from Malaysia. This includes the landlady and the four psychologists and a business major living in the same housing complex as us. On our first night here, we kept dinner simple – a large from Pizza Hut. The second night we were invited to join the landlady (who lives in a bedroom right down the hall) and the other housemates for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was a great way to get to know everybody and introduce ourselves formally, as opposed to me randomly showing up in the kitchen to grab a glass of water and having to meet people that way.

As soon as we sat down at the restaurant, terror struck – only chopsticks were on the table, no forks. It was obviously going to be a challenge to eat and I wasn’t shy to let everyone know that the entertainment at the table for the night would be watching me try to feed myself. Even though forks WERE available, I was going to be stubborn and wanted to try to go the whole meal without using one.

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be, I completed my goal – though I’ve never had to work so hard to get full. My hand hurt the next day from having to use muscles that I’ve really never had to use in that way before that dinner. I immediately put myself on the 15-day Chinese cuisine disabled list.

The dinner itself was a success for more than that reason. The roommates are all great people and speak understandable English. With foreign students speaking a non-native tongue, it can sometimes be a little hard to pick everything up, just as it would be if I ever learned Chinese and tried to go speak it in Peking or something. This group, however, can communicate very well and are all really friendly and helpful, in general.

Apparently quite a few of them cook and each has their specialty. They asked me if I cook, to which I could only respond, “I’m not sure that what I do is really considered cooking.” Perhaps I can institute Mexican night each week and try to bring back a part of my taste buds vacated by the lack of Taco Bells on the world’s largest island. I’m sure there’s one somewhere in Australia, but not in Adelaide. Maybe I’ll try a stroke of Italian every once in awhile – stromboli or spaghetti with homemade pasta sauce, easy-yet-different dishes.

I’ve exhausted my will to write for now after taking a break from slaving away at the keyboard to stuff my face with a piece of double chocolate cake baked by Quin Chien, one of the female housemates. It was delicious and now I’m beyond full, but well worth it. My next blog will include my initial stab at playing flag football. Also, before reading my next entry, tune in to SportsCenter on ESPN and watch at least one show that includes the “Who’s Now” segment. Watching that will help you understand what I have to say about that (other than, “Why do I wait to enterprise things??”).

Love you all in the states, check back again soon.

From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.

If you want to see me soon, start digging.