Monday Night Football

This week was the first weekend since February that I didn't have any trips or family visiting, so naturally I spent my four day weekend locked in my room studying. Yeah right, it was a good joke though! I did spend the weekend catching up, but it was catching up on seeing parts of the city I hadn't seen yet. My weekend started Thursday, since I don't have any classes and am ahead on assignments. My Australian class was supposed to have two field trips the last two weeks to the National Sports Museum and the Immigration Museum, but they were both cancelled due to lack of interest. I decided to make my own field trip instead. I started at the Sports Museum because I wanted to make sure I got enough time there. The museum is at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, the main stadium in Melbourne, and I got a tour of the grounds with admission to the museum. It's always exciting for me to see other countries' sports, but the stadium facilities make me realize how pampered and spoiled our athletes are. The locker room looks like a high school locker room, and the recovery area was a few massage tables and cold tubs. I wonder what they would think if they came to Lambeau or even Camp Randall and saw how nice those locker rooms are. After the tour I explored the museum. It was really cool to learn about cricket and footy, but I wish I knew who the legends were so I could've appreciated it more.

Melbourne Cricket Ground

I stopped for a quick lunch at KFC before making my way to the immigration museum.Unless you are of Aboriginal decent, you or your family immigrated to Australia, so Australia has a huge immigration history. We had spent the last week of my Australian class talking about Australia's immigration policy and how for years it had been dominated by British and white Europeans. Even today, Australia's reaction to refugee seekers show their prejudice to any non-Europeans. Since we had spent so much time talking about immigration policy (I even taught a discussion on it), it was really interesting to go to the museum. The museum gave a biased view since it is run by the government, but some of the prejudices could still be seen. I didn't get to spend as much time at the museum as I wanted to because I spent so much time at the sports museum, but I still had a good time.

After a long day of studying Friday (not really, I'm having a very hard time getting motivated) I went back into the city on Saturday. Mahreen had told me last weekend in the Grampians that she had not been able to explore the city yet. I couldn't believe that since we have lived 20 minutes away for 3 months now, so I told her I would take her around. We started at Queen Victoria's Market because she wanted some souvenirs, and well I just love the market. My favorite part is all the food vendors, so we ate there for lunch. She loved the boreks just as much as I do, although neither of us know what they are or where they come from. We just agreed that these meat or dessert filled pastries are amazing! After the market we walked to the MCG. The walk from the market to the MCG goes through the part of the city I've spent most of my time, so I don't get too excited about it, but Mahreen was loving every minute of it. It made me realize how lucky I am to be living in such a cool city!

I may have seen this view a hundred times, but the trees are turning color now and it's beautiful!

Once we got to the "G" Mahreen was on cloud nine. She grew up in Pakistan, so her family is really into cricket. I guess Australia is one of the world's best teams and she took tons of pictures to show her family where they train. Cricket is not my favorite sport, but it was just another reminder of how unique of an opportunity I have here. The next thing on Mahreen's "to do" list was to get coffee at one of Melbourne's many cafes, so we decided to walk along the Yarra until we found one. We had to walk quite a ways, but finally found one near Crown casino. I hadn't been to this part of Melbourne yet, so it was new to me to. We each got a coffee and Tim Tam cake that was too die for! (Tim Tam's are a chocolate wafer/cookie that may just be the best thing about Australia.) By this time I had dragged Mahreen around most of the city, and she was pretty worn out so we called it a day. I made it home around 7, just enough time to sit down and watch my first Australian Rules Football match from start to finish. Actually, I counted this as homework because we were going on a field trip Monday night to the "Footy" with my Australian Idol class, and I wanted to be caught up on the rules. Don't tell me I don't study on weekends! (I feel like Kelli who studied for her modern Irish culture final by going to a pub and listening to the music. This study abroad stuff is hard work)

I spent Sunday doing what I've done almost every Sunday in Australia (or at least every Sunday I've been at Monash). I walked into Clayton (about a 40 minute walk) to get apples at the fruit market (it's fall here, which means apple season!) and other groceries at the supermarket. Then I go to church to practice with the choir before Mass (yes, they forced me to join the choir even though I am possibly the worst singer ever). Usually I walk back to my dorm with Arch for dinner, but since it was Mother's Day all my Catholic friends and I took Arch out. Arch is finishing up her masters here at Monash while her husband and 2 little boys are back in the Philippines. We knew she had been missing her family a lot lately, and we didn't want her to be alone on Mother's Day. We went to Glen Waverley, for Asian food (surprise surprise) which I think was Chinese this time. I never really know, I just eat whatever they tell me to. Luckily, no feet this time.

I had so much fun not doing any work during the weekend, that I decided to extend the weekend into Monday night. I have heard so many people talk about Footy here, and I loved watching it on TV Saturday, so I was super excited to go to the big Monday Night Footy game with my Australian Idol class. My professor's team, the Carlton Blues, were playing the St. Kilda Saints at Etihad Stadium, Melbourne's second largest stadium. We usually have "Uni" until 6, but we stopped at 5:30 so we could "make a start" and join the "heaps" of people heading to the "Footy." (That's just a sample of the new vocabulary I've picked up here) The whole train was filled with fans decked out in their Carlton and St. Kilda scarfs, jerseys, and hats, but even with all the people we were able to walk up to the box office and get about 30 tickets no problem, and they were only $12 each! I'm going to try heading up to Lambeau next season for a Monday Night game and ask for 30 $12 tickets. I'm pretty sure they would just laugh at me.

The game itself is a mix between soccer, basketball, football, and rugby. That's about the best way I can describe it without showing you. It is so fast paced. The players are flying around kicking and "hand balling" the ball to each other and trying to score a goal (6 points for kicking the ball between the inner goalposts) or a behind (1 point for kicking the ball between the outer goalposts). I watch an unhealthy amount of sports, so I was able to pick up pretty quickly. I have to admit, it makes American football look pretty slow. We stop after every play for 20-40 seconds, but this game is nonstop for 30 minute quarters! The crowd was just as interesting as the game. We were up in the highest section where I think the true fans sit. Fans were complaining about every call the umpire made (an universal habit I think) and randomly shouting "Ball!" No one, including the Australians I was sitting next to seemed to know what that means or when you're supposed to say it, so I randomly yelled "Ball!" too just to fit in. I could say it whenever I wanted, and people would agree with me. I still have no clue what it means. I asked another one of my Australian friends today, and she thinks it means you want your team to pick up the ball, which is the whole point to the game so why people feel the need to remind their team to do it is beyond me. The other thing that surprised me was the amount of fighting between the players. Before the first "bounce" the teams started pushing and shoving each other, and it never stopped. One guy got his jersey ripped off, and another time I was watching the ball on one part of the field when the whistle blew and play stopped. I asked the Australians what happened and they said that one guy punched the other team so they got a free kick like it wasn't a big deal. It was worse than hockey!

Mahreen Jess and I at the Footy

In the end, St. Kilda won and my professor pouted the whole ride home. I was instantly hooked, and am looking for any opportunity to watch more. I already planned to go the a game at the MCG with my Australian friend, and have found that ESPN.com has AFL back in the States. In fact, it's on live at around 2 AM Saturday morning sometimes too in case you want to watch. If not, here's the highlights form the game last night.