June 5th, Australia Day 104

It is not easy to try an summarize the events of an entire month in one post but I shall have to try. Luckily, not much of truly great importance has happened this month as school work dominated the agenda, mostly. I did have some adventures though and I did get a chance to get out of the city.

At the beginning of the month I had a chance to travel north of Sydney to the suburb of Newcastle. It lies 160 km from Sydney along what I believe is called the "Central Coast". The eastern side of Australia is divided up into several "Coasts" with everything south of Sydney being the South Coast, between Sydney and the border of Queensland, the Central Coast, between that border and Brisbane, the Gold Coast (a popular tourist location) and north of Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast. The Gold Coast in Australia is much like Florida in North America, where students go for their mid-winter breaks. North of Brisbane, towards places like Rockhampton and the perennially popular Cairns, you get into tropical climates.

In any event, being a suburb of Sydney, Newcastle is serviced by the Sydney train system, called CityRail and the ticket was quite inexpensive, something like $6.80. It turns out it is actually cheaper for me to travel 160 km to Newcastle than it is for me to travel about 30 km by train to the airport. It turns out that the airport line is privately owned and thus is more expensive. The ride to Newcastle was uneventful and quiet and upon my arrival I was met by the son and daughter of one of my mother's friends. My mother met this man when she was traveling in Poland in the 1970s and managed to get in contact with him again when she found out I was traveling to Australia.

My time in Newcastle was quite pleasant as I was able to stay overnight. It was the weekend of May 1st, so I was not bound by school to return right away. The night I stayed over, I was treated to an excellent dinner of chicken and other assorted goodies. The next morning, I was taken up a mountain to get a good view of the surrounding area and then it was off to a sort of zoo. It's actually more like a wildlife preserve but I got to see koalas, wombats, kangaroos, wallabies and several species of birds. I was then given a quick tour of Newcastle, which, like its namesake in the U.K., is an important port and serves in that capacity for Sydney. I returned home that evening by train.

I have begun volunteering as a goal umpire for Macquarie University's AFL team, known as the Kookaburras, or simply Kookas, for short. The goal umpire, is the guy behind the goal posts in an AFL game who signals if a goal or a behind has been scored. I think it is one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had and I am enjoying it immensely. Apparently, I have developed something of a reputation for professionalism as I use proper hand and flag signals while most other umpires do not; at least that's what I'm told. On the other sports front, I have begun playing baseball with Macquarie University and before anyone asks, there are no assigned positions. For example, my first 2 games, I played left field, while today I played right field. I prefer to be in the infield, shortstop being my favourite position (like the great Cal Ripken Jr.) but I've been doing O.K. in the outfield. I seem to be somewhat injury prone, as I got hurt, not seriously of course, in my first 2 games. In my second at-bat in my first game, I was beaned, the only batter that game, but the ball merely grazed my thigh and while it stung for a minute, I quickly recovered. 2 games ago, I was sliding into third when I cut my arm, so to speak. The ground is not as sandy as it could be, it is a combination of sand and gravel, and it turns out my arm was too low to the ground. I took some skin off just below the elbow, but that has quickly healed, and in case you're wondering, I was safe at third. My on base average is 0.800, as in 5 at-bats I have gotten on base 4 times; 2 singles, 1 walk, 1 bean but I struck out once.

The rest of May has been taken up with school work and an AFL game or 2 in my spare time. This is the month when many papers were due and I had to quickly organize my thoughts into coherent sentences but I think I have performed well. Trivia is going well and while I have not met with much success at the Wynyard in the city, which is not to say I have not had any success, I have been quite fortunate at the trivia at the SAM Bar on campus. I have latched on to a knowledgeable team and our performances to date have been stellar.

Beyond what has been mentioned, I cannot think of anything else of importance worth writing about. My 100th day in Australia, turned out to be Wednesday, June 1st, and I celebrated by going to the cinema to see "Kingdom of Heaven"; not a bad movie. I have come to the realization that the school year is rapidly drawing to a close as is my time down under.

Photos are now available at: http://australiaday104.blogspot.com/