Canada

As with Sydney University, UBC starts for real in second week. I've settled on my courses (3xPoliSci, 1xHistory) and I'm loving it!

My timetable is as follows:
Monday
6:30-8:30pm: HIST402 - Violence & Trauma in the late 20th Century.

Tuesday
(& Thurs) 11-12:30pm: POLI321A - Chinese Government & Politics
(& Thurs) 3:30-5pm: POLI370A - International Law & Politics of Military Force
7-10pm: POLI365A - Asian International Relations

This timetable leaves me with Wednesday and Friday free, and Monday essentially free, which is fantastic.

I've also got the readings lists for my subjects. HIST402 goes through about 200 pages a week! (eek!), but the others are a much more normal 30-50 pages a week. That I can deal with!

Almost every night this week we went out as a big exchange group:

• Monday: The Gallery - our new second home! (partly because Koerners was completely full)
  
• Tuesday: Exchange Student night at Koerners.
  
• Wednesday: Abi's 21st at an awesome wine bar in Yaletown called Bar None.
  
• Thursday: Salsa classes (finally!) & seeing Snakes On A Plane downtown - best Z-grade film EVER!
  

Still no assignments yet ... thank goodness!

This past week has been insane! It's as if classes have formed a minor inconvenience around our endless sightseeing and the like. So here goes the recap:

On Sunday a group of us headed to Stanley Park to cycle around and take in a bit more of downtown. Everything still seems so far away from campus, and it's taken a while to get my bearings, but slowly I'm sure it will all come together.

Stanley Park is the world's 2nd largest urban park and it's brilliant! Apparently there's an aquarium and all sorts of mini-parks inside, but today we just cycled along the boardwalk around it (it's on the peninsula) and into the water park area. The weather was perfect for it too!

On Sunday night we went to the Pit again with the international students. Looks like we've discovered our 'local'. And it's only 2 mins walk from my place. Yay!

Monday was a public holiday (Labor Day) and so a small group of us (Anna, Ella, Ali, Emily, Hanako, Chelsea and I) went to Granville Island to see the markets and have lunch (at Bridges). The markets were awesome - so much fresh food and so cheap - which is great considering they are fairly close to UBC. Also has some of the best street entertainment and buskers I've seen in a long time. We also continued downtown to Sears where I got a new satchel bag (from Roots - the quintessential Canadian brand).

Monday night I went with a completely different group (Natasha, Bailee, Jacki, Will, Sebastian and I) to Wreck Beach for a party. It was fairly cold (by my beachgoing standards) and more than a little interesting! We arrived after sunset, found a place near one of the big fires, and cracked open the alcohol. All was going well until we were approached by a drunk nudist (it's a clothing-optional beach) and threatened to be fed to the sea lions. He was fairly specific with his methods, so we took the opportunity to run off into a whole bunch of Canadians. Things couldn't have turned out better, as we met a group of first-years - one of whom knew the Cat Empire - awesome, eh?

Tuesday-Friday was mostly spent organising University ('school') life, and I had my first classes for all my subjects. They all look SO interesting, so I'm really happy. I even managed to meet friends in all of them, which makes a huge difference. Will from Sydney is in one of them, and Natasha (from Nottingham) is in another. The only crap subject is Modern Caribbean History, which I have changed to Anthropology of First Nations. That's not going very well either, so we'll see and I may change it again!

On Tues night I went out to dinner with two Singaporeans (Grace & Elizabeth) from my Asian International Relations class for Pho - Vietnamese noodle soup. Best cheap meal in a long time! Great company too!

Wednesday night was the first Pit night, and it was PACKED. Crazy crazy busy so we just gave up and headed to the Gallery with its couches and better music. Nice and chilled with excellent company.

On Friday night we headed to the Richmond Night Markets. We had thought this would be similar to those we'd all experienced in SE Asia, but alas this was not to be. Instead it was all overpriced food and tacky souvenirs. Ah well, you live and learn! It didn't help that it took 90mins to get there!

On Saturday we made the big trek to Metrotown (Canada's 2nd largest shopping mall) for the quintessential North American experience - drinking Starbucks in the mall. This place is massive, but hella fun. They even have a shop named Tristan. It's an upmarket ladies fashion shop!

Saturday night we headed to Hanako's Marine Drive Party. MD is another residence on campus, and it's amazing. Seriously like a hotel, it's light-years ahead of Gage and it's concrete ugliness. The Absinthe was finished, the music was good and the company was excellent. We ended up at Mahoney's - the Irish pub - for more beer and shenanigans.

Sunday was therefore spent recovering and Bailee, Jacki, Gretchen, Natasha and I stayed in to watch Shrek II on DVD, eating chocolate and crisps. Mmmm.... junk food!

Howdy!

So I've arrived and ensconced in my little apartment here in Vancouver.

What am I doing here, I hear you ask? Well, I'm here on exchange, studying mostly Political Science (aka Government to us USyd'ers) and History units. I'm staying on campus at a residence known as Gage. It's a huge tower complex, but it's really social, friendly, and definitely the most central of all residences. The longest walk I'll have to one of my classes is just under 10 minutes - and that's if I walk slowly!

This past week we've had our own little International Student Orientation - known as GALA. GALA, I learned, is so named because of the Gala apples that are native to BC. Nifty, huh? It's essentially a chance for all incoming exchange- and new full-degree international-students to meet, greet, learn a bit about Canada and UBC and have fun! It's all very contrived (we even have little getting-to-know you sessions), but done with a bit dose of tongue-in-cheek which makes it far easier to swallow. Regardless, I'm a firm believer in the "ask stupid questions to get to know people" school.

Well, we started off with a breakfast of crepes with the funniest waiter in Canada! Every time he came to serve us he adopted a new accent - very odd, but a great way to start the day. If it wasn't for the half-full mochas, I'd go there all the time! From there we went to the Residence Welcome at Gage, which basically read the riot act for all of us, then had lunch before going to the GALA Community Welcome at the shaped-like-a-violin Chan Centre. UBC like to build buildings in various shapes, the new library looks like an open, up-ended book (not so good for the spine though!).

The welcome itself was quite good - we heard from the AMS (Student Union) President as well as some Deans etc. The highlight for me was the so-tacky-it-was-funny Canadian folk band and the Welcome to Country. The W2C was so well done, and actually gave us an idea of how far the First Nations peoples have come in Canada over the last 50 years. Australia - take note!

Then it was onto the Meet-and-Greet with out GALA group. Mine wasn't such a talkative group, but we get along quite well, and it served as a nifty springboard to meet others. And before long it was time to board the yellow school buses (!) to the Picnic at the Beach. The picnic itself was fairly mediocre, especially for $10, but the socialising was nice and the setting (Spanish Banks Beach) was beautiful - just very cold by the time the sun started setting. So we retired, in traditional style, to the Pit for more shenanigans. Now if only I could get away from all these Aussies ... !

Day 2 was more of the same, with the daytime highlight being the BBQ lunch - oh so nice - and the Canada 101 session. To be honest, we all expected this to be a basic "Welcome to Canada" session, but it turned out to be quite a comprehensive political, social and historical background to Canada. Kinda boring to non-history/poli-sci students, but fascinating to me! I'm so glad I went as I was getting all cranky that I couldn't study Canadian history whilst I was here. Oh, and we all formed to write 2010 in people - because Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics with Whistler.

We all went back to get changed and ready for the Boat Cruise. We were contemplating having a few pre-party drinks, but none of us ended up having time so we boarded hoping there'd be at least some alcohol... but no Not that we need alcohol, it just would be nice! The cruise itself though was great - Vancouver really doesn't need to do anything to sell itself - the snow-capped mountains, lakes, sea, harbour and forests do it for them! After the cruise, a large group of us ended up on Granville St (Vancouver's George St) for drinks at the Roxy Burger Bar ... quite nice really, given it was supposedly a burger bar!

The final day of GALA was spent with our final meeting and trip down to watch the T-Birds play Canadian Football (aka Grid Iron). It was an exercise in audience tolerance for most of us, as it proceeds SO slowly. What I couldn't get past was how many players they had! They have 2 teams - one entire one for defence, and another for offence. And they keep on swapping depending on the tactics. I'm sure if I understood it, I'd love it, but given that it look almost two hours to get through the first 45min half, with all the stoppages, I just didn't get into it. The atmosphere was great though! Can't wait for the Shrum Bowl!

I also got to meet my rez mates today - because they all moved in! So it's now Clayton, Rob and Craig (who lived together last year); Isaac; Sebastian and myself. And guess what, we all get along! yay!! My biggest fear overcome

After a BBQ dinner at Gage (how I love free welcome BBQs), a small group of us headed downtown to grab dinner. We ended up in that quintessential Canadian shop - Tim Hortons (Canadian for coffee) and had a great time high on caffeine and lack of sleep! Remember Amanda, keep on talking to that door! Then we headed back to campus and decided to check on the frat party that was supposedly happening. It clearly wasn't, and within 30 seconds we all felt uncomfortable and the two non-Aryans amongst us were insulted because they 'spoke English and were Asian'. Classy guys! And so it was back to the pit! No surprises there

Oh, and this is my 100th post! Yay! Go me for actually doing this semi-properly. I hope it's been interesting and at least slightly informative! My travels are always going to be more interesting to be than everyone else, but I'm hoping some of my excitement is conveyed in my writing.

For more photos of GALA, click here.

So here I am... I'm actually, finally, really here.

Yay! *cue little excited jumping around the room* (Hey, there's no one here to notice! :P)

Already I've noticed the HUGE difference between UBC and NUS (and USyd for that matter too):

• It's at a completely different scale. I know Universities always feel huge when you first arrive, but with 12,000 students living here, and 40,000+ studying, it has to be huge. And it definitely is - especially with no nifty shuttle bus doing the rounds.

• Everyone is really friendly - in lifts, they wait for you; everyone says 'hi'; bus drivers give directions and are patient; sop assistants start sporadic conversations with you. What began as something that was kinda creepy has rapidly turned into something I'm convinced would make Sydney a better place if we adopted it. How can a city be dangerous or dull if everyone has such a positive attitude!

• The food on campus is not only cheap, but of fairly good quality. And there are loads of 'chain' restaurants here too - and three pubs which can only be a good thing Each of them are hugely popular for their own special 'nights': Koerner's for its live music on Mondays, The Gallery for its $8 pitchers and karaoke on Tues, and the Pit for its Wednesday night parties.

• Varsity sport is huge here. It's such a North American thing and the rumours/stereotypes are true. There are jocks and cheerleaders and quarterbacks and frats and sororities. It's just so bizarre to actually be here in amongst it all!

• Student politics are alive and well, but not in the way we know it. There are no big rallies/political debates or anything ... yet. Apparently student elections are just as debaucherous and narrow-minded as at home! Yay! And there's no VSU!

But back to what I did today - I got my UBCCard (Student ID) and U-Pass (unlimited transport pass) from the bookstore, shopped around a little for random supplies (and noticed how many things have 'UBC' written on 'em!), before taking a tour of campus. This only re-affirmed my belief that the campus is HUGE, but it was a great way to meet people - so far I've met Nicole (UQ), Ella (Melbourne), Clare (USyd), Fi (Nottingham), Cat (Brighton) and Hunter (USA). Not a hugely varied group there I know, but it's early days!

A group of us had dinner at the on-campus Irish Pub Mahoney's (every University should have one of these!), which was great, and an awesome way to meet the other Sydneysiders who are here. After that we thought we'd try out the 'Pit' - the infamous UBC version of Manning. Only more 'pit-like' and seedy. At least pre-semester it's quite quiet and we even danced a little!