Within the colleges, the students are very sporty and supportive of their respective college teams, but there are a few sports that everyone gets especially keen about. Rowing is one of them. Competitors train at 5am every morning for 3 weeks, and the season culminates in a big full day of activities deemed "Rowing day." Rowing day starts at about 5:30am when everyone wakes up and gets ready, decking out in Queen's gear and team spirit! Sleepy-eyed, we all head down to the Yarra River and watch the races for the next couple of hours, cheering for our college and munching on some delicious eggs and bacon cooked for us on the barbecues. Unfortunately, Queen's College did not win the rowing competition :( but there was such a great effort from both the boy's and girl's teams!!! It was very exciting to watch- the rowers were working so hard and moving across the river at lightning speed. Afterwards, everyone eats a nice big barbecue lunch and then heads onto party buses, where we celebrate the rowers' success with a pub crawl, followed by a relaxing time at St. Kilda beach and ending with sandwiches and a party at Queen's. It was a really fun day, full of excitement and great college bonding. Even though we did not win, everyone was so proud of all the hard work the rowers put in and really enjoyed the "Rowing day" festivities full throttle.
We were out and about so early that we got to see the hot air balloons that go up in the morning over Melbourne
Here they come! Rowers on the Yarra River
Queen's mascot- a goat! How cool is this guy?
Everyone decked out in their Queen's attire, waiting for more races to begin
The big sports followed in Australia are Rugby and Australian Rules Football (aka "footy"). Rugby is followed religiously in many parts of Australia, mostly in the north and west I believe, but the big sport in the state of Victoria (where the city of Melbourne and I am currently located) is footy. In the spirit of being a tourist in Victoria for the semester, a friend and I decided to go to a footy match to see what all the hubub is about. The game we went to was the Collingwood Magpies versus the Geelong Cats. Apparently, there is a huge rivalry between these two teams. Last year they played each other for the championship and Geelong won, so this year was Collingwood's chance for a comeback. Another thing to know is that Collingwood is the team that everyone loves to hate- kind of like the "Yankees" of Australia. It was a really fun game to watch in the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (MCG), a huge stadium just over the Yarra river. Footy is kind of like soccer, but the ball is a football, when you kick the ball it doesn't roll on the ground it flies in the air, you can hold the ball and run with it, you can punch the ball to your teammates, and to score points you need to kick it through the goal. Also, the playing field is a huge oval that is about 150 meters from goal post to goal post. Collingwood got their chance to defend their honor and won the game in an astonishing comeback 96 to 84, scoring 2 goals after a tied game when there was just 2 minutes left on the clock. So much excitement in the air!
Inside the stadium
Collingwood Magpies- huddled together for a a little pow-ow
Geelong Cats- strategizing
Outside the MCG stadium
Lastly, the other day Katie and I decided to check out an event happening in Federation Square- a celebration of Buddha's birthday!!! It was really fun, and there were a ton of decorations and booths/activities set up in honor of the occasion. We ate delicious dumplings by the river, and brought home a cool Buddha-box prize from the little-kid activities we participated in (the task was to collect a stamp at every station to get the prize- I mean, who says you can't still do those things at age 20?).
Statue set up for donations and prayers
Our wishes in the Bodhi tree garden
Explanation of the garden
Tree of bells- not quite sure what this was for but it was really cool! We were told to listen to each set of bells and see which one we liked best and to take it home!
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