Stubby

"Stubby": Australian word for a bottle of beer (those typical sized ones, about the size of a coke bottle).

Ex: "Crack me open a stubby, will ya, mate?"

So I've been really bad with keeping up with the entries, but not because I'm lazy. There's actually not really much going on, and I didn't want to make a bunch of "so I really didn't do anything today except mess around my room" updates. Today was a bit more exciting and thus worthy of a post.

I got up relatively late this afternoon, and thus had to mad bum rush out the door in order to meet up with my buddy mentor, Ruth. Ruth is this red-haired girl from Scotland with a wonderful sense of humor (I'm very jealous of all these people who can make such witty conversation). She was paired up with me through a University mentor program and has been taking me around Brunswick. She also introduced me to some of her friends, including a Melbournian girl and a Sydneysider guy. Sadly enough, real Australians are such a rarity that meeting them are always very exciting. I am especially determined to become good friends with the girl, but she's not making it easy for me. Maybe she sensed my desperation, but whatever it was, she didn't seem too interested in holding a conversation with me. -_- Ruth also gave me her desk lamp, which effectively completed the last missing piece of my room furniture. I finally have a dresser, desk, bed, chair and lamp, all of which were donated or picked off the street. Go homeless Camille!

Yesterday was spent attending the Tropfest 2008 Short Film Festival, which apparently is the biggest short film festival worldwide. I never knew short films would be so interesting. If anyone watches it, keep an eye out for "Marry Me" and "Scab," my two top favorites. After the festival, Ruth, a couple of her friends and I went to a few bars. I finally let myself get cajoled into buying a pint of Guinness, which is one of the nastiest tasting beer yet. It's certainly very pretty, because you can see it fizz up and the beer goes from waves of cream to dark amber, but UGH! It has the worst bitter taste ever! The barmaid added a shot of "black currant" (raspberry) to make the beer sweeter, but I still couldn't finish it and had to give it to two other people to drink.

Now back to the present. Today I met up with a couple of UC EAP students to just wander around inner city Melbourne and Flinders Street. Melbourne certainly is a very nice city, but I miss Sydney's proximity to the ocean. Hopefully I'll grow to love Melbourne even more and stop pining after Sydney's beaches. Tomorrow, we are planning to hit the Queen Victoria market and later on, its night market (there's supposed to be only one more left before it closes for the end of summer). More updates tomorrow!

Oh, and it has gone from cockroaches to disgusting black-and-white striped mosquitoes. I'm being eaten alive out here!