Of "partnered" guys and footy pies.

Disclaimer: Some of the text you see in this post will require translation as I have slipped into Aussie-speak. I will return to regularly scheduled American after I leave Australia. Glossary provided at the end, or post-post, if you will.

We went to the footy at MCG yesterday, and saw Richmond lose to Carlton 118-88 after the worst fourth quarter meltdown ever. They led 73-72 going in, and then it was 108-75 shortly after the period started. Though they lost, I'm a Richmond Tigers fan for life! And I'm kind of addicted to footy now, as it was one of the most fun sporting events I've been to. It defeats my explanation of high scores = no drama, since there's a lot of buildup to score either 6 or just 1. So it's fun to watch the whole time. While there I ate a footy pie.


It looks like I'm eating the wrapper as I attempted to show what it was I was eating...

Anyway, after the footy that we had a traditional Aussie barbie, which as Laxy's flatmate is quick to point out "still isn't a fucking sausage sizzle," even though we just had sausage, since we had alcohol too. A sausage sizzle is for kids. The things you learn. Oh, and there's been lots of Halo - we're gonna try and get Pete into a game online.

Friday night I went out with Laxy and 50 of his coworkers. He told people I worked with Pete at Vitale (part of their firm's international network) and that I was here either visiting or on secondment. All the new secondees and grads were there that night anyway, so it worked out beautifully despite my t-shirts and sneakers sticking out like a sore reddish-orange thumb. I then left my credit card and forgot half the night in a drunken haze. Go me. Had lots of fun though - I remember that much. I now also understand how there's so much firm-cest there, as they pretty much all get blind drunk there every Friday night.

Oh, and on the plane I met this guy who drives a Porshe and lives in the tallest residential building in the world, and the tallest building in Australia. Before I knew this he tried to convince me to eat all organic. He was reading In Defense of Food, by the Omnivore's Dilemma guy on the plane. Anyway, he gave me a ride into town, showed me the South Melbourne Market with is pretty awesome, and then his apartment, which is pretty nice - about the level of the Devonshire, but with Ferraris in the garage. Of course he's only on the 21st floor, so I have to go to the Skydeck to see it all. The whole thing was kinda odd, and it seems like he was trying to pick me up, though he kept talking about his female "partner", so I guessed he really was just uber-friendly and a little weird in that same way you'd suspect of a guy who eats organic and has a "partner".

Anyway, I'm having a good time here - I may actually see the city today, which I haven't really done yet. Then it's off to Cairns, the rainforest, and the Great Barrier Reef. Odd that I have to come somewhere where it's winter to get the only actually tropical part of my trip... Ah well.

As promised, a glossary:

The Footy: An Aussie Rules Football match.
Footy Pie: Meat pie eaten at the footy.
MCG: Melbourne Cricket Ground. About the size of the Big House - 110k seats or so.
Secondment: Three month exchange program:
Secondee: One who participates:
Barbie: A cookout in which there is not, nor have there ever been shrimp. At least not in Hugo's experience. And there must be alcohol or it's just a "fucking sausage sizzle."
Fucking Sausage Sizzle: The kids' version of a barbie.
Laxy: Pretty cool guy I'm staying with that I met went he was a secondee in Boston. Name's Andrew, but they all have nicknames. Aussies are lazy enough to shorten everything.

Sydney

News from Oz (as they call it): I have an obscene number of pics of the Opera House from like every imaginable angle. That's cuz it's Sydney's "dice thing". Pretty much all it's got. I also learned that Australia passed the US for fattest country, so that tells you about the food here. That it's all fattening, not that it's particularly good.

So the first day, in a stupidly tired haze (the flight was full of HS and early college kids yammering away so no sleep), I went on a walking tour from the hostel. But the hostel person was bored of doing the same thing, and the whole thing devolved into an hour and a half of her trying to feed ducks, while half of us went out of our minds. We did watch out of the corner of our eyes, hoping the eels would eat a duck. Never happened. Worst tour ever. But in the meantime, I did learn that Sydney has a penchant for turning historic buildings into shopping malls. Oh, and there are more McD's and almost as many Starbucks here as the US. It's weird. So, basically, it's America, but pricey and they drive on the left.

Yesterday, this guy Andrew and I went on the beach walk up the Eastern Coast, which was really nice, actually, and then hopped on a ferry to another surfing beach, where he surfed, and I read. I would've surfed, but it wasn't a good day for a beginner, it was cold, and I was jetlagged. Basically, I'm making excuses cuz I feel like a wimp for not trying it. Then we went to the Sydney aquarium, which I resisted but everyone kept saying to go. Well it was not worth the money, especially cuz the platypus and penguins hid the whole time, and the rest is just an aquarium. Then free bad sausage at the hostel, and you're up to date.

The hostel's pretty good, very new and modern looking, tho it annoys me that they advertise cheap eats which are actually not. Huge bar downstairs which can be fun, but turns clubbish at night. the first night I got drunk and tried to be a wingman for a smartass Asian engineer guy I met on the tour, but he kept disappearing. And Andrew (also an engineer, but environmental, and looking to go into business) was also scouting the floor the whole time and was more entertaining to watch, cuz he was much better at it. He's a pretty cool guy, actually. Last night I went to bed at 9 - my body has no clue what time it is and the winter sunset being at 4:30 isn't helping.

Back in the States

So I got back to the States on May 29th. Since then I've seen Laura graduate Wellesley, (Congrats Laura!), seen Apara and Jitin get married (Congrats guys!), and decided to definitely go to Michigan Law School (Congrats me!). Laura and I have moved her into Ann Arbor, stopping at the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Creaton Museum along the way. Lots more on that later, I'm sure - it's a week later, and I'm still gagging a bit. After that, we went to St. Louis for a weekend, where we discovered the joys of "Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games" for the Wii at Radhika's place and also saw Amy and Pia. I feel like half the world has decided to go to WashU for grad school. Then onto Tampa to Laura's family, and finally, we're now in Boca Raton, at the grandparents' house.

Highlights (and one lowlight) of my last delinquent period of non-writing (As I'm sure you can tell, public self-flagellation on my blog is a great motivator to write more often, and so I do it at every opportuity.): The wedding was awesome! Great to see everyone: Cyndi, Jaya, Jen, Esosa, Kav, Bill, Filip and Adriana, Damien and Martha, random MIT people that I had only met a couple times before, and of course Apara and Jitin. I only wish I could have been less tired and partied with you all all night, with the college throwback Smirnoff screwdrivers to set the mood.

Ann Arbor: Laura's roommates seem nice enough, and somewhat talkative, which is what you can hope for for random science grad students, so that's good. Mostly I'm just excited to be definitely going there. I'm looking forward to learning the city, and walking around the law school's campus just made me feel ready. And of course I'm excited to be living a ten minute walk from Laura. Much better than a two hour plane ride. I also particularly enjoyed handing the lease and deposit check in, and the surprised look I got from the admissions officer since they're used to getting it by mail. Just thought that was fun. Dunno why.

The Creation Museum: I don't believe I have adequate enough words to describe how depressing a place that was. Most horrible were the kids being led around and indoctrinated. You could almost see the ignorance seeping into their eyes. Never have I been prouder of the teenagers making fun of the stuff they had to do with student groups. At least they had some chance at resisting.

Basically the museum boils down to contrasting human reason with the Word of God. Humans have been trying to poison the Word of God with contrasting knowledge for centuries. Some attacks were from the "infidel philosopher Voltaire", and the most recent example was the fictional DaVinci Code. The techniques for convincing us that not just evolution but all human reason was wrong varied from lazy logic to outright lies. Scientists are not "puzzled" as the to cause of speciation of finches, thank you very much. And the lazy logic argument goes something like this:

Scientists say that canyons all over the world were formed over very long period of time by rivers and erosion. But we know this one canyon (including a picture) was formed in only four years by mud and silt from Mt. St Helen. So how were the canyons really formed?

Later in the museum they inform you that the answer is Noah's Flood. The whole museum would have just been funny if they had stuck to Creation, but because they extrapolated that Human Reason was the cause of all things evil, it was sad and dangerous. They had one poster toward the end that showed Reason as the cause of all racism, genocide and abortion in the world. Never mind that the Bible was used to justify slavery, religion was used in the Inquisition, countless crusades, and the Holocaust, and contraception prevents many future abortions today. I guess I didn't really know what to expect going in - were they supposed to make some sort of argument actually justifying Creationism? They tried by saying that we all have different starting points and they should be equally acceptable to society (the one argument that could persuade people that they're acceptable for at least a short time), but they shot themselves in the foot by denouncing Human Reason at every opportunity. The saddest part though, was that if you didn't know any better, some of the lies were insidious enough to maybe get you thinking that it was right. If I find out there is any public funding for this museum, I will be very angry.

Anyway, back to Tampa, Laura's family, and a Rays game, then to LA for Mets v. Angels and sightseeing, then SD for another wedding, and back abroad I go.