6/21/23
Last Monday I started on a 3 1/2 month journey to Australia to play lacrosse and to live as an Aussie. What better way to come down here then to come alone and to just be thrown into a new experience.
I left on a Monday from DC, had a layover in San Francisco, and touchdown in Melbourne, Australia on a Wednesday because of the time difference. The total travel was about 24 1/2 hours and it goes without saying that the jet lag and time difference definitely kicked my ass for the first couple of days.
I’m staying with the coach of the semi-pro lacrosse team I’m playing for in Carnegie, a suburb of Melbourne about 20 minutes away from the CBD (Central Business District) which is essentially downtown. It’s him, his wife, and their 8 month old puppy named Bruno. He’s a little shit but he’s adorable. I learned a little bit about Melbourne on the drive to the house. 5 million people call this place home, and it also has the second highest population of Greek people in the world only behind Greece (who would’ve thought Greece has so many Greek people). It is also considered the food capital of Australia, having a lot of different asian influences as well as Greek, Italian, and American.
The first place I ate at was a fish and chips place down the street. Fish and chips are a staple in Australia apparently, so I had to try it for myself. I got flake and chips, assuming a flake was just a flake of fish. Turns out, flake is actually from a type of shark called the Gummy Shark. Gummy Sharks don’t have any teeth, just gums, hence the name. Long story short, my first meal here was shark, and it was pretty good.
I slept the rest of the day basically on Wednesday, and Thursday I walked more downtown to get the lay of the land. There are plenty of restaurants and places to try new foods. A lot of them are Asian cuisine, so I’ll be disappointed in myself if I suck as using chopsticks by the end of this journey. I also got a gym membership to help burn off all the different food I eat.
Thursday also brought the first day of coaching and practice with the guys. I am helping coach the high school team, and boy are they raw. A lot of them haven’t even been playing lacrosse for more than 2 years, but they’re good athletes, and that’s something you can’t teach. I was definitely tired that evening coaching because of the jet lag, but it was still fun coaching the game in a different country.
Practice for myself was fun. There was a traveling team from the United States in town to play us so we played them for practice and it was a lot of fun. I was able to play with new teammates, all of whom are Australian besides two brothers from Boston who are in college also. We crushed the Americans, and after we had pizza and drinks in the clubhouse. It was a nice opportunity to get to know the guys more. They were buying me beers left and right, and tried to explain the rules of their Football in the Australian Football League. It is almost nothing like American Football and a lot more similar to Rugby. There are 18 players to a team and the field is 200 meters long and 150 meters wide. The field is also a massive oval and not a rectangle which is nuts. Essentially, each team tries to kick the ball into 3 different uprights. the ones on the outside are worth one point and the one in the middle is worth 6. Each player can run with the ball about 10 paces and then they have to move it, either by smacking it on the ground and picking it back up or by kicking it forward or volleying it like a serve in volleyball. It was a lot of information being thrown at me by a lot of different guys whose names I all forgot at the moment except for one because it was too unique. His name was Possum.
Friday was a pretty mellow day. I took advantage of my gym membership and worked out and started exploring the different food options. Sushi for lunch and Chinese food for dinner, where I ate OX Tongue for the first time. Before you lose your shit that it was OX Tongue, if you saw the dish, you wouldn’t think it was anything other than meat. All in all, pretty tasty.
Saturday brought gameday, coaching and playing. I lost both games. While coaching, we played a team that a few weeks ago had crushed the team I’m coaching by 20. Saturday we lost by 1. Pretty solid, but a winnable game so I was pissed. Playing we lost by 5. The other team had two American transports as well, both from UVA. One of them was Ricky Meizan, who for those of you that don’t know, was the number one recruit for his class in high school. He decided to play 4 years of football at Stanford instead, but just finished playing at UVA this year. After the game, we got to talking, and I’m actually going with him and some of the other Americans to the Gold Coast in Eastern Australia this weekend. Beers flowed after the game, and later that night some of the guys on the team and I went to a “Footy Match”.
I went by train with Al, a guy on my team, to Richmond, Melbourne, to watch the Richmond Tigers play St. Kilda. In NFL terms, this was like watching the Ravens play the Browns (in terms of their history, not rivalry). We met up with another guy on our team, Saul, who is a Kiwi with no filter on his mouth. He was already hammered and refused for us to pay for our own drinks. I did not complain at all.
Al taught me the tricks and trade of being a Footy fan. Basically, if a guy gets tackled out in the open everyone has to scream, “BOOOOOOLLLLLLLL”. Also, because the stadium is so close to the water, there were a shit ton of seagulls flying around and walking on the pitch. Apparently, there are trained hawks that fly around to chase the seagulls around, but because it was raining, they couldn’t unleash the hawks. The Richmond Tigers won 90-70 (that’s a normal score yes) and because of that I am now officially a Tigers fan. It also doesn’t hurt that they have the same mascot and colors that CC has. There was a crazy fight song that all the fans sung after the game, which was hilarious, and we went home.
The past few days have been pretty mellow with nothing major to report. I’ve started getting recognized at the gym, even though I’ve only been 3 times, and I keep pushing myself to try different foods. There’s a crazy chicken place around here as well as an unreal sandwich shop. The job search has officially begun as well and I’ll probably land one of those by next week. Overall, Australia is pretty dope so far.
Sports n Stuff 