Lecturing, lamington and beer

This was the first week of the university's Semester 2, and today was Colin's first day lecturing to Australians. It seemed to go well - Melbourne undergrads look a lot like NYU undergrads.

A couple differences between NYU and Melbourne jumped out, though. First, there seem to be significantly more continuing ed. students (i.e. people older than 25) in classes. Second, the basic teaching facilities here are noticeably nicer. Lots of move-able whiteboards, a load of dry-erase markers already in the room, and a nice AV setup. They've set up a nice system for recording lectures - one just fills out a form, walks in, and a little after the lecture a recording appears online. That allows students to take the class who have a conflict with one of the lectures. Pretty sweet...

Speaking of which:

This is called a 'lamington.' It's much lighter than it looks - the cake part is sponge cake. It was tasty, though not as good as the last dessert. But maybe this is more of a summery dessert. When it warms up, we'll try another while sitting outside with a drink.

Speaking of which: we haven't tried much Australian wine or beer so far. Colin tried two animal-themed beers. One was called 'Fat Yak,' the other 'Mountain Goat.' Both were good, tasty ales.

Today, Colin went to picked up some beer on the way home. Since we're still kind of on a budget, Colin went for the cheapest Australian beer that didn't look too suspicious. Here's Naomi's reaction:

It wasn't actually bad... it just tasted a lot like Bud Light. Actually, on further tasting, we decided it was better than that, mainly in having a good, clean aftertaste. So better than Bud Light.

But Colin will look for Mountain Goat next time.

(One last thing: most of our knowledge of larger Australian culture has come through the television. Our latest show is a combination dating/cooking show, hosted by a lumbering guy with a heavy French accent named 'Manu.' Manu just won the Australian version of "Dancing with the Stars." It's as good as it sounds... except that the sleazy guy beat the nice guy tonight. Bleh.)