O-Week Recap

"O-week" is finally over. It was so much fun but incredibly exhausting! Although I am sad to see all of the free food gone, I'm glad that we will have some more free time to explore Melbourne on our own. The week started off with endless bbqs and get to know your stairwell activities. Everyone in my hall is so, so nice. Everyone in Australia is so nice! After trivia the first night, followed by casino night the next day everyone has already made some really great Australian friends. Although I was not very helpful with the Australian trivial questions, there were some United States ones that I could answer. Unfortunately my team still felt short. Casino night was really fun too. We all got dressed up and played different gambling games with "moose dollars". (Our hall mascot is a moose.) I can't say that I was too lucky during casino games either but I still had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone and meeting new people. : ) Australians can instantly tell when someone is from "the states". As soon as I mention that I am from New York, they all assume that I mean the city. They get so excited and ask over and over again if I watch Gossip Girl haha. Australians are obsessed with American television.

After casino night Richo Hall planned a toga party night for everyone. Unfortunately this was planned on the same night as a beach party that many of the international kids had already bought tickets for. Although I was bummed to be missing out on togas I was excited for the beach party! Everyone got all dressed up in their bathing suits, sun glasses (or sunnies as they call them here) and Hawaiian leis! The bar that we went to had six inches of real sand on the ground! I have no idea how they managed to get it there or how they are ever going to be able to clean it all up but it was really cool!

The end of o-week was filled with some more small activities and free food. The scavenger hunt that I mentioned in the earlier post was really fun too, as well as the talent show we had on our last o-week night. The end of this week also marks the end of the constant activities fair that was going on throughout. It was unlike any activity fair I have ever seen. There was an ice cream truck, live bands and free food galore for the entire week. They also had free cotton candy everyday. However they call cotton candy "fairy floss" which many of us found to be pretty amusing. Here it is more common for bbqs to consist of sausages; they love sausages. And I do not mean nice homemade italian sausages, their idea of sausage is much more like a hot dog and I personally don't know if I can ever eat one again haha. Sausage overload and they really aren't that great. They do however, have the most amazing donuts. They taste just like fried dough- delicious! They also give out free alcohol at every event. It amazes me that drinking is so accepted during on campus activities. All of the Americans (especially the Loyola students) are amazed by how care free everyone is about alcohol here. During this fair I joined two different clubs. These clubs are very different then the ones at Loyola. You have to pay to become a member but once you do you are allowed to attend various free bbqs and events throughout the entire semester. Much less academic than I am used to...