(Not) Feeling Australian #3 – Drinking

As I’m experiencing the Australian culture in all its length, I decided to take part in some drinking events. I don’t know if I mentioned before, but drinking is a quite important aspect of the Australian social life, as happy hours, friends catch ups and parties in general quite always involve drinking.

In December and January, I took part in 6 drinking events.

Hash run (twice): a run around the city, where you need to follow arrows, help your fellows and arrive in the end of the path. When everybody is there, we form a circle and the Hash Master conducts a very funny, interactive and culturally unique ceremony, where people end up drinking for different reasons. To be honest, it’s quite a nice game.

Power hour: one shot of beer every minute for 1 hour. People get quite drunk.
Skolling night: a night dedicated to skolling as fast as you can, where different AIESEC local committees form their team, cheer, chant and try to take home the Skolling Cup, which exists since the beginning of the 80’s. People really get into it. It’s impressive. And scary. I just watched.

Vodka night: a Sydney pride night, where people toast for great things existing in the city. Just Sydney people are invited.

Century club: one shot of beer every minute for 100 minutes. I just went for 50 minutes, but the winner stood until the 201st shot. It was quite an unpleasant experience, as people got completely smashed and didn’t enjoy the rest of the day.

As referred in the post title, I don’t really feel Australian in this sense. I don’t really care that people drink sometimes, but having alcohol in every social event and in every ceremony doesn’t seem right to me. Besides, it seems to me that educated and smart people get distracted about drinking moments and its effects instead of being healthy, having great conversations and caring about things that matter.

My last AIESEC conference

The purpose of my visit to Adelaide was actually the AIESEC in Australia National Conference, which I had the pleasure to chair. It was quite a different experience to me to be in another country's national conference, at the same time not understanding the whole picture and being responsible for the accomplishment of all objectives, which involved growth in currently processes, introduction of new strategies and elections of the new leadership team.

What can I say? It was great!!! The national team is quite competent and supportive, the participants were very energetic and I felt very comfortable to tell stories, contribute to an inspirational mood and enhance the individual and organisational learning. Besides, it was great to be again in a passionate environment and test my multitask abilities ;o)

One of the most special moments for me was closing plenary. We all took our shoes off and entered a semi dark room, covered by paper. On the paper we could write the special moments, learnings and desired next steps, while a calm music was playing. Then, everyone received a candle and could place it anywhere it made sense. A final message from my side and each one could give the candle to somebody essential in their conference. It was great to create such an unexpected, different and touching environment for each participant in the final responsibility moments of what probably was my last AIESEC conference.

Thanks Ralph, Mel, Ausra, Michael, Kyle and Ruth for the opportunity. Thanks AIESECers for your energy and for the space to interact and learn from you. See you around!

Adelaide

In January I had the opportunity to go to Adelaide for the first time, a city located in the south of Australia, about which I've heard quite a lot because of Lucy Dodd, who is from there and used to live with me in Sao Paulo.

Adelaide is the 5th biggest city in Australia, with 1.130.000 inhabitants. It doesn't have huge attractions, but an undeniable charm. The Rundle Market, the main streets and the beaches are calm and transmit a sense of familiarity and friendliness.

Thanks South Australians (especially Laura) for the receptiveness.

Feeling Australian #2 - Topless (no pictures!!!)

This post is extremely personal, but I need to do it, especially for my MC mates, to whom I told I was going to Australia to play beach volley and do topless. Well, I’ve played beach volley before and it was not a big deal. But the topless remained as a challenge.

Just after coming back from Melbourne, I had one free day and decided to go to the beach by myself. As I was alone and there were other women doing topless, I decided that was the right moment for trying it myself.

Very shy, I took off my top and remained laid down, so it wouldn’t be too evident. The interesting thing was nobody really paid attention to me. Everybody in the beach continued doing what they were doing, girlfriends were not particularly jealous and my behaviour was seen as normal.

The whole experience lasted 10 minutes, but it was quite a long time for me. I was impressed and happy with the natural way of seeing the body and the respect for individual choices.

Quite an experience!

Tension in Thailand

The only tense moment of my New Year’s was to receive a text message from my close friend Lucy, currently in Thailand, saying: “Hey hey, before you hear the news, I am safe and well. There have been bombs attacks in Bangkok, but we are at home. Happy new year!”

Once more, we care so much more about what happens everywhere when we have loved people spread around the world.

Apparently the feeling in Thailand is of security again.

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve was absolutely amazing!

First, we invited all AIESEC interns in the country to come to Sydney. And most of them came! Counting alumni, friends and randoms, we were probably 30 – 40 people!

Second, Jhow and Jerry arrived in the Botanic Gardens at 8 in the morning and found the perfect spot for us to see the fireworks: by the harbour, just in front of both the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

Third, we were 3/8 of the MC team together: Jhow, Lucy (who flew from Adelaide) and I. Amazing!

Well, the fireworks show was beautiful! It was quite special as well, as it was celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Harbour Bridge.

After watching it, we all headed to my house and did a little bit of a party there. Then, around 4a.m. we took the bus and went to Bondi beach, to see the sun rising from the ocean in the very first day of the year. As a good Brazilian, I jumped 7 waves and asked for a wonderful year!

Curious #3 - Rainfall water

Recently I bought a bottle of water that had a slightly different taste. Intrigued, I started reading its label and figured out it was rainfall water. Extremely suitable in the driest continent in the world…

Australian Personality #4 – Shane Warne

In December, there were some important cricket matches happening, especially a tournament called the Ashes between Australia and England, which Australia won by far.

But these post in more about Shane Warne, one of the Australian cricket legends, who is retiring now. What makes him interesting (or many other cricket players) is that he is not the stereotype of an athlete. Cricket players are commonly fatter, drink a lot of beer, have many women and party a lot. Even not admiring most of these things, I find it interesting that people feel closer to cricket players than to other extremely disciplined and dedicated athletes.

Twelve Apostles

On Boxing Day (Dec 26th – no clear explanation why it’s called Boxing Day), Michelle and Simon drove us in the Great Ocean’s Road, one of the most beautiful and famous roads in the world. It’s really, really beautiful!

After almost 5 hours we arrived in the Twelve Apostles, these huge rocks in the middle of the ocean, formed by thousands of years of erosion. It’s absolutely breath taking!

The feeling is that nature is powerful, patient and peaceful. And the will is to stay there for hours, just observing, meditating, re-equalising our internal energy.

Curious #2 – Fu**ing Americans

Curious #1 – foreigners welcome!

In the back of the tourist book available in the airport in Melbourne, there is an interesting ad which says: “Enjoyed Melbourne? Come and live here! Information about visas available at…” Could it ever be more foreigners friendly?

Melbourne

Melbourne is quite an interesting city: people are very elegant (lots of them wear black) , there’s quite a lot of culture and the city is very well organised.

However, people seemed to me a little bit colder than the rest of Australia (I’m sure the weather contributed, as despite of the summer it was rainy and cold all the time).

Cool things I found:

Very fancy Southern Cross Station, witch costed AU$ 1 bi (!!!), has an unique architecture and has everything you can imagine inside;

Federation Square, in the middle of the city, place for popular gatherings and for watching cricket, while I was there;

Melbourne Museum, definitely my favourite, with a modern architecture and various interactive attractions, from human body to dinosaurs, aboriginal art and cricket.

Nice to visit, but I still prefer Sydney or Brisbane.

Christmas

Well, it was definitely strange. I went to Melbourne, met my good friend Digidy after 4 years and got to know some of his amazing friends, most of them have lived in China at some point.

Most of the time, I stayed in Michelle and Simon’s house. They were fantastic hosts!

On Christmas Eve, we went to Alfie’s family chinese restaurant and ate great food. On Christmas Day (the most important part of celebration in Australia), we went to the church, exchanged presents, ate a lot of great food (cooked by Simon’s mother) and had a lot of fun.

Luckily, I managed to talk both to my parents and brother. Christmas without family is not the same thing…