Towers, Starbucks and Welcomes

A couple of days since my last post. Yesterday was a funny day. I was bored all morning, so I signed up for a campus tour. Met a couple of people there, while going around the campus. Heard a few cool stories about things. The best few being about the Clock tower and the Engineering department.

The engineering department have done some cool things. One of which was having a VW Beetle off the Golden Gate Bridge (in San Fransisco). Another such thing was to put a VW on top of the clock tower. Here's a picture of the tower:

Getting a VW up there is some feat. They've also managed to paint the entire back side of the tower red.

It's moments like these I'm proud to be (learning to be) an engineer.

The other funny (if slightly sad) story about the clock tower is to do with animal rights activists. As a protest, they decided to take a cow to the top of the tower. They did this by taking it up the stairs. This was all well and good. They got the attention of people, having a cow at the top of the tallest structure on campus is eye-grabbing. Unfortunately, cows can't walk down stairs. Something to do with missing the Achilles Tendon apparently. Thus they had to kill the cow. Bugger.

So the tour also took us around the rest of the campus. Apparently that library I showed you earlier is meant to be the shape of a book lying flat. It's also 7 stories tall (3 or 4 below ground) and is one of 9 on the campus. They also have a performing arts hall which is shaped like a cello with a adjustable roof (it has really good acoustics - I was in there today), and the biology building looks like a cell from above (it has plants and things organised to represent the nucleus, etc =p I don't have a picture, but I'll try to get one later for you.

Apparently they like their buildings shaped like things here.

On the tour I met Cooper, a guy on exchange here from England. We went to Starbucks after, and for dinner at Cafe Crepe after that. Following that was a trip to a party of sorts (maybe 8-10 people) in the common room of the lowest floor of one of the buildings here. There was music, dancing and, despite limited alcohol and drinking, a girl that managed to get rather drunk after an hour.

A fairly late night so I slept in this morning, wondered around campus a bit and then started orientation. After the first lecture-like thing (well done, but not particularly exciting), I went to Starbucks again.

It should be noted here that I followed people. Not by choice this time =P However, at this rate I'll have tried everything on the menu in a matter of weeks.

So, this was a story. Of the group of 4 people, I ordered second: A tall (small) Java Chip Frappacino. The first guy's drink came out, then the other two, followed by two or three more of people behind them. At this point the employee asks what I was waiting on, and I told him. So I kinda expected to get my drink fairly soon.

I did, except it was upsized to the biggest size, and I was given a voucher for a free drink.

'twas a very large cup. Larger than anything in Australia (I think. I ordered the largest size just before I left, and I don't think it was that big). That picture is Cooper holding a small (the size I ordered) and the one that was given to me. It was pretty sickening. I don't think I'll be having any more for a while =P

After managing to get my way through that drink (with a little bit of help), we had a welcome performance thingo in the cello-shaped performing arts center. A group which was kinda folk music performed, and the MCs were rather entertaining.

After this was the meeting of our orientation group, which involved the playing of a few lame games, and then we went to the beach. Managed to meet a lot of new people, even though the beach was a little subdued.

The sunset was fantastic though. I guess I'll just show you pictures =P




It was even better in real life. Unbelievable.

And that was my last couple of days. The other cool thing I've seen was a bird picking at a rubbish bin. Sure, you see that in Australia, but this bird was able to pick up a plastic bag, tip it upside down, and jiggle it so the stuff inside fell out. That's one clever bird. I have a video if it which I might compress and show you people later.

Anyways, tomorrow is more orientation. I'll post again sometime soon =)