Overwhelmed

Today I attempted grocery shopping. Number 1: I didn't recognize half of the brands. Number 2: again, everything is measured differently. Number 3: It's expensive! And number 4: they sell drinking coconuts! (They have a point at one end).

My roommate, Sally (Sal), another girl in our dorm Rachel and myself went to Woolworth's, which is silly in itself because Woolworth's has food! I bought a lot of the same things I would buy at home and enough to last about a week and a half or two weeks. Grand total: $123.75. I felt sick. Of course, that's including a $27 battery charger because I blew mine last night. It popped really loud and the room smelled like smoke for awhile because my adapter is vicious. Without a battery charger that fits the outlets, I don't have batteries to take pictures. That, of course, is unacceptable.

But back to the grand total that made my head sweat, I even bought cheap stuff. Off-brand everything. Some stuff wasn't that bad, but some was outrageous. Milk was $3.59 or something and not even a whole gallon. Well, they have liters anyway, but it's just about a pint. Honey was $4.30! That was one of my luxury items; I didn't buy much that I didn't actually need. Oh and their apples are tiny, probably half the size of the ones at home. Someone told me (AFTER I shopped) that Cole's is cheaper.

Maybe I'll try Aldi and see if it's as cheap as at home. I calculated how much my grocery bill would be in American dollars and minus the battery charger, it would be about $65. That's still a lot. I usually spend about $50 every two weeks and I buy more.

Anyway, let me go back to yesterday. Last night the "uni" (said "you-nee") had Dag Night. Everyone dresses up as stupid as possible and goes to the bar. The bar is actually really nice. Very big with tables, a place for performers and a dance floor. I was going to go because it's one of the biggest events of the year, even though I'm not a drinker. I ended up hanging out with Megan (Canada) and taking the bus downtown. We got back around 6, ate dinner at the dining hall and then I went home for awhile. We met up later and found another girl from my dorm, Kathryn. There was a tent set up on the lawn, right beside the Uni Bar, with a DJ and free drinks.

We ended up at Megan's place and ordered pizza. Much better at home. We had to chase the pizza guy because there are no street numbers on campus. There are only road names. On the way back, we looked for kangaroos because they come out at dawn and dusk. No such luck, but Megan saw two today and screamed.

I miss all my friends, but there are so many people to meet here. I just got back from watching Love, Actually with 6 of the international girls. This weekend I'm going to take pictures of the campus, so I'll have more interesting stuff to put on my blog.

Some things are so funny here. There are a lot of roundabouts in Bathurst and I keep thinking if there were that many in Charlotte, the number of accidents would triple. The pedestrian signs are cute, too. Instead of having two people crossing the street, there's just a picture of two legs. And instead of "Yield," the sign says "Give Way."

The walk to class is amazing. I'm going to take a video of part of the walk and see if I can put it on here. I pass a couple of playgrounds (there are swings!) on one side and cows and sheep on the other. And all the trees are nice to have.

One annoying thing is that I can't use my hairdryer. A few girls have said even with a converter, theirs wouldn't work, but I might be brave and try anyway. It would be a shame to have bad hair the whole time I'm here.

Oh! I have an address now! I'm having mail sent to the International Office so it's free. Here it is:

Care of International Office, CSU
Panorama Avenue
Bathurst NSW 2795

I actually live on Brilliant Road, but I didn't want to pay for a post office box. I have to save my money for pints of milk.

P.S. The time on this thing isn't right and when I try to fix it, nothing happens. Grr.