Week One: Battle Wounds

It’s Sunday evening and my body’s aching after an interesting game of aussie rules or just “footy” as the locals like to refer to it. Some people explained it to me as something quite similar to rugby, but there isn’t much that I can say that is all that familiar in my mind. After being tackled several times, quite strongly I might add, I quickly acquired some battle wounds on my arm and knees. It’s a great team sport and the hype is immense, drinking bottles of Jack Daniels and beer during each quarter-break really seems to motivate the “ex ressies” (ex residents) against the “ressies” (current residents). I was on the ex ressies’ side and playing right back I soon became without anything to do as our team ruined the opponents. What an experience!

This was probably the highlight of my week, but I cannot say that I didn’t enjoy many other things throughout. On Thursday night, we all gathered in one of the SRs' (senior residents') larger rooms in the Packard Wing (mainly older students). Playing drinking games and just generally getting to know one another was the objective of the night. However, after a few hours of banter and games, it quickly led to over-excitement and loud noise, soon I found myself in one of the popular bars in town, Mooseheads. We tested the structure of our alcohol capacity with a few shots, before moving onto the main club for the night, Mesch. Here I saw many people I’ve been bumping into throughout the many introductory sessions planned this week. We partied hard and I think I may have been baptised with the name ‘good drunk’ since that night. We ended the night in a gay bar called “Cube”, it was an interesting experience, though I cannot say I remember all that much.

After spending most of the next day recovering from the activities of the night before, Friday was a pretty lazy day. Then, it was Saturday, again, I woke up late and started the day off with lunch. Food service times are between 7:30-9am, 12:30-2pm, 5:30-7pm everyday. The dinning-hall is a very social place, great for meeting new people and just talking about stuff with those you already know. On Saturday afternoon I found out that random adventures could also be arranged within this social food-hub. One of the locals happened to have a car and before we knew it, we were on our way to the National Gallery.

In the evening we had a “scribble party”, which consists of all the Bruce people writing stuff on each other. Earlier that day I bought a t-shirt from a female clothing shop for two dollars; it was the cheapest white shirt by eight dollars! A great way to end my first week, wearing a size 16 female shirt I was attracting all the attention.

Next week is the beginning of lectures and a carry-on of an intense party-week; looking forward to it!