This is Culture Shock

Originally written: February 26th

I have a tendency to talk to myself.

No, I’m not a schizo and I haven’t overdosed on hallucinogens in my lifetime. I definitely don’t have an imaginary friend.

But I do know I’m one to overreact at random occasions. I break into tears unexpectedly—not at funerals or at the end of heart-wrenching films, but instead when I see animals in cages or when I’m having a hard time doing long division.

I’m serious—in elementary school I started crying because I just couldn’t get long division. My sympathetic teacher, seeing me in an emotional fit, read deeper into my reaction, and suggested to the school nurse that I was a wreck because my parents were getting a divorce.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed with a shiny red face and a runny nose. That makes more sense.

Tears mean raised eyebrows. They mean people get concerned and they ask questions. Talking to myself has become a mechanism I’ve developed since high school to prevent the tears from flowing.

The moment I feel my face getting hot and when I feel my eyes begin to water I tell myself, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” My dialogue is internal, but it is so vivid I consider it talking to myself.

Today I wander around the University of Melbourne campus, a map clenched in my clammy hand and I feel it coming. So I do it. I talk to myself.

“You’re fine,” the voice says. “You jumped out of a plane, you can do this.”

It’s the first day I’ve become completely frustrated in Melbourne. After orientation, which was pretty much like a peaceful vacation on the Sunshine Coast complete with surfing, swimming, plenty of food, and kangaroos hopping on the lawn of our resort, I've been positively serene. I was dropped off at my apartment in the heart of downtown Melbourne a week ago, and have been in love ever since.

The city is better than I thought it would be. Our apartment sits across the street from the beautiful Victoria State Public Library where dozens of people sprawl themselves out onto the lush green lawn to picnic, read, or sunbathe. For blocks and blocks shops, restaurants, and pubs are available in every size and shape. Artists frequently visit and set up their supplies and paint the sides of buildings with neon murals of cartoon-shaped flowers and mountains.

The sidewalks are constantly buzzing. Twenty-somethings sit outside and play their guitars. Skateboarders attempt to grind the avant-guard sculptures. Girls who are so pretty they look famous (not rehab famous, but artsy and fashionable famous) walk by with arms full of shopping bags.

It seems impossible to ever get bored here. Yesterday my new roommate and I went to go return our toaster that was destroyed after a late-night bagel accident. We walked down to the department store on the corner when a large crowd caught our eye.

“What’s going on?” my roommate said. We both climbed on our tiptoes and searched for the source of attraction.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a male voice over said. It sounded like God. “Please welcome, Feist!”

“Feist?” I giddily screamed in excitement. We watched the set feeling overwhelmed. I kept the toaster lodged underneath my arm.

But today I’m so frustrated I can’t think about the warm weather or the amazing architecture surrounding me. I push my sunglasses away from my eyes and wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.

I whisper a curse and look at the map again. I’ve been running around the campus that holds more than 40,000 students with the goal of changing my class schedule. I don’t know where to go, I don’t know who to go to, and I’ve asked for help about ten times, but everyone seems to be directing me to a different building.

Why the hell won't someone just tell me what to do? Why is this so complicated? Knowing it’s stupid, I let the tears well up anyways. I exit the Old Arts building, which I have running up and down the halls for about forty minutes, and sit on a bench outside.

Breathe in, breathe out. You’re nineteen, I think. You’re not a kid anymore. I keep on bitching about wanting help but that’s why I wanted to go abroad… I need to learn to do things for myself.

A professor walks by. At least I hope it's a professor or else the glasses-briefcase-jacket thing is really throwing me off. “Excuse me,” I pop up off the bench and he stops dead in his tracks. “I need to get my timetable changed and I don’t know where to go.”

“Oh yeh,” he says and reaches for my schedule. I give it to him desperately. “You gotta go to the sociology department. It’s in the John Medley Building near Grattan, yeh?”

I finally feel like I’ve asked the right person. I practically skip to the building. A sign in the entrance says the sociology department is on the fourth floor so I hop into the lift and push the button with a smile. “Four!” I say out loud in excitement.

When I get to the fourth floor it’s empty. Hope begins to diminish. My head starts to feel heavy and I’m ready to give up. And like a sign from the heavens, a guy with pink hair passes me and notices the dismay, “O’eryadoin’?” he says.

“I’ve been on this like,” I sigh, “Wild goose chase. And I just need to change my time-”

“Oh, yeh, mate,” he motions for me to give him my schedule. “I can do that for ya.”

I want to hug him but don’t want to come off as an insane blonde-haired American. Instead I take off my shoes (a habit I picked up in New Zealand) and dance around his office while he fixes my schedule. I am what I am.

“Yeh, you’re all good,” he says as he prints my new, perfect schedule out.

“I love you,” I tell him.

“Oh, yeh,” he smiles, and hands me the timetable. “I love you too. Have a good semester at Uni, you’re gonna have a great time.”

I walk back to my apartment and soak in the sun, the people, the art. I celebrate my accomplishment by going to the Late Night Queen Victoria Market. Normally a farmer's market by day, the QV Market transforms into a mini-festival in evenings during the summer. There are tents with food from every country, not to mention a variety of makeshift-bars, and unique shops with handmade clothes and ornaments. The event is jam-packed with thousands of people. Children dance to the African band playing, and there are camels sitting outside the crowd. I buy a hot pink handmade dress, munch on a Greek kebab and a French crepe, and drink wine made in a local vineyard.

And there was no need to talk to myself. Which makes life far less creepy.

The Beginning

Originally written: February 21st

After two and a half weeks of traveling in New Zealand, I have adapted to the life of a backpacker. This transition was accidental... Keep in mind, I didn't have plans to even go to NZ when I first started planning my trip abroad.

I decided I wanted to study abroad as a freshman, and when I look back now, I can't remember the specific reasons why. I'm a pretty restless girl who gets bored when she stays in one place with the same routine. At the time, I thought that going abroad would be a nice change of pace in my four-year plan of studying my ass off to accomplish... who knows.

I'm not much of an advocate for the American Dream. Sure, I want to be successful and have children and maybe get married but I don't believe in graduating-college-with-the-perfect job, married-at-25, kids-at-28, rolling-in-the dough, white-picket-fence, achieve-perfection-before-I-die stuff. I'm a writer. I strive for new experiences and I want to be challenged. I want to know who I am before all of the materialistic, corporate shit forces itself into my life.

I'm going to stop myself from preaching...

When I first went to the Study Abroad Office, I had plans on heading to London. A girl in my sorority mentioned a hook up for an internship at a fashion magazine which is my dream job (see above: I am a hypocrite, who is very confused). After taking a gander at the exchange rate, I sensibly realized that I had to change my destination. Some random upperclassmen suggested Australia and without really considering the options I signed up. The exchange rate looked good and from what I heard, so did the locals.

Australia it is.

A friend from school, Jonathan, also had plans of going to Australia and suggested the University of Melbourne as our new home for spring semester. After Googling Melbourne for about three minutes I said sure, why not. It was voted the Most Liveable City in the World by... someone. Bottom line, the pictures looked pretty and it's the fashion capital of Australia. Good 'nuff.

We had the option of a group flight to Oz (which is what I'll now refer to Australia as; it's the local nickname and I'm lazy), but with the same why-the-hell-not attitude Jonathan and I made our way into a travel agency and came out with tickets to New Zealand for before our study abroad program started, and Fiji for after the program ended.

So here I am now: sitting on the plane to Brisbane, Oz, preparing to start our program orientation on the Sunshine Coast before heading to Melbourne. In NZ Jon and I rented a car and have been independently touring the North and South Island for the past sixteen days. We've encountered the most beautiful scenery in the world, been skydiving, jumped off the wall of a canyon, swam in the ocean, ate Fergburgers in Queenstown, partied with backpackers from around the globe, and stayed up for nights on end. We're run-down, dirty, a little broke, and hungry.

When the stewardess comes down the narrow pathway of the 747 plane on our Air Zealand flight and places a pre-packaged meal in front of me, the now natural instincts of a backpacker emerge and I scarf it down like I haven't eaten in weeks. I kill the mini-bottle of Chardonnay to wash down the food I didn't even taste. Seeing this, the flight attendant hands me two more bottles of Chardonnay and whispers, "Drink responsibly," with a slight smile.

I don't know if it was the altitude, the poor diet, or the exhaustion, but I somehow get a little tanked on the flight to Oz. After the time change we end up at the Brisbane Airport at 10 a.m. Jon calls our hostel in Brisbane, whose website promised a free shuttle from the airport but who now tells us they forgot to update their website and they don't offer that service anymore. The 21-year-old Kiwi (a New Zealander), Adam, who we sat next to on the plane is also stuck at the airport. His friends who are supposed to pick him up went to the wrong one. We're all incredibly frustrated, so we go to the airport bar and get a bottle of every single Australian beer we've never heard of and drink them while we wait for the Kiwi's friends to pick us up.

We originally wanted a ride to our hostel in Brisbane, but we ended up going to Adam's friend's house near Surfer's Paradise. There, we drink Pure Blonde (Aussies swear they don't drink Foster's, but Pure Blonde is brewed by Foster's), have a Bar-B and play "Australian" Circle of Death. The Kiwi and his friends end the night by jamming out with Adam on the guitar, one guy beat-boxing, and another free-style rapping.

I spent my first night in Australia crashing on a stranger's couch near Surfer's Paradise.

This is going to be a good trip.

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