Wow, I feel kinda lame for not posting much. I have basically curtailed most of my fun until I can find a place to live, as that seems the priority for my sanity. Hence, no pictures. I have met some really cool people though. I have two metal heads in my room, I think both are from Germany. Another dude I met, and chatted with all night, was from Germany as well. He was a brewer of beer, and also home brews... 40 Liters!!!
A (I think) Korean girl has been really nice. She, and I assume her boyfriend "Fish," bought me some noodles. It seems like Ramen, but truly from Korea. I have yet to try that. I might get her and "Fish" to help me cook it. So courteous. Also, she and her boyfriend are leaving for Tasmania soon.
One thing I learned. Always look both ways before crossing the street. I almost have died like a hand-full of times, as they drive on the other-side-of-the-road here (the left side). So when I cross the street, I would look the wrong way and start moving. Kinda funny actually.
Also, I decided to pickup some Vegemite. It's verrrrry unique. It's high in B-vitamins, and is basically a product of yeast. I think it's an acquired taste. Still workin' on that.
Also, I almost caused a fire today. I made toast, it's a good substrate for Vegemite, but apparently if you only put half-a-piece of bread in the ginormous toaster umm, the heating element is offset not-enough, thus the toaster does not realize the bread is as hot as it is. The result being smoke and charcoal.
Yeah, I know. I need to stop worrying about getting housing. I need to enjoy the area and take pics. I did meet two other Uni Melbourne students, one from Chile and another from France (she's cute). The latter being in the CS program too. However, I am in the research portion, I believe she is taking graduate classes or combination I really do not recall now. We all walked to the Uni yesterday.
So, umm, its been kinda hard. I really miss my family and friends. Wait, friends are family. It's that safety net that I kinda miss. However, I also think that leaving such a safety-net has made me be more independent about consuming food. I need to keep up the caloric intake, so that I can stay strong and walk about this beautiful city. Plus they calculate calories via kilojoules, and I do not know the exact conversion form kJ to calories. In other words, stop counting calories and just do what your body wants; stop the OCD. That's kinda how cavemen did it.
-Matt
Seriously man, you don't need to count calories. Just eat a crap ton of food, and enjoy the city!
ReplyDeleteHey Matt,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Melbourne! I was thinking about you on Friday when you were scheduled to arrive.
Got a fright with prices eh? Funny thing is, for me, I think going to the US is expensive :-) I would need a US salary in order to survive in the US. Yeah, some things here are more expensive (Xiang already mentioned internet) but other things are cheaper.
You mentioned kilojoules and Paul mentioned "crap ton of food". Well, we use metric here for *everything*, and we like it. I remember when we converted (1975) and it was a non-event. It was clearly better so we just did it. What I hope you can avoid here in Australia is a "tonne of crap food". One thing I like about food in Australia is that ingredient lists tend to have far less "mystery chemist lab ingredients". Oh, and our orange juice tastes like juice, from oranges :-)
I dig what you say about looking both ways when you cross the road, as I have exactly the same experience when I go to China and the US. It's safer just to get into the habit of looking both ways...
(I've had two experiences of ending up on the wrong side of the road in the US. Quite scary)
Anyway, I hope you find some lodging and your bearings soon. Also, come to our hackerspace and help us rock out like you guys rock out!
Mitch.
vegemite seems to be used with butter. closest Ive gotten is marmite and that was too gooey to spread smoothly. http://grudnuk.com/vegemite/
ReplyDelete++wb