Day 18 – February 20, 2008

Over the past few days, I had thought people had been saying “long bowling” instead of “lawn bowling” when talking about our floor outing for last night. I was pretty confused, especially when I googled “long bowling” and didn’t really get any results. I only found out yesterday afternoon that it was in fact “lawn bowling” when I had seen it written on a board. My floor and three other floors went to the lawn bowling place. It was a little ways away and we needed to take a bus to get there. Everyone who was working at the place was old, and they kept trying to convince us that lawn bowling can be a young person’s game. Lawn bowling itself is basically bocci on short grass, but the balls are unevenly weighted so they curve to one side when you roll them. The game was boring and slightly better than doing nothing at all. Afterwards, everyone stayed for a few hours because apparently this is where they have the cheapest drinks around. Groups of a few people left periodically to take the bus back to Monash, and I left with a group of 5 at around 11:15 because the last bus back to Halls was supposed to leave at 11:30. That bus never came, and we started the long walk back. We tried to hail some cabs and for some reason none would stop. At one point, the RA who was with us called a taxi company, and they told him that they would come get us in 10 minutes at a nearby hospital. Two calls and 25 minutes later, they never came and we continued our walk. We didn’t get back to campus until a little after 1:00. After so much walking all day, I was ready for bed. Got up today and did a little reorganizing of my room. I also finally took some pictures of my room I posted here. One of the girls I know here organized a trip to the Great Ocean Road for this weekend, so I will be heading there Friday morning and getting back Sunday night. She worked out the details to secure a van and space in a few hostels, and there are 11 of us going between the van and another car. It will be my first traveling adventure in Australia, so I’m definitely looking forward to that. All the clubs and societies on campus were tabling near Campus Centre today, so a group of us headed down to check them out. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain and I didn’t have an umbrella yet, so my shoes got pretty wet. I saw a booth with American football and signed up for that. Unlike flag football, this club uses pads and equipment and everything. I lied and told them I played wide receiver in high school, thinking they would never figure it out and I could be the American who knows what he’s doing. After being in the rain for a while, we went to the STA Travel inside the campus centre. My friend Katie and I really wanted to go to Sydney for Mardi Gras, so we signed up and paid for the trip. It’s in a week and a half, and some other people said they will probably come back tomorrow to pay. We didn’t know this before going it, but it was a good thing we went today because the deadline to pay is tomorrow. So that means I’ll be off traveling for the next two weekends. On the way back, we remembered that Howitt was having a Gladiator event this afternoon. Inside one of the banquet rooms in the dining hall was a blow up arena, and people were fighting with big, air-filled weapons. It would have been outside, but the rain prompted the move indoors. All you had to do was get a number, and they randomly selected people to fight one-on-one. Everyone got to participate, it was just a matter of who you fought. Even girls were doing it. I went against one of the RAs I know, Toby. It was fun to do, and they also had free snowcones for everyone. For dinner, they grilled burgers, and I had my first hamburger in Australia. I had expected to be eating them daily, with all the BBQ’ing they allegedly do here, but now I know it is mainly sausage. Tonight, the Howitt Hall Society is hosting a pajama party, the first of many events put on by the Society throughout the year.