US, US, baby

A month (or so) ago, I posted 9 Reasons Why Every American College Student Should Study Abroad. Now that my time in my study abroad land is over, I thought it appropriate to give a new list, one that relates the nine reasons why every American ex-college student should re-visit her study abroad land, or more accurately nine reasons Jayna’s glad she came back to Australia.

Why the new self-indulgent list? Because I’m self-indulgent. And because according to my drunk ex-roommate, “That’s great, Jayna! *drunk pause* You’re having self-realizations!” (Yeah, remind me not to call the LA roomies after The Office on Thursday nights.)

And now, said list…

1. You can think about how much you have/haven’t changed when it comes to the guys you date and what you’re like to date. And feel pretty bad for them.

2. Regardless of cultures or time, nothing beats the feeling of sitting down with an old friend and feeling like you did last time you saw him/her half a decade ago.

3. You’ll still be bagged on for being a Yank.

4. Now that you’ve already done all the fun sports stuff, you can sound like you know what’s going on. And be truly heartbroken that one of the country’s best (and hottest) athletes didn’t have such a successful stint at an LA rehab clinic and was busted again for drugs (Really, has any LA rehab clinic had success with a celeb’s drug problem? Why send him there? But if Lindsay or Paris winds up dating an Aussie named Ben soon, I have a pretty good idea where they met…)

5. You can use your language skills you picked up last time. OK, so even if Australians speak English, it is a whole different language sometimes. And your translation skills will come in handy when playing wing woman for your Aussie pal while the US Navy and Marines are in town.

6. It’s cheap! Oh, wait. Nevermind.

7. When you eat at the Hare Krishna restaurant, you can flash back to the time you visited a Hare Krishna temple for your social movements class and remember getting reprimanded for putting the scriptures on the floor.

8. At The Deen, you can have flashbacks to the second (and last) drink you had in Australia. Then while walking through the rest of the bar, you can have more flashbacks related to No. 1.

9. All the cool kids are doing it.

New York’s Fleet Week is basically legendary in America. If you’ve never experienced it, Sex and the City’s Season Five had a great episode that shows a lot of what it’s like for a woman in the City during that time. For those unwilling to watch it, just imagine a beautiful, bustling city that sadly has more women than men. Now, imagine for one week in late spring — when skirts and open-toed shoes are finally able to be worn again — boat loads of athletic-built men (who’ve seen few women for the last four months) unloading into the city, uniforms and all. It’s basically every New York gal’s dream (well, you know, besides the job at the top of the masthead, the three-bedroom apartment in SoHo, or the new pair of Manolos). My first summer in New York, Fleet Week happened to be the second week of our stay. I’m pretty sure it’s what spurred my friend Kim and I’s pact that summer that we’d never leave a bar until both of us had gotten a drink bought for us (which definitely brought out some good stories by the end of the summer).

See, it’s not that we were the most beautiful girls stepping into the New York joints. But, well, guys in New York buy drinks for girls all the time. And military guys are often even more old-school…buying drinks (and dinner), opening every door, walking the girl home. It’s the kind of treatment girls like me grew up getting from guys, friends or otherwise, and tend to expect from any guy in pursuit…and it’s the kind of treatment girls who’ve never had love for its doting nature.

OK, OK…so I haven’t been watching any Carrie Bradshaw lately or reminiscing with old photos…so why bring all this up? Well, this past week in Perth was pretty much a mini Fleet Week with our own US Navy and Marines unloading more than 5000 service men and women onto the shores of Fremantle, near Perth.

It was honestly so entertaining watching their reception by the locals. The war in Iraq and US policy are extremely unpopular in Oz right now (to say the least). But none of that spilled over to how the Americans were greeted. The local 20- and 30-something women were practically out in droves hoping to meet up with a young Yank. One visiting British girl was telling how excited her coworker was to hear about the boats’ landing. “We’re SO going out this weekend,” she’d said. “The American Navy’s in town. You need to hook up with one. They’ll like buy you jewelry! But don’t sleep with them. You might get an STD.”

So, maybe dating an American sailor is kind of like doing politics with America. We strike up a lot of excitement and bring the promise of nice things for other countries, even if they know they might get a little dirty from it…and well, in the end, a little gold goes a long way in getting people to forget about the bad.

But when you’re a visiting American, politics definitely don’t matter and dating an American really has no novelty. You just need to think about enough banter to get you through a polite conversation with the 20-year-old based out of San Diego who bought you that drink (or how to play wing woman for your Aussie friend).

I can’t figure out why So You Think You Can Dance is so big over here. One, Australians have worse rhythm than Americans (when a performer at the Australian Idol concert asked the audience to clap along it basically was like listening to applause…). Two, it’s majorly delayed, so anyone could find out the final results if he/she wanted. Three, it’s a huge time commitment each week with both the dancing and results show wrapped up in one.

But it’s huge here. And now they’re casting for an Aussie version of it…

On another note: I’ve had five donuts in the past two days.

Finally. I went surfing. Yahoo!

I went to a two-day “surf camp” outside of Perth in a small little place called Lancelin. I have to say it was a bit frustrating…it’s been probably two years since I’ve been on a board and my whole body is quite out of shape. Mustering the strength to just push myself up was basically impossible. Major struggles.

But all in all, it was a good time. Good instructors, adorable house host, and some great sunset and star watching. I even got a few fun bruises and a scrape on my forehead to show off for all my hard work, too.

You know what kills me about Christmas down here? That nobody really seems to want it to be Christmas down here.

You’d think they’d love the fact that they’re in the middle of summer and having 80-degree-plus weather, are BBQing, and are holidaying with the kids…but nobody seems to really embrace it. They all grew up watching American and British holiday flicks and seem to want snow for the big day o’ Jesus’ birth.

Last week (only the second week of October) all the shops in Adelaide began putting up their Christmas displays and selling wrapping papers and such. Seeing all this so early was a bit freaky and can only be attributed to two things. One, Whoreloween — whoops, I mean Halloween — isn’t nearly as big over here as in the States, so no need to wait for the orange-and-black displays to come down before sticking up the $299 inflatable reindeer/santa/penguin snow-covered carousel. Two, the earlier stores can get these things up, the colder it is in Australia, making it seem like the snowy scenes aren’t such a dream.

But they are a dream. There is no snow down under come Christmas. Well, that is unless someone shells out the nearly $300 for this thing.

There’s a snapshot from my college graduation that every time I look at it I’m overwhelmed by a mixture of emotions. The photo itself is quite unremarkable. It’s simply a quickly snapped photo of me squeezed in between four fellow graduates, taken too far away so we all appear a bit gray from the weak flash.

But looking at the people in it always leaves me questioning what I’m doing with my life. One guy landed a coveted reporting job at The New York Times but left after a couple of years to improve his Spanish while traveling through Latin America and is now a Spanish-language reporter; the other guy worked as associate art director at Men’s Health before moving to deputy art director at Complex. One girl joined Peace Corps in Togo and is now finishing her master’s in international education. The other girl two years ago opened an art-house cinema with her husband and were recently named Entrepreneurs of the Year by their city’s business rag. And these are just the people in the picture…there’s plenty more stories for other, non-pictured, grads.

Thinking of all their successes, me and my competitive spirit are insanely jealous. Jealous that they’ve done so much in just four years. Jealous they all have a talent that I don’t. Jealous especially that they seem to have a life plan all worked out and are getting there so quickly.

Now I know to pooh-pooh what I’ve done and am doing may be insulting and thoughtless. Heck, I realize some of you reading this may be traveling vicariously through this blog and am jealous of me. But well, insulting and thoughtless? That’s me. And those who know me well must know how discontented I am to, yes, be living a dream of mine but yet be making no progress in my chosen career or life.

I thought it was these emotions that had me blubbering on to a new friend about that photo…but then I realized there is also a different set of emotions…I truly feel so lucky, honored, happy (whatever you want to call it) to know these people and count them as my friends and/or ex-classmates.

Spurring that conversation was a walk by a comic book store last week, when I immediately thought of guy #2, Tim, who had recently launched a comic magazine (you know, in all his spare time) called Comic Foundry. Although I didn’t expect to be able to buy it overseas, I had sheer disappointment when the store didn’t have it…but found out others might. So, that night I went online to find another local comic store that might carrry it — and came across a review that said, “The Life+Style section was the best part. It had a feature with four different women reacting to theoretical pickup approaches from five different comic book personalities,” and remembered that I was one of those women and now had an even broader fervor to locate a copy.

The next morning, I wandered by another store which had stocked the imported magazine (and even gave me a discount because the US dollar is so weak…sigh). Reading through, I loved it. And the design is totally Tim. When I showed it off back at the hostel, like a momma with her new pups, I knew it wasn’t just jealousy I was feeling or feel when I look at that picture of my college pals. I’m also incredibly happy my friend was able to complete his dream and also do it well. And I’m just proud of him. Of them. All of them. And inspired by them as well…

So…if you’re somewhat into comics (or want to know what pick-up lines will/won’t work on me), head to your local comic book store. And then feel free to tell me how awesome my friend is.

Traveling for me isn’t just about seeing bad foreign films, but it’s also about sharing our own country’s not-so-famous flicks.

Monday night, I was appalled to find out that none of my fellow travelers had heard of or seen the hilarious Office Space, one of four movies accompanying me on this trip. I mean, my friend Nina had seen Napoleon Dynamite while volunteering in Togo…how had these people, living in western countries managed to escape the smart Mike Judge film?

So, by the end of the night, I’d turned an Indian, two Norwegians, and a Peruvian into fans of the Initech flick.

I’ve also somehow convinced an English gal and Canadian one to watch She’s out of Control when it came on TV. If you haven’t heard of it, suffice it to say it’s a late 80s film starring Tony Danza.

And if my friend in Malaysia still hasn’t seen Zoolander when I get there, I have a feeling, I’ll be trying to convince him to watch it (and then have a walk-off later).

Wine. Wine. Wine. That’s all I heard about when I was planning my visit to Adelaide. Outside of the city is the (self-proclaimed) country’s most-famous wine region. So, Monday I went on a wine tour of the Barossa Valley.

Winery visits in German-settled towns in October? I felt like I was back at MIZZOU again (except this time, I didn’t arrive on a rented school bus or with the half the baseball team and Golden Girls’ squad [yeah!]…). Oh, yeah…and I didn’t end the night at Quinton’s either. But I did end it at something just as likely to be found in mid-Missouri.

Me and about eight others from the hostel went to the free weekly “Hillbilly Hoot” radio show. Broadcast from a garage on the community radio station, 93.7 FM, the show features locals singing country and country-influenced songs. I was hoping I might get to “Walk the Line” with a little Johnny Cash, but alas, there was none. However, it was still quite hillbilly and still a great time. Even the non-country-music lovers enjoyed themselves…

Sorry the quality ain’t so hot…it was really dark (it was outside!). But I thought you might have been wondering what the music sounded like…

On this trip, I’ve been reminded of three stereotypes the rest of the world thinks of Americans:
1. We’re always politically correct.
2. We’re fat.
3. We’re stupid.

Over the last few days at my hostel, I think I’ve thoroughly debunked the first one.

Although I consider myself quite PC (even moreso than most Americans thanks to my two years teaching), I apparently surprised my fellow guests this weekend when I was talking with an English woman, a Scottish guy and his Irish girlfriend. We were discussing the differences in our common language when the term “ginger” came up. Apparently the Brits use it as a term for redheads. One of them asked if Americans had a phrase for people with red hair. Evidently, they weren’t talking about a phrase “like ‘beat them like a red-headed stepchild’?” I said it in all sincerity, but they were just tickled ginger. Although I beforehand hadn’t thought of it as being not-so PC, they definitely enjoyed the fact that the sentence came from a Yank’s mouth.

Then the next night, one of our new Norwegian friends was drinking a Guinness. I turned to the Irish girl and asked if she’d ever had an Irish Carbomb. “Oh, well, I guess it’d just be a carbomb for you…do you have those in Ireland?” Ummm…open mouth, insert foot and realize where the drink got its name. And be told that yes, Ireland does/did have carbombs, but they’re not drinks.

So, while I’ve done a good job debunking stereotype numero uno for us, I think I may have just reconfirmed number three. Sorry, y’all.

5-0, baby! Wahoo! After a Nebraska-touchdownless game this past Saturday, my beloved Tigers are currently ranked No. 11 in NCAA football.

With the time difference, the big game was slated to start at 10:45 a.m. here on Sunday. The day before, I went around Adelaide’s sports bars searching for just one place that could turn just one television to the US ESPN station…but of course, the only ESPN they had was the Aussie one. All that walking, and no game.

So, what was I left to do? Flip on the online GameTracker to “see” the game unfold in near-real-time Sunday morning. As I “watched” the game, quite a few of my friends in the hostel wandered up behind me to see if I’d been able to watch the game (I’d been talking about it for a while…). When I tried to explain what I was actually “watching” they were all a little surprised. Doesn’t appear GameTracker has a sister software in Europe/Australia (or none of my friends here are as much of a sports geek as I am). Well, that, and they all thought it would be a little boring of a way to keep track of a game. But I was doing a bit of work on the ol’ laptop as well. And come on. It was the Nebraska game!

Next week is the game against No. 5/6 Oklahoma…I’ve already checked the Fox Sports channels here, and no dice again. I may have to be trapped by GameTracker once again.

What can I say? “There’s a spirit so deep within [me]”…