Year in Review

This should be the final Oz Blog for now. I’ve been back for nearly three weeks and I’ve had some time to think about how blessed I am. To begin, I am not sure I was quite ready to leave Australia but at the same time it was time to come back home. Goodbyes are never easy, but I’ve sort of become accustomed to them. It is more difficult to explain the memories I had in Australia than anything else. It is almost frustrating. So much happened in that small amount of time, you have to relearn certain things and adapt to a different habitual life, and then when you come back you have to re-relearn everything and adapt to the same habitual life but you’re used to things being different. It is an odd feeling coming home, and now being in Flagstaff in my new apartment it feels like I never left. I can go back and look at the photos or the videos or whatever but there is still an unreal sense about it. That part is hard to share with friends and family back home. However, it was supposed to be like that. Australia was my independent adventure that brought me a sense of entitlement. I was the American that kid in class who had an accent or that drummer in an American band. I just got used to things.

            I don’t want to sound too whiny because I’m not trying to come off that way. In fact, I am extremely blessed to have the life I life and there are a few people specifically I need to thank. First and foremost my family and especially my mom. My mom is the light of my life and if I ever tell you otherwise I’m a filthy liar. She’s the hardest working, most humble and caring person I know. Both her and my dad have given me the opportunity to grow up where I can go chase my dreams and passions, and it shows. There was rarely a day in Australia where I didn’t think about them and I don’t tell them enough but I am very, very happy to have as my parents. The final person I need to thank is my brother and his beautiful fiancé. I don’t mean to, but I follow my brother in a lot of what he does. Whether it’s drums or music I gravitate towards what my brother likes because he is my biggest influence. He supports me in whatever I do and I can’t thank him enough for being that kind of brother and bestfriend. Both him and his fiancé, Mika, have been an example of what love is, and I will surely gravitate towards their relationship, as I grow older.

            Phew, what a year, right? What a damn good year. False North recorded a single, my brother got engaged, my dog is still bloody adorable and I got to go to Australia to meet people I will never forget. The best part is, IT DOESN’T STOP AFTER THIS YEAR! I have so much to look forward to like the recording of a full length False North album (whaaaaaaat, can’t even believe I’m typing that), the much anticipated Grandlienard-Cosic marriage when I officially get three sisters and a brother, and more traveling (hint-hint)! Junior of college is shaping out to be the best year of my life. Cheers to my mates from all around the world, I love you all, come visit me!

What I’ve Learned While Abroad

It goes without saying, that I learn something new everyday. While abroad, however, I find that I am not limited to one thing. Everyday seems like a new revelation, especially when the sun rises 17 hours earlier than you have come to think it. In ways, it does not feel like I am ahead of everyone back home but rather ahead of my realizations. This ever-changing list of things I have learned while abroad will eventually prove my point and my self-awareness, maybe not to the reader, but to me. 

To begin, us Grandlienard’s are list makers, and not lazy ones at that. Our lists are ambitious and diverse. They serve many purposes including to-do lists, bucket lists, grocery lists and informative and analytical lists. With no order of importance or time, here is my list of things I have learned while abroad.

§  I am in control of my life- I am heavily influenced by thousands of people, places, memories and passions but I know I control my life. Ones independence strengthens and grows for the better while abroad. In a world fixed with the media and technology, I know how microscopic but significant people can be. In a world that may measure people by their test scores and may set them up to a standard, I know how immeasurable is measured. And in a world that revolves around money, I know what is worthless and what is of immense value. To me, and to my good friend Albert Rich, only one-thing matters, it’s all about happiness. There are numerous factors that are out of our reach, but here I have learned how to make the best out of everything, or at least to try. Ever since he passed away, I have lived by these four words that were stamped as his Instagram bio. In remembrance I say to be young and rich, what a gift it is.

§  Australian’s have the best and worst taste in music- Music is important to me. Great musical tastes and talents have been passed down to me from my father and brother. As a musician and a listener I empathize with bands or artists with respectable talent. I realize now that talent is not limited to playing an instrument, and I understand that music is brilliantly created in thousands of forms. While abroad, I have met people (mostly girls) who have some of the best taste in music. I have been lucky to meet fans of Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, Envy on the Coast, Biffy Clyro, Say Anything and Blink 182. Even Lydia, a small band from Arizona, has a few fans over here. And now I can happily say, so does False North. The select few have an open appreciation of music and it has grown on me. I have listened to numerous artists that I would never hear of including Boy and Bear, Ball Park Music, Twin Atlantic, Mikhael Paskalev and my current favorite, Ceres. But just like in the States, none of the music I am truly passionate about makes it on the radio. And although I have listened to the radio two times, I do not want to listen to it again. I may be quick to judge but it consisted of girl pop and electronic music that I could not relate to. At most parties and clubs, house music is all you will hear from the DJ. I miss parties where you scream the lyrics with your friends in mateship and it is those moments in music that I adore and not subconsciously waiting for the beat to drop. Plus, I never hear a lot of rap here, what’s up with that? Anyways, the highs have outweighed the lows and I may listen to whatever I want during my own time. (Like CERES, Ceres-ously, listen to this band if we have similar taste)

§  Tim Tams are heaven sent- It started off with a single bite, not being overly impressed, but the addiction with Tim Tams was just beginning. To quote Wikipedia, “A Tim Tam is composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate cream filling, and coated in a think layer of textured chocolate.” In my own words, they’re dangerous. I have never left the grocery store without TimTams nor do I intend to.

§  Travelers/Wanders/Internationals are the best- I have always enjoyed meeting new people and people who love to travel are full of interesting stories and will always love to talk about them. Plus, they know what it is like to have incredible connections all around the world, encouraging them to travel even more.

§  The America drinking age is just ridiculous- I know, I know, I have been legally allowed to drink for four months and now I think I know everything. But the fact that there is a five-year gap between a drivers license a drinking “license” is just crazy. We share the highest minimum drinking age with countries like Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. Only the United States and Pakistan have the five-year gap where you can obtain a drivers license but never legally drink. In addition to that, we’re going to drink anyway! Fakes, underage drinking that’s all part of the college culture, and that could all be avoided. You could make an argument that lowering the drinking age could boost the economy, just look at Colorado since legalizing recreational marijuana, even if it is a small number. The prohibition is over, and I don’t know…maybe I am just embarrassed because I will be the only one who won’t legally be allowed to drink when I get home.

Am I Australian Yet?

To answer my title question, no, probably not. Not even close actually.

But, I think I’m starting to get the hang of things. The first couple of weeks at uni were different because I’m so used to seeing people on campus or walking to class with someone and that wasn’t the case here. However, with a little help from my friends, I’ve gotten back to that point, which is really makes the campus of UWS much more appealing. There was a moment yesterday in some sitting area where I caught comfort like I get on north campus at Northern Arizona University. I’ll get back to that. For now, it’s time to retrace my steps and share more incredible experiences that I’ve had the past few weeks.

            I will pick where I left off and start with a weekend at Darling Harbor. I only intended to go there once but ended up at Darling Harbor every night of the weekend. The first time was to go see Guardians of the Galaxy in IMAX 3D with Felix and Alison. I’ve seen an IMAX 3D movie before and I’m glad we had that experience. The day after that Sam took me to the Wildlife Zoo, the Aquarium and atop the Sydney Tower. The view was indescribable and it let me look at all of Sydney in one setting. As for the third day, I think we just took a stroll down the boardwalk and made it Chinatown, which was loud and the food was delicious. Then we just missed the Chinese Friendship Garden because it closed.

            The weekend after that I believe we went to the Ivy again, where I didn’t lose my wallet this time, and then had karaoke night the following day. There I properly sang out the classics for my brothers back home like, Unwritten by Natasha Beddingfield, Blink 182, Metro Station and Queen.

            Let’s see now, I forget that week but I’ll move on to the Thursday at the Blue Mountains. A two-hour train ride took us to Katoomba where we got off and couldn’t see 30 yards ahead of us because of the fog. So like the international students we are, we asked for directions to the Three Sisters. After a quick walk through a quiet, mountainous town we arrived at the beautiful Three Sisters. But, we couldn’t see shit so we took our tourist photos of the fog pretending like we were enjoying the view and we adventured down the pathway. To explain the Blue Mountains, it’s kind of like the smaller, rainforest-y version of the Grand Canyon. We explored the rainforest, danced in the waterfalls, at Timtams on the edge of a cliff (don’t worry mom, we didn’t fall), and just basically fell in love with more of Sydney. After hours of wanderlust Karen, Dani and I took a skyline back up where we walked back to the city to eat. Then we had the best breakfast meal I’ve had so far at a pancake house. All in all, I’m going back to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains.

            That same weekend, we ended up going again to the GWS Giants last home game where they, like the sports teams I love back home, broke my heart and lost in the last minute (no joke).

            Now on to last Thursday’s adventure. Karen, Dani and I went to the Contemporary Art Museum because it was free and we love anything free. Contemporary art isn’t my favorite style but it was pretty captivating. Some of the pieces seemed borderline psychotic and at the same time I was perplexed. Most of it was pretty dark and heavy. We continued that theme when we took the ferry to Cockatoo Island. Cockatoo Island used to be an old penal establishment where convicts lived and built ships for labor. It reminded me exactly of Shutter Island.

            A few days after that I went to an American themed house party. And this is probably the only time I’ll get to say this, but I was the only American there. I was invited by a girl named Josephine who I met in my Australia and the World class, which is fitting now that I think about it. I’m still convinced she only invited for authenticity and to teach them how to play beer pong (hahaha). Either way, it was still a great night. I met plenty of Australians thanks to Jo, who never failed to introduce me as ‘the American’ any time someone came through the front door. I also learned that all you need for American parties are red cups and that more people wore sports jerseys than the American flag or bald eagles. We’ll see, but I hope I get another chance to be the American because I loved hanging out with all the Aussies.

            Between my last post and this one I’ve been keeping in touch with everyone back home. It’s nice to Skype and see my friends like Jessie, Jeff, Kevin, Davis, Reece, Tyler, John, Laura, Kelsey and of course my family. I almost feel like I’m better keeping in touch with people here than I was when I lived in Flagstaff. But those conversations are nice reminders of home. In addition to that, I’ve been pretty for the net couple of weeks because I’ve got three essays and a huge chemistry exam before spring break. That’s right it’s spring here.

            I’ll talk about it more in my next post but I’ll give you a brief overview of my week to make you all jealous. I’ll be going to Cairns for three days with Karen, Felix, Chi and Haley to do some rainforest hiking and to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. Then Felix and I head to Auckland, New Zealand where we will meet Dani and take an eight-day road trip across the Northern Island with our rented campervan. In that time we’ll be in Waitomo, Tongarario National Park, Turangi, Lake Taupo, Rotorua, Matamata (Hobbiton), and the Coromandel area. Feel free to Google any of those places and be prepared for some beautiful scenery. It’s been difficult to plan but everything is coming together and the itinerary is almost set. It feels odd to book a vacation when it feels like I’m already on vacation.

            For now, it’s time to buckle down and finish the quarter strong. Hope everyone back home is doing well and enjoying him or herself. Feel free to message me to Skype any time. LOVE YOU ALL. GO BRONCOS. LOVIN LIFE. STRAYA!

Being That International Kid

            Things have slowed down a bit, which is fair because classes have started. So I’ll talk about uni first and a couple of the differences between education here and back home. The organization of classes and schedules here are much more simplistic and I prefer it that way so far. For instance, you only take classes specific to your major; I think they call it your course over here, but I could be wrong. This means a lot less busy work from other classes that don’t necessarily pertain to your major. There are easily both pros and cons to this but they (college) also have separated sections for one specific class. Like, all of my history classes have a lecture and a tutorial, which is a discussion with a closer group of students. I don’t know why we don’t do this in The States but it forces you to actually pay attention to your lecture and you don’t need to attend classes like recitations and TA sessions. But if you do need extra help at all it’s provided when needed. For my advanced organic chemistry class we have lectures, tutorials and labs but they are well constructed and are the same time every week to get you into the habit. And my class has about 15 students in it instead of 150.

            Grades are more intimidating however, because there are only a handful of assignments, papers or exams. But it makes it the perfect place to study abroad because there isn’t a lot of repetitive busy work. Another thing is they don’t have electives like globalizations classes or diversity classes or cultural understanding, and so on. This has gotten me a lot of weird looks because I’m taking three “history” classes that fulfill those credits back home but I’m a chemistry major so no one understands why I’m there. And the last thing I noticed is that every single one of my lectures and tutorials mentioned the United States. Don’t really have anything else to say after that though…just an observation. All in all, I love being the international student. I love getting looks when I have to explain why a chemistry student is taking Global History. I love explaining where I’m from and getting picked on for growing up in the States. I love having an accent and shocking people when I first open my mouth in class. If I wanted the same shit, I would have stayed back home, but uni life here suits me well here for now. Also, I have class three times a week, I like that.

            In other news, I went to a club for the first time. It was something like three floors with a pool on the top floor and it was real loud and drinks were expensive and I saw the most douchebags in one collective space than I ever want to see again and I almost lost my wallet and ruined my life and went broke because of it, but I had a good time. It’s really the people you go with that make the experience, and as always, I had the best company. It was packed and hard to find them but all of that was satisfied at the boat party the same weekend, because there I let loose and showed the Aussies my dance moves. That party was fun. In between I learned and played some Australian Rules and my love with footy and the AFL just grew and grew. Oh, if you want to see pictures of anything I've sort of stopped taking pictures this week and lived vivaciously through tagged photos, but you're always welcome to look at those. That does it for now:

            Sincerely, I miss Mexican food #SendGregBurritos2014

            

Vacation is Over?

Felix has peer pressured me into blogging, so here it is.

            The past few weeks I’ve said, even while in the airport, “it still hasn’t hit me yet,” referring to living in Sydney, Australia. But the past couple of nights, it has hit me. I’ve seen some beautiful beaches and spectacular skylines this week while taking a ferry down Sydney Harbour, walking across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, swimming at Bondi Beach and looking over the city 31 floors from the ground.

            First up was the Bondi Beach walk with the other international students. Once we got off the bus and I saw the ocean all I wanted to do was swim because I haven’t been in the ocean in a year. But I had to wait to get my moment. It didn’t help my patience at all when every single picture taken looked like a postcard and when the water’s perfectly blue and not filled with seaweed. After grabbing some grub and Moo’s Gourmet Burgers and feeling like a rich Californian at the Icebergs Swimming Club I got my chance and it was glorious. Even in this thing Australians call ‘winter’ the water was refreshing and warm enough for me to enjoy. That’s about it for Bondi, but I’m sure I’ll have another go very soon.

            Next up was the ferry ride into (Emma) Watsons Bay where I appropriately had the most British meal of my life. We stopped to get fish and chips and I fancied a warm beverage so I had a cup of tea WITH MILK (Dani and Chi would’ve been so proud). But the views of the Opera House and the Bridge were spectacular, to say the least and I couldn’t believe it’s some peoples commute everyday.

            The next adventure starts off the same, we were lost and didn’t have a plan but we ended up on this rooftop bar next to the Bridge and that too was fantastic (it’s difficult for me to explain these views and the scenery). We then decided to walk across the Bridge and then ended up walking back across the Bridge because we couldn’t catch any sort of transportation.

            Last adventure was to downtown Sydney again to drink and live it up with the Swedish girls. This was the first time I had gone any where without at least one of my roommates but I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to hang out with the Swedish girls because I adore them. They don’t know that yet but perhaps they do now! When we arrived to their apartment complex and I see a bunch of marbled floors and walls and I jokingly say to them, “do you guys have the penthouse suite?” And of course they smiled and modestly said it wasn’t but it was on the 31^st floor out of 32 so you tell me! Maybe it just felt like a penthouse to me because I was looking over Sydney like a king and I was the only dude there, like some sort of entitlement. But it was a lovely night of drinking, card games and learning about different cultures and getting to know my other international friends.

            Between barbeques, trivia night, drinking and getting to know new people I’ve been figuring out my class schedule and staying busy with the uni (I promise Dad).  But there are points where I realize this isn’t just a vacation, even when I feel like a tourist. It’s real life and better than any vacation I could have planned. These strangers I met are like family now. We’ve all got to look out for one another. This city is another home.

So here’s to getting lost with the best and finding why we’re meant to be here!