Not the Wrong Bus, but Not the Right Bus Either

So I have learned some new things about Australia this week mostly dealing with how they talk. Australians like to pluralize things, like the word math. To them it's not math it's "maths" and yes the 's' is on purpose. It's really awkward because I now spend a long time wanting to correct people or I have to stop myself from looking at them funny. My second example is Lawn Bowling, which is not actually called Lawn Bowling, but rather it's called Lawn Bowls. Which makes no sense, in any context. Also, on a note about lawn bowling, it's the most ridiculous sport. You are on this grassy field with a bunch of balls, one of which is small and white. You roll the small white ball to the other end of the field and then try to roll your balls as close to the little white one as possible and closer than your opponent. The thing is the grass is short and the balls move really fast and curve a lot so you have to throw them very lightly, which is harder than it sounds. I am a terrible lawn bowler, but luckily the person I was playing against had never done it either and wasn't Australian so had no particular attachment to the sport (which may or may not have originated in Australia, but I'm assuming) so we changed the rules. Our rules are that you have to hit the little white ball with the bigger balls and it doesn't matter if they stay close to it or not. I won, but only because I was the only one who it, which I only did once out of 10ish rounds. Lawn Bowls is dumb.
Other weird things Australians do to their words is add the letter O to the end of words they have shortened. Like 'arvo' for afternoon, or changing the name Dan to Dano, and there are more that I can't think of. It's very odd. But I do love listening to them talk. One more, that the trunk of a car is called the boot. Which leads me to wonder if Australians understand the expression 'junk in the trunk', just something to think about.
So my lesson from this weekend is to pay more attention to what bus I take and the route said bus takes. My friend and I took the bus to Fremantle (which is cool town on the coast) on Saturday and when we looked at the bus schedule we saw that there were a couple options that involved two buses and one that involved one bus. So we took the one bus route thinking it was the best. It wasn't. We then proceeded to spend two hours on the bus, which is a really long time, especially since we were starving. At one point we filmed ourselves lamenting our inability to think things through. We did eventually arrive at our destination and ate some fish and chips and got to wander around for a bit with our other friend who had managed to take a reasonable bus. I now want to live in Freo (which is short for Fremantle and another example of the adding of the O). It's on the water and a good place to hang out.

Australian Birthday

I'm trying to remember what I have done in the past week. I bought furniture, which makes my room look more like a place someone would want to live and I met the other people in my program. There are 12 of us and only maybe 6 of those people are full time. Everyone else works and has kids. There are two other international students, although I think only one of them actually counts as an international student as the second one has now moved to Australia. I think you only count as international if you have to go back at then end of your studies.
On Friday I went out with a friend to the biggest bar ever. There is a large inside with two bar sections and a wrap around patio, then you can go through the restaurant bit where there is another outdoor section with another bar and a section for private parties. I was huge. I also learned why drinks here are so weak, which is because they actually measure out the alcohol. It's very strange. Also there is no tipping here, which is hard to get used to. I feel cheap for not doing it, although then I remember how much I just paid and don't feel so bad.
I have yet to get hit by a car, which is a bonus, and I am starting to get used to the direction of traffic, but it's a rough change. I've started biking to school, which works out well because it is so much faster than walking and I don't think I get that much sweatier. Which I am also getting used to, I swear all I do is sweat and drink fluids.
I went back to the beach for my birthday and it was lots of fun. I also ate panckaes, and they were delicious. Although the bacon was weird. It was kinda a strip, but then got wideer on one end, it freaked me out a little. And my friend ate his with a fork, which is weird. Back to the beach, it was packed and we would go out and play in the waves when it got too hot and then sit on the beach until we were dry and then go back in. And I saw the sun set, it was pretty. As well as entertaining as everyone who was in the water stopped and looked at the sun too, everyone just watched it. My friends alos go the guy at the restaurant to writee "Happy Birthday Jessie" on a plate in ketchup for it, it was pretty awesome. My housemate gave me cupcakes and some scratch tickets and I have won $12.
Classes started this week and I have spent 12 hours in the same room with roughly the same people talking about sex. So far it's been good, but we haven't really started classes, it was a lot of introductory stuff. That's it for now.
Except that there are no bagels in Australia, or at least not many, so I really want a bagel now.