DBI (Drinking Beer In) Australia

Upon arrival at Australia's only selective graduate business school, I was delighted to discover that my room had a huge terrace adjoining it. The Terrazzo, as it became known, was the base for most of the serious academic study pursued in Melbourne - study of the Australian wine and beer industries of course! Our first night's revelry began with a barbeque (that consisted of a disappointing amount of low alcohol beer and some disturbingly equine sausages). Upon returning to the Terrazzo, duty free whisky appeared and the world seemed rosy once more. 'Cookie' was the bar of choice that evening and several Carlton Lagers later, 'Wall Street' emerged from his 3 semester slumber to wreak havoc on unsuspecting locals and fellow students alike - - Ryan had a new hero. Fast forward a few hours later, promptly at 9am, everybody was in their seats, wearing 'business casual' attire and ready to be immersed in the economic history of Australia. The class learnt that Australia was colonized by the British and constituted as a penal colony; then I fell asleep for a short while before waking up in time to give a presentation later that day on a vital topic that maybe involved sports. Nonetheless, it was critical to learn some of the local tongue and one particular phrase continued to appear. "Piss off mate" became as natural to us as "What's up?" or "Hi." and in Australia is considered neither rude nor offensive; merely as a jovial greeting or parting phrase. A few of us insisted upon using the expression to thank every single cab driver in Melbourne for their services. "No worries mate." was often the response, which pretty much typifies the Aussie way of looking at life.

Our rigorous schedule featured blocks of 3 hour lectures with Wednesdays free (so that we could work on our projects….) so every Tuesday was another party upstairs at the dorms…. I mean an alfresco party back at the Terrazzo, generally followed by a trip to the St Kilda Strip where the alcohol flowed freely because the bars don't close till 7am.

Some people went on tours the next day, some people went to the ICU, some people tried to extricate themselves from 'Alberto's apartment' and some people maintained their pursuit of the female administrative liaison between Stern and MBS; much to the amusement of the back row.

Those of you who went to DBI Beijing are probably now cursing me as I hear you actually learnt things and did some work, but also had a few 'masagis' whilst on the 4th floor of your hotel (McLovin', we all know who you are!). However, this was a serious business and we were determined to get to the heart of the issues, understand the local culture and get to grips with the intricate nature of Australian business. This is harder than it sounds, particularly after the Thursday night that we had down in St Kilda at 'The Saint' where sofas fell apart, mailmen were apparent, shots were downed ad nauseum and tabs were split (thank you Mr Lechner, I salute you).

MBS took our learning seriously and facilitated this by arranging a day out (sorry, I mean a corporate visit) to the Yarra Valley, which as Rich Nespola will tell you is the main wine producing area in Australia. We spent hours in the sun drinking some very fine Sauvignon Blancs and rosés that go down easily, too easily. Whilst no one actually had sex in the vines (rumor has it that this occurred last year during the wine tours), much baci ball was played, 80's music was enjoyed and several vintages were cheered; whilst on the bus journey back to Melbourne, Jay continued his quest to cement Mexican-Australian relations to no avail. An evening on the Terrazzo beckoned, followed by the now customary pilgrimage to St Kilda where homage was paid at 'Cushion' even though the DJ took offence to the ritualistic Gaelic chanting that Ryan does so well when absolutely smashed off his face on Sambucca shots.

We went to the zoo the next day, then a few bars, then a club or two, and then home via 'Absinthe City' which was an interesting albeit hallucinogenic ride. Sunday is god's day however, a day of rest, a day of contemplation and family pursuits. Well, not in St Kilda it's not and Jay, Ryan, Buse and the Brazilian Machine proceeded to the Esplanade Hotel (the 'espy') where they had been promised drunken fighting by 4pm at the very latest. God only knows what happened that day, but I understand that Buse lost a $100 bet that he could drink 8 beers in 10 minutes by the narrowest of margins. However, the main achievement that day was the acquisition of straw hats from the local brewery. These 4 hats would follow us everywhere for the next week and wherever they went lunacy would ensue. I love tennis, especially when it's ladies playing. Short skirts, toned legs and just about the right amount of grunting! (Right guys?) Anyway, we managed about 17 minutes of watching the #15 seed labor to a victory over an unseeded but exceptionally well tanned Eastern European lady before repairing to the 'Heineken Zone'. There was nothing complicated about this place apart from the fact that you could only buy 4 drinks at once. Logistics was never my strong point (as my C in Operations proves) but we soon got in to the swing of things and began an innovative chain gang operation; the like of which has not been seen in the State of Victoria since the British penal colony days. The next day was somewhat fuzzy, but I think we had a lecture on something called the "NEO's" who are a part of Australian Society that has a lot of money, spends it on luxury goods, fine wines and good food. All of which surprised us immensely as our extensive research led us to believe that 'KFC' was the staple food of Australia and 'VB' was the beverage of choice.

The final Tuesday was notable for two things; the internet black out and it was also the day that we celebrated Jay becoming a man again. It seems that someone or something (possibly a sling box showing the Giants play off games) had been mistaken by the IT staff at MBS for a Sternie downloading industrial quantities of porn via the MBS wireless network, so until normal service was resumed we all had to get our daily fix of www.youporn.com via the communal computers in the syndicate rooms. Moving on to the birthday celebrations, the Terrazzo was once again full of beers, wines, KFC, 80's music and the 4 hats. At around 11pm, we decided that we hadn't spent enough time in St Kilda recently and went to 'Cushion' in order to be there before midnight. Ever the gentleman, I caught the last cab from MBS and arrived just in time to see birthday boy engaged in the kind of dogfights that would have made even Michael Vick pay attention. The bar record of 8 Jaegerbombs in one sitting was broken during a night that simply refused to end. Yes, that's ten.