Of Falls and Class and Touchdowns (Day 31)

WORK IS GOOD

PROVIDED YOU DO NOT FORGET

TO LIVE

Bantu Proverb


Good gracious has it really been a week already didn't that time just fly HAHAHAHAHA!

....

*crickets*

Okay so I may not have gotten back to my post, but to be fair Monday did see the formal begginings of class, so the time that I had grown to enjoy over the first month here had suddenly dissapeared. Now with that excuse for inactivity out of the way, let me head back into the rundown of whats been happening to me.

So after the week of parties and welcoming I was shipped off on the Thursday to my first class, now rather than just explain how each class went, let me tell you what I thought each would be and what it actually was:

Government and Politics in Europe

What I thought it would be:    Just a very bacis introduction to European Politics through the lens of the EU.

What is was:   Just a very bacis introduction to European Politics through the lens of France, Germany and The UK 

Government and Politics of the US

What I thought it would be: A somewhat preachy Canadian looking at America as it has slowly fallen apart

What it was:  A somewhat preachy Canadian explaining why America thins it is, and is, better than everyone else.

Environmental Policy and Politics

What I thought it would be:     A clone of Bob Brown, explaining why the entire human race is evil and that we should all just love the environment.

What it was:      A fair an balanced look at the differing opinions on the Environment (You could not believe how supprised I was)

Conflict in the Middle East

What I thought it would be:                           A look at the conflict between the Isralies and the Palistinians

What it was:             A look at the conflict between the Isralies and the Palistinians (Yhea no real supprises)

Law and Social Order

What I thought it would be:   A class disecting the major ideas that under pin the creation for law and social structures.

What it was:                                     ... I don;t know we've only had a 20 minute intro thing-a-majig so far. 

And those were / are my classes. I am honestly enjoying them all so far an I'm looking forward to seeing how the ideas I've been presented with thus far will adapt nd evolve over the rest of my course... wow that sounded far to pretentious for my liking.. here is a video of someone slamming into a wall to even it out.

So after the fun that was classes, the weekend offered a new and exciting experience as we headed off to Niagra Falls. Now the falls at Niagra are actually two seperate falls with America one, a very standard falls, anf the Canadian Horseshoe falls, the monster falls (and as every single Canadian points out the horseshoe falls are BIGGER than the American ones).  Aside from the actual falls themselves the town is very touristy, with a whole bunch of well nown brand stores (such as Hersheys, Coke and a Hard Rock Cafe). If I had to give a recommendation to people wanting to visit the area I would say definently ddo it as a day thing, as the beauty of the falls is something to behold, but I wouldn't recommend staying a long time as there are limited things to do.

Following The Niagra Trip was the second week of class (which was pretty much covered in that expectations run down so I'll move on). So finally after a fun week of classes (Sarcasm?) it becam Saturday and after some fun homework (now that was definently sarcasm) I was treated to an American Football game.

Alright, let me try and explain to all the non-North Americans out there how (I believe) this game works, So at the start of a game one team has to try and run the ball off the green grass and onto the blue grass, and everytime someone gets brought 'down' (I.e. when ever the other team tries to do unspeakable things to them on the ground) then they get a down (as in first down, second down and so on) the way the referee calls this is by saying advantage whomever, first (as in down) and then they proceed to make up some random number (usualy between 10 and 1). That was all I could penertrate from watching an ENTIRE GAME!!! But otherwise it was rather enjoyable.

And that is me up to date, HOORAY!!!!! And thats it for this evening so I shall be off to the FOO FIGHTERS tomorrow and then... well who knows.

Jackson!

The Video Footage of:

- The America Falls

- The Horseshoe Falls

- The Football Game

Welcome to the welcome week at the Windsor Welcome Week (Day 24)

CHANGE IS INEVITABLE -

EXCEPT FROM A VENDING MACHINE

Robert Gallagher

Hello all!

Well here we are again, and as I sit here with a sausage in bread (not a hotdog) in one hand and a can of sprite in the other, I feel an overwhelming sense of how did I get here? Well sit back and let me fill you in.

So on Friday I dragged my self out of bed at 6 am to head out to the airport, which as you may have guessed is never a fun time to be heading to an airport, but I did meet a random Canadian fellow who told me a trick to getting prompt service at clubs (when the barkeeps aren't looking, rattle their tip jars and they think you are giving them tips). But I got the plane acorss to Toronto without any problem, but then I moved to my flight to Windsor.. and to say this new plane was a canoe with wings would insult canoes everywhere. However it did fly and I was soon in windsor, the only problem was that the same couldn't be said for my bags.

I quickly met my exchange co-ordinator Michelle and was shuttled back to my new home, the infamous Clark Hall, room 6C. Now dear readers let me put those minds of yours that may be picturing a dank and squalid hole as my new home at ease. Clark hall is easily one o the best residences I have ever seen, not only does it come with a quaint kitchen, decent dining space and nice airy corridors it also has a huge room for me to now call home.

The next day was spent emptying bags and learning the campus, I was still realtivly alone at this point since I was one of the first people to arrive at residence. This feeling of loneliness quicly departed however once Sunday rolled arounf, as thousands of students from all over Canada, America and some from either further abroad, decended uppon Windsor from all sides. This was also the first official night of the 'welcome week' so I headed off to the first event 'GRAFITI NIGHT'

The idea behind the Grafiti night is simple, everyone who turns upgets a white shirt and a marker, you then go around and write all over other peoples shirts and vice-versa, an then by the end of the night you have a whole bunch of new friends. It was a lovely evening.

The rest of my week became about readying my new living space and attending formal events, that is until Thursday. However since this is beginning to run long I shall cut off this post hear and continue tomorrow... in a whole new format!

Till then... well who knows.

Jackson

The Way the World Turns (Day 14)

IF YOU AREN'T IN OVER YOUR HEAD,

HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW TALL YOU ARE?

T.S. Elliot

Hello all, I'M BACK! Yes and what a happening two weeks it has been.

So you may have some questions, such as where have I been? Am I back to writing for good now? Did I really kill that bear? And how is the weather in Canada. To answer those in order, Sunny, No, Yes and I've been on my Contiki tour which was quite hectic and left very little time for writing... actually I may have that order backwards... no matter!

Remember that Bear I talked About?

For now lets forget the time gone (A.K.A the Contiki tour, I will come back and write about those wild days, but for now I shall leave it be) and focus on the times just gone. 2 days ago I left the comforts of the Sandman Hotel on Georgia Street in Downtown Vancouver and moved into the Samesun Backpackers in uptown Vancouver. To say that the room move was a bit of a downgrade would offend grades everywhere, infact the backpackers I've moved into very much looks like the quaters people have warned me colleges are like, but whether that is true remains to be seen.

Despite that these past 2 days have been rather relaxing, Ive not really done much, I've just been drinking in the larger sights of this magnificent city, such as the gastown, so named because it rests on a natural gas line (In fact there is a clock here which is entirly powered by this natural line).

The Gastown Clock

Chinatown as well, Vancouver's Chinatown is much like Melbourne's Chinatown, in that rather than just being a Jazzy area that trendy hispters can go to so they can claim they are "multi-cultural", it is more mirrors a traditional chinese urban town.

The Chinatown Garden

The other place I visited was Granville Island which has a lovely couple of markets as well as a great port on which you can buy an ice-cream and watch the world trek by. In town I also caught up with an old friend I met 3 years ago whilst attending the Global Young Leaders Conference (GYLC) in America, she lives and goes to college locally, so she knew all about the town.

The Grandville Island Bridge

And.. umm.. thats all of my adventures for the moment, normally I would end here however I will delve into one more topic for a moment, reccently Melbounre (my home town) over took Vancouver(my current location) as the most livable city in the world. Now whilst many Melbournians may be thinking that this woud be obvious and there is no way some town of funny-taling folks who say 'aboot' (Current 'aboot' count=8 )could possibly be better than the fun loving town of Melbourne. Well to that I say.. yes, we are a much better place to live, most notably in three points, these are arcitecture, public transport and clubs, and lets look at them now:

ARCITECTURE

Vancouver's arcitecture are comparedly very different to Melbourne's, I mean where Melbourne has such wonderful buildings as Federation Square and the eyeso- umm I mean Lovely to look at Age building on Spencer Street, Vancouver has the revolting looking Vancouver Conevention Centre, with it's sails and the disgusting Vancouver Public Library which is built like the collusem of rome but with big red stones! I mean really how these things are practical or hold any sort of cultural signifgance one does have to wonder.

 

Vancouver Convention Centre



Vancouver Public Library

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

In Vancouver there is a very practical and efficinat method that is used for the public transport, you see they have a rather interesteing system in that they have buses that are connected to powerliness so they run on a constant flow of electricity rather than a more expensive gas (or petrol). The trains are also interesting in that they are either underground or on a momorail, in order to avoid blocking up cars in the city centre. So as you can see... This is a totally farcial system, the Melbourne system is far more practical, with buses and trams blocking up street and trains blocking off outer roads. Melbourne cars can be brought to a total stand still, just as any sensical system would intend.


CLUBS

The ratio of clubs in Melbourne and Vancouver are pretty much the same number. HOWEVER whilst most Melbourne clubs will be packed 7 days a week and open till all hours of the morning, Vancouver clubs will usually be filled only one or two nights a week and every evening they are forced to close at 2 am! How ridiculious is that? Having people only go out couple of evenings a week, as though they don't need to go out and get completly hammered every evening just to forget their lives, and a 2am closing? It's almost as thought they don't want drunken brawls plauging their streets, which is just silly.

This is the kind of Crazed Lunatic you can find in Vancouver Clubs

Despite these obvious deficits, there are still some people who live here who claim it was some silly brawl that knocked them off the top, but I mean really does this look like an unlivable city?

I thought not. Well I am off to bed before I head to Windsor, my soon to be home for the next 3 and a half  months, after that... well who knows.

Taking Flight (Day 1)

TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW YOU WILL BE MORE DISAPPOINTED

BY THE THINGS THAT YOU DIDN'T DO THAN THE ONES YOU DID DO.

SO THROW OFF THE BOWLINESS. SAIL AWAY FROM SAFE HARBOUR.

CATCH THE TRADE WINDS IN YOUR SAILS.

EXPLORE.

DREAM.

DISCOVER.

Mark Twain


12 pm - Thanks Mark, Well here we are folks back on the road to adventure. As I write this I am sitting inside the Vancouver Public Library, a large beige brick building that sits in the centre of this sprawling Canadian metropolis, a tranquil little corner filled with refference and fiction... But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me go from the start.

4 am - GAH!! Why am I up so early? I mean if you really want a domestic light who in their right mind puts it on at 6am? Well apparently Qantas do ... but I guess that isn't too bad, the sooner I leave the sooner I arrive and the sooner I get back to sleep.

6:30 am - Okay I'm on the flight now, still rather tired but getting better. Before I began typing this I was sitting reading the paper with 2 business people on either side doing the same thing. For a moment I began to feel almost like an adult, as though I had risen past my teenage mindset and into the realms of manhood.. That feeling quicly deflated when I not only saw they were reading the business section whilst I was reading the funny pages... baby steps I guess.

8 am - Arrived in Sydney and I've had everything done and I'm just waiting for my flight... so tired.

11 am - I'm on the flight and on the way, Air Canada is turning out to be pretty good, whilst they dont have much of a menu for lunch or snacks (pretzles being the best option), they do give a free bottle of wine to all the flighers, I now have a bottle of Merlot 2010, I am dead serious.

4 pm - Okay so its been 5 hours and how tired I am is becoming unberable, so I'm going to sleep. Nighty night.

5 pm - For the first 5 hours of the trip the plane flew like a breeze and then, as it always is, the pilot in his infinate wisdom leans over and nudges his mate saying "oy, why don't we fly through that terbulance over there", so now I'm up and grumpy.

9 pm - 5 hours... I have 5 more hours on this plane.... SOMEONE GET ME OFF THIS THING!!!

2 am - I'm just about to touch down, thank goodness. My computer clock tells me it is 2 am, so hopeully I can get to my accomidation quickly.

3  10 am - So apparently I may have not counted on the time difference, and as such with only 3 hours sleep over the past 24 hours I now have to keep my self awake (in order to beat jet lag) for at least another 10 .. AAHHHHH!!!!!!

12 pm - And thats how I ended up here. After leaving the airport I caught the monorail into the city centre and found my way to my hotel. After dropping off my things I headed here to fix up my emails and alike. I was planning on posting this, now but I rather think I'm going to read Game o Thrnes for a tad.

7 pm - Have you ever fallen asleep in a public library? Cause I have now.. whoops. Bu the final update for today is that I leave you with this helpful piece of advice, Never upsize anything unless you are majorly hungry, even a restaraunt meal, they are seriosuly huge. And now tomorrow I head off on the Contiki tour an then... well who knows?

Week 7

Well here we are at the end of it all, the final week, its all come down to this. This week not only saw the culmination of 2 months of work in the Drama show, but we also climbed Mount Brasov.

So on Sunday we went up Brasov Mountain, and mind we didn’t head up the safe cable car way up, no no no we decided that we would go up the icy snowy mountain pass, Yey! So we slowly clambered our way up there slowly breaking off into two groups, the group who moved quickly up the path and the other less bright group who through, “geez we better catch up to the others...”, “hey why don’t we just go through that snow, and up the rocks”, “... I like it!” One guess which group I fall in. There were also other dangers associated with the climb, being in the forms of ice, heights (yes I know that one was kind of obvious), lions, tigers and Bears ‘Oh My!’ Okay I did lie about Lions and Tigers but Bears is true. Speaking of heights when we managed to get to the Brasov sign I found that not only is it on the sheer edge of a cliff, but it also has a viewing platform which goes out right over this cliff, I majorly fear so that was great. Despite all the hassle the view from up there was beautiful and if you ever go to Brasov I highly recommend seeing it.

On Monday night last week after 2 months of rehearsal, Projects Abroad hosted its 3rd Drama Show in order to raise money for an underfunded mental health hospital just outside of Brasov, while we couldn’t charge for tickets we did leave a large box at the front of the stage which we asked people to leave money in through-out the night. The show consisted of 3 different segments singing, dancing and acting. The singers were trained by one of Romania’s foremost singers, and the Dancers, 2 Dances from a group called Salsa Brasov (inventive name I know), and the night closer from Alexandra (our supervisor) and her dance partner Edi. The acting was done by the Black Juice drama group, directed by Joe and I, they performed 3 different pieces with Joe and I also performing something. The show went really well and we managed to raise 16000 Lei, which is around 6000 Aussie Dollars, so a lot of money. After stressing out the whole day because, 1 We hadn’t ever had a full rehearsal before the show, 2 Some of the sounds refused to work and 3 Some of the guys were still fumbling over lines 20 minutes before the show it was really gratifying to see the whole thing go off without a hitch.

The last two days of my time here was the hardest part, it was difficult to say goodbye to everyone and to the place that had become my home for the past 2 months. If I had to say one thing about those final days is that 2 months DEFINENTLY wasn’t enough (although I think no matter how long I was there I would have said that)

So I guess this is it for the Blog, it’s been fun reporting on the events of my week, I hope you’ve all enjoyed it.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Week 6

Hello world, yes it’s that time of the week again, where I ramble on about my time in Romania and you get to read it.

YAY!

Okay, so this week was a week off school for the kids so I had no classes, instead we had black juice every day, with the performance in a week we really had to crank up the heat. So at the start of the week we had  5 plays which were all pretty poor, but after a week of hard work we’ve gone from that to having 4 plays all decent, one was art-house sort of thing that was proving impossible to get right. It’s very different working with the Black Juice group than it is with the schools, these guys and girls not only value and listen to what we say, but they are all very talented dramatically.

This week also saw us all participate in a cooking night. It was a lot of fun and the food was all really good. The girls mad Brownies, Chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies, Joe made some Macaroni and cheese (by hand, not from a packet), Josh made Brushetta, and I created fish fingers with secret sauce. Which has inadvertently led me to introduce this new segment:

FOOD I MADE FROM RANDOM STUFF IN THE FRIDGE!!!

This week I’ll be taking you though how to make tomato peanut sauce.

Tomato Peanut Sauce

Ingredients:

- 1 packet of salted peanuts (preferably 250 grams)

- 1 jar of tomato paste

-salami

- Pepper

- Basil

Method:

1.       Get your bag of peanuts and puncture a small hole near the top of the bag, not too big just enough to let the air out. Now get something to crush the nuts with, I used a meat tenderiser but just a garden variety hammer should work. Not smash your nuts ... the peanuts until they are very very small, this has to be left to your best guess.

2.       Next get you salami and cut it up into tiny pieces, so you can still chew on them, but also so you can mix it into the sauce.

3.       Now this next bit is a bit of guess work, take what you want to put this sauce on and work out how much tomato paste you would normally need, now empty this amount into a medium sized bowl, and 10 grams of peanuts and 10 grams of Salami to every 50 grams of paste, also put in a shake over of pepper and basil for extra kick. Stir well

4.       Voila you now have the sauce. As I said I put it on fish fingers, so all you have to do for this is buy a suitable amount of Fish fingers, cook as per packaging instructions and just lather he sauce over the top

I also discovered a new form of getting drunk this week, we all know the happy drunks, the sad drunks and the angry drunks, but now I have the pleasure of introducing *trumpet fanfare* the intellectual drunk, yes ladies and gentlemen, when you get my room-mate a bit tipsy on wine, he will defend his point of view no matter how outlandish, from god not existing (still an open debate) to 9-11 having been orchestrated by George Bush, he does it all. I will endeavour to put some video down of this (Don’t worry this one will work as someone else took the video).

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?comments&v=295489434913

I have one more video, Dagmar, who is from Holland, got us to try and read out some Dutch which she had typed out on a computer, follow the link to find my attempt.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=295512439913

Anyway that’s me for another week, now I’m off to clean my room before the other volunteers come over for a movie night and then... well who knows what.

Talk soon, Jackson

Week 4

Good morning/afternoon/evening ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and welcome to another existing week of blogging.  This week I was lucky enough to make my way to Bran castle. As well as seeing ever more of this wonderful city.

This week it poured down snow on Brasov, we were up to 5 inches thick of snow, it was also -30 degrees at the coldest. One of the good things about the snow and cold id that the best way of keeping warm is having massive snowball fights. As much fun as they are it can easily be ended when someone gets a massive snowball thrown at their face, which then seeps into their shirt. Really sucks.

Australia day came and passed this last week and with it came the emergence of Australia man, as you see the proud figure standing to the left, forged in the heart of a barbeque, I spent the whole day walking around like that, now before anyone (yes I’m looking at you mum) panics, I have 2 layers of thermals on down there, so if anything I felt too warm rather than too cold. It was also on this day that we bid a fond farewell to 2 fellow volunteers; it is always a sad occasion when people leave. So to celebrate my roommate Josh and I participated in a cheeseburger challenge. We sat down and competed to see how many cheeseburgers each could eat. Unfortunately it turned out that one of Australia man’s superpowers isn’t super digestion, I came in at 7 burgers while Josh managed to pull in a total of 8.

This week we also went to Bran castle. Bran castle is purported amongst tourists as the home of Dracula, and while there was a monarch in Romania called Dracula (which means son of Dracul) the castle actually says that it is unlikely that Dracula spent any time at the castle at all. It is however one of the must see attractions of Romania as it depicts what you would think an old style castle would look like, it was dark dreary and gloomy, and really really cold (did I mention how cold it was over here?). Sunday saw a great contrast to the freezing conditions of Saturday as myself and another volunteer, Dagmar, went to l’aquatic paradise, and large in door HEATED swimming pool. It was absolutely glorious heated swimming pools water sides, diving boards and (this was my favourite) an outdoor pool which was about 40 degrees in the water and -20 above, it was the starangest feeling of hot and cold, but if you had wet hair while you were sitting there it would actually freeze, so cool.

That’s it for another post, I do hope the 2 people who read these are getting a kick out of them, cause I am enjoying writing them. Well I’m off to practice a play and eat lunch, then... well who knows what.

Talk soon Jackson