a lucky week in the lucky country

hello! as the weather gets nicer, the work load increases! don't you just hate it when that happens?

this week was my lucky week. it started last wednesday night and i believe it will end tonight (wednesday night). i don't want to press my luck, the universe doesn't like people who are greedy.
so last week i went to einstein's (the campus bar where everyone goes on wednesdays) where they were having a raffle for various prizes from a ski resort. prizes ranged from ski goggles to lift tickets and the best prize, a snowboard. well, i won the snowboard! i wasn't paying attention and didn't claim it, so they ended up picking another name. when someone told me i won, i didn't believe them but then i started walking around and people kept saying, "SARA!! where WERE you?!" i found the whole thing hilarious. i ended up having a really good night and i am still laughing about that snowboard.
after big wednesday nights out, people usually drag themselves back to res and go to sleep. i am not one of those people, i like to continue to hang out, hear stories from the night, and let my energy slowly fade. the past couple of weeks post-einey's i have gone to my next door neighbor's unit and sat around with them. they invited me to go to the Hard Rock Cafe (one of them works there) and then the Crown Casino on friday night for some dinner and gambling. At the casino, I won $10 from the 2cent slot machines (mom would be so proud!) and i turned $6 into $37.50 at the craps table. I probably came out about even in the end, after I lost $20 on more slot machines and spent money on the taxi home.
My luck continued on saturday night, which was a Study Abroad Club outing to the footy game- Collingwood Magpies vs. Sydney Swans. Australian Rules Football is unique to australia- i'm writing an assignment about the importance of the game, if i'm happy with it i might post it on here. the game was SO much fun, my friends and i got really into it and, since it was our second game, we knew more of what was going on than some of the other internationals. one of the australian girls who organized the outing had connections and we went to visit the players after the game!! we walked for what seemed like forever, and we finally made it under the Melbourne Cricket Ground (the MCG- a footy and cricket arena) and waited around as players came out of the locker rooms and left. A couple australians who were with us at the game filled us in on the players we were meeting- some big names in the AFL! This guy is Dale Thomas, a 19-year-old player who is a huge star for Collingwood. I won't bore you with more pictures of australian football players.

We had a formal 2 weeks ago. Dinner was at a golf club down the street from res. it was a really good night. here's a picture of me and roomies all dressed up. from left: jacqui, emma, alyce, me, megan.













hope all is well with whoever's tuning in. lots of love,
sara

i'm alive!

i am truly sorry for how long it has taken me to write another post. days turn into weeks...and all that good stuff.
let's get to whats going on in my life;

• went to phillip island yesterday and saw the smallest penguins in the world... even though it was raining, umbrellas were blocking the view, and we were rushed- it was good. i also got to feed kangaroos and talked to a bird!
• this week i had dinner with the greenbergs (my aunt mary's friends). they welcomed me into their home (and their family) and i really had a wonderful time with them.
• my friends- jesse (pronounced 'jess') and franci (pronounced 'frankie') and i are planning what we're going to do for spring break (which is september 21-30). at first we thought new zealand- too expensive and without a car it would be a hassle. then we thought Sydney and Brisbane- too expensive. Then Sydney and Gold Coast- also too expensive. So now we're thinking about just doing Sydney and doing it RIGHT. What that means, i'm not sure.

franci is to the left, jesse is to the right

• This wednesday night is the Burwood Student Village Formal Dinner! This means i get to dress up with all of the ressies, have a 2 course meal at some golf club, then be chauffeured to the after party. I am VERY excited, especially because am now the owner of a very cute (and inexpensive) dress!
• every other week of the semester, 2 people from my unit pair off and cook dinner for each other. my roommate megan and i are cooking this week (on tuesday)! we're going to make a stir fry, vegetable fried rice, and MY KEY LIME PIE for dessert!!!
• I've had to watch Robots and Fern Gully for my Reading Children's Lit class- during the rest of the semester i'll watch the lion king and mulan!
• went to st. kilda region of melbourne, enjoyed an aussie burger (with bacon, an egg, lettuce, tomato), enjoyed a mocha in one of the awesomely trendy coffee shops, and posed for a picture in front of the famous entrance for Luna Park (melbourne's amusement park)
  

here is my schedule...
monday 9:30-12:30- Studio Art: Painting and Drawing
tuesday: 2-4-Reading Children's Lit
wednesday: 11-12- Australia Today Tutorial; 12-1- Australia Today Lecture; 2-4- Psychopathology
thursday: 1-2- Psychopathology Tutorial

Tutorials are the same things as recitations... smaller groups that review or put into practice what was talked about in lecture.



I can't think of anything else right now... what i'd really like to know (if i don't already...cough.parents.cough) is whats going on in your life?

hey everyone,
sorry its been so long since the last post, sometimes i can be a huge slacker (gasp!).

some stuff has happened since last week...
i got sick. i got better.
i had my first day of class.
i went on a party bus to a pub and had a wonderful night with my roommate, meg, and other friends from Res (student residences, the on-campus housing for deakin).
i made key lime pie for my roommates. none of the aussies had ever heard of it, but they all loved it!
i hung out some more with my 'pommy' (=british) friend franci.
i made some friends in my art class.
during art class we went outside to Gardiner's Creek Park to draw landscape. I saw 3 dogs jump into the creek to cool themselves off and continue walking with their masters.
i wear skinny jeans and (knockoff) chuck taylors (gasp!)... together!! i am such an aussie wannabe
i watched my first few episodes of Neighbors (famous aussie nighttime drama) AND went to ramsey street to see the actual houses that are on the show! (it's very close to campus)
i experienced harry potter mania from this side of the world


now, i would like you to meet my suitemates...
phoebe was the first roomie i met. she is so friendly and energetic. we like the same music. last night we went to trivia night at the rec room and our team lost badly. she loves harry potter and even woke up early on saturday just to get the book. she is a law student.
tom was the second roomie i met. he lives downstairs and isn't around much, so i don't know too much about him. i think he's an exercise science student.
cruicky is a footballer and gets paid to play, so he isnt around on weekends. he is really funny and also very nice, in a big-brother-who-teases sort of way. he has a car and has taken me to run errands and took phoebe and i to see the Neighbors street. he's studying to be a PE teacher.
meg is also into exercise science. she works as an aerobics instructor and has offered to give me a free pass to one of her classes- which i am definitely going to do. she likes country music and cooking soup. she also has a car and has taken me places. we're both dressing up as 'gangstas' for our unit lock-in tonight (basically, we all get together by unit [i'm in grevillea 3, there are 4 grevillea units so the 10 people from each unit will be in one unit together] and dress up as something that starts with the first letter of our unit [all of res is doing this]. then we will all drink and go to einstein's, the bar on campus).
jacqui is also exercise science. she is really nice, i'm still getting to know her though. she is dealing with a massive breakup and we've talked about that stuff. i like that she feels as if she can trust me and ask for advice (since i've been there), and i sort of feel like we've bonded over that. she's leaving today to go back home for her sister's wedding- jacqui's the youngest of 6!
scott also lives downstairs and is an exercise science student. he is dressing up as Gandalf (from lord of the rings) tonight for the lock-in! he is a nice guy, and even nicer for bringing all of his guy friends over to cook dinner during the week!
emma is a country girl. she lives on a farm with something like 30 acres, tons of cows and sheep, and 10 or so cats and dogs! she is very friendly, and always smiles. she's a nutrition and health student and wants to be involved in product development for a company like Kraft to make foods healthier. she works at einsteins, the bar/restaurant on campus. she also has a car and has given me rides.
alyse (pronounced 'elise') and i share first names and middle names. i'm sara elise and she's alyse sarah! she is a health/nutrition student and is very health-conscious. she goes to sleep early and leaves on the weekends to be with her boyfriend at home.
stan is my fellow american in the house. he's from a party school in california and acts like it. he's goofy and likes sports. we're taking Australia Today together and sharing the study guide/readings. good guy, sometimes a bit too goofy (but he knows that).

those are my roomies! everyone but tom and scott shares the toilets and showers upstairs, and we all share the kitchen and refrigerators.

hope you enjoyed this post as much as i did!
xoxo sara

my digs

if anyone wants to send me things, this is my address:
Sara Zachmann
Room Gr303
Grevillea
Student Village
Deakin University
221 Burwood Highway
Burwood VIC 3125
Australia

my email address at deakin is szac@deakin.edu.au, but all mail received there is forwarded to my gmail account (which if you don't have, you should get so we can chat... hint hint padres). so if you're going to email me, do it at sarazachmann@gmail.com.

my cell phone # (from within australia) is 04 24 38 6292
and my room phone # is 03 927 8795

my skype name is sarazachmann but it hasnt been working lately since the internet here is so slow.

i've also tried to post pictures on picasa, but the internet has stalled me many'a'time but i still have some on there that you won't see here. the site is http://picasaweb.google.com/sarazachmann/AUSTRALIA


be patient with me, i'm trying to post as much as possible but i don't want to sit in my room on my computer for hours doing it. i will post, i just may give you highlights and not a play-by-play like my first post.

also... make comments! i want to see who's reading this and what you think about my travels!



anywho, this is where i'm living
i dont know why the picture is sideways, but that's my room


look ma! awesome closet space
communal bathroom- shared by 6 people (4 girls, 2 boys)
kick butt kitchen- shared by all 10 people in the unit... my fridge and freezer spaces are shared with 4 other people


dining table/living room with 3 suitemates- emma (the blonde), cruicky (his nickname, short for his last name), and meg (who you can't see cause she's on the couch)

outside area... yesterday it hailed and that hill looked like it was covered in snow

since i've been lacking in the updates, here are some highlights of my time in australia so far
-driving along the Great Ocean Road in a huge tour bus
-feeding cockatoos and parrots in Lorne
-being able to go to bars! (don't worry mom and papi, i'm a very responsible young lady)
-having a cafe latte in melbourne's Royal Arcade
-seeing a family of kangaroos hanging out in a family's garage
-not so much a highlight, but on the beach in Lorne i saw a dead penguin that must have come from Phillips Island
-checking out campus- which is AWESOME by the way. all of the buildings are architecturally super interesting and new
-meeting australians !!... yesterday, while enjoying my first meat pie, i met an aussie whose dog has a myspace! (www.myspace.com/sampson95)
-navigating the city on melbourne's great tram system.
-while in Lorne, taking a hike with other international students to Teddy's Lookout. Papi, you would have been so proud. (the guy on the far left is my suitemate, Stan)
-spending time in my unit with my suitemates Stan (california), and aussies Phoebe and Daniel (people call him Cruicky)... the other 6 will be coming back from vacation tomorrow (sunday)
-getting free stuff from deakin (so far ive gotten a bag and a water bottle)
-the 12 Apostles. Beautiful and a truly amazing sight.



Oz vs. US
-they are way more environmentally conscious here... maybe it's because they're in a huge drought right now but serious efforts are made to conserve water, electricity, and heat
-driving on the other side of the road. it freaks me out to see a kid in the front seat where i expect the driver to be sitting.
-portions and sizes! smalls here are pretty much the same as kiddie sizes in the states. its wild.
- greetings here are "g'day" and when someone says 'thanks' they say "no worries."
-people are much friendlier here. and papi, they wear lots of sunscreen.
-everyone has a dog!!
-you c
--they have hair straighteners avaliable in women's bathrooms!
-burger kings are called hungry jacks

Saturday July 7, 2007, 8:20 am

Today is my first official day in Melbourne. Yesterday was spent exploring with a girl named Brittany that I met at the airport who is also studying at Deakin this semester. Even though we were exhausted and it was cold and rainy outside, we decided to go downtown, a 35 minute tram ride away. We walked about 10-15 minutes through a residential area until we approached Wattle Park, an area with a bakery and a “milk bar” and a pharmacy and a salon and some other small restaurants. We got our tickets and got onto the tram- nothing special, except for the whole steering-wheel-on-the-other-side-of-the-tram thing.
About 15 minutes into our trek, an older man came over and asked Brittany why her foot was on the seat in front of her- something I could have easily done without realizing- and proceeded to give her a ticket. I asked the man nicely where on the tram it says that you will be given a fine if your foot is on the seat, and he told me the rules were clear, on their website. The man got off of the tram at the next stop and another man approached us saying “man, what an asshole.” We ended up talking to that guy, who was from Memphis and trying to stay in Australia to work and be with his 5-year-old son, for the rest of the ride into the city. He gave us various pointers on living and traveling around the city, like the way to remember the order of major streets in the city- King William, Queen Elizabeth Swanston- a way to remember that King Street is a block away from William Street which is a block away from Queen Street, you get the point. He also mentioned that laws around the city are based on common courtesy- like not putting your foot on the seat in front of you.
We arrived at Flinders Street station- one of two major train stations in Melbourne- lost and hungry. We found our way to Melbourne’s visitor center, which was right across the street, and got some maps and a good sense of what to expect from the city. Despite having received all sorts of information on where to eat, we wandered for about 25 minutes until we found ourselves in the Royal Arcade- a beautiful walkway between buildings with shops and high ceilings and two statues named Gog and Magog. We enjoyed lunch and a cafe latte in a prime people-watching location. After a long afternoon of wandering in and out of shops, we got onto a tram to go back to Wattle Park. The tram was packed and going smoothly until BAM! Everyone thought we just hit an orange cone until the tram driver stopped the tram and got out of it. It turns out a person was a little too close to the tram when it passed and got knocked out. Police cars and ambulances rushed to the scene. This incident caused the trams on the same route to stop for about 20 minutes. When the trams started working again, we got on another one and headed back home. What an eventful day!
Today I woke up around 4:30 am, read some magazines and snooped around the kitchen for some tea (which I found and drank outside). Brittany and I are planning to go to a supermarket and get some food so I don’t have to steal a tea from one of my suitemates again.