Day 26

It has begun.

After weeks of just dossing about my time at the university of Melbourne is finally underway. Well sort of. Although lectures for my four history subjects have started, there have been no tutorials. Even the lectures have taken on a distinctly introductory tone. Over the past couple of days I have started to read around my subjects, looking at both primary and secondary sources. I am loving it.  I know that sounds a little bit nerdy but I can't help it. The periods that I am doing (20th century in both Europe and America) fascinate me. It looks set to be a interesting and engaging semester, helped enormously by the fact that I don't have any exams!

At the start of this blog I declared that I was aiming to find out more about the nature of Australians. It is nearly four weeks on since I made that statement and I do feel that I have learnt plenty about the Aussies. However there are still things that take me back. A prime example would be a conversation that I had with one of my fellow residents in college earlier this week. We were discussing life in Melbourne and they were explaining how busy and unpleasant the CBD (central business district) can be (pictured below).





It is basically the heart of the city and inparticular its banking and finance centre. Now I have spent a fair bit of time in this part of Melbourne during my first twenty or so days in the city. Yes it can be fairly busy but nothing on the scale of rush hour in central London (pictured below). When I tried to explain this fact to my fellow residents they were in shock. "What a place busier than the CBD? No. Impossible. I could not cope". This brief conversation taught me two further things about the Australians. One they don't expect to be proved wrong especially when concerning things they know well. And two, that they have no idea what a busy city centre is.

Day 20

Still haven't started work yet.
Another week has gone by. It seems strange to think that I have been here for under three weeks. It feels like a lifetime but in an amazing way.
After week at JCH, I am certainly starting to feel like home. It is great to be part of a community that is so welcoming to people. At university itself, this week was orientation week. Apart from the odd lecture, it has been mainly fairs and free giveaways. Not that I am complaining. It still has not sunk in yet that I am here to do some work. However that may still have to wait. Next week there are no tutorials, only introductory lectures. The week following that, the tutorials are introductory. With the gap I had before coming out here, it feels like an eternity since I was a real student.
With not having much to do in terms of studies, it has left plenty of time for myself to get to know Melbourne. What a city. I know I must sound like a broken record but it is true. This past week I have moved from street arts projects (Gertrude street projection festival was amazing, pictured below) to chocolate restaurants and everything in between. What has made it even more special is to spend this great time exploring the city, with amazing people. I am pretty sure a city like Melbourne lifts people. It certainly has lifted me.    

Given the fact that I have been exploring the student scene, it means that I have been in and around a lot of trendy, hip places. That can only mean one things, hipsters (pictured below). I visited a fair on Saturday, hours after walking down Gertrude street. I have never seen so many hipsters! With their impressive facial hair and alternative fashion sense it all a bit intimidating. I am trying to grow my beard, but it is patchy at best. While out here in Aussie, all the locals are sporting a bush on their face. It is enough to make me be a touch envious. I'll keep on trying aka being lazy and do nothing :)

Day 12

So my introduction to the university of Melbourne or Melbourne welcome as it is known here has come to an end. It truly was a great week. I now feel firmly in the swing of things and accustomed to what Melbourne has to offer. However the thing that I will take most from the experiences is not what I have learnt but the people that have met.
I had heard a lot about the friendly nature of Australians before coming out here but my expectations have been well and truly surpassed in the past couple of days. It did not seem to matter what we were doing or how tired we were but our hosts (Australian students already at the university), always had a smile on their faces and were more than happy to help. This feeling of the warmest of welcome form the locals continued after Melbourne week had come to an end.
On Friday morning I moved to my permanent place of resistance, Janet Clarke Hall (below) one of the oldest colleges on campus.

The few members of staff that I have met so far (not too many as returning students do not arrive until Sunday) have been superb. They have made me feel right at home despite the fact that I could not be any further away from what I would normally go home and that there is hardly anyone here.  
In the evening I went out with some of my friends that I had made during Melbourne Welcome and went to my first Aussie Rules game. As part of Melbourne Welcome we had taken part in an afternoon with the North Melbourne football club or the Kangaroos (crest below) as they liked to be called. During the session we were all given membership cards which entitles us to go to three roos games free of charge (something which I am sure would not happen back in the UK)


At the Etihad stadium I witnessed a great sporting contest. Although the roos lost quite heavily to fellow Melbourne outfit Carlton (10 of the 18 teams in the AFL or national league are based in Melbourne and the surrounding areas), had still have an amazing time. It was a first for me and I have to say I loved it. Even though the roos were the away side, the atmosphere was certainly friendly and not once did I feel unsafe (again something which, in many sports, can not be said back in the UK). I can't say I knew what was going on all of the time but I certainly feel now that I have a least a fair idea of the many rules and regulations which are part of Australia's national sport.


Over the next couple of days I have more in the way of introductions. I will be registering with my faculty and enrolling in my courses. I will also be taking part in orientation week in my college which we give me a chance to meet and get to know my fellow members of JCH. Once again on this trip I am very excited.

Day 7

Still tired, I think I will be for the foreseeable future.
I spent my last few days in a hostel before moving to the University today. I am not sure if hostels are for me. I keep telling myself that I would have socialised more with the other people there, if I had been doing what they were doing, travelling. I have to admit that I did not buy into the whole backpacking scene. I believe you need at least one person with you, to make you involve yourself in that environment. It was not that I did not like the people there. Far from it. I just had it in my mind that I would never see these people after my brief time in the hostel. I know that is the completely wrong attitude to have but I could not seem to shake it off. I am sure that I will spend my time in hostel and hopefully I will improve in this aspect.
Onto the University of Melbourne. I am only one day in but I have to say that I have enjoyed myself so far. It is great meeting like minded people, who you know that you will be spending time with during a prolonged period of time. And this is just Melbourne welcome week. I am here with other international students and not the people who I will be living with in my college (Janet Clarke). I have had a great first day despite not liking the things that we were doing. Or maybe I should put that differently. If I were to do the thing that I have done today in isolation or back in England I would probably have not enjoyed them. Things like getting to know you exercises and dancing as a big group in the middle of Melbourne city centre (yeah we did that together desite not knowing each other for more than a couple of hours) are not my idea of fun. Yet today it seemed to fit in perfectly. Looking at the schedule for the coming days until Friday when Melbourne welcome ends it appears to be more of the same. Yet I can't help but be excited.  

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Day Five

Still pretty tired.
I have to admit that over the last few days I have done very little of note. As anyone who has moved to foreign country for a substantial length of time will know, there is plenty to be done. The main two thing I have been trying to sort out are a bank account and a new phone/ cancelling my old UK contract. This is hardly the reverting topics that anyone would want to read about.
However during my discussion with the man at the bank, we got onto the pretty standard conversion of what the hell I am doing here. He looked at me in shock when I said I was studying in Melbourne and that I had had the option to going to other English speaking cities like New York and Toronto. Here I was thinking that I had moved to an amazing city. Well not his book. He was adamant that I had made a mistaken. He did not say so but his faced said it all.  My brief discussion with Adam got my thinking. There are always going to be people in any country that have a negative opinion of where they call home. That is a given. But I have generally not said or heard anything so far in my time in Melbourne that would make me question my decision to come out here. I am only starting to get to know my new home but already I am sold. Whether it be the busy Central Business District or the rather more gentile University area of the City in the district of Carlton, it fascinates me.  
I went for a walk this afternoon around the old Olympic park (below) in the centre of the City.

 I have to admitted I was ignorant to the amount of sporting history that Melbourne has. Hosting the Olympics in 1956 and being the home of Aussie Rules and Cricket in Australia puts it as the clear sporting home of the country. And that is saying something. To be the centre of (perhaps) the most defining aspect of a nation makes a city very special in my eyes. I'm really looking forward to tasting some live Australian sport and seeing if the stories are really true about this country being sporting mad. Hopefully the wait should not be too long. As part of my freshers week at the University of Melbourne I get to take part and go to a game of Aussie Rules. I am so excited.
Ahead I have a quiet weekend and then the real beginning. On Monday I move to the University, first to take part in Melbourne Week, a four day event for new international students. Then next Friday, I moved into a residential college on campus called Janet Clarke Hall which will be my home for my time out here. I don't normally say this but I can't wait for the weekend to be over. I just wan't wait for Monday!        

Day One

Tired. I am just really tired.
Over three days I have travelled from my home in Swainby (a tiny village in the North Yorkshire moors, England) to a hostel in the heart of Melbourne. All in all I covered about 10,700 miles in 72 hours, sleeping for only a fraction of that time. It was my first long haul flight. I can't say I enjoyed it. I don't think I know anyone who enjoys flying. But it is a means to an end.
Despite my sleep deprived state, I will still able to pick up on some "Australian" habits. The first was arguing. I know that travelling long distances will test the patience of anyone regardless of nationality but I seemed to witness several arguments involving Australians and airport staff during my journey. From the restrictions on what they could bring on the plane, to the entertainment system on board, even to how far the seats went back, someone (normally with an Australian accent) had something to say about it. Perhaps I am the odd one out in this case. I am English. I hate complaining and like to queue. It would take something pretty serious for me to raise my voice in protest, and even then I would start off by apologising for being in inconvenient. I may have to slightly alter my ways if I am to become an fully blown Aussie.
Along the same lines, the Australians that I met on my route to Melbourne did not seem to hold back. Case in point being my shuttle bus ride from the airport to my hostel. While on the phone to a friend, the driver went to great lengths to describe how his nephew had "gastro". Gastro, as he explained, is short for gastroenteritis or as I would say being sick. Me and three other fresh faced English students did not know where to look as he went on and on about how it could not be food poisoning and the fact that he had already been sick six times in the day. I find it hard to image that any taxi driver in England (or at least any that I have encountered) would go into such detail about something so socially "awkward".  Perhaps this openness is something else that I will learn to get used to.
Something I am already used is seeing the face of Queen Elizabeth II on the back of every coin that I possess. For some reason (I am putting it down to the jet lag) I was surprised to see her eyes staring back at me as I flipped over my newly acquired change from my first breakfast in Australia. One of the few things that I dislike about England is the fact that we still have a monarch who is head of our state. I believe that every citizen in a state should have to right to become head of it and not for that privilege to be in the hands of a selected few, who are born into it. I am not purposing that we executed all of the Royal family in the style of Charles I but some kind of peaceful abdication of power would do the job. I am interested to find out what the locals have to say on the matter and whether they like having the portrait of some English lass on every coin of theirs.
During my first stroll in central Melbourne. after a well earned sleep, several things grabbed my attention. Firstly, what a beautiful city I find myself in. With a mixture of new skyscrapers and old Victorian buildings, it really is something to behold.. Next the traffic. Although not as mental as central London, it was fairly busy during the morning rush hour. But most striking was the noise what greets every green man. A combination of the sound of a hummingbird and machine gun fire is the only way I can describe it. If that does not alert you to the fact that you may now cross the road, I do not know what will.
My walk lasted until the end of the street, a car park to be exact. Not a picturesque start to my Australian adventure, but a start none the less.
       

Introduction

My name is Richard Hinman. I am a history student at Royal Holloway, University of London (I know you have never heard of it, but thats what google is for!). However for the next 14 months I will be living in Melbourne, Australia. I have a place at the University of Melbourne for a year, which will count towards my final degree. This is not only the first time I have been to Australia, but it is also the first time I have been outside of Europe. As I plan to spend such a long time in a completely new country, I want to write down my experiences in the form of a blog. Originally this was to be focused on sport, but on my journey over here (I had plenty of time to think about it), I decided that a general account of my time would more interested to you the reader. This is not going to be a highly sophisticated work on the lines of Micheal Palin and co. If anything it will be the ramblings of a Yorkshire man far away from home, without a clue of what is going on around him. Despite this, I hope that you will find this blog interesting. My aim is to tell the story of my adventure. I want to find out about the country that I will call home for the next year and more importantly what being Australian is all about. I know being on campus at a university may not give me the most accurate account of Australian life, but I will endeavor to spend time outside of the confines of the local educational system. I do have three months off over Christmas and I plan to spend that time travelling across this land. I will post something new every couple of days and these posts will vary in length and topic.  Hopefully my story will be engaging to you and worth reading.

Thanks
Rich