{Prompt: Write a story about your study abroad experience at Flinders University}
Once upon a time, when I was 21 years old, I had a little too much to drink on a pub crawl in downtown Adelaide — a South Australian city with a tavern on every corner, most of them selling Coopers Pale Ale, with the yeasty dregs in the bottom of the bottle. And if you wandered out into the street, local vendors would sell you the most amazing comfort food of all time — “pie floaters”, which are hot mincemeat pies served in a thick pea soup.
I was attending Flinders University at the time, and after a beer with my Aussie mates, at one pub… and then another… and another, I could tell that I was not going to make it to the end of the crawl. I was losing the battle to maintain any semblance of sobriety. So I decided to leave the pubs and go for a little ride away from the city.
While on exchange at Flinders and living in University Hall (Uni Hall), I had befriended a number of Australians, Malaysians, and Western Samoans. I had been invited to join a group of my Samoan friends at a house party that was being held off campus, near Brighton Beach… or was it Glenelg? I couldn’t remember the exact location, but it was in a neighborhood of rolling grass-covered dunes near the cool climate beaches, southwest of town.
With all the concentration I could muster (which was not much, I should say) I boarded the tram to Glenelg — or was it a bus to Brighton Beach? My thoughts were slow and muddled, but I boarded the vehicle, and I sat silently — inebriated, enjoying the jostling of the tram (or bus) and watching the city pass by.
The Tram and the War Memorial at Glenelg.
I got off in the neighborhood I thought was right, heading for the address I had been given. Small hiccup in my plan — I didn’t have the full address. I only had the street name. You see, this was not a well-thought-out plan. It was more like an idea for a plan that danced out of my head while I was having my last beer at the pub.
Well, I did what any well-mannered, but pleasantly sloshed American exchange student would do when lost in the suburbs of a foreign country. I started knocking on doors.
After two errant attempts, and before my drunken optimism had faded, a helpful homeowner pointed me in the right direction — surprisingly close by. And a good thing too, because by this time I was getting wobbly, walking up and down the streets of the subdivision.
At the next door — thankfully, the last — I was welcomed by the hosts of the Samoan gathering — friends of my Samoan friends at the dorm. As I made my way in, I was greeted with a mixture of amazement and amusement—surprise at my unexpected arrival, and congratulatory laughter at the fine state of my intoxication.
I was ushered out to the back yard, where all the islanders were gathered to talk, eat, dance, and play. It may be the finest party I’ve ever attended, but how can I say? I was so utterly inebriated that the whole experience was like a dream.
I don’t remember how the party ended or how I got home, but I must have had help. I was in no fit state to be navigating around the city. Somehow, someone made sure that I got back to my dormitory room safely and soundly.
Photographic proof that I was really there.
My First Trimester
This was far from my only experience with alcohol in Australia. After all, South Australia — the Barossa Valley, in particular — is considered the wine capital of the nation. German immigrants began successfully growing grapes there when they settled the valley in the 1800s.
Libations were provided from the moment I arrived. There were orientation activities accompanied by boxes of South Australian wine.
For example, we had the Uni Hall Olympics. It featured several strange and amusing activities. In one of them, the contestant had to eat a sleeve of Club crackers (20 or 30 of them), then whistle “Waltzing Matilda”, as quickly as possible. I’m a good whistler, but it’s nearly impossible to whistle a note without any saliva. Half the time, little flakes of cracker were being blown out instead.
After the events were tabulated, and winners declared, we all sat in the courtyard to enjoy wine, Australian burgers, and leftover club crackers.
The three-legged race at the Uni Hall Olympics.
Another orientation week activity was a scavenger hunt, which included finding items as far-flung and politically incorrect as an ounce of “short and curly” hairs (pubic hairs), a chair from an Italian restaurant café, and a homeless person. This was a no-holds-barred scavenger hunt.
By the time my team had found the closest Italian restaurant, the staff of the establishment had nearly come to blows with an earlier team that was trying to take one of their chairs. They regarded us with such hostility, that we abandoned any plans of acquiring any more of their furniture.
The team that brought the homeless drifter to the tallying point won the day, as he was worth nearly as much (in points) as the rest of the list combined. We all sat down in the courtyard, with our new homeless friend, to recount our adventures with Solo Cups of beer and wine.
Thankfully, there was no drinking on the car rally later that week — the week of orientation. Everyone was sober, and I was merely a passenger as the route took us up into the Flinders Mountain Range, reputedly one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. There I saw and heard my first kookaburra, in the wild, up in a eucalyptus tree, chattering away. My team must have fallen behind, as I stood and stared at the kookaburra, and he stared at me through the side of one eye.
The colorful Kookaburra
Although there was no drinking during the road rally, alcoholic drinks were ubiquitous on campus. Gin and tonics were served at a medical school function. Black Russians were poured for guests at an informal pool party at the School of Education — a party that ran into the evening. At Uni Hall, fellow students frequently opened their doors, and folks would gather for wine and cheese, like moths to a flame. I met a lot of my Flinders University friends that way.
There was even a pub on the edge of the university campus, only a short walk across a pedestrian bridge from Uni hall. That’s where I first learned the difference between a pint and a half-pint of beer.
I must have had a pint (or two) too many on one occasion when I went there with my friends. I was having such a good time fueled by cold glasses of frothy ale, that I got tipsy and fell off of my seat smack-dab onto the floor. I couldn’t figure out why or how the floor had come up to thump me, until I realized that it was the other way around. I started to laugh, and I couldn’t stop. Pretty soon, everyone was laughing with me.
Next thing I remember, I’m waking up, shivering in my dorm room, as the sun comes peeping through my open window. There’s a scrape on my leg and I’m still wearing my clothes from the night before. Later I learned that I scraped my leg as I crawled in the window when I couldn’t find my keys. I didn’t remember a thing between the pub and my bunk. I had been black-out drunk.
Keepsake from the Flinders University Hall - 1985
First Break
I began to rethink the wisdom of free-flowing alcohol after the varsity basketball tournament at Swan Hill, which took place during the first break in the trimester academic calendar. This competition attracted university basketball teams from all over the country — nominally “Varsity” teams, but in reality, as far as skill level, they were more comparable to intramural or club teams in America.
A week was set aside for fun and competition in the historic city of Swan Hill, which was first established in 1836. It was also a stop on the famous Burke and Wills expedition, which aimed to cross the continent in 1860.
The festivities for the basketball competition started off with dinner and an outdoor keg party. I vaguely remember some sort of beer chugging competition, which I lustily joined, but I got so sadly drunk that I literally drank myself under the table. After too much beer, too quickly consumed, my stomach did a backflip, and I dove under the table and tablecloth to privately regurgitate its contents on the floor.
And the beer drinking in Swan Hill didn’t stop all week. But I stopped after a couple of days. I was badly hungover. I was so groggy and tired that I struggled to run up and down the court during play. Our team was already of dubious quality, but the quality of my play in the tourney was unusually poor. I paid the price on the court for the off court bacchanalia. Needless to say, it didn’t go well, and we didn’t win.
The Swan Hill Basketball Intervarsity tourney brochure.
Second Trimester:
After the break, I returned to Adelaide as a more cautious drinker. I think it was in the second trimester (Australia’s winter) that I began to enjoy more of Australian culture and less of the Australian spirits.
I watched Australian football (Australian “footy”) which reminded me of a childhood game called “Smear the queer” (It was not a very accepting time to be gay.) In that game we ran around trying to tackle anyone with the ball or we tried to run around with the ball evading tackles. We could toss the ball away any time we wanted, depending on our fear of (or our attraction to) getting physically pummeled. Australian footy was just the same. It reminded me of a bunch of school children (dressed in rugby shirts) all trying to kill the one with the ball.
A moment of pure aggression in Australian Footy.
Cricket, by comparison, was very dignified. No direct physical contact was required. But the game could go on for hours… even days. I took a weekend, once, and vowed to myself to watch a game from beginning to end. It was a lot like watching a PGA golf match — beautiful green playing surfaces, men in spiffy uniforms, and the hushed voices of the TV announcers. In cricket, occasionally, there was the crack of a bat, and two players would run back and forth. Occasionally there was exultant celebration when the bowler slipped the ball by and the bails of the wicket went flying.
A swing and a miss.
I sometimes left the dormitory and went to the Adelaide Festival Center downtown, a boxy white modern building on the outside, but a beautiful auditorium with red velvet seats on the inside.
I went to a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, when Topol was performing, reviving his role (from the movie version). I was sitting in the upper balcony, so whenever “Tevye” had a monologue with God, it was like he was talking straight to me. I’ve probably seen the play five more times since then.
And I saw my first ballet at the Festival Center, a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I was by myself, but I shared a box with some other ticket holders, a mother and her daughter. They seemed delighted to see all the beautiful costumes, and they were themselves beautifully dressed. I felt a bit like the ugly duckling in the room, as I was not very well dressed (because the wardrobe I had packed was quite small). But I was a student, and the folks in Australia didn’t care. The mother and daughter were happy to have me.
Interior of the Adelaide Festival Center
Second Break
In late August, we had our second break in the academic calendar. This time I arranged to take a solo rail trip around the East Coast of Australia, from Adelaide to Cairns, with stops in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. That was about 2600 miles one way, which, to put it in perspective, is about the length of Interstate Highway 40 across America — from Wilmington, NC, to Barstow, CA. I spent about 3 days on board the train, each way, so my stops at each city were pretty brief.
In Melbourne, I went off, quickly, to see the animals in the Melbourne Zoo, including the Tasmanian Devil, the Koalas, and the Wallabies. And I ran over to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the paintings by the Australian Impressionists of the Heidelberg School — Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, and Frederick McCubbin — still my favorite works of art.
A Break Away! - by Tom Roberts
In Sydney, I made a beeline for the National Opera House and Sydney Harbour. I don’t know if I even stopped for food. I saw the iconic building from the shore, but all the pictures of it look better from the water. I simply didn’t have time (or the money) for a boat ride.
Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
In Brisbane, I remember seeing poinsettias growing next to the railway platform, seemingly in the wild. I sped out to the beach and spent a couple of hours looking at the row of high-rise hotels next to the Pacific Ocean on the Gold Coast. I had never seen anything like it before.
The Gold Coast, near Brisbane.
In Cairns, I must have spent a night or two, because I made two excursions, one to Green Island and one to the Kuranda National Park. In 1985, when I went to Green Island, you were allowed to go out and walk on the Great Barrier Reef, at low tide. That’s something that I would never do today, but back then I spent a couple of hours walking around looking at all the critters in the tide pools, and then I took the tour boat back to the city.
Green Island—a little blip of land on the Great Barrier Reef.
I took a train or a tour bus up Barron Gorge to see the Barron Falls, at the edge of Kuranda National Park. It was a chance to see the tropical rain forest, well above the Tropic of Capricorn. I was only there for an hour or two before I had to head back to the train station. I haven’t the foggiest idea what the city of Cairns was like. I can’t remember a thing besides the reef and the rain forest. For that matter, I saw most of Australia from the window of a passenger car.
A train in Australia.
Third Trimester
Adelaide held a Formula 1 Grand Prix in October that year. The whole town was excited. I didn’t go to the race. I was either busy, or I was saving my money. Coming from North Carolina, the birthplace of NASCAR, the Formula 1 race was as foreign to me as cricket or footie—so I watched on TV.
Then came Melbourne Cup Day— a day when all of Australia stays home to watch a horse race. I suppose it is a little like the Kentucky Derby, but I never skipped school or stayed home to watch the Kentucky Derby.
For me, it seemed more like the ACC men’s basketball tournament, when everyone in North Carolina had free license to leave work early, or bring in a portable radio or portable TV to watch the game (in the days before smartphones and tablets) —a day to watch their favorite team try to get into the NCAA. I tried to explain the frenzy surrounding the ACC tournament to my Australian friends, but they just didn’t get it.
On November 5th, 1985, What a Nuisance won the Melbourne Cup by a nose over Koiro Corrie May. I couldn’t have cared less.
An exciting moment at the Flemington racecourse.
My Friends
While I was staying at University Hall, taking classes at Flinders University, I met students from all over the world, many from Australia, Malaysia and Western Samoa.
One of my Australian friends, Graeme Stevens, took me up to Port Augusta to see what life was like on the edge of the Australian Outback. I just remember riding around in a tiny little sport-utility vehicle, like a miniature Jeep.
Once, one of my Malaysian friends, Juliana Teoh Suan, tried to explain to me the ‘allegory of the cave’ in Plato’s Republic, and why it matters today. She loved to learn. So did I, but I’ve practically forgotten all of the classes I took at Flinders. (Australian Multiculturalism was one of them.)
But I’ll never forget their insistence on proper bibliographic format. And taking oral exams was no joke. America certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on rigorous education.
Juliana and I enjoying a break from classes.
My Samoan friends gave me a blue lavalava with a white and yellow print. It’s the traditional wrap-around skirt worn by Samoan men. They had to show me how it was worn — how to wrap it around, fold it over, and tuck it in. I still wear it with pride — just not in public.
In return for all the kind gifts and conversations, I wanted to share a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with them before I went home. So in November of 1985, I started making plans (with another American exchange student) to host a Thanksgiving dinner, inviting all of our friends.
Thanksgiving in Adelaide
We were very fortunate, because the University Hall had its own cafeteria and a small cafeteria staff. There was a male chef who had once worked in a branch of military service. He was amazing. His food was delicious and it came out like clockwork. There were two young women, who served the cafeteria-style meals, who always seemed friendly (not like the cafeteria workers I had known when I was growing up.) I had gotten to know them well enough to ask if it was possible—would they prepare a special meal for an American-style Thanksgiving dinner?
First I had to explain what kind of food is traditionally served for Thanksgiving — not just any food — it had to be some relatively unique American food. Not your typical Australian grub, or the mix of international food that was normally served. I asked if they could cook turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, and all the fixin’s.
And they agreed!
So, on November 25th, 1985, we set up one very long table — enough for 20 or 30 people — in the upper recreation room of the cafeteria/common area. One end of the table held my friends, and the other end of the table held the friends of my American compatriot. Before dinner began, we pulled up a few more chairs for the kitchen staff, who had made it all possible. They gave us a look of confusion, but we urged them to sit down with us and enjoy the meal together. So they joined us at the table.
Next, I tried to explain what Thanksgiving was all about — mostly filling your belly to the gills, watching football, and going into a turkey coma. I may have mentioned a little about the settling of America and the harvest celebration with both Pilgrims and Natives.
But mainly, I told them, it was a day to be thankful… first and foremost… a day to be thankful for our friends and family.
As it turns out, this was my original, first, and only Friendsgiving, way before the term had ever been coined.
It was possibly the best Thanksgiving I ever had. And I’ve had some good ones. I remember with fondness the Thanksgivings that we had at the farm in Stanley, Virginia, which set my expectations so high.
And every year, now our kitchen is humming with activity, as Dianne, Jasmine, Samantha, and I try to create something better than ever before, and our table is covered with both American and Middle Eastern food.
But that particular Thanksgiving was special, because I was the host — a stranger in a strange land. I was giving back a little of the love and sustenance that had been given to me throughout the year.
I was truly grateful to be sitting with friends who had been so good to me — friends who had kept me from getting homesick throughout the year.
Friends who would tolerate my noodling with a used saxophone in my dorm room down the hall.
Friends who would light up with a smile if I joined the group of them for wine and cheese.
Friends who would take me back to my dorm room window, and help me climb in when I was black-out drunk.
Friends who would talk about philosophy and world affairs… or just about anything… on the steps to campus.
Friends who would let me join their Samoan house party, when I just wandered in off the street.
So we all sat down and devoured our Thanksgiving meal, but I did make one concession to Australian cuisine that evening. We had one or two boxes of Barossa Valley wine on hand, and we drank it all up.
It was like a beautiful dream.
Picture from a Barossa Valley wine tasting ad.
Epilogue - The End of the Year
It was only a matter of days before the academic year ended for all of us. We all went our separate ways. I went back to America, and I took one of my hall-mates with me, Andrew Chang. He was going to visit a friend of his at Duke University during the Australian summer. After stopping to see O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, and then landing in San Francisco, California, we drove back to North Carolina together — my first cross-country road trip.
Before I left, some of my disreputable Australian friends gave me a present that was as long as a yardstick, awkwardly wrapped in gift paper. It was a street sign for “Australia Ave.” They had freed from its stationary sign post — a real street sign, pilfered from the streets of Adelaide, South Australia. Now that’s love.
I had to somehow stuff it into an already overstuffed suitcase. I think it just barely fit, next to the souvenir green and yellow Aussie cricket bat, ball, and gloves. It’s surprising what you could pass through airport security back in the 80s.
Oahu - Waikiki. Waimea Bay. Nu’uanu Pali lookout.
San Francisco - Lombard Street. Bot. Gardens. Golden Gate Br.
San Simeon - Hearst Castle
Los Angeles - Disneyland. La Brea Tar Pits
Mojave National Preserve.
Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hoover Dam.
Grand Canyon National Park.
Gallup, New Mexico.
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Southfork Ranch from the Dallas TV show.
Fort Worth Stockyards.
Subsequent route has since been forgotten.
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