Domestic Adventures

In introducing the wonders that Australia has to offer, I have rudely forgotten to give you all a house tour. Here are some fun stories that have happened at home.

The Kitchen of Death

I live in off campus housing that caters to students at the university. I have an awesome roommate with whom I share a bedroom, an excessive closet, a cozy living/dining room, an intimate study, a minimally functioning kitchenette, a nicely sized bathroom, and - interestingly enough - a birthday (both of us were born on July 25th, though she is one year older than I am). 

Like we do back home in a dorm, she and I had to work together to fill out a room assessment form on which we record any problems with the room so that they can rightfully charge us for any other malfunctions when we leave. Elle, my roommate, was the appliance tester and I was the scribe.

This is how our conversations went.

Me: Shower?

Elle: A little leaky.

Me: Desks?

Elle: A little scratched.

Clearly riveting. Until...

Me: Burners?

Elle: The first one doesn't light. (pause) The second one doesn't light. (pause) The third one lights. (dramatic pause) Danielle, the gas won't turn off.

Me: haha. (thinking she thinks she's so funny. moves on to next category.)

And then I smelled the gas, and realized that our fourth burner not only did not light, but it did not turn off. The gas was spilling into the room on high, and Elle could not get the knob to budge. I run over, now panicking, and, in my attempt to save our lives, promptly pull off the knob. Now the gas is pouring into the room and the knob is in my hand. If there is a future for us, it seems bleak. Elle tells me she is going to run downstairs to get help while I try my best to reattach the knob. Just as she is about to leave, I finally got the knob to turn, prying with my fingernails as leverage. We lightheaded survivors laughed in the face of impending combustion as we opened the windows to air out the room and labeled the burner as unusable. 

The Roommate From Hell

I wake up to see that Elle has already woken, as always, and I groggily stumble my way into the bathroom. I brush my teeth. I wash my face. I put in my contacts. The left one feels weird. Then I remember that I changed the left one yesterday so it might be because the contact is still new. I rub it. That's better. I get in the shower. I take a long one. I'm not supposed to do that because Australia is going through a drought but I do it anyway. The hot water feels nice after a late night out. I can't see through the steam. I get shampoo in my eye. The left one. It burns. I rub it. That's a little better. My vision's a bit fuzzy. Must be the shampoo and the steam. I get out of the shower. The bathroom is steamy from the hot water. I can't see myself in the mirror. That's a sign of a great shower. I get dressed and sit at my computer. Elle gets in the shower.

Now my eyes are a little weird. I can see perfectly out of my right eye, but my left contact is fuzzy. I decide to stick it out for fifteen minutes. I don't want to change my left contact two days in a row. 

Elle comes out of the shower. "Danielle, is your vision blurry?"

Oh my god how did she know? "Yeah, actually. Why?"

She starts describing her morning routine and how she thought she had left her contact case on the counter when it finally dawns on me. Some roommates use other roommates' razors. Some sexile frequently. Some borrow clothes, steal food, use makeup, and the list of inconsiderate things goes on and on. I stole my roommates contact lenses. I, blind and sleepy, mixed up the cases and wore my roommates contact lenses for an hour or two without realizing, and I wouldn't have known had she not said something.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am the roommate from hell.

Now my contact case is safely tucked away with a huge "DZ" written in bold. As blind as I can be, I can't miss that marking! ...we hope.

The not so itsy bitsy spiders

Australia is a mystical land where spiders rule the earth as man's equal. Here, spiders can be hairier than a gorilla, gargantuan or miniscule beyond reason, as colorful as a vegas showgirl, as hidden as your darkest secret, and venomous enough to kill Chuck Norris.

This blog entry is dedicated to the three encounters I have had with some of the most terrifying spiders I have seen in the wild.

Spider One: Shaped kind of like a St. Andrew's Cross spider, but the pattern is totally different. No Aussie has been able to identify it, or has seen anything like it.

So I was on a group tour of the Uni campus, and after a long day of trekking through the unforgiving heat I began to feel fatigued. Desperate for relief, I sought the sturdy shaded stone column just a step to my left. It was perfectly located. I could lean on it while still within a socially acceptable range of our tour guide. I went for it. Eager to get the weight off my suffering feet, I scanned the surface as I leaned in. And there it was. I saw that spider right where my shoulder would have landed. I stopped dead in my tracks. Actually, that's a lie. I had already committed to my movement, so stopping/backpedaling just made me clumsily totter and trip before regaining my balance (and my cool). The worst part is, there would have been a direct collision, which I would assume could kill the spider that was as long as my index finger. And the impending doom did not cause the spider to do so much as flinch. Maybe that means it could have handled me. To be honest, I don't know if the spider was venomous, or even dangerous at all for that matter, but the way that spider stood its ground really made me question my chances of survival had I leaned on the wall.

Spider Two: Not afraid of heights. Also unidentified.

I am at the top of the Eureka Tower in Melbourne enjoying the view of the city from 88 floors up when one of my Danish friends (still taunting my from my last spider encounter) tells me to look at the spider right outside the window i was next to. Of course I laugh it off (humor tends to be my default defense mechanism) and make a point of getting pretty close to the window. And then I realized they weren't joking. I looked out the window and sure enough, 88 floors up, there is a spider outside blowing in the wind struggling to spin its web. So I start making jokes about how that spider is going to starve, because no food source is going to get caught in a web that elevated. And then I looked up the side of the building and saw that this spider had dozens and dozens of webs in every cranny of the building that extended meters above us. By the looks of this guy's condo complex, anyone could tell that this was one powerful spider. And ironically enough, unless of course he did it on purpose, this spider was building his impressive architectural webs on one of the most well known architectural icons of the city.

Spider Three: The Huntsman Spider (Note: this picture was taken from Google images because I was too distracted by the huge spider that was about to kill me to take my own picture at the time)

I'm at the Suzuki night market (Queen Victoria Market on Wednesday nights during the summer) having an awesome time looking at the open air market booths, checking out the street food, and listening to the live music when all of a sudden the sky opens up and it starts pouring. A lot of people started leaving, but my group of friends ran for cover and hung out until it was dry enough to go back out. Unfortunately, there was only so much shelter for hundreds of people, so we ended up on a bench pretty far away from the party. I'm meeting some people for the first time when all of a sudden I see a HUGE huntsman spider come out from behind the bench going towards one of my new friends' hair. I start screaming and I pull her off the bench and point at the spider. Expecting similar reactions from the girl, who almost had a spider's nest in her hair, as well as my friends just outside the danger zone I was completely laughed at. You see, huntsman spiders are huge, hairy, yellow, and completely harmless. I knew that they were harmless because they explained in orientation that they often get into homes and that we shouldn't freak out. But do I want any spider, even a harmless one, in my friend's hair? Whatever. They can laugh, but I saved her from a scarred life.

DO NOT CONFUSE!

It is true that Aussies use a fair amount of slang, a translator of which I am in the process of compiling. However, there are many every day items that have totally different meanings here in Melbourne about which I was not warned before my arrival. Here are some things I've learned the hard way.

Iced Coffee

U.S.: Cold coffee with ice

Melbourne: Lukewarm coffee with vanilla ice cream

Sushi

U.S.: Delicious, higher scale sit down food; lots of decorative sauce. Comes in pieces anywhere between 4 and 8 per serving. Warning: chopstick use is a must!

Melbourne: Cheap street food found on every corner. Pick from an array of pre-made, yet good quality, rolls. Comes in one piece (comparable in quantity to half a U.S. roll) with seaweed on the outside and squirt bottles of soysauce. Note: Fingerfood to be eaten on the go

Root (verb)

U.S.: to cheer (as in for a team)

Melbourne: to have sex with

Internet

U.S.: Commonly found, often in the form of free wireless in an array of hotspots including homes and campuses in addition to public locations such as cafes, bookstores, restaurants, etc.

Melbourne: black market item. rare and expensive commodity. once obtained, requires a saintly amount of patience. Note: there is no such thing as unlimited internet. do not squander your limited amount of gigs, lest you get cut off and be forced to search for a new hotspot.

Tomato Condiment

U.S.: Ketchup: Based on the concept of the tomato. Salty and creamy in texture. Comes in plastic rectangular packets.

Melbourne: Tomato Sauce: Tomato based. Sweet, with a texture like applesauce. Comes in rectangular packages that are unnecessarily difficult to open. Sure to demolish every amateur's clothing. Note: aim close to plate and prepare for recoil.

(O)Possum

U.S.: Opossum: fugly mean rat-like nocturnal rodent with huge teeth and rabies

Melbourne: Possum: overgrown squirrel

some pictures

Straight off the plane they took us to a nature reserve to see the home of hundreds of kangaroos! They knew what the Americans wanted.

Art is everywhere in Melbourne. This was one of my favorites. It's HUGE!

Federation Square - comparable to our Times Square in New York

Beach in Sorrento known for shipwrecks, where we spent the first two days of orientation. We loved climbing on these rocks.

The beach at St. Kilda on the outskirts of Melbourne

some modest observations after one week

Things Melbourne Has:
-A profuse amount of 7-11s and Subways. These are as abundant as Starbucks are in the U.S.
-An awesome Chinatown. It's clean, it's cheap, and it isn't sketchy.
-Art. It is happening.
-Restaurants everywhere. The entire city smells like food.
-An amazing tram system. Much better than Boston.

Things Melbourne Lacks:
-An ozone. Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. Albinos like myself are sure to die.
-Black people. Where are they???
-Taxes and tips. Everything is included on menus!
-Cheap alcohol. One shot at a bar usually falls between $9-$10, and a bottle of anything can be anywhere between $65-$85.
-An agenda. I was out on a Wednesday around 11am and nobody was at work or at school, though everyone was dressed in their work clothes or uniforms as if they would make it over to their respective destinations at some point. It was awesome.