Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
I took a bus from DC up to New York where I stopped long enough to pick up a slice of pizza. Since I was here for a semester checkin out NYC could wait and I took another bus 1.5hrs north to my new home. After a month and a bit of USA treckin' I arrived at the State University of New York, New Paltz(top left). The town is similar to Armidale (top right: main street), situated in The New England area in up-state NY, its a small Uni town of 10-15,000 or so I guess. I live on campus in a dorm room(bottom left) which I share with an American, Eddie, who is from the Dominican Republic but grew up in Brooklyn (everyone in the US shares campus rooms). There are heaps of people on campus, maybe 500 in my hall, Bouton Hall(bottom middle:inside, bottom right:outside), and around 10 halls, yet I was surprised that I was the only Aussie in the entire uni and town. I eat all my meals at the Hasbrouk dinning hall(top middle: behind the lake) which is like a giant cafeteria open from 7am-10pm with unlimited help yourself pizza, burgers, pasta, salad bar, desert bar(8 changing icecream flavours), multiple cereals, sandwiches, tacos, meats, vego food, vegan food, soda machines, and guys that cook to order fresh omelette and blueberry/bannana pancakes. With the Autumn weather everything is just starting to cool off and turn red, yellow and brown.
I started hanging out with Campus Crusade for Christ and before it got too cold we took a day rafting on the Delaware River between Pensylvania and New Jersey. I invited friends Joao and Jackeline from Brazil(bottom right: seated closest to camera), and Warren from South Africa(above) to join us and we shared a raft with Gabe, from the US(bottom right: front right seat of raft) and around 20 others in rafts. The weather was beautiful and we did some swimming and rock jumping and mild rapids(below). We stopped by the river for lunch and a Bible study(right) and after a full day paddling finished up with an American BBQ (ie burgers instead of steaks) and Smores for desert (roasted marshmellows with a block of hershies chocolate placed between two cookies).
There is a large group of International Students who all arrived together for the Fall 2005 semester, so we have become pretty tight. We do the pubs and clubs together(bottom left), have international dinners with each others cooking(top right), celebrate birthdays, travel to NYC, Canada and other cities together, and two bright sparks, Sebastian and Warren, even started our own 'Fratority'. The US students have Fraternities (for guys) and Sorrorities (for girls), which as far as we can tell are like big clubs with initiations where you drink alot (because thats cool when you are under 21 and its illegal) and they have cool jackets. So our Fratority (ie for guys and girls) is called the Gummy Bears and comprised of predominantly International Students (we are a bit of an oddity on campus) and initiation involved singing the Gummy Bear anthem (theme song) and drinking Gummy Bear juice (wine). Here's Niamh(from Ireland) and I being inducted into the Gummy Bears by Warren(top left). I apparently hold the position of "General of the Gummi Bear Army Treeland Security, Specialist of Gummiranium and Weapons of Mass Destruction."
Around half of the International Students (the Germans and Mexicans) were involved in a business program spending 8 weeks in New Paltz and 8 weeks as an intern in New York city. Before they left for the big apple we saw them off with a dinner at a Chinese Restuarant.
I started training for the New York Marathon about 2 months out. Should have had three but it was kinda a last minuste decision to do it. I train between 8 and 30km a day most days of the week, with a 2-3hr long run on the weekends. I run the same track from town to town, its beautiful in the fall. The other week all of the upper east of the USA flooded. Our river burst its banks and cars couldn't get through. The result of floods a week before Halloween was pumpkins floating all over town.
