Apparently it’s already been almost two whole weeks since I last posted, but it’s been a two weeks in which much has happened, including finishing finals, the election and doing some more sightseeing in Melbourne. Back on Nov 2nd I took my last final exam (Large-Scale Weather & Climate), which went quite well just like my two other exams. I was quite relieved to be done with Monash exams, and to relax I took a train over to Flemington Park for the Melbourne Cup horse race, the “race that stops a nation.” Seriously, down here if you’re not one of the 100,000+ that sees the race in person, then you’re among the millions of Australians across the country that literally stop whatever they’re doing for two minutes to tune in to the horse race. The downside is that while it was sunny and warm when I left my exam in Caulfield, by the time I got to the racecourse half an hour later the weather had turned cold, rainy and windy, and stayed that way all afternoon and evening. Silly me, the hopefully-future-weatherman, forgot to check the weather forecast ahead of time, and so was stuck out in the cold rain in just shorts and a t-shirt. Oh well, if anything it made the race more memorable. Despite the drenching rain I squeezed my way out to the hedges along the home stretch, so I got to see the horses go by twice during their 2-mile race (I even got a decent picture of them running by!). I placed two $10 bets on a couple horses to win, but neither did (Vinnie Roe came in second though, so I almost won something). In the end the race was won by the favourite and last year’s Cup winner, Makybe Diva. I’d say the Melbourne Cup was not a bad place to see my first-ever horse race in person, or to place my first-ever real bets on anything. It was also cool seeing all the silly hats and costumes people put on for the race, although some of those were hidden by umbrellas or raincoats unfortunately.
Apparently it’s already been almost two whole weeks since I last posted, but it’s been a two weeks in which much has happened, including finishing finals, the election and doing some more sightseeing in Melbourne. Back on Nov 2nd I took my last final exam (Large-Scale Weather & Climate), which went quite well just like my two other exams. I was quite relieved to be done with Monash exams, and to relax I took a train over to Flemington Park for the Melbourne Cup horse race, the “race that stops a nation.” Seriously, down here if you’re not one of the 100,000+ that sees the race in person, then you’re among the millions of Australians across the country that literally stop whatever they’re doing for two minutes to tune in to the horse race. The downside is that while it was sunny and warm when I left my exam in Caulfield, by the time I got to the racecourse half an hour later the weather had turned cold, rainy and windy, and stayed that way all afternoon and evening. Silly me, the hopefully-future-weatherman, forgot to check the weather forecast ahead of time, and so was stuck out in the cold rain in just shorts and a t-shirt. Oh well, if anything it made the race more memorable. Despite the drenching rain I squeezed my way out to the hedges along the home stretch, so I got to see the horses go by twice during their 2-mile race (I even got a decent picture of them running by!). I placed two $10 bets on a couple horses to win, but neither did (Vinnie Roe came in second though, so I almost won something). In the end the race was won by the favourite and last year’s Cup winner, Makybe Diva. I’d say the Melbourne Cup was not a bad place to see my first-ever horse race in person, or to place my first-ever real bets on anything. It was also cool seeing all the silly hats and costumes people put on for the race, although some of those were hidden by umbrellas or raincoats unfortunately.
On Nov 3rd I was glued to my computer and the internet all day long, except for the couple hours that I went down to the TV lounge in my dorm to watch a little bit of the election coverage. It was exhausting trying to keep up with all the news, but it was also fun chatting with some friends back home who were also able to keep me updated on what they were seeing. I think this election proved to me that the internet is a much more valuable resource for news than a TV, because you can just keep track of way more information from far more sources on the net. At any rate, at least this year I was able to go to bed satisfied that I knew who the winner was. 🙂 It was also kinda fun to hear the Aussie news anchors trying to explain to their audience how the Electoral College works, hehe. But I am glad that I was still able to catch a little bit of American TV coverage of it, as Channel 7 had a feed from NBC and Channel 9 got a CBS feed (I didn’t feel like watching credibility-challenged Dan Rather though, so when 7 cut out for local evening news I went back to my computer and the internet, hehe).
I cleaned my room on Thursday (finally), in preparation for my friend Uriah coming to Melbourne for a visit on Friday and staying overnight that night. Uriah’s from UW-Eau Claire, who is one of my friend Rich’s buddies that I met while we were on vacation in Cairns. Anyway, we spent Friday evening walking through the city, past the Greek Precinct and the Old Melbourne Gaol (jail), and all the way up Lygon Street in Carlton, past the blocks upon blocks of ethnic restaurants there. It definitely is a treat to walk up and down Lygon Street at dinnertime, but a bit tortuous if you don’t have time to sit down and eat! Uriah & I were trying to get to a comedy club that our Lonely Planet guides said was on Lygon Street, but after we couldn’t find it we called them and said they were on Collins Street way back near where we started in the city. (Note to all travelers: always call and confirm the address of an establishment you wish to visit, even if your travel guide is really recent.) So we hightailed it back into the city and made it to the Last Laugh Comedy Club on time. It went from 8:30-11pm, and the headline act (Tommy Dean) was hilarious!! It was definitely $25 well spent.
On Saturday I went to James & Ali’s house for supper and stayed the night there. They’ve always been so nice to me, and once again they let me hook my computer up and use their internet. I only use it there because the firewall here at Monash prevents me from uploading photo albums to my website ( http://www.seenoevil.org/~jared/blog/ ). At any rate I got ten new photo albums put on my website, including from spring break when I visited the Whitsunday Islands and Atherton Tablelands. Check ’em out!
I got a call on Sunday from another Gustie, Sarah Bovee, who’s been studying abroad this semester at the U of Wollongong (an hour south of Sydney), saying that she was in Melbourne that day instead of Wednesday (since she didn’t wanna go out to the Great Ocean Road on a rainy day), but unfortunately I couldn’t go into the city to hang out since I had left all my GRE studying until that day. Oh well. Maybe this’ll teach me to not wait until the last minute to do stuff. Or maybe not. I really am a hopeless procrastinator. But I took a couple of practice tests in the afternoon and then went to church at MBT in the evening.
Monday I went into the city and fortunately found quite easily the building where I was supposed to take the General GRE test. The test went fairly smoothly, and I’m pleased with my scores, despite the number of vocab words I’d never heard of before. Now I’ve gotta decide which extra grad schools to send my results to, along with starting the application process. I used my four freebies to send score reports to Oklahoma, UW-Madison, Penn State and Mississippi State. I need to find out application deadlines too. Sigh, even when I’m all done with exams there’s still all sorts of work to do.
Yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon I went back into the city to catch the Vikings-Colts game at All-Star Cafe at Southbank, and they were nice enough to put on the audio from it, and put it on all three big screens! Having seen now three games at All-Star is really helping me get through my gridiron (the Aussie term for American football) withdrawal symptoms, hehe. After the game I mailed a couple more postcards, spent 2-3 hours walkin through the Royal Botanic Gardens, and then wandered over to the Shrine of Rememberance (a veterans memorial). I hadn’t been to either the gardens or shrine before, and both were really cool. I got some awesome pics of the city from the shrine, especially after night fell. I also chatted for about an hour with a couple of really cool cops who were on patrol at the shrine, one of which told me all about the Red Centre, which he had just been to. He enthusiastically recommended that I go see Uluru, the Olgas & Kings Canyon of course, but also strongly recommended the “very very strange” opal mining town of Coober Pedy, in the Outback between Adelaide and Alice Springs, and which is two-thirds underground. I think he sold me on going there for a visit next time I come to Australia, whenever that happens to be.
A week from now I’ll most likely be on my way to Sydney, and I have a few tasks to complete between now and then, including figuring out at least a little bit of what I’m gonna be doing on my way to Sydney and in Sydney before my parents arrive on the 21st, planning out the entire itinerary for the eight days my parents are in Australia (my parents friends David & Karen, who we’re staying with in New Zealand, are arranging that whole part of everything fortunately), and also trying to figure out a little bit of what I’m gonna do while I’m by myself for two weeks in New Zealand after my parents return home. I sense a lot of Lord of the Rings sight-seeing coming on. 🙂 But in the next week I’ve also gotta see a bit more stuff in Melbourne that I haven’t made it to yet, including the suburbs of St Kilda and Brighton Beach, both on Port Phillip Bay. And tonight I’m gonna be playing some “Risk” until late into the night with a bunch of mates, as part of a goodbye thing, and if I wake up early enough tomorrow I may head back into the city for the big Rememberance Day (Veterans Day) ceremony at 11am at the Shrine. The cops last night told me that everyone in the country observes a minute of silence at 11am on 11/11, even the radio stations. They said that everyone even pulls over to the side of the road for a couple minutes too, it’s just amazing. Oh yeah, and I’ve gotta start packing one of these days too. That and maybe figure out if I’m gonna mail or ship anything home and get that taken care of. Much to do. I can’t believe I only have one more week left in Melbourne, I really don’t wanna leave.