s I have done in Australia or perhaps in my life, definitely met a bunch of people that have a very different
lifestyle than me. There are a bunch of these balls held every month or so out in the country, and were started up back in the day so that the rural kids can meet each other and go socialize together, and have grown into pretty big events that have quite the following. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. A guy I met at the Porsepine airport awhile back said that I should go to one of them for a different view of Australia, and the opportunity came up last weekend, so my friend Laura and I went with some of her high school mates and their friends. We got up at 5:30 on Saturday morning and took the greyhound bus to Toowoomba (2 hours west), and then got a ride the rest of the way (2 more hours) with a friend. It really was out in the bush, there was nothing but cacti and short brush trees in really dry ground. We passed a school once that was one building big just randomly out on the road and that was the only building I saw the rest of the way out of Toowoomba. We pulled into the showgrounds at 1PM and already there is a guy in his 'ute' (strange form of pickup truck t
hat is huge with the country people) is doing donuts in this dust bowl where a bunch of people are already parked and hanging out waiting for the get together that night. We hung out with a bunch of people that were all connected somehow, friends of friends of my friend, etc, and everyone was really welcoming and nice and easy to hang out with. But wow, they are such different people. Most all the guys had jobs that dealt with livestock or construction or things like that, were really into hunting big game animals (kangaroos anyone?), wore cowboy hats (and short shorts, as the Aussies do, because what could be more masculine!), drank insane amounts of beer or bundy rum and cokes, swore up a storm (everyone is a 'mad cunt'.. they thought it was funny that that word is so bad to say in North America, it's thrown around here pretty liberally and nobody cares), and were mildly to moderately racist and were not shy to let you know about it. The girls were cool, I had an easier time hanging out with them in general. The ones that went to school with my friend from college were really funny and outgoing and easy to talk with, but there were a couple other girls next to us that were pretty hardcore and one said she wanted to 'git her biff on' (/beef, she wanted to get into a fight) that night, and I wouldn't have messed with her. She had one of those beer hats that you have the straws coming down out of and was pretty huge and angry. I definitely got along with the girls better, they were much easier to talk to and weren't It was really hot and dusty, and we were pretty dirty by the later afternoon. We went to the toilets
to go shower, but the showers were filled with about six inches of black water that was not draining, so we decided we could just hold out.The ball started up at 7, and I thought it was funny that it was advertised as being 'strictly black tie', because it turned into the messiest thing ever. People apparently have a tradition of bringing food coloring into the showgrounds in sauce containers and just attacking each other with it and spraying it everywhere. There was dye all over they boy's white shirts and on people's skin, and the guys had the arms ripped off their shirts after about 30 minutes, or just weren't wearing shirts at all. The big angry girl had blue dye all over her face and neck, I told her it was like being a smurf and she got all hostile and was just like, "Thanks." and glared at me, so I looked at the ground and avoided making the situation worse, not wanting to get into a 'biff' with this one. I don't think you should get dye all over yourself and then act all serious about it, but maybe it is a serious matter for her, who knows. There were a couple bands that played, but oh god, the music was awful, all country all the time and it was rough. I don't know how to dance to it, and it drives you crazy after awhile because it is such shit music. We had fun just going around and meeting random people t
hough, we were in and out of the actual ball area quite a few times to go hang out at people's cars and that was fun. They had free BBQ as well which was cool.There was just so much ridiculous stuff going on around us. These 'bogan' country people really like to make noise, all night it seemed like a competition to see who could make the most obnoxious sounds, from leaning on car horns for minutes at a time to blasting a Disturbed album literally all night long to setting off fireworks, not up in the sky, but horizontally towards where we were sleeping. One actually went off right above our heads, it was a bit insane. At one point I opened my eyes and saw 3 cops just standing around us, I am not sure what they wanted, but I just acted like I was asleep because I didn't want to be asked to move or anything like that, because I was freezing already. It was a very long night of not much sleep, as me and Loainie (Laura's friend), were sleeping under a tarp on one of these roll up mattresses ("swags"), and it got pretty cold. My sleeping bag got locked in the trunk and I wasn't sure who had the keys, so we just made do with the tarp. The sun came up pretty early though and woke everyone up, so we only suffered a few hours of fireworks, cold, and bad metal music all going on around us. The next morning, more crazy stuff started up, complete with some guys wanting to 'pimp a friend's ride', so they cut of his roof with a chainsaw and later tipped it over. There were
burning couches everywhere, probably about 50 during the whole thing, if not more. Also, slip and slide competitions across the hoods of cars with dew on them were popular, and of course, more Disturbed. Laura and I decided we were in fact, not "down with the sickness", as that song was on repeat for a good hour. Some of the boys that were in the car parked next to us with the extreme drinking habits took full advantage of the morning 'recovery' that consisted of free 'all you can drink' beers at the bar, and these 2 brothers had 15 drinks each in 2 hours, one of them after he had just woken up and thrown up bile and explained to us that you just had to keep drinking, its the only way to get better. It was quite impressive and worrisome at the same time. We found out they also got really sick right after their friend had driven them away (after the mandatory breatalyzer on the way out), and they ended up projectile vomiting on the side of the road. These people were actually insane I do believe.The girl that was driving us u
nfortunately got food poisoning from the free breakfast sausages they were handing out that morning, and was feeling pretty ill when we were leaving. It was a crazy drive. We were supposed to get a lift all the way back to Brisbane, but she decided to stop in Toowoomba and stay there for the night because she would be driving and have to pull over because of being nauseated every half hour or so. One of the other girls felt sick too, I think Laura and I were the only ones that weren't massively ill, we felt pretty good other than being a bit sleep deprived which was lucky. It was good that Laura's friend stopped driving though for sure, she was in bad shape, so we got the greyhound back again and finally got home at 7:30 or so. It was a really long day of transportation, and we were very tired, so we got kebabs and had the best shower ever. We were laughing at ourselves walking back to college from the kebab shop, we looked pretty haggard. Very dirty, sleepy, and stumbling back home with kebabs. It was a really funny weekend, I'm glad I went, but it really made me happy I do not live in a rural environment. There were a few conversations where you could just feel yourself getting stupider. I was reading my macro textbook that morning when we were just bumming around because of an upcoming test, and one of the bile brothers came up to me and was like, "Woah, macroeco
nomics! What's that, a cookbook?" I think it's pretty crazy that a ton of people live in these rural areas in Australia and most people that visit here (or even the Aussies that just grow up in cities) don't see what it's like at all. All the tourist areas are completely different from being out in the bush with bogans (what they call rednecks here), some may argue it is the 'real Australia' as opposed to life in the cities. It definitely is different. I don't think I need to go to another B&S, it was pretty draining, but a lot of fun at the same time and a good experience that I doubt very many study abroad kids go through. I'm sure there's something like it in the US too...Pix: pretty self explanatory, just hanging out mostly. One is of a ute with a pink 'bull bar' and the last one is a burning couch.
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