Inaudible Melodies

And I know she loves the sunrise, no longer sees it with her sleeping eyes

You know what would be fantastic? How about seeing MATT COSTA and JACK JOHNSON in concert in Australia. Sounds like I plan? Oh okay. Perfect. Done and done.

I wish that I had another word to use to describe this experience besides amazing, but I’m clearly lacking in the vocabulary department right now. Three of my friends and I walked about 20 minutes down to a concert venue, which is right next to the beach. Two of us bought black shirts that say Jack Johnson on the front left corner, and has “Australia New Zealand 2008 Tour” on the back with all the stops (ours was the first, thank you very much).

Then it was inside to watch the show. Two members of the group sat together and the other two had separate seats. The two of us that had single tickets has awesome seats. I was The stadium was set up so that there was a U of seats, with standing room in the middle. I was on the left side of the stage in the sitting seat in the section closest to the stage and 4^th row aisles. Let’s talk about bomb seating, shall we? It was fantastic.

The opener was Matt Costa, who was wonderful. I can’t remember all of the songs he did, but I now that these were in his set:

Yellow Taxi (a nice song to open with)

Sunshine

Ballad of Miss Kate

Mr. Pitiful (he was really rocking that keyboard a this point)

Cigarette Eyes (which he prefaced by saying ‘I don’t condone smoking eyeballs)

Miss Magnolia

Cold December (the perfect finale)

There were tons others, but I didn’t know his music well enough to know them all. I very much enjoy it though! During his set he said “We’re from California” at which point I was screamingly…and clearly the only California in the audience. When I was buying my Jack Johnson shirt I saw that Matt could be doing a signing after his set, so when he was done, I RAN to the merch booth to wait in line (I was second in line, check out that speed).

Now those that are fans of Matt Costa know that he is from Huntington Beach. When it was my turn I went up to talk to him and I said that I went to school in Orange at which point he asked if it was Chapman and we had a nice discussion. We talked about California compared to Australia and Orange County. He was a very very nice guy and completely chill. He signed my CD for me and drew a pretty picture on my poster that had the tour dates on it, as well as pose for a picture.

Once he was done, it was time for the main event. Jack.Was.Awesome. enough said, but I’ll go into detail for you. The stage had 6 screens set up from the ceiling (similar to those on the cover of his In Between Dreams cd) all of which had different angels and close ups of what was happening (example: one would be showing Jack signing, another just fingers hitting the keyboard, another just the kickdrum, etc) it was great. They were filmed however, to look like old school TV like Happy Days, or the Buddy Holly video from Weezer.

He played to many great songs, I wanted to record them all. I think that I only saved video of Sitting Waiting Wishing, Flake, Better Together and Good People. I don’t remember all of his songs, but here are a bunch he played, by cd:

BRUSHFIRE FAIRYTALES:

Inaudible Melodies, Bubble Toes, Flake, Losing Hope

ON & ON

Times Like These, Taylor, Gone, Wasting Time

IN BETWEEN DREAMS

Constellations, Sitting Waiting Wishing, Better Together, Good People, Banana Pancakes

SLEEP THROUGH STATIC

Sleep Through Static, Angel, If I Had Eyes, Same Girl, Go On, Hope, Enemy

MISC:

A song for a surfing movie which was a duet with Matt Costa.

I know that he played more, but that along is 21 songs, which shows how long the show was. Absolutely phenomenal. Australia was the perfect place to witness the beauty of Jack Johnson, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Postal Service

This post has no meaning except to say send me mail. I get lonely without you all! If you send me something you can bet you're getting sometime too.

Nicole Porter
International House
Wollongong, NSW. 2500
Australia

Mardi Gras: Sydney Style

When life brings you down, dress up in ridiculous clothes and become a tourist attraction: check. The weekend following my grandfather’s death, although I was very sad, called for a more positive experience and pick-me-up. As a result, my friends and I ended up in Sydney for their Gay Mardi Gras: fabo! The train ride to Sydney isn’t that bad, only about 70-80 minutes. The first night we stayed at a hostel called D*Lux (sounds great already, huh). We were a tad worried when we first arrived since in the bathroom the other resident of the room had a giant single hoop earring on the sink; our first (and logical) reaction was that our roommate was a transvestite, as only trannies wear hoops that big. Turns out she was actually a very sweet girl from Ireland, but that is neither here nor there. Before we were ready to go out, our very large group went up to the roof to socialize with other guests of the hostel. This just turned into the Americans teaching people from other countries the great wonders of our land – flip cup and beer pong. Now, in Australia they don’t have Solo cups so we were forced to play with cups slightly bigger than Dixie cups. Needless to say, playing flip cup with tiny cups on a tall roof with fast winds was a little tricky. The views from the roof top were phenomenal though and it reminded me just how blessed we are.

Our hostel was right next to a bar that everyone goes out to (the free vodka-redbulls could have something to do with it’s popularity) which was very convenient. A bunch of my friends from my Australearn program, who now live in apartments off campus were there; it was basically a giant Wollongong reunion in Sydney.

After the bar a large group of people went to a strip club, however such establishments are not of my liking – I would rather spend that $10 on something more functional, such as food (don’t think that I didn’t). Finding a strip club wasn’t at all difficult – did I mention that we were staying in the Red Light District? The only hard part was picking out the strip clubs from the brothels. I however, went back to hang out with some of the guys (quick note, most of the people that went to the strip club were girls) that didn’t find the club amusing and got $3 pizza, which in Australia is quite the steal.

The next Day, Saturday, we walked down to the main attraction of Sydney, the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I kind of felt that the Opera House is prettier in pictures (including my own) than in person, but nonetheless it was still beautiful. We walked all the way around it taking in the sights. There was a skateboarding demo going on while we were there so it was actually quite packed. The Harbour Bridge was absolutely beautiful! Before I got there, I thought that I wouldn’t find a Bridge interesting, but once I was looking at it I was in complete awe. Off in the distances there is a small carnival place (that is no longer running) which looked absolutely lovely sitting under the Bridge in the sunlight.

Later that night was the main event. My friends and I made matching outfits using rainbow fabric, boas and sequins. The larger group and I (there were at least 25 of us) marched our way down to the parade singing the International House drinking song (clearly we were already quite drunk). When we first got there, we had several people want to take pictures with us! (side note: people mainly wanted to take pictures of two of the people we were with – 1. guy in coconut bar bikini & 2. guy in speedo that had a bull on it and if you squeezed it, a bull sound came out – but we all jumped in). Once we had enough pictures of ourselves and enough alcohol in us to fuel LA on 4^th of July, we found spots for the parade.

The parade itself was very interesting. Most of the floats featured half clad people dancing to Australian House music. Good times, of course. I was a found of one float in particular, however, the CALIFORNIAN one!! Holler! It had the Californian flag (holler at Sonoma, home of the bear flag revolt) on it with rainbows and the float itself had a cable car and other things to represent San Francisco. It is important to note that not only was this the only float by one of the States, it was the only float that was not about Australia. Way to represent San Fran.

I went to bed early that night, although everyone else went out. I am very lucky that I had such good roommates – our other friends did not. Two of the girls in their room got very drunk, one of which throw up all over the room. Lovely. She then tried to make it to the bathroom but ended up peeing all over herself and the floor. Then she passes out, bumping her head on the toilet. During this whole time her friend is laughing at her instead of helping. As my friends try to help, the friend gets upset and yells at them. Clearly she was in her right mind. THEN, instead of staying the night like they were suppose to, the just up and left, stealing my friends sweatpants –I guess the girl didn’t want to walk around Sydney’s Red Light District in throw up and pee?

A completely fabulous trip, exactly what I needed.

Highs and Lows

Not all parts of Australia are great. Sometimes it is really hard to be over here and I would much rather be at home. On the 27^th of February my Grandfather passed away, making it very difficult for me to be over here. I felt so bad for my mother and wanted to be there to help console her. I also would like to be there for my uncle and auntie because they are taking it very hard as well.

My grandfather and I weren’t super close, but I enjoyed spending time with him. More than anything I’m sad that my mom is in pain. As of right now my family is planning on keeping his house, which I am really happy about; I would be heartbroken if they had decided to sell the property.

Life in the Gong

I really should be writing about the beautiful town and University that I go to, Wollongong. This town is absolutely wonderful. I live in a dorm called International House, which is exactly how it sounds. There are about 240 residents, coming from 33 different nations; about 1/3 of the students are Australia, 1/3 are American and the rest is from all of the other countries.

I live on the bottom floor (very convenient, actually) on what is called J-Deck. My floor is made up of 12 people: 3 from the states, 2 from France, 1 from Serbia, 1 from India, 1 from England and 3 from Australia. Everyone is very friendly and willing to meet other people are learn about new cultures – completely refreshing.

My room itself is fabulous. I live in a single that has a large ‘L’ shaped desk along two walls and lots of shelves lining the walls as well. My closest has double doors and is far larger than I could need, being that I am currently living out of two suitcases. My room is the absolute perfect size, and is surprising, always clean. I seem to have a lot of free time on my hands and as a result, have the cleanest room of all my friends.

Our whole floor is made up of singles, with a co-ed bathroom at the end of the hall. At first it was weird getting use to showering with guys in the next stall, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

The resident hall has a nice dining area, inside and out, a games room and a large TV room. Every Tuesday and Thursday we have events that brings the entire house together for an hour or so to do random things. I very much like that they keep us busy with all of these events, as it doesn’t leave me as much time to think about how much I miss my friends at home. Sometimes we have movie nights and watch Juno or Sweeny Todd; very nice.

The Australians here in Wollongong have a very interesting habit of going out on Sundays and Wednesday. There is a bar close by that we sometimes frequent, called North Gong (we live in North Wollongong). Every Wednesday we line up and wait for a bus to come and pick us up and drop us off at a bar called Glasshouse, which I only like half the time. It is usually filled with people that are a little bit younger and that can be annoying. They do offer sing a longs, which we love. Likewise, on Sundays the bus comes to take us to a bar called Harp, which I like very much. The bar is split into two; one side has a DJ and the other has a cover band. Honestly, the band plays the same songs each time (in the same order, no less) but they are very good and play songs that I love (sorry that I can’t get enough of Bloc Party).

We’ve also done other little events with our resident house, such as go to this beautiful temple, called the Nan Tien Temple, pub crawls and ‘Bush Dancing’ which is what we call Line Dancing. Haha, it’s lots of fun. I have been having a completely fantastic time out here in Australia and am loving every minute of it.

I miss you all greatly, and hoe to hear from you (hint: send me mail, homies!)

Rainforest & Great Barrier Reef: The Cairns Experience

Clearly there is no point in having a blog if I am not going to be writing in it on a regular basis. Therefore, here I go! I am going to have to go back a couple of weeks to get it all in.

We start in LA. Leaving my mom behind in the airport was pretty sad. While I was moving through security I lost my passport. Honestly, leave it to me to do something like that. Luckily I realized it was missing before my plane took off and I was able to double back and find it at security. We spent a couple of hours at the Brisbane Airport for a layover before taking off for Cairns.

Cairns was completely amazing, although landing was a complete nightmare. As we went to baggage claim there was a huge fiasco. Apparently a bunch of us had our luggage sent to the wrong airport. That meant that I had to spend the first two days in Cairns without any sort of luggage. Luckily I met some fantastic people in my orientation group, who let me borrow clothes while we were there so I didn’t have to spend all of my time in sweatpants, sweatshirt and uggs. Once I finally got my luggage back I saw from the tags that 1 suitcase went to Sydney and the other went to Melbourne. Fantastic.

Orientation itself was quite fun. It was kind of funny because Garrett’s roommate from freshman year was in my Orientation group; kind of random. We spent the first day of orientation eating and drinking by the bar and swimming in the gorgeous pool.

The second day of orientation we spent at the Rainforestation. Our first stop was taking pictures with Koala bears which were adorable. The Koala was a complete pro at taking the pictures as he was passed along from person to person. Then it was off to feeding kangaroos, watching a beast of a crocodile devour meat, and following the wallabies around the park trying to catch a peek of the joey in it’s pouch. Once we were done taking pictures of the cute creatures, we went to watch Aboriginal dances and learn how to throw a boomerang. I had to go first which wasn’t a great experience – it went straight into the ground.

The third day of orientation was spent with water, sun, and lots of coral. We woke up early and spent two hours riding a boat out to the middle of the ocean, finding the perfect spot for us to explore. We then spent the next couple of hours snorkelling and scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. While most people would think that it is easy, snorkelling was absolutely hard as I kept getting water in my mask. Scuba diving was beautiful however. We went down there for a little over 30 minutes, exploring the coral and all the different fish. I was kind of scared to try to scuba dive, being that people with asthmas are not suppose to do it, but I didn’t want to let something like health hold me back.

In all, orientation was wonderful. I got to experience more things in three days than some people do in a lifetime. I made friends during that time that have become close friends here at the University.

I will be updating about the past couple of weeks throughout this week until I am caught up.

Love you all!

Everyone is Leaving...and Yet I am still here

Orange: 10 days
Australia: 14 day

I think those numbers are right. It might be 9 and 13, but I honestly don't know what day it is.

Everyone else that is studying abroad is just about done packing up their suitcases and are off for their new lands and discoveries. All of my Semester at Sea friends left a week ago, and have left a small hole in my heart.

I sent yesterday with Shannon and Lauren, as they are leaving for Italia today. I met up with them at CPK where we had lunch before heading over to Lauren's house. It was so nice to see them both before they left. We talked a lot about each of our trips. I am going to miss those girls SO much while we're gone.

I had lunch with my best friend growing up, Calla this afternoon. She will be spending four months in Senegal, Africa starting Thursday. She will be in a home stay during her time there where they speak French as the government language (she is pretty much fluent) and Wolof, which according to Wikipedia, is spoken by 94% of the population. Another cool wiki fact: Banana is actually a Wolof word that we use in English. So apparently it is not a clicking nation (hmm don't I sound ignorant)

I am now off to wash a tremendous amount of clothes and try to get light my suitcases.