So far, yesterday and today have been a bit of a roller coaster. Yesterday I woke up and wandered out into the freezing cold, spitting rain to get on a bus to an Aussie rules football game, or footy since they shorten everything here. It was a really cool game and we took like the first half hour just sitting there (with a bunch of German students, apparently we just attract all the German students) trying to figure out the rules. It really kind of looked like a Quidditch field at first and we had no clue what was going on but I think we actually got most of the rules right in the end. In my opinion, it is a much more entertaining game than American football. It’s long like the American version but there isn’t nearly as much stopping and hanging out and there were only 2 announced substitutions (I don’t know if there were more that were unannounced or if those were the only substitutions in the game). But here are some pictures:
And a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9YAoeAPZI
which is being silly and won’t embed properly but whatever. Yay AFL!
We got invited to a house party after the game but I didn’t particularly feel like going. Instead, I decided to go out swing dancing on an invite from another international student, Elizabeth, whose host is a dancer. Since they had already left to that area I took a train (all by myself) and they were going to pick me up from the station. Only I missed my first train. Being homesick and all that, this was of course the end of the world. So I went back to the house and cried on the phone with my mom for the hour I had to wait for the next train to leave. I did manage to make the next one and pretty much was twitching nervously for the half hour ride down to the town I was going to. And of course when I got there, Elizabeth didn’t answer her phone. So since I had walking directions I just decided to start walking. Only it was very dark and rather lonely. There were cars but no people walking. I did get a call from Elizabeth after about a block and they said they would pick me up from where I was, which was at a bus station, but she didn’t get the number of the bus station before hanging up which I thought was weird so I called back and she seemed unconcerned. Which really sketched me out. Especially after I waited a few more minutes and they still hadn’t arrived. Convinced that I had been abandoned and would have to wait an hour in a dark, deserted place for the next train home, I called my mom in tears, again.
But then guess who showed up. I was not abandoned. Instead I was picked up by 2 pretty cool Aussies, Cam and Tom, and a girl from Kentucky. And we went swing dancing. My normal swing venue is probably several hundred people strong or something ridiculous like that. This one probably had 15? Which I was kind of expecting. But it was still a little (lot) strange to experience. But everyone was super, super nice and totally excited to get me dancing in their scene and I got a few good dances. Then Cam drove me home. We came from a slightly different direction than normal so I was a little confused about where I was so I didn’t get out. Which was good since a fight had broken out right in front of my apartment. So we went for a drive and then parked and Cam and Elizabeth walked me to my doorstep.
This morning I woke up to an email from President Klawe saying that Ben Huppe was hit and killed by a car. He was one of the most fantastic people I have ever known. He helped me whenever I needed it, never complained, and he was really good at fixing things for me. Like when I was panicking about room draw freshman year. Or about getting E72 done. Or just about hating E84. He honestly was just an amazing person and he will be greatly missed.