Australia. Aussie aus australia. Twenty-eight days after the laborious process of getting myself and all of my shit to Logan International Airport in Boston, I'm sitting in scenic Dallas amidst a four hour layover. Hoooly fuck, Texas is the worst state I've ever been to, besides maybe, like, Connecticut. Maybe. Connecticut is pretty awful when you're driving to and from school, but at least it isn't 290 F and 140% humidity like it is in Texas right now. This post is supposed to be about Australia, though. But seriously. I cannot stand this gate, this terminal, this airport, this city, this state, this time zone. This very southern black woman is sitting next to me giving me the demon eye because I'm wearing my light blue wool hat. Go away, very southern black woman. Okay, okay, okay. Australia. The trip of a lifetime. Perhaps? Kind of? Maybe?

First and foremost, everyone on this trip deserves to be noted. We had a full cast of personalities present between the twenty-two of us. Looking around at this exact moment, I spy the morbidly obese girl who eats like a morbidly obese girl who you want to befriend or feel sorry for but is so unfathomably annoying that the thought of befriending her is genuinely nauseating (who also happens to be Lil' Jon), the IDGAF criminal justice major who only needs 8 credits to graduate, the pampered girl who squeals like a lost mouse on methamphetamines scavenging for free wifi and a skinny mocha latté, the pretentious girl who cannot communicate with anyone less attractive than herself unless it is about her fabulous six packed peace corp boyfriend, the unimaginably-stupid prospective nurse who believes that she is already supervisor of a nationally recognized cancer ward, the paranoid girl-obsessive beer connoisseur, not one but TWO girls who won't shut the fuck up about their boyfriends, the cheater, the socially awkward and therefore sexually deprived girl who'll do anything to indirectly imply that she wants to have sex with you, the generalized misanthrope who I relate with quite a lot actually, a whole squad of rich bitches, the girl from the south that you know is from the south because she tells you every day that she is from the south, a grandmother, the heir of a hotel tycoon, the somatoform disorder sufferer, the synesthetic beethoven sans-the hair, the girl who takes a plethora of medications and therefore gets shitfaced smelling a wine cooler, the girl whose only objective was to fuck Aussie dudes and succeeded with flying colors, and me, given the diagnosis of alienator. After this paragraph, I suppose I can agree.

We loosely divided into three g roups: the dumb sluts, the boring uglies, and whoever was left. There was one thing in common between just about everyone: they were all fascinatingly dull. Daily interests included going to chain restaurants, watching television, shopping at the same clothing stores they have in America but at severely inflated prices, and spending as much money as possible on fucking boomerangs and aboriginal art. I'm not sure if it's a design flaw in the sheltered upperclass childhood upbringing that results in this inherent sense of lethargy, but shit, c'mon guys. You know those kids who just do not shut the fuck up? The ones who just keep talking as if their gift to you is the words that come from their mouth and that they are actually curing diseases just by speaking (cough, psychology majors)? Yeah, them. This trip was a massive circle jerk for those type of people. Listen to what I bought, what I got on my SAT, what lab I work for, who I am fucking. It's all nonsense. And I'm sure there were times when I said things that were uncalled for or big headed. I'm sure I was the most outwardly mocking, cynical, and sarcastic person on the trip. How does that make people feel about me? I guess I can't really know for sure. Any dissatisfaction I have with the other people on the trip is my opinion and they can hold whatever opinion they like of me. That doesn't stop them from being fucking boring. I think it's less bad luck and more that the Northeastern psychology department just does not attract or produce people of genuine interest.

The first three weeks were spent at Swinburne University of Technology, a quaint little school in Hawthorn, Victoria, about a twenty minute metro ride east of the city. Swinburne is notable for a few reasons, including but not limited to: tar-coated frying pans, vomit on the balconies and the corequisite vomit eating seagulls, outrageously long bedrooms, and the best water pressure in Australia. The foundation of a day while taking classes consisted of waking up abnormally early due to jet lag, listening to Shrines or Channel Orange until it was bright enough to see outside, going to the gym (which played awesome music; cheers, Swinergy) or going for a run around town, making eggs before anyone else so I could consume the least amount of asphalt with my protein, listening to three 2 hour lectures on remedial 101 concepts, giving people my music, then fumbling around for dinner plans. Variations included consuming >500 ml of vodka in less than twenty minutes, sifting alcohol for gold, kicking holes in walls, throwing cucumbers, getting stuck to the ceiling, and bathing in Curry. Sydney was all play and no work. We did neither. Or maybe both. I'm not really sure. That's when everyone started getting annoying. I know that I ate a lot of cereal. A LOT of cereal. Like, dangerous amounts. I won't say how much because I want your imagination to run wild. Cereal. Cereal everywhere. Shanghai Shuffle also happened in Sydney. I can cross another thing off the bucket list. Tim Tams. Tim Tams deserve at least three randomly interjected sentences. Holy shit, delicious. The food was overall pretty good in Aus, but only occasionally worth the immense markup. Tim Tams, Red Curry, select kebabs, and those fucking dumplings make the cut.

That leads me to another point. Money. Australia sucks when it comes to not having to spend a lot of money. It's simply not possible to go to this country on a tight budget. The exchange rate is not in our favor, there are additional fees for using a card, currency exchanges literally rape you, and everything is genuinely more expensive than at home. Also, the smallest paper denomination is $5, which in theory sounds like a good idea, but some days it felt like I was carrying around a small treasure chest in my back pocket when in actuality I was carrying less than $10. The only two nice things Australia has going for them are rounded prices and included tax and (no) tip, neither of which are original ideas. I easily spent well over what I wanted to on this trip. I bought a coat, a pair of jeans, and food and drink. That's it. Nothing else. Shit's expensive here. I just went into a convenience store here at the Dallas airport and was in awe at the savings. In an airport. Airport. I can hardly imagine what it will be like walking into a Wawa in one or two days.  Yeah, I saw kangaroos and koalas, went to the opera house, walked the harbor bridge, took pictures, went for runs, enjoyed Australian pubs, took out a second mortgage on a gym membership, ate a shitload of indian food, shit my brains out, went to a footy game, realized that I want to look like a rugby player, was asked if I was Prince William, and it was all a grand time.

When did I realize I was ready to go home? Probably by the second or so day of being in Sydney. It's truly a disappointment that I got bored of the trip, too, especially because of all the good things Australia had to offer me, namely its female body. Perhaps it was because I wasn't with my close friends or that I had never been on a trip of this caliber before that made it more than usual. I think that the key reason is that, while there were many things different about Australia when comparing it to the United States, it really was a very safe bet for traveling abroad. For most of my time in Melbourne, I never really felt as if I had left the country at all, but instead felt as if there was just an influx of accented people visiting an American city I had never seen before. When I realized that Sydney was not much drastically different, the disillusionment took over and my interest in the trip diminished. Would I do it again? Under different conditions, yes. I wouldn't pay to study abroad in Australia again, and I certainly wouldn't willingly choose to go to a country that has no learning curve again either, at least not without visiting some more challenging places first. Tokyo, Hong Kong, and some parts of Europe are at the top of my list.

I truly believe that on the last night, sitting around a bar table and talking with the six I most likely became the closest with and then walking around the harbor was the best moment of the entire trip. Runners up include the cliff at Phillip Island, Cookie, taking Pickle the cucumber to his first footy game, and the long bus rides through the Victorian countryside. Honorable mention is when I blacked out, since it was apparently such a wonderful evening for everyone else at my own expense. Cheers. I'm now writing from the last flight of six, just about thirty minutes away from Boston and it's becoming evident that this trip is actually just about over. I wished it to pass when I was angry at or tired or sick of my group, but after all this reflection I'm sad to see it end. It's an interesting sensation knowing that this exact group of twenty-four will never congregate again at the same time. And that's probably for the best, but for just this one fleeting moment, this one dot in the timeline of my life, I will miss it.