Fieldtrips and wine tasting

Crooked River Winery

Wow - I didn't realize how long it's been since my last post. Everyone says time flies when you abroad but it didn't hit me until this weekend. It's funny to hear about everyone returning to school back in the US when we've been in class for a month now and mid-session exams are coming up. It's also crazy to think that we have 4 weeks until spring break and then only another 4 weeks until the session's over. It also made me realize how little I've done in exploring Australia. But for what I have learnt/seen I will tell you about now...

One classy crew if you ask me!

It's strange the differences in schools here is; at first it seems so similar to back home, but as times go on subtle differences arise. It makes me realize how much I take advantage of back in the US. One such difference is with clubs. There are 20,000 students here, there are 33,000 at CU. That's a big difference, but UOW is still a big school. I assumed that there would be heaps of clubs - interest clubs, clubs for different majors, sports clubs, language clubs, etc., but we found out that there are really that many. I was hoping to join lots of different types of clubs to meet more Aussies, but after the club fair it looks like I'm going to have to change my strategies a bit. One reason could be that a lot of people commute to Uni. Because of that they are only at Uni two or three days a week so it would make it hard to be dedicated to a club.

I did find one club that was interesting and I joined. It's called PINC - professional industry networking club. It's a networking club for all majors, but for women only. I figured it would be interesting to see the professional side of things from a different perspective. I met a lot of Aussies there, but there were also a lot of international students too. They are putting on careers workshops, resume workshops and having professional women come talk about their industry and working in it. I'm excited to get to know more people and learn about the professional Australia.

Running across the Gerringong highway...

One really exciting thing that happened last week was the Census. I thought it was really cool that all us international kids are going to be recorded as living in Australia the day the Census was taken. Some of the questions they asked though were very strange. There was a lot of questions on if you take care of someone that cannot take care of themselves, or if someone was taking care of you. There were questions about how often you clean your house and if you got paid for doing it. The religion question was the one that I was really surprised at - they had a list of about nine religions, including Buddhism and Scientology, but they didn't have Judaism. So it was maybe the strangest, but most exciting Census I've ever filled out.

Fun fact - about 50% of koalas carry chlamydia.

Ok, so I don't like ice cream. Everyone thinks it's weird but it tastes like milk to me. But we have Magnum ice creams at our Caf and everyone was getting them because they have this deal right now that 1 in 6 is a winner for a free Magnum. Everyone was getting them and were saying how delicious they were so I figured I needed to get one. I still don't like ice cream but the chocolate is so delicious that covers the ice cream, especially the almond ones. I've probably gotten about 10...but I just won my 3rd one today! Bad news is that they started carrying them in the US...

Chicken by Crooked River

It's great having a roommate from Australia because she tells us things that we might not necessarily pick up. She told us that Australians are very lazy - not the picture that I had in my head before coming over here. A lot of the laziness can be seen in the language. Everything is abbreviated to end in an O or I/Y. I thought it was just how they talked but they honestly shorten EVERYTHING! For example, Salvation Army is Salvos (it's even how they write it on the sign), Nick turns into Nicko, "yeah, alright" (or something along those lines) is "righto". I'm going to start making a list and I'll make a whole list of Aussie lingo.







The nightlife here is another very different scene than back in the US. We went on a "pub crawl" on Friday, except that it wasn't a pub crawl at all - it was more like club hopping. It's strange because the drinking age is 18 here, so there are buses (called Party Buses) that come and pick you up from Campus to bring you downtown to the clubs. Drinks are so expensive that it's not really worth getting drinks there, they're also much smaller than back in the US. So people drink in on Campus. If you were caught drinking in the dorms it was not a slap on the wrist, here as long as you have less than 9 people in the room and aren't playing drinking games you can drink as much as you like, be as loud as you like and it's no problem.

But anyway, onto the good stuff, but still keeping the drinking theme. Last Friday we went on a spur of the moment adventure to a winery. Spur of the moment adventures are by far the best and we had so much fun.

[Sorry about that gap - my computer crashed and lost the rest of the blog and then things got hectic!]

My roommate told me I had 5 minutes to change before leaving for the bus...I was on the phone with the Spaceship people (sneak peak for Spring Break plans!) and didn't really know what was going on. But a group of us got together, jumped on the bus and headed to I-House where our friend Mel lives and where the North Gong train station is. Mel said she heard of a winery in Gerringong and we all just went along for the ride. 

Walking along the highway in Gerringong

We took the first train to Kiama, where we switched to a single track line to Gerringong. We got off at a tiny little train station and there seemed to be nothing around us. Thankfully, there was a lady waiting for a train so we asked her for directions to the winery (we didn't even know what it was called). Turns out we had to walk along the side of the road, with no sidewalk and then along a highway, again with no sidewalk. I'm pretty sure walking along a highway is one of the things they tell you NOT to do when study abroad. We all made it safely, even after running across the highway - don't worry, it was only a 2-lane highway! 

My new favorite tree

The vineyard was beautiful. It reminded me a lot of Kent with the rolling hills and the sun shining down on a little town on the other side of the hill. That's where I first saw my tree; a beautiful big tree with no leaves, only red flowers. I have no idea what it's called and I don't know if it doesn't have leaves because it's winter or if that's just the way it is. I think it could be a 'flame tree' but I'm not sure. We took some pictures for a while before heading up the steep road to the main house for our wine tasting session.

When we first walked into the Crooked River Winery there was no one in site and it was completely quiet. However, a lady shortly walked out and seemed a little surprised to see so many of us; there were 9 of us. But she happily introduced herself and started us off with the wines. I've never been very much of a wine taster and thought they pretty much all tasted the same or at least very similar. 

Crooked River Wines

First, we started off with a rose. It was what I thought most wines tasted like, but then we really got into it. We learnt how and why you swirl your glass – on the table with your fingers on the base of the glass. This mixes it while keeping it cool. If you put your hand on the part of the glass where the wine is, it heats it up. The lady then gave us each some white wine which she explained when would be appropriate to drink and with what kind of food to have it with. From there we went up, trying sweet white wines which you can pair with pork (and that was delicious) to some more subtle whites which you can drink with anything. They were delicious and I could really taste the differences with every different wine. After trying about 4 whites, we moved on to the reds. I learnt that I’m not a big fan of red wine, they’re a lot stronger and have a more bitter taste that I wasn’t that fond of. But they were still pretty good.

Deliciousness in a bottle!

She saved the best till last though; port. I’ve never had port before so I had no idea what to expect, but wow, it was delicious! The first we had was a sweet port which was just delicious – a little stronger than I was expecting though (18% alcohol!)! She explained that it’s really good if you put it in the freezer so it gets icy and then you mix it with lemonade! I never wished I’d had a freezer so badly before! Finally, we got to the last one; chocolate port. This was made for Baba and I wish I could have got some to send back, but I’ll just have to try and describe it even though it won’t even start to bring it justice. I wasn’t too sure of it at first when I was looking at it in the glass. I thought it might be kind of thick not really taste like chocolate, but with the first taste my tastebuds exploded. It was thin and cool, and the taste of chocolate was immediate. Delicious, creamy milk chocolate with a little hint of alcohol. Yum! The best part about it was that the taste of chocolate stayed in your mouth for a while after. What you’re supposed to do with it is make a ‘port float’ and put a scoop of ice cream in your glass. I think I would prefer a glass just by itself; it didn’t need anything else.

Can you tell we're tourists?

We took a picture outside and said goodbye, promising we would back again and begun our walk back to the train station. We braved the highway making it back safely, even stopping to take an extremely touristy picture in front of the Gerringong sign. By this time though it was quite late and after drinking a fair amount of wine and port we needed some food, so we stopped in Kiama where we had to change trains. It was a nice little town and little did I know, but I would be right back there the next day. We had a nice Italian meal and headed home. That’s my definition of a successful day.

Kiama

I’m taking a class called ‘rural and urban social geography’. I honestly have no idea what we’re actually supposed to be learning in this class because we seem to be learning all about the Australian dairy farming industry. We got an early start and headed to a dairy farm where we learnt all about the effects of the 2000 milk deregulation in Australia and the impact it had on the farmers. We then headed to an old coop building in the Jamberoo Valley to listen to some ‘tree changers’ people that had moved from the city to a more rural area of Australia to pursue farming and a change of lifestyle. There are also ‘sea changers’ who move out to the cities along the coast. There is a theme to this class but it seems to be all over the place, because we then went into Kiama to survey the shops. I still have no idea how that tied into anything. After some lunch in town, we went back to see another dairy farmer where I learnt that milk is one of the only food products that doesn’t have any preservatives in it. The main point I took from the whole fieldtrip though was if you’re in Australia BUY BRANDED MILK!! Woolies and Coles are buying their own processors and it’s hurting local dairy farmers.

For our second fieldtrip we talked to some people who grew fruits and vegetables, one family sold their food commercially in their own store, and the other family use it as their primary source of food. Farmers markets are so prevalent in the US that it’s weird to think they’re not as popular throughout the rest of the world. It’s another thing that I realize I take for granted back home. After talking to those families we went into Wollondilly in the Picton area to have lunch and take another survey of the shops. Since it’s a small town we had some extra time on our hands so we went to play a little game of touch footie (NRL rules). It’s easy to listen to and understand the rules, but when it comes to actually playing it’s a lot harder to remember everything! Such as not throwing the ball forward, it’s such instinct that it’s hard to get out of the habit. It was a lot of fun though and definitely something I want to do ahead. It also made the fieldtrip as a whole heaps more fun.

Dragons vs. Roosters

The next day we went to another Dragons game. This time was even more fun though because we’ve gotten to know one of the guys that plays for them. The more we go and watch, the more it makes sense and the more fun the games are. Next step is going to a Union game (another sneak peak for Spring Break…kind of). They have completely different rules though, so we might have to take a crash course to understand everything that’s going on!!

Some things I’ve learnt this week…Tim Tams are sold in the US! They’re sold as ‘Arnotts Originals’ at Target and World Market! I can’t believe nobody told me this before!! But I’ve had to take myself off the Tim Tam bandwagon because it got a little out of control. There’s just something about then that’s addicting and once you open the pack, there’s no stopping you until they’re all gone! On a completely different note, going back to the lazy Aussie lingo, they call Americas ‘sepos’. ‘Sepo’ is short for septic tank because Americans are all full of poop. I think it’s kind of funny, some people take offence to it though.