Brock week 11 + New york

Sunday morning I got up early (not really – 9am) and caught the bus with all the international students to Toronto. There we met up with a few of the other Aussies who were in Toronto the night before, and had lunch at a local sports bar. This bar contained a ridiculous number of televisions… I mean RIDICULOUS! There was even one on the roof, I guess in case someone was lying on the floor and didn’t want to have to turn their head to watch the game.

From there we went to the Air Canada Center to watch the Toronto Raptors take on the Boston Celtics. The atmosphere there was fantastic. We had seats half way across the court and up high but the view was still good. We saw TV camera’s and reporters doing their sports reports. I made an effort to get in the view of the camera and make a fool of myself.

The game was very exciting. To start with Boston cleaned up and got to a nice lead, we figured that they had it in the bag. Then Raptors came back and extended a lead of their own. In the last quarter, Boston came back and got ahead by; 6 points with just a couple of minutes to go. Toronto somehow managed to pull out a win by one point in the last 30 seconds of play! The crowd went wild. Halftime entertainment and timeout entertainment was really cool as well. They had the mascot do a flip slam dunk off a trampoline, the had numerous cheerleaders, and the best of all was the dog relay race with the most hyperactive dogs I have ever seen. Every sport game I have been to here in Canada, there has been a win to the team I supported. It appears that I am Canada’s lucky charm!

On Sunday night when I got back from Toronto, Tyson picked me up and we went to Southridge church’s Sunday night youth program. It was really good, most of the songs I hadn’t heard before so it was cool hearing something new. It was a good time to reassess my priorities.

Monday – classes, washing, doctor yet again. It appears my infection is still lingering about even after about 6 weeks. I found out that for my presentation I got 96%. Such a pleasant surprise considering I was only expecting around 60%! On Monday night I went to Isaac’s bar on campus with Lachie and Adam, where we watched the Monday night football. I left a little bit early to go to hockey. I borrowed my don Andrew’s hockey equipment which was 2 sizes too big, but hey, beggars cant be choosers. At hockey, I improved my game again, this time I even scored a goal! Slipped one past the keeper! Some may argue that it was a fluke, but I beg to differ haha.

On Tuesday I went to the Pen Centre to soak up the Christmas atmosphere and do a little Christmas shopping. I had lunch with Whitney that day, and we had a really great conversation and shared some stories. After class, Elle (girl from MW) asked me to accompany her to the hospital because she had sore knees. So we caught a couple of buses to the hospital where we found that the emergency wait was 6 hours! Stuff that! So we taxied to another hospital that was shut and seemed very derelict, but sure enough out the back there was a back door to a dodgy looking waiting room. I waited in the room while she saw the doctor. Then we taxied back to brock.

As soon as I got back, we had our hall meeting. This week was shave week. All the boys on our floor had been growing their facial hair all November and this night, any girls that donated to prostate cancer got their name in a hat. The boys would pick a name out of the hat, and that girl would get to choose how the mustache would be shaped for the remainder of movember. I picked Carly. She was pretty nice to me and I ended up with a trucker mustache. Much better than a lot of the other boys on the floor. Andrew had stripes across his face!

Wednesday was a very lazy day. Taught Lisa some guitar – she picked it up very quickly. Study –pffft yeah right. My room got broken into (well not really I left it unlocked) and all my furniture was rearranged by Taylor and Nicole. I was so flustered and couldn’t find my stuff because of the rearrangement. Went to the Pen again to send a Christmas package home as well as a special Canadian package to Neily Poos in Ireland.

On Wednesday arvo, Mark arrived from North Bay. We hung out for a while, had dinner, then went to Wainfleet to see Amanda. She was running a game at her church for the youth group, we got a bit lost so missed out on the game. The youth had gone inside to watch a movie so Mark and Amanda and I hung out in the really nice gymnasium and played some games of our own. Mark and I made up our own baseball game, slogging the balls all over the auditorium. There was a nice piano in there as well so I spent 10 minutes or so having a tinkle of the old ivories. After that we went to Amanda’s house and ate caramel corn, talked snowboarding and held our breaths. With Mark’s hyperventilating technique I held my breath for 3 minutes, smashing my previous record. Stoked about that one.

Thursday morning after a bit of a sleep in and breakfast, we headed off for our roadtrip to New York City – The big Apple. Mark, Lachie, Sophia and I all cramped into a sexy blue two door Toyota Yaris. I drove for a few hours. The border didn’t take very long this time which was good. We had fun playing a game like punch buggy but for yellow cars so it was a lot more frequent. Got a slightly dead leg. Hamish and Andy helped us on the ‘drive home’ for a couple of hours as well. We drove past Scranton – the town from the tv show ‘The Office’. Lachie took us on the final leg through the heavy traffic through New York and into Brooklyn. There were a few tedious moments in the car in New York. At one stage we skidded about 10 metres to stop hitting a stationary taxi. We also got a bit lost through New York because we didn’t have a gps, but only google map directions. Somehow we made it there by 1030pm.

Brooklyn is a very slummy/shifty area of the city. Our house that we were staying in, at first looked like we made a big mistake. There was a huge overgrown garden, and the house looked really old, even haunted. When we went inside however, it was really friendly, and the building, whilst old, had a lot of character. The floors were far from level, one toilet had a roof about 1.5 metres high, the stairwells had support beams, and there were stairwells popping up everywhere. Plenty of rooms! We had our own room to the four of us.

The next day, we woke up bright and early at 7 for a big day in the city of New York. We caught the subway to Times Square, where we had a McDonalds breakfast, followed by wandering around the huge area filled with shops and lights and signs and America! Times Square is a much bigger area than I had expected. It is also very much like the Strip of Vegas – extravagant for want of a better word. The signs on the buildings were MASSIVE! The shops were huge, occupying multiple stories a lot of the time. We stopped at the M & M’s store – multilevel, as well as the Toys R Us that had its own Ferris wheel in the shop. There was a sweet NBA shop, and NHL shop that we also visited. Of course I couldn’t come to new york and not buy the I heart NY shirt. I wore it all weekend…such a tourist haha.

We went up to the 69^th floor of the Rockefeller centre where the 360 degree view was spectacular, and included Central park, and the Empire State Building. Had lunch at a real New York Diner serving their ‘prime’ burgers and chips. After that we hailed the hard to find New York taxi, and caught it to McGee’s Bar – which is the pub that the McLaren’s pub from How I Met Your Mother is based on. Had a snack there, chilled at the booth just like Barney, Ted, Robin, Lily and Marshall do.

Our next stop was Christopher Columbus circle, adjacent to Central Park. We met a semi creepy guy dressed up as Spiderman hanging around the playground. Then there was the Central Park ice skating rink. The Grinch ‘Mark’ didn’t want to join, so Sophia, Lachie and myself hired skates and went skating at probably the coolest location ever. It was really fun even though it was packed. After the skate, we walked through Central Park – no muggings - no chance anyone would want to mess with me with my chopper moustache! We saw the John Lennon memorial as well as the fountain from the FRIENDS intro.

Back to Broadway for Mary Poppins, playing in the New Amsterdam theatre. We had seats right up the top, but still had a decent view of all the happenings. The show was spectacular and went for about 2.5 hours! One of the things that impressed me the most was the sets and how they changed as well as some cool stage magic. A great show – much better than I was expecting. Ever since the show, every time Mark and I go up or down stairs, we do it the way Mary Poppins did it so quickly and gracefully. That always gave us a laugh.

After the show most food places were shut but not the Whopper bar. It was a BK type place that sold all the big burgers. We got a whopper pizza. Yeah you read right – a whopper so big that it had to be cut into 6 slices like a pizza. We all shared the 2500 calorie beast. Subway back to Brooklyn and said goodnight to a spectacular day in New York.

The next morning we slept in a big until about 9. Subwayed to the start of the Brooklyn bridge. Walked across that, had breakfast in Starbucks and met Helene the kiwi (also at Brock) there, as she had just arrived by bus. From there we caught the Staten Island Ferry which went past the Statue of Liberty – no surprises in that department.

The 9/11 site was still under construction but we visited it anyway, and saw the plan for the 500 million dollar memorial. Then we visited Wall Street with the Trump building and Stock Exchange. There were a gang of kids skating on the street trying to land a specific trick off a bench seat. Mark went and borrowed one of the guys boards then did the trick they were trying much to their enjoyment and surprise. He did a lot of skating as a kid. Visited Macy’s which was huuuuuge! Too packed though.

After that we went to my favourite Red Lobster for dinner – but it was too long a wait! So instead we ate at Ruby Tuesdays. The food was fantastic anyway and we even got the complimentary scones – or as the Yanks call them ‘biscuits’.

We rushed to Madison Square Garden after dinner to watch Circe Du Soleil – Wintuk. The show was amazing – it blew all my expectations. The story line was hilariously nonexistent. But the stunts were amazing. They had incredible jugglers, gymnasts, roller bladders, skateboarders, Bike riders, contortionists, hula hoopers, skippers, tightrope walkers and balancers just to name a few. They did things that you wouldn’t believe if I told you. Very entertaining!

Heading back after the show, we got split up in the subway. Mark and I were attracted to the sound of drums, Lachie was on a mission and ahead of everyone, and the girls were left dilly dallying. They all met up but mark and I stuck by ourselves the rest of the night.

There was a homeless guy playing drums on a bunch of buckets, pots and pans in the subway station, and he was AMAZING! Mark got his headbang on! – Need to see videos to know what I’m talking about. We decided to head back to the hostel but got severely muddled up with the subway system night changes, and ended up taking about 2 hours to get the right train home. The others came back soon after us.

The next morning we caught the subway to Times Square where we met up for our Harlem Gospel Tour. We hopped on a bus with Lachie’s parents, and got toured around the area of Harlem. It’s a predominately Afro American area, and not the richest area even though most apartments cost around 1500 a month for rent. We got a good historical overview, saw the Apollo theatre, Seinfeld restaurant.

Then we stopped at a local Pentecostal church for the service. It was so gospel like you wouldn’t believe! Like in the movies but even more so. It was really cool, it was pretty much a big jam session and singing celebration. Lots of clapping, dancing, hallelujah’s and singing. I was really impressed with the musicians! They were fantastic and the songs went for about 10 minutes each. Unfortunately we had to leave before the sermon began which I would have liked to stay for. Apparently their church goes for about 3-4 hours.

After the tour we went back, packed the car, wrote down directions and headed off on our long drive back home to Brock University. The traffic was very bad because everyone was heading home from Thanksgiving weekend. We had a close encounter with an empty tank of petrol as well but thankfully made it to the servo.

Brock Week 10

On Saturday afternoon, I caught the greyhound bus to Buffalo with Lachie. Even though the driving distance there is only half an hour, it took us about 3-4 hours! This was all because of the waiting for buses, waiting for border security/customs. They were really slow. It was ok, I got to have a nap on the bus. So we arrived at the buffalo bus terminal, caught the first of many taxi’s to our hostel downtown. Walked to the ice hockey arena where we went to watch the Buffalo Sabres play the Washington Capitals. The Sabres were pretty low on the ladder and the Capitals were much higher, but this night they played really well. The game was fantastic! I really loved it! Ice hockey is my new favourite game to watch, other than NRL of course. The game is so intense and the halftime entertainment and atmosphere is just awesome. I was cheering with the home crowd for the Sabres, but Lachie supports the Caps. Sabres won, and I got to slap Lachie for the win! Haha.

After the game, we wandered the streets trying to find our hostel. We met some other girls from Brock (They saw us wearing our brock jumpers) who gave us a ride back and were very friendly. We pretty much went straight to bed that night.

In the morning we woke up before everyone else in our 16 bed room, and caught the bus to the Galleria Mall. Little did we know the mall didn’t open up until about lunchtime. The bus ride there took a while and was very ghetto. I kind of enjoyed soaking up the ghetto culture, driving through the streets.

Since the shops were shut Lachie and I waited around until the cheesecake factory opened up for breakfast. I had a delicious pizza. We realised that we missed the only bus that went to the Bills game, so we had to catch another taxi there. The atmosphere before the game was really cool. They have ‘tailgating parties’ which is where everyone and their dog comes and has bbq’s in the boot of their car in the carpark, play music, throw the footy around and drink beer. It very much reminded me of the atmosphere at Bathurst raceway. I bought a football from one of the stands for 6 dollars and we wandered around and threw the footy ourselves, which was fun.

When the time came to go in the stadium, we were told we couldn’t take any projectiles into the stadium, so I had to hide my footy in the bushes. We had seats in the 4^th row on about the 30 yard line which was really close! The game was great to watch, even though it started raining and we didn’t have raincoats. One thing that I didn’t like about the game was all the stoppage time in between plays. At the beginning they had an F1-11 fighter jet do a flyover. It was sick! The Buffalo Bills had their first win of the season defeating the Detroit Lions. It was a close game – nearly a draw.

After the game, we were freezing! Jumped in another taxi back into town. Grabbed our bags, then went to the bus terminal. We met up with Lyndall and her father, who were also at the game but we didn’t see them until the bus station. We caught the bus at 630. Because of the traffic going back across the border, we didn’t get back until about 10pm! I spent the travelling time studying for my test the next day.

The next day was the busiest day of my semester. I had a midterm test at 8am, then at 11 I had my hour long presentation on Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, which I presented with Heather (classmate). It was great to get that finally done.

On Monday night, it was Erika’s (a bcf girl) birthday, so I went along to a celebratory dinner at Boston Pizza. Since there was a lack of rides coming back, I walked back up the hill with Kayla. We had a good chat. Then she and Carly hung out with me in my room till 3am when I skyped my family at the formal. Even though the connection was really bad I got to see a bunch of my friends who I haven’t seen since I left, as well as, of course, my beautiful sister who looked sooo stunning! Didn’t get to sleep till 4am that morning.

There were a couple of days this week that I spent as a hermit in my room doing my last assignment of my degree. Great to get that one done. On Tuesday, the exchange fair was on, and Lachie and I ran the Griffith University booth. We spent time simply chatting to people about how awesome Australia is, and Griffith is, and exchange in general is. That was fun. Im hoping that some of my friends from here make it over to Australia for exchange. That way the tables will have turned and they will be on my turf and I will get to show them all the things to do.

On Wednesday night I went with Lachie, Jess, Kendall, Lisa, and Jayne (all aussies) to Niagara’s Keg for dinner with Lachie’s family. Niagara is like a mini vegas really. The restaurant was really nice, on the 9^th story with a fantastic view over the falls. The food was pretty expensive but very tasty. I had some sweet potato fries and bruschetta type flat bread. It was great to have a meal with a nice friendly Aussie family. Lachie’s parents were both very friendly, and his sister and sister’s friend were visiting as well! After dinner, we visited the casino briefly. Two more taxi rides for the night – I’ve never been in a taxi so much!

I spent a few hours on Thursday with Jasmine, playing the guitar while she sang. We even got the key to the fireplace lounge down in the lobby where there was an old piano, and we shared songs on the piano for a while which made me crave my piano back home even more. I think one of the first things I will do when I get back is spend a good hour playing on that beautiful piano again.

On Thursday night I went to Bible study with bcf at Emily’s house. We had a big group that night, it was really nice. After that, since there were a lack of seats in the cars a group of us decided to walk back to university which was nearly an hour walk. I was headed to the Pen Center to watch the premiere of Harry Potter. I ended up leaving the group and running a good 15 minutes to the pen in the freezing weather.

I managed to find the 12 other people on my floor who were lining up since 8pm. Andrew sweet talked some other people into swapping tickets for us, because we had the wrong cinema. It was hilarious as all the boys had organised down the nth degree what was going to happen when we got in the cinema in order for us all to get good seats together. They were talking about blocking and pinch manoeuvres and stuff like that, it was hilarious that they took it so seriously. The movie started at midnight. It was pretty good. I was amazed at how much of the story I had forgotten since reading the book only a year or two back.

The movie finished around 2:30/3am. Since there were over a thousand people that watched the premiere in 6 cinemas, the taxi line up was ridiculous. My previous method of transportation to get to the Pen worked well enough, so I decided to utilise it again. Ethan and I ran back to university, which took about 20 minutes. I got a nosebleed from running in the cold weather. Slept soundly that night.

On Friday I had my C4C group after lunch. We looked at Stephen’s story. The rest of the day was spent finishing off my assignment. In the evening, my good friends Jon and Rachel (From MW) came and picked me up from residence, and we drove all the way to Waterdown – near Hamilton. We went to Burgers’ house and chatted and ate snacks including Jon’s fabulous homemade Christmas treats and poptarts. We watched the Christmas movies – Elf and the Grinch. After that we watched a documentary called babies which Burgers had bought. It was really random! Pretty much just visuals of babies being breastfed and just lying around crying etc. There wasn’t even a commentary. Haha.

Stayed at Rachel’s house that night and the next morning after a sleep in, she drove me back to res, which was very nice of her. At lunch, we had a residence activity, where we had to do a bunch of challenges. One was to protect an egg from cracking when we dropped it off the building – success – we just padded up a witches hat. We serenaded our don, told a joke to one staff, rolled some grapefruits, and did some charades. Our floor was sure to win!

After lunch, Michael, Andrew, Adede and I went to the Brock Badgers hockey game. It was a great game, which Brock won in penalty shootouts. It went to the 7^th shooter. Very thrilling. I even fell over after cheering when I went to sit down and my seat had flipped up.

That night, it was Becca’s birthday, so we went to a restaurant called the Office in town. The food was delicious and very reasonably priced. When we got back we hung out in the fireplace lounge, played some cards, yahtzee, guitar and piano singalongs.

A great week! Got my last undergraduate assignment done! Should be pretty cruisy from here on out!

Brock Week 9

Last Saturday afternoon, Mum (Amanda) picked me up and we drove to Guelph which is just over an hour west of St Catharines. Guelph is another small university town. We arrived at Hilary’s house in a beautiful neighborhood. Coombs was there too. It was cool catching up, hanging out. For dinner we met Burgers and Kate at a Sports Bar called Moxies. It was really bizarre! The lights were dimmed, the booths and tables were very fancy, looked exactly like a fancy restaurant. But then they are blasting pop music and have tv’s surrounding the walls showing the football and hockey games. My highlights was the toilets which had televisions above each urinal as well as a fireplace!

After dinner, we went back to Hilary’s, played the game ‘Things in a box’ which is always good for a laugh. After watching Hamish and Andy on youtube, we were inspired and took to the street for some three step knocking. It was late at night so most people were asleep which lowered our sample space. We still managed to do a couple of houses. Very funny. Late night, late morning.

In the morning we went for breakfast/brunch to a really cool old-school diner. Food was great, atmosphere was great! I got to drive back to Brock…woo! (Yeah that’s right im a ‘woo’er) In the afternoon I went for a nature walk at a ravine on the Niagara river with Krystyn, Jess (another camp girl) and Krystyn’s brother and sister. We got very lost on the way there but eventually made it. The walk was down a very steep part of the mountain covered in autumn leaves. At one point I buried myself in leaves and scared Krystyn when she came past, it was hilarious. The river was very pretty when we got down the bottom. Took some photos then started the climb up. We decided to be adventurous and not go up on the path but make our own paths. This was probably a bad decision, as it was very slippery and steep. After about half an hour we made it up the top, very sweaty and dirty.

The rest of the week went by pretty quickly, even though I got up to many things throughout. Some of the adventures included: gym, tennis (for the last time, because they took the nets down), hallway cricket, swimming, hockey on Tuesday night (didn’t play), seminar preparation, midterm exam (pretty easy), doctors visits, and movie nights.

On Bible studies on Thursday we went off campus to Nikki’s house, which was such a beautiful house out in the sticks. She had a music room with lots of instruments which I got excited about but we didn’t get the chance to have a play.

On Monday afternoon I played squash for two hours with a guy from my class and his friends. They were all really good, they even wore goggles which I thought was a bit funny. I got cleaned up by a couple of them. Unfortunately I broke the string on my racket, so not sure what I will do now…it costs about 30 for new strings. I only payed 24 for my racket.

On Friday, Andrew, RMD, Becca and I went on an adventure to Buffalo! We had to wait for about 2 hours at the border to get my temporary pass into the states. We played plenty of games in the waiting room including ichi-ni. Once we had that done, we drove around the city, went into an abandoned lot near the bay and hung out there, playing gladiators for a while before our party was pooped by a black 4WD driving towards us. Then it turned its lights on…it was a cop! Apparantly we were trespassing on industrial land. He wasn’t very happy but let us go because we weren’t doing anything bad and weren’t from USA.

We drove to the big Buffalo mall – galleria. Met up with Faith – a friend from camp who lives in Buffalo. I got my snowboard that I bought online mailed to her. So I picked up my board and bindings from her. We did some shopping. Played secret santa even though it wasn’t Christmas and bought each other 5 dollar gifts. I got a girly lock up diary from Andrew which was pretty funny.

That night, we went to the Cheesecake factory for dinner – it was delicious. Then the waitress said that our meal was all taken care of! Some random stranger, perhaps her, had payed for our meal and we didn’t know who it was. What a random generous guesture of kindness! After that we cruised the streets, visited an op shop, walmart, then the movie theatres. We watched Due Date – very funny!

After the movie and some McDonalds shakes we headed home to Brock. The Canadian guy at the border let me take my board over without paying tax. What a nice man! Canadians are so much cooler than Americans.

All in all a great day a great adventure in the land of Canada/America!

Brock Week 8

God is up to something over here in Canada!

So the last week as with all others has flown by so quickly. Last Saturday night I hung out with the bcf people, played some pretty fun games. Sunday morning I went to church at the Pen. The main church broadcasts their service (minus the music) to the movie theatres in the Pen shopping centre. So we had church in the movie theatres, which was cool. It was funny walking into the movie theatres and hearing hillsong being played over the main sound system. In the afternoon the church was hosting a Halloween street party and it was pirate themed. It was pretty fun dressing up and just ‘fighting’ each other in the yard.

I met a really cool guy called Roy who has started Red Frogs in Canada after having studied in Australia and seen the phenomenon it has become there. It was fantastic to finally be able to talk some footy with someone as well! The kids that came by trick or treating had some really cool costumes, and there were some really cute baby costumes as well!

I had an exam the next day so studied hard for that one. Once that was over, my week was over because my Tuesday class was cancelled. Not too shabby! Monday afternoon I visited the doctors to try and sort out my really annoying cough which has been hanging around for over 3 weeks. Got some drugs for that – which turned out to cost 150 dollars! And I couldn’t get it covered by my health insurance…not happy Jan!

The rest of the days of the week are all moulded together in my head. Much of the time was spent actually doing work this week! I have a big seminar coming up soon.

Other activities included shopping trips, hanging out with friends, going to the gym, eating, sleeping, watching television, skyping, and playing the guitar. I played tennis with another BCF guy, Tyson, which is always fun.

Monday night was hockey night! I didn’t play but went along to hang out and watch. Tuesday night was our last night of Boxing Kangaroos volleyball. We got knocked out in a pretty close game. After that I took Sofia along to the Muskoka woods Bible study. We had our floor meeting later that night, after it, while Carly was knitting a scarf, Taylor and I stole her massive ball of wool and unthreaded it all around the hallway and down the stairs and outside and then back up to the lounge. It was hilarious… and totally worth all the time it took to re roll the ball of wool.

Wednesday night I went over to Josh Trinder’s house for a yummy home cooked dinner. After hanging out for a while we went to Sarah Brink’s birthday party. It had a lot of people. It was fun.

Thursday night was BCF bible study night. We went off campus this week to the boys’ house! It was a really cool house! It had 7 of the BCF boys living there….very cool.

After Bible study, Kayla and I hung out with Taylor and Jasmine (It was Taylors birthday) till the wee hours of the morning. Friday night Taylor’s twin brother came to Brock and we hung out for a while eating dinner and pestering people on our floor. At around 9 we went to Jasmine’s house and played some games including hide and seek which was a blast from the past…. I really have lost my touch at that game… I guess I am not the small inconspicuous flexible twisty guy I used to be. Later that night after I had caught a taxi back to res, I had a really cool chat with Andrew aka Soup.

This week I nearly got back into the time zone of Australia. I didn’t wake up before 10am and didn’t go to sleep before 2am. The life of a student!

Taylor and I have a new game we like to play at night times. It’s called interrogation. We didn’t even plan this game or speak about it, its just an understanding between us and it just happens haha. We just go into people’s rooms on our floor and interrogate and question them question after question for about an hour. It’s very entertaining. Some of the questions are pretty random and hilarious as well. And they often turn into deep talks.

This week God has taught me, blessed me, and challenged me in countless ways. I went to bed last night excited. My mind was whizzing yet at the same time I was so relaxed and content.

Ps. Its getting pretty cold, but I am persisting with the thongs