12 Apostles in Melbourne

The first weekend in May, I took a holiday to Melbourne. For those curious, Australians don't pronounce their "r"s and Melbourne is pronounced "mel-bin" or, if you feel like being a bit more articulate, "mel-bun." This started with an overnight bus ride (something I'm great at after the one during break) that was, as all long bus rides are, slightly uncomfortable. I did get some sleep though, and in general it could have been worse.

We did a walking tour of the city the first day. Skylines in Australia are really different than those in the States; it's not all about how many skyscrapers can we fit on a block and who has a building with more stories. Though that sounds negative, I definitely have a soft spot skylines like New York's, so the big cities tend to seem sort of small and undeveloped here. Melbourne is a big rival of Sydney; it's a little more cultural and "artsy." We saw tons of little cafes and interesting architecture. One of my favorite aspects were these little alleys full of cafes and stores. It was nice to get away from the crowded streets and have lunch there. For me at least, it was kind of like discovering a spot that only non-tourists know about.

Some of the Melbourne skyline; back alley


Day 2 (aka Saturday) was spent on a daylong trip to the Great Ocean Road. This is one of Australia's most visited sites. It was built by soldiers returning from World War II as a way to create jobs. It follows the coastline about an hour outside of Melbourne. There are some gorgeous rock formations that are created by erosion of the coastline by a somewhat complicated process I won't go into here. The most famous is the 12 Apostles, which is a group of freestanding rocks, though there are only 9 left standing (the other 3 have fallen). We lucked out and got gorgeous 3pm lighting on the rocks, so I have about a million pictures of the same view. There's two kinds of people: those who look at this stuff and recognize it's beauty and those who look at it an think "That's it?!" I'm definitely one of the former, so it was great to spend the day with beautiful views. Too bad the photos are nothing in comparison to the real thing.

12 Apostles; London Bridge


Sunday morning was spent strolling in St. Kilda, a beach suburb of Melbourne (which also happens to be known for it's prostitutes...but as we were there in daylight it wasn't a problem). I had amazing pancakes at a cafe and drooled over treats in bakery windows. St. Kilda's is home to the original Luna Park, an amusment park also located in Sydney. They had what looked like an awesome wooden roller coaster, but it was closed for repairs and I couldn't ride it. That afternoon, we attended my first AFL game - Aussie Rules. Aussie Rules is a ridiculous amalgamation of a ton of different sports. There's a little bit of rugby, basketball, soccer, and volleyball with some unidentifiable bits thrown in. Nonetheless, it was a great game that looked hopeless for the home team at half time (26 to 75) but resulted in a huge come from behind victory in the second half (final score: 119 Melbourne to 113 Freemantle).

Fans celebrate a goal at the AFL game


This was followed by another overnight bus ride back to Sydney. I arrived back at the house at 5:30 am, promptly fell into bed, and didn't wake up until about 1 pm. All in all, it was a fun weekend away but I definitely prefer Sydney to Melbourne. When I got back, it was nice to be "home" (although don't tell my mom I said that or she'll be even more nervous that I want to relocate here).

Posts on a day trip to the Hunter Valley (for a wine tour) and a weekend in the Blue Mountains are on the way. Unfortunately, my house managed to use up our "unlimited" bandwidth for the month (because in Australia, you pay for everything), so the internet is really only tolerable after midnight which has become my bedtime as of late. I promise to get them up as soon as possible and without wanting to throw my laptop out a window.

Nature Walk

First, I want to apologize (again) for the long awaited new post. I've been wrapped up in travelling and uni work has finally kicked in; I guess I should probably at least turn my assignments in, even though the grades won't count toward my transcript. (And any one who actually knows me knows this is a vast understatement of how I feel about anything that is graded, so suffice to say that everything has been in on time and at least decently written.) I have done heaps of things since my last post, so expect a few rapid fire starting with this post.

With apologies out of the way, onto the Royal Botanical Gardens. I've been wanting to go to the Gardens for awhile, but just never seemed to make it there. One Saturday a few weeks ago, I finally got myself into the city to wander around for a few hours. Located in the city, much like central park, the Botanical Gardens are a nice, peaceful reprieve from the hustle and bustle of Sydney. As evidenced from the picture below, they are no more than a 5 minute walk from the Opera House. As it was a Saturday, I lucked out and the Governor's House (i.e. the official residence of the Governor of New South Wales, not to be confused with the Governor General) was open for touring. The Governor no longer permanently resides in the house and only uses it for special functions; the house was gorgeous but, unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

Outside of Governor's House; Governor's gardens; view from the Botanical Gardens into the City



While the Gardens, as expected, had plenty of interesting flora and fauna (more on that later), there are some especially unique animals to be found around the garden. As I noticed in Canberra, there are wild cockatoos in Australia. The ones I saw in the Gardens were much more pretty than the grey ones I found in the capital; they were white with yellow plumage on the top of their heads (I'm sure this has a name, but I definitely don't know it). There was a whole flock of them wandering around, which was amazing to me because I'd only been that close to a handful of cockatoos before that in my life - we weren't big on pets in my house when I was growing up with the exception of the occasional guppies and my "free" hermit crab named Herbert who promptly died about a week after I brought him home. Besides, my sister was enough of a pet anyway...just kidding. Anyway, they were really beautiful to see flying around. The other really interesting animal was the, get ready for it, bats that were all over the place in one section of the Gardens. Apparently, these bats moved-in when their natural habitat was destructed; as I, unsurprisingly, went to the Gardens when they were open - aka during the day - there were literally hundreds of them sleeping in the trees above the path. Honestly, though I know that's what they do, I couldn't help but be nervous one was going to fall on my head as I walked down the path underneath them. Luckily, I am not afraid of bats as this is not the first time I've seen them either. We have quite a few in our neighbourhood, and there have been a handful of times that I've been coming home for the night and saw what I initially think is a bird until I realize it's a bat coasting through the air.

Wild cockatoo; many, many bats in a tree


Finally, there were some plants to look at. I kept my eye out for a waratah, the state flower of New South Wales, but couldn't be bothered to actually search for it. I did, however, see the Wollemi Pine (pronounced "wall-em-eye"), which is a tree that was was thought to be extinct (and has an ancient lineage) until they found one somewhere in the middle of nowhere. They have one planted in the park, and you can even buy a baby one in the gift shop so you can have an almost extinct pine of your very own (which I didn't because I didn't want to get arrested by US customs when I come back to the States). There were also some gigantic trees; one in particular, a fig tree, was massive. Most of them were guarded by fences meant to keep visitors away from their root structures and/or hollow trunks.

Wollemi pine; huge fig tree


All in all, it was a well spent sunny afternoon. Look soon for a recap of my long weekend in Melbourne, followed by a post on my Hunter Valley wine tour. I can't believe I've only got a little more than a month left here, but I've got plenty of travelling left to do in that time (New Zealand here I come).

Are you sure I'm not in DC?

This past weekend (April 19-20), I took a short trip about 3 1/2 hours south of Sydney to the Australian capital, Canberra (pronounced "can-bur-uh"). To answer your question before you can ask it - no, Sydney is not the capital. Much like in the States, there was a battle over which city would be the capital between Melbourne and Sydney; they compromised on an undeveloped piece of land located approximately equidistant from both cities. Like DC, it was unwanted land that, when appropriated, became a territory - the Australian Capital Territory (i.e. like DC, the ACT is not a full state but, unlike DC, does have representation in Parliament).

The city layout is very reminiscint of DC; the city's walkable, there are heaps of roundabouts (bigger than the ones they have in Sydney instead of stop signs), and the main sites are centered around a strip that runs from Parliament House to the War Memorial (sound like the Mall to anyone?).

Captain Cook Memorial Jet (you heard me right); view of the War Memorial from the roof of Parliament House


The street leading up to the Australian War Memorial is lined with various memorials. I took a couple of pictures, but none of the ones on the side I walked up were very interesting. I wish I had had the chance to go back and walk down the other side of the street, but by the time I was done inside the Memorial I was exhausted as I had been walking since I got off the train that afternoon (at noon) and it was near 2 o'clock. On this trip, I did my best to walk almost everywhere...it's a much more interesting way to see a city (and you plain see more of it). Thus, I took advantage of Canberra's layout. Inside the Memorial there was a pond with an eternal flame, lists of soldiers that served in various conflicts - reminiscent of the American Vietnam Memorial - and the tomb of an unknown soldier. Inside the room which held the tomb were some gorgeous stained glass windows. Also, the whole room was tiled in mosaics (see my flickr for all the pictures).

View inside the Memorial facing the Tomb; view out of the Memorial across the city


After walking from the train station (because I hadn't realized quite how far outside of the city it was and hadn't looked up bus routes...yay for exercise), doing half the walking tour described in my (borrowed) Lonely Planet, and seeing the War Memorial, I walked even further to my hostel and checked in around half past 2. Literally everything in Canberra (and Australia for that matter) closes at 5*, so I knew I limited time to do much more that afternoon. I ate a quick lunch and caught the bus to Parliament House. I managed to make it just early enough for the last tour of the day at 4. I lucked out - my tour consisted of the guide, a fellow study abroad student traveller, and myself. It was great having a very personalised tour. Unfortunately, there were a few places we couldn't got because of the 2020 Summit; the quick explaination is that Australia just got a new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who thinks the people should be involved in government. The 2020 Summit was a gathering of lay people who met in commitee like groups to discuss issues relevant to themselves and Australia. They were using some of the rooms the tours usually go into, but it was cool nonetheless. Our tour guide was a traffic reporter as his day job, so that was interesting. Highlights of the tour included the view over the roof (which is basically a big hill), the story of the PM with the shortest tenure (8 days...and no, not because of death), and seeing another copy of the 1297 Magna Carta. I have now seen 1/2 of the 1297 Magna Carta's as one of the other four copies is held by the National Archives in DC.

Huge Australian flag that flies above Parliament House; Parliament House


I woke up bright and early on Sunday because I knew I had lots I wanted to do and not a ton of time in which to do it. I was out of bed by 7:30 (though I had set my alarm for 8, that's what happens when you stay in a 10 person shared hostel room) and checked out and on the bus by 8:30 to get to the National Museum of Australia by the time it opened at 9. And yes, Dad, those times are all in AM. The National Museum was really interesting; it wasn't huge so I gave myself an adequate amount of time (2ish hours), but I do wish I had had just a little longer. I then caught the bus back to the area around my hostel for an emergeny nail file (I had ripped a nail in the Museum and it was killing me, and I called my Mom to look up a chemist in the area as I had no available computer - go ahead and laugh) and lunch. After that, I went on a tour of Old Parliament House, which is just a few blocks away from the current Parliament House. The National Gallery of Art wasn't far away, so after my tour I walked there; they had a special exhibit on landscape called "From Turner to Monet," and if you know my taste in art you know I can't resist Monet, so I paid $15 to see it. As another similarity to DC, it was the only part of any museum I paid for on the trip. The rest of the Gallery was free, so (unsurprisingly), I wandered through the Modern Art section and got to see Diane Arbus' picture "Identical Twins," which I was really happy about.

Huge painting done as claim to Native Title by the Ngurrara people; view of Old Parliament House


After the Gallery, I considered going into the High Court and Questacon (aka the National Science Center), but I was tired and my feet were really hurting, so instead I went and sat on a bench for 40 minutes while waiting for the bus. The picture below was the street the bus stop was on; they weren't kidding when they said the trees are beautiful in Canberra in autumn (sidenote - I absolutely love that picture).

See, Australia does have seasons


So, that was my trip to Canberra. This weekend was ANZAC day, which is kind of like Memorial Day except much much bigger. I walked around the Botanical Gardens yesterday, and will try to post pictures soon, perhaps in conjunction with a recap of my trip to Melbourne (pronounced "mel-bin") next weekend.

On the uni front, this past week was the worst week I've had yet as far as work and probably the worst one I will have all semester...which is good because May is a busy month for travel for me. I'm just waiting on my finals schedule so I can plan my New Zealand trip in June.

* Which is when the pub opens and drinking begins, duh. Welcome to the Australian drinking culture/binge drinking problem.
Key: heaps = lots, many, very; chemist = pharmacy - Mom thought I was saying "Kenneth" over the phone

Offensive, Disturbing, or Hilarious? You Decide.

So, the following is a commercial I see here in Australia about every two seconds. Especially when Sex & the City is on - it literally comes on every commercial break. While I think the concept is hilarious, something about the actual commercial is a little distrubing. Ladies, what do you think? Am I just being too uptight?



PS - If you don't get it, please don't ask me to explain.
PPS - A post on my weekend trip to Canberra is in the works to be published by this weekend.

Travel Troubles

Generally, I like to consider myself a fairly capable traveller. Several times, I have been commended for my packing ability - especially when I am trying to bring a bag small enough for carry on. An excellent example of this would be my recent break trip (I don't know which break it was as no one can seem to agree...spring break for those in the States, technically mid-semester break for us though it fell no where near the middle of the semester, and occasionally fall break.) for which I packed 9+ days worth of clothes in a bag that fit snugly above my seat on the plane back to Sydney. I am the trip planner of choice for many and have travelled by myself multiple times both home from DC and to visit friends. This trip, however, has proven that I am not infallible when it comes to travel.

In an earlier entry, I mentioned a prolonged phone call with STA while in Los Angeles. So, to illustrate that I too make travel mistakes, here's the whole story. I booked my round trip tickets from LA to Sydney through STA travel as they had the cheapest flights I had come across. I had all of the information sent to my home address in Pennsylvania; while home over winter break, I looked over what they had sent to see if I needed any of it/if my tickets were included. I concluded that it was only the receipt and that there was no reason to bring this with me. Upon my arrival in LA, I discovered that some of those "receipts" were actually my ticket and that Qantas couldn't issue me new ones as they were not electronic. Thus commenced my hour and a half plus call to STA; first, they offered a flight the next day (no way), a flight a few hours later (nope, what if my arranged pick-up wasn't there), or a flight through Honolulu (tempting, but no thanks). In the end, I got new tickets on the same flights, but had to pay an additional $200. Excruciating? Yes, especially when you've been up for more than 24 hours.

Now, I admit I was stupid for not at least bringing the documentation with me. I still have trouble with some of STA's policies, however. First, I booked the tickets online; I asked the agent who fixed my problem if there is an option for electronic tickets when booking online. The answer? No. What?! You mean I can't have my tickets issued in the same way I purchase them? Seriously? Clearly, STA has an antiquated system that needs to be updated. Come on - this isn't the '90s anymore!

Oops number two, though less troublesome, was equally embarrassing. My only defense (if I have one at all) is that it was my first time travelling by train. Yup, that's the best I can do to absolve myself. Anyway, in order to get to Brisbane for my break trip, I opted to take the overnight train - all 14 hours of it - as it was the least expensive option. The itinerary/ticket was e-mailed to me, and the instructions were to print it out and bring it with me. I get a limited number of print credits through the study abroad office, so I went there to print it out. I couldn't get the option to print the selected text (it's been a long time since I've dealt extensively with Macs), so it was printing all of the frames of the Hotmail e-mail. Looking at the itinerary, it looked like the same information was repeated on the 2nd page, so I just printed out the 1st. Little did I know that my car and seat number were printed on that elusive 2nd page.

After arriving at the train station, I realized I had no idea if seats were assigned and that I had no seat number if they were. Being fairly unshakable, I decided I'd figure it out if I needed to, went to the furthest forward economy car, and took a seat. In my brief time in the wrong seat, I encountered a mother with her 5 children whose seat I had taken. In the end, I asked someone with a passenger log and found my assigned seat (in the same car and still a window).

Sigh. I guess this will keep me from getting cocky anytime in the near future, huh?

Finally, in somewhat related information - domestic travel in Australia is incredibly easy. I flew back to Sydney from Cairns; at the airport, I never once showed my ID or boarding pass to security. In fact, I never showed my ID to anyone. My shoes stayed firmly on my feet and liquids well over 3 ounces were brought on the plane with me (not contained in their very own plastic bag). I'd forgotten how nice it was to have quick security that doesn't require you to put every item you are carrying-on into a separate plastic tray and hope that your nail clippers aren't too pointy or that your deodorant is 3.0002 ounces and thus must be left behind.

Adrenaline Junkie

Apparently, I am not updating often enough, so here is a long awaited new entry. I have been so delayed because I was gone on the greatest break trip ever for the past 9 days (March 21-30). The trip was called One Fish Two Fish; basically, I did anything anyone would want to do up the east coast of Australia in Queensland, the state above New South Wales. I could write pages and pages about how amazing it was, but instead I'll just provide a brief recap of all the activities: Australia Zoo - Steve Irwin's zoo, 4x4ing on Fraser Island - largest sand island in the world, ocean rafting to Whitehaven beach, hanging out & partying on an island in the Whitsundays, yachting the Whitsundays, white water rafting the Tully River, skydiving, bungy jumping, scuba diving and snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef, and cliff jumping in World Heritage rainforest. It was intense and draining (I caught a major cold), but the best trip I've ever taken.

Best day of my life (skydiving at sunset followed by bungy jumping less than 5 hours later):


Some Highlights:




In other news, classes are pretty much the same as at home. It's really hard to judge them at this stage because we've only had 3 weeks of classes out of 12. My Aboriginal Australia class will probably be my favorite, and I'm also enjoying Psycholinguistics (which, with every class, is making me more and more sure that I want to do research in language acquistion as a profession). I only have one real final in my Learning class, so I'm hoping it ends up being scheduled at the beginning or at the end of the exam period so I can travel to New Zealand, as time and money allow.

After some searching around, I think I've found a rental for the time I'll be in DC this summer. It's not super close to campus and it's not super cheap, but it could be worse and it's the only place that has a start lease date in July.

Please Ignore the Fact that I have My Camera Out at Every Opportunity

Sorry a new post has been so delayed. I have been busy adjusting to this classes thing again as well as trying to get as much in as possible before school responsibilities started. In my first two weeks in Sydney, I managed to do a bunch of the major tourist attractions in the city (never say downtown).

1) Aquarium
The aquarium was really cool because they have tanks that you can basically walk through via tunnels. Apparently, Australia has the smallest penguins in the world, nurse sharks are almost extinct even though they only eat fish, and platypuses look like drift wood (aka it didn't come out and I have yet to see one).


Video of jellyfish (please ignore the fact that I forgot videos can only be taken horizontally):


2) Opera House
Although I plan to go to a show or two at the Opera House, I took a tour just to see as much as possible. Pavaretti wasn't a fan of the purple carpet, the largest organ in the world (with something like 10,000 pipes) is in the Concert Hall, and Jorn Utson (the architect) has never seen the finished building.


This is in the Utzon room; though it looks like a painting, the close-up should show you that it's actually a tapestry:




3) General City Sites
I walked across the harbour bridge and took a bunch of pictures.


All my pictures can be found on my flickr account: www.flickr.com/people/pass_away13

Room 10, 17 Coogee St

Welcome to 17 Coogee Street. Although it looks small, it goes on forever into the back, much like many DC townhouses. This will be home sweet home for me and 16 other study abroad students for the next 4 months. Yes, you read that right, 16 students. Luckily, all the roommates (thus far) are pretty awesome and easy going.

The accomodation is great, especially living upstairs as I do. The windows on the right of the building are directly above my bed. My roommate just arrived today. She is from New Jersey and it seems like we should get along well. Funnily, I am in the minority in the house in that I am neither Canadian (we have 3 Queens' students) nor a business major (all but one).

The first floor is kind of boarding house style, while the upstairs is more homey. They boys are downstairs while the girls are upstairs. Obviously, the boys are jealous of our digs upstairs and tend to hang out up there. There's no aircon in the house, but the fans do a good job so it's okay. There's also a guest house/love shack in the backyard with another girl and a house manager, Justin. He's the guy we go to to troubleshoot problems with the house. Basically, his story is exactly the story my parents don't want to tell about me; he was a study abroad student last year and fell in love with the place and transfered.

Front door from the top of the stairs; Upstairs kitchen; Upstairs common area

A picture of my room will be forthcoming, but it needs to be completely unpacked and cleaned first.

One of the things I'm most appreciative of (other than the lack of communication issues) is the general lack of culture shock. I am, however, enjoying discovering the differences between well known American items and their Australian counterparts; grocery shopping especially pointed these out to me. I debated, but finally bought the Rice Bubbles over the Frosties. I passed on Cheese Supreme Doritos. The 2 liter Coke bottles are kind of awesome because they look exactly like the one's you would get from a vending machine, except bigger.

Just to make you all jealous: I am simultaneously 15 minutes from the beach and 15 minutes from Uni (although there's a killer hill to get there). Some postcards have been bought and will hopefully be in the post shortly.

Key: aircon = a/c, air conditioning; Rice Bubbles = Rice Crispies; Frosties = Frosted Flakes; Uni = university (duh); post = mail

LAX

Thus far today I have survived not sleeping last night (so I'd be tired for the flights and avoid jet lag as much as possible), a 5:30 am cab ride to National, absolutely no difficulties in Denver, waiting in line twice for ticketing for Qantas (the Australian airline), and being on hold for more than an hour and a half with STA trying to get my Sydney ticket reissued because I'm an idiot...don't ask. I've been in an airport since 6 am this morning and have had 10+ hours of layover time thus far.

I met a ridiculous British woman who is on my flight at dinner. She moved over and sat near me and another guy also travelling to Sydney (not on our flight). Carole - with an "e" so I wouldn't forget - promptly invited me to stay at her house 3 hours north of Sydney. She's also let me in on the best white wine to buy. She was going to visit me on the plane when she got bored, but was surprised when I said I could, hypothetically, sleep 10 of the 14 hours the flight takes. She also told a couple of stories multiple times, but it was nice to have someone else to talk to after a day of travelling alone.

Finally, I exchanged the bulk of my cash in the airport tonight. First, the Australian dollar is finally worth more than the American dollar ($1.03 bought 1$AUD). Second, their bills are really really pretty. They get longer as they go up in denomination and they only have singles as coins, not bills. 5s are purple, 10s are blue, 20s are red, and 50s are yellow; they also all have a cutout with a plastic inlay that is kind of awesome.

T-Minus 2 Weeks

I have about two weeks left in the States and as my departure date looms I'm getting more and more ready to go.

3 = the number of different places I have lived thus far in DC
3 = the number of days until my parents and sister come to visit
1 = the number of places I have left to stay
2:3 = the ratio of futons to beds I have slept in
15 = the number of days I have worked...in a row
4 (+2 still to be done) = the number of times I have packed/repacked my bags for Sydney

Luckily, even though I have been dragging my life around with me in 3 suitcases for 3+ weeks now, I definitely made the right decision in coming back to DC. I feel like I'm going to be really prepared for Sydney without applications and other things like that (i.e. taxes) to worry about. Now to stop myself from starting a countdown...