Abode to the best hot chocolate, chocolate fondue, signature 'suckao', and everything that has to do with chocolate in the world.
The pictures I post up here are getting pretty much less people oriented. But I will try to get something more interesting by next week's Dutch National Night event thing. Oh, I so dearly wish I could let you guys back home watch me get embarrassed and mocked at by attempting to sing the Dutch national anthem in front of the entire dining hall audience. Whatever happened to the sardonic and passive self in me of yesteryears?
Just passing some time after indulging in a brunch this early morning cum late afternoon session. Food is starting to become a pretty monotonous affair of late except for Friday's 'nasi lemak' dinner which was pretty alright but the non-appearance of the 'sambal' disappointed a little. The curry was bland as in not spicy but tasted okay. The 'ikan bilis' and peanuts were the best part along with the coconut rice. It was pretty funny looking at the reactions of the local people when they saw the 'ikan bilis' or fried anchovies for the first time, I gather and turning them away with gross misconception and disgust to instead go for the other mediocre option of fish and chips. That night was also my first 3-hour 'self-help' session in the dining hall and kitchen duty. It was not as bad as I had imagined it to be but I was pretty worn out after wiping tables, polishing silverware, and serving mounds of rice on famished diners' plates.
I'm beginning to feel more like a regular Melbourne-ite now with traveling up and down from Swanston Street to Bourke Street and Bridge Road now. I have still got to get my hand around navigating the tram stops and trains but it's not so foreign to me now as it was about three weeks ago. It's not even a month that I've been here and I'm already boasting about myself being all city savvy. The unpretentious confidence in my is surfacing way too fast now.
Oh what else to regale about my tales in the city? A group of friends where I was the odd one out or rather I felt like I was managed to get some pretty random stuff at an auction held in a church on Swanston yesterday night where I came out with a mini shelf like thing, two second hand books, and a tissue box cover thing. The rest of us got two table lamps, some cooking utensils and things like that and four ring bind folders. So we were pretty much walking along the streets at night around ten holding all these random stuff and people were staring at us thinking we were refugees or homeless students who couldn't pay the rent and got kicked out of our apartment. The randomness of it all was just too weird and an oddity to pass up. I should've brought my camera along.
My room is probably about 30 degrees and rising as I write this. I have about a metre high of books to cover by tonight. The air-conditioning in the library and computer lab are my friends. I want to talk to old friends and not do my tutes. My tutors and lecturers are weird people and one of them creeps me out a little as I don't really know what to make of him. But he's nice still. Really.
Tomorrow's agenda include maybe catching the Moomba Parade along Swanston Street in the city at eleven in the morning before my lectures at one in the aft, enquiring about the invoicing of my year-long stay here in IH, and seeking to swap my self-help times with someone in the weekend as the weekend dining supervisor guy is nicer and more approachable than the regular lady one during the week as he was the one who let me off half an hour earlier on Friday. She scares me. And so does everyone else new to this who've worked under her this week. Did I mention that he's also an RMIT student studying aerospace engineering and management at the same time during the weekdays? Cool.
