Day 4

No work today. Beate has a meeting so she didn’t see the point in driving back for a small amount of time. She showed me where the Commonwealth Bank was in West End so that I could set up a bank account. It was pretty easy! My other bank at home’s online so I’ve never done this before. I just had to show my passport and sign a sheet of paper. They seemed to get a lot of students setting up temporary accounts since while I was leaving, there was a girl from France doing the same.

In the afternoon we went grocery shopping at Coles. I notice on the way there was a Domino’s here too! They have a lot of different types of fruits and vegetables here that I’ve never seen before, like pamellos(sp?), they look a like a type of melon. The food prices seemed more expensive here than in the States, but there were some similar brand names, like Mountain Dew! Cereal was completely different; most of the cereals were a type of granola mix. The store and the selections were a lot smaller than what I’m used too.

I helped decorate the table and set up for the dinner party. People started arriving at six and one of Beate’s colleagues Ben, brought home brew, beer he made himself. The drinking age is eighteen here, by the way. We chatted a bit and the dinner itself was delicious. For dessert some guests brought fruit salad and apfel strudel, an apple type of cake. I noticed while eating that all the Europeans ate with their fork and knife, the fork in their left hand even though they were right handed, where the Chinese girl and I only picked up our knife when we needed it. Just an interesting tidbit of culture information for you.

The soccer game started at 9:30, Germany against Serbia, I believe. I went to bed at eleven because I was still jet-lagged and it’s tiring staying up late.