As i sit here with my friend matt pereira, i thought it would be cool to do another post regarding aussie slang/culture. here are some new vocab words for you:
boagan = an idiot (but more derogatory)
wog = racial slur for "the soccer countries"
"they look camp" = flamboyantly gay
pissed, off your face, maggerd = drunk
polm = brittish person
sepo = american that is full of shit (like septic tank)
goon = boxed wine (especially fruity lexia)
And here's the winner...a sweet australian drinking song!
Here's *insert name*
He's true blue
He's a piss pot through and through
He's a real bastard, so they say
He tried to go to heaven
But he went the other way.
He went DOWN DOWN DOWN *Start chugging*
if i remember more or find out anything else that is cool, i will post it soon.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Beer List
Alright, this one is as much for you as is it for me, but instead of bringing 30 different bottles home so i know my favorite beers, I will just post them here. I am only posting the beers that i completely recommend, so take note:
1. Beez Neez - my personal favorite. a light beer with a pretty strong hunny flavor
2. Lucky - you've seen the buddha bottle
3. Toohey's New - the "budweiser" of the country...straight up beer
4. Carlton draught - closest to yuengling i have had
5. Barefoot Radler - Lime infused beer perfect for the summer/beach
6. Lowenbrau, Stiegel, Hofbrauhaus, and the other German beers - straight up beer, german style
7. Victoria Bitter - great on the tap, alright in the bottle
8. Toohey's Old - great dark beer that goes down easily! if you like Killians....
9. Toohey's extra dry - crisp and light (notice the toohey's trend)
10. Skinny Blonde - an alright beer, but as you drink it, the girl in the bikini on the bottle slowly becomes naked
and for now, i will end with Skinny Blonde. if by now (especially after the last beer) you don't know why i have fallen in love with this country, you may want to take a closer look at our friendship. enjoy responsibly!
1. Beez Neez - my personal favorite. a light beer with a pretty strong hunny flavor
2. Lucky - you've seen the buddha bottle
3. Toohey's New - the "budweiser" of the country...straight up beer
4. Carlton draught - closest to yuengling i have had
5. Barefoot Radler - Lime infused beer perfect for the summer/beach
6. Lowenbrau, Stiegel, Hofbrauhaus, and the other German beers - straight up beer, german style
7. Victoria Bitter - great on the tap, alright in the bottle
8. Toohey's Old - great dark beer that goes down easily! if you like Killians....
9. Toohey's extra dry - crisp and light (notice the toohey's trend)
10. Skinny Blonde - an alright beer, but as you drink it, the girl in the bikini on the bottle slowly becomes naked
and for now, i will end with Skinny Blonde. if by now (especially after the last beer) you don't know why i have fallen in love with this country, you may want to take a closer look at our friendship. enjoy responsibly!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Taming Impala Show
so this week was, yet again, a really good one. I handed in my first paper of the semester in my music class. before you start feeling too sorry for me, my paper was on Snoop Dogg, so it was actually pretty fun to do. during the week, i asked my music professor for some good venue suggestions, but before he could answer a kid named Tim spoke up and told me about an indie show at the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi. He invited me to meet him and his friends, so i took him up on it. We got to the show, and the bands were really good. Sherlock's Daughter opened for Taming Impala. Check them out.
Anyways, the bands were good, but during set up time, I SWORE that i saw Gareth Stehr (professional skateboarder) at the bar. so i went up to him and asked if he were Gareth. Turns out he wasn't but he was the australian team manager of birdhouse, analog, and gravis. While talking to Sparks (fake gareth), Dylan Rieder, Shaun Gregoire, and Sean Eaton all came over to join the conversation. Just one of the small world kinda deals that made my head spin.
Regardless, the bands finished and Tim had to leave, but he told me to go back with his friends to chill and hang out for the night. Me and two of my roommates went to our new friend's house in Coogee. We played guitar and drank some beers with Max, Pete, Gene, and Pip for a few hours then called it a night.
There is a good chance that I will be going with Gene to his beach house this weekend in Cronulla Beach, about an hour south of sydney. Should be a good time.
On a side note, traveling is really coming together! I just booked 5 days in cairns for a week on the Great Barrier Reef, skydiving, and jungle hikes. I have surf camp next weekend, i leave for thailand in 2 weeks, and i am booking my coross continent roadtrip this week. Monetarilly permitting, i will be going to New Zealand in late June, and Byron Bay sometime in May. And, let's not forget the mandatory Great Ocean Road weekend.
Even though I still have 3 whole months left, it's not enough. I never want to leave. For those of you reading, take the next statement with a grain of salt: I've been having a recurring nightmare where i just wake up from a nap and I am at home. I am just so upset everytime i realize I am not in Australia, but then i wake up and happily see my roommate danny snoring in the bed next to me. I never thought i'd be that happen to see a snoring puerto rican, haha.
PS - don't get me wrong, i do miss you all!
Anyways, the bands were good, but during set up time, I SWORE that i saw Gareth Stehr (professional skateboarder) at the bar. so i went up to him and asked if he were Gareth. Turns out he wasn't but he was the australian team manager of birdhouse, analog, and gravis. While talking to Sparks (fake gareth), Dylan Rieder, Shaun Gregoire, and Sean Eaton all came over to join the conversation. Just one of the small world kinda deals that made my head spin.
Regardless, the bands finished and Tim had to leave, but he told me to go back with his friends to chill and hang out for the night. Me and two of my roommates went to our new friend's house in Coogee. We played guitar and drank some beers with Max, Pete, Gene, and Pip for a few hours then called it a night.
There is a good chance that I will be going with Gene to his beach house this weekend in Cronulla Beach, about an hour south of sydney. Should be a good time.
On a side note, traveling is really coming together! I just booked 5 days in cairns for a week on the Great Barrier Reef, skydiving, and jungle hikes. I have surf camp next weekend, i leave for thailand in 2 weeks, and i am booking my coross continent roadtrip this week. Monetarilly permitting, i will be going to New Zealand in late June, and Byron Bay sometime in May. And, let's not forget the mandatory Great Ocean Road weekend.
Even though I still have 3 whole months left, it's not enough. I never want to leave. For those of you reading, take the next statement with a grain of salt: I've been having a recurring nightmare where i just wake up from a nap and I am at home. I am just so upset everytime i realize I am not in Australia, but then i wake up and happily see my roommate danny snoring in the bed next to me. I never thought i'd be that happen to see a snoring puerto rican, haha.
PS - don't get me wrong, i do miss you all!
Friday, March 20, 2009
ok, i am lazy so i haven't updated in a while
the title says it all. if it weren't for the efforts of Dennis Apker, this post may not have made it, so i thank him exclusively.
so, i left off at the famous (or famoose) mardi gras festival. since then, my life has been a combination of beach, school, skating, going out at nights, and cooking food. You can put them in any order and I'm sure at some point you will have correctly described an actual day in the life of me.
some of the highlights include Beachball party at Manning Bar, St. Patrick's Day, and my trip to Manly Beach. Beachball was a huge party thrown by the university of sydney at Manning Bar (the bar in the student union on campus). They had local bands from sydney, good specials, but more importantly 3,000 other people to celebrate. I got the chance to meet some cool people, but i later found out that 50% of the people i was talking to were tripping on ecstacy. At least they were nice, haha.
This by far was the best saint patrick's day ever. I got back from class around two, went to the gym, and was out to the bar by three with my roommate, Sean. We went to an irish bar up the street called 'cock and bull'. This place was pretty small, but they somehow managed to squeeze about 500 people, an irish band, and a whole lot of Guinness in the Cock and Bull. We were only planning on staying for one beer and going to another irish bar, but we ended up staying for about 3 hours listening to the music and having a few more beers. We finally left the best bar in australia to meet up with people and have a much less fun time at other places. Eventually, we ended up at the Argyle (one of my favorites) only to find that it was practically empty. We accepted defeat and went to an american pancake house called "Pancakes on the Rocks". I ate the Devil's Delight, which is chocolate pancakes with strawberries and chocolate syrup. I'll just say that it was worth leaving the bars.
Yesterday, me and a few other study australia folks decided to dedicate a day to Manly Beach. Manly is a suburb of sydney, but it is most easily accessed by taking a ferry across the Sydney harbor. At first, i was kinda bummed that i had to pay $12 bucks to take the ferry, but the ride in itself was worth it. we got phenomenal views of the city from the water and enjoyed a nice 20 minute boat ride to the beach. once we got there, everything got even better. manly is a nice, quaint little beach town with a great atmosphere. The water and coast line was beautiful, and it wasn't quite as crowded as Coogee or Bondi beach.
In other news, I have my first paper due on tuesday. I don't feel like a student anymore, so this might be a pretty difficult task to handle. And it's really sad because the paper is about bob dylan and a cover of Highway 61 revisited.
I think the most exciting news i have to offer is the news of a trip that me and some friends are planning. In june, me and 3 other guys are flying to the northern most part of Australia called Darwin. From there, we will be helping the airlines in taking a van back to adelaide (southern most part of Australia) where it needs to be. They charge us $1/day, give us $200 in gas, and a 3300 km driving limit. Although we will slightly exceed this limit, we will be doing a 7-day cross-continental road trip through the outback. We will stop as Ayers Rock in Uluru (if you don't know what this is, google it...it's pretty epic), along with a few other national parks. for those of you that don't really know anything about the australian outback, it is quite possibly one of the most difficult dangerous expanses of land on the planet. On our driving directions, we start in darwin, go .3 km on elbert rd, then continue 2791 km on stuart highway. In this stretch close to 2100 miles, there are no cities, a handful of towns (population 100 and below), and a whole lot of desert and kangaroos. I really can't express how excited I am for this trip. I have said it a million times, but i am so blessed to have all these experiences and opportunities.
That's all for now. Again, thanks to dennis for inspiring me to write about the past two weeks. I will hopefully get better about keeping up with the blog.
- Charlie
so, i left off at the famous (or famoose) mardi gras festival. since then, my life has been a combination of beach, school, skating, going out at nights, and cooking food. You can put them in any order and I'm sure at some point you will have correctly described an actual day in the life of me.
some of the highlights include Beachball party at Manning Bar, St. Patrick's Day, and my trip to Manly Beach. Beachball was a huge party thrown by the university of sydney at Manning Bar (the bar in the student union on campus). They had local bands from sydney, good specials, but more importantly 3,000 other people to celebrate. I got the chance to meet some cool people, but i later found out that 50% of the people i was talking to were tripping on ecstacy. At least they were nice, haha.
This by far was the best saint patrick's day ever. I got back from class around two, went to the gym, and was out to the bar by three with my roommate, Sean. We went to an irish bar up the street called 'cock and bull'. This place was pretty small, but they somehow managed to squeeze about 500 people, an irish band, and a whole lot of Guinness in the Cock and Bull. We were only planning on staying for one beer and going to another irish bar, but we ended up staying for about 3 hours listening to the music and having a few more beers. We finally left the best bar in australia to meet up with people and have a much less fun time at other places. Eventually, we ended up at the Argyle (one of my favorites) only to find that it was practically empty. We accepted defeat and went to an american pancake house called "Pancakes on the Rocks". I ate the Devil's Delight, which is chocolate pancakes with strawberries and chocolate syrup. I'll just say that it was worth leaving the bars.
Yesterday, me and a few other study australia folks decided to dedicate a day to Manly Beach. Manly is a suburb of sydney, but it is most easily accessed by taking a ferry across the Sydney harbor. At first, i was kinda bummed that i had to pay $12 bucks to take the ferry, but the ride in itself was worth it. we got phenomenal views of the city from the water and enjoyed a nice 20 minute boat ride to the beach. once we got there, everything got even better. manly is a nice, quaint little beach town with a great atmosphere. The water and coast line was beautiful, and it wasn't quite as crowded as Coogee or Bondi beach.
In other news, I have my first paper due on tuesday. I don't feel like a student anymore, so this might be a pretty difficult task to handle. And it's really sad because the paper is about bob dylan and a cover of Highway 61 revisited.
I think the most exciting news i have to offer is the news of a trip that me and some friends are planning. In june, me and 3 other guys are flying to the northern most part of Australia called Darwin. From there, we will be helping the airlines in taking a van back to adelaide (southern most part of Australia) where it needs to be. They charge us $1/day, give us $200 in gas, and a 3300 km driving limit. Although we will slightly exceed this limit, we will be doing a 7-day cross-continental road trip through the outback. We will stop as Ayers Rock in Uluru (if you don't know what this is, google it...it's pretty epic), along with a few other national parks. for those of you that don't really know anything about the australian outback, it is quite possibly one of the most difficult dangerous expanses of land on the planet. On our driving directions, we start in darwin, go .3 km on elbert rd, then continue 2791 km on stuart highway. In this stretch close to 2100 miles, there are no cities, a handful of towns (population 100 and below), and a whole lot of desert and kangaroos. I really can't express how excited I am for this trip. I have said it a million times, but i am so blessed to have all these experiences and opportunities.
That's all for now. Again, thanks to dennis for inspiring me to write about the past two weeks. I will hopefully get better about keeping up with the blog.
- Charlie
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Mardi Gras Madness
Last night was one for the books. We've all heard stories about Mardi Gras and the festivities that ensue, but Sydney, Australia does Mardi Gras a little different. Mardi Gras here is basically the home of the biggest gay pride/rights parade and party in the world. People all over the world and the city of Sydney come out to support the gay community, party, and dress up in costume....me and my roommates were no exception.
We started the party around 1 PM in anticipation for the 7:30 parade in the city. Needless to say, me and the roomies had some of the most ridiculous costumes in the city. Chris wore spandex with pink women's underwear on the outside, a baby shirt that said "cutie pie", a party hat, and had fluorescent pigtails tied into his dreds. Danny on the other hand was a minimalist. He wore stars on his nipples, red pants, with his g-string up around his waist. pretty gross, haha. Tom and I went slightly less gay with booty shorts, some glitter, and tank tops. And as a disclaimer....I am not gay, in any sense of the word.
We got into the city around 4 and IMMEDIATELY having flocks of Asian tourists begging to take pictures with us. While most people got dressed up, we were infamous for our costumes. After spending an hour or so talking and taking pictures with people (gay and straight) from all over the world, we made our way down to the parade. It was pretty amazing. there were THOUSANDS of people and all kinds of crazy floats (again, gay and straight) in the parade.
At some point after the parade, i took a quick nap in the park and then went to Scruffy Murphy's Irish bar with our friends. I got to meet a few ladies from Ireland and Spain, and believe it or not, they didn't judge me at all for my attire. I talked for an hour or so, then me, tom, and alix had an epiphany...we all wanted one of Harry's famous meat pies. So at 2 in the morning, we took the 2+ mile trek to get one of the best meat pies in Australia. After finishing the meaty goodness known as "The Tiger", we walked to the nearest cab and called it a night around 4 AM.
While i know it is pretty easy to make judgements about me and all of the activities I described in this post, i wouldn't change a second of my day. It's nice to meet people entirely different from yourself (i mean, it's kinda one of the ideals studying abroad is built on). In conclusion, Sydney knows how to throw a mean Mardi Gras and I hope to come back to the festival again someday.
We started the party around 1 PM in anticipation for the 7:30 parade in the city. Needless to say, me and the roomies had some of the most ridiculous costumes in the city. Chris wore spandex with pink women's underwear on the outside, a baby shirt that said "cutie pie", a party hat, and had fluorescent pigtails tied into his dreds. Danny on the other hand was a minimalist. He wore stars on his nipples, red pants, with his g-string up around his waist. pretty gross, haha. Tom and I went slightly less gay with booty shorts, some glitter, and tank tops. And as a disclaimer....I am not gay, in any sense of the word.
We got into the city around 4 and IMMEDIATELY having flocks of Asian tourists begging to take pictures with us. While most people got dressed up, we were infamous for our costumes. After spending an hour or so talking and taking pictures with people (gay and straight) from all over the world, we made our way down to the parade. It was pretty amazing. there were THOUSANDS of people and all kinds of crazy floats (again, gay and straight) in the parade.
At some point after the parade, i took a quick nap in the park and then went to Scruffy Murphy's Irish bar with our friends. I got to meet a few ladies from Ireland and Spain, and believe it or not, they didn't judge me at all for my attire. I talked for an hour or so, then me, tom, and alix had an epiphany...we all wanted one of Harry's famous meat pies. So at 2 in the morning, we took the 2+ mile trek to get one of the best meat pies in Australia. After finishing the meaty goodness known as "The Tiger", we walked to the nearest cab and called it a night around 4 AM.
While i know it is pretty easy to make judgements about me and all of the activities I described in this post, i wouldn't change a second of my day. It's nice to meet people entirely different from yourself (i mean, it's kinda one of the ideals studying abroad is built on). In conclusion, Sydney knows how to throw a mean Mardi Gras and I hope to come back to the festival again someday.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
First week of classes
Hello to all of you out there!
I haven't really been blogging everyday, but i am pretty sure it will turn out to be more of a once a week kinda deal.
Anyways, it's finally happened...i actually started school. I guess i can't complain though because i only have classes from tuesday to thursday. Having a 4 day weekend every week will be great for traveling and stuff, but not so great on my wallet. I am taking a Popular Music class that is basically my dream class. We started the day by listening to some snoop dogg, then followed that up with a little bob dylan. My professor is from College Park, and lived in my home town for a short period of time, so i think we are going to become buddies over the course of the semester.
The sydney uni campus is pretty unreal too. there really isn't a single architectural theme on campus. Some of the campus looks like it is straight out of a new modern design magazine. every time i walk around the main quad i feel like i am in a Harry Potter book. I won't lie though. The chemistry building is one of the ugliest buildings i've ever seen, but i just won't focus on that.
In conclusion, I am going to go make my 30th PB&J of the week and chill for the evening. My first real long weekend should be a good one, but also a tiring one. Hope all is well for all of those reading!
Charlie
PS - I have been having trouble putting pictures on the blog, so I just recommend looking at them on facebook. if that can't happen, i will try to think of something else
I haven't really been blogging everyday, but i am pretty sure it will turn out to be more of a once a week kinda deal.
Anyways, it's finally happened...i actually started school. I guess i can't complain though because i only have classes from tuesday to thursday. Having a 4 day weekend every week will be great for traveling and stuff, but not so great on my wallet. I am taking a Popular Music class that is basically my dream class. We started the day by listening to some snoop dogg, then followed that up with a little bob dylan. My professor is from College Park, and lived in my home town for a short period of time, so i think we are going to become buddies over the course of the semester.
The sydney uni campus is pretty unreal too. there really isn't a single architectural theme on campus. Some of the campus looks like it is straight out of a new modern design magazine. every time i walk around the main quad i feel like i am in a Harry Potter book. I won't lie though. The chemistry building is one of the ugliest buildings i've ever seen, but i just won't focus on that.
In conclusion, I am going to go make my 30th PB&J of the week and chill for the evening. My first real long weekend should be a good one, but also a tiring one. Hope all is well for all of those reading!
Charlie
PS - I have been having trouble putting pictures on the blog, so I just recommend looking at them on facebook. if that can't happen, i will try to think of something else
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