Darwin

Lots of catching up to do:

Saturday night, ate out and hanging out till semi-late.

Sunday: woke up, went to the beach for a bit, orientation session from 2-4pm. they gave all 130 of us a brief overview of what to expect living in Darwin, including a 25 minute summary of Australian language/culture/history. Also our guides in Kakadu gave us a bit of an itinerary as each group is rotating in and out of the park. My "Australian History" program leaves early friday morning and comes back late on Sunday. Finished up the evening watching the sunset and wandering around down at the Mindil beach markets.

Monday: first day of class. bright and early at 9am too! Our classroom is a not so convenient 20 min walk away from the apartments. Ah well, at least I'll stay in shape! Class was actually really fun. Bruce (the prof) and Peter (the TA) are both from the University of New South Wales. We started out with a lot of role-playing/acting and interactive exercises. Ended with a movie and the 4 hour class was over. Managed to find the gym which was marked incorrectly on the map they gave us. so might actually get a bit more in shape this summer. That evening was a reception at the government house with "his honour" ted egan. It was great - free beer, champagne, mingling with random others, and tons of "nibbles" - sandwiches to spring rolls. And waiters to bring everything around on trays to groups of people. Then the governor spoke to us, sang a song as well since apparently he has about 20-30 albums, a nervous american coordinator added something, and some poor engineering student butchered a thank you speech. Then a night out on the town. After meeting a million new people at the reception - including Emily Essig, the Purdue girl I'm traveling with afterwards - I decided to quasi-detach myself from the georgetown-ites and hang out with the nerds for an evening. I must admit it just reminds me of being at purdue and going out. I'm somewhat more at ease just cause I atomatically fit in better with that sort of crowd. Not that I'm complaining about the History kids - plenty of good people and I do get along pretty well, just can't always deal correctly with the preppiness. So somehow was in bed by midnight anyway! We've had such early nights here so far. I at least have the excuse of English training.

tuesday: class again. This time with Raylein (female prof) about Aboriginal culture and women convicts. Not as exciting as the day before. Excursion in the afternoon to the Chinese museum where we did a few exercises describing how the Chinese have been important in Darwin since the 1870s or so. A stop by the library to be a nerd, get brownie pts, and ostensibly research my role-play for wed. - governor arthur phillip. That evening, our group had yet another excursion - this time for a sunset cruise out on the ocean. We took an historic pearl lugger out to the site where the US ship Pearly was sunk during WWII. Apparently we had quite a bit of navy stationed here, and Darwin was hit with several times the amount of bombs that Pearl Harbour was. Over the site where the ship sunk and 91 American sailors were trapped inside, we had a bit of a ceremony. Bruce talked about the bombings, Peter read Australia's "Ode" which they read at all services of this type, we each took turns reading the names of the fallen, and then threw roses into the water. Afterwards, in true Aussie style, we all had several glasses of complimentary champagne. The sunset around 7:20 or a bit before - it was the winter solstice afterall!! and it was incredible. hung out on the water for awhile before heading back to the dock, and dinner.

wed: well, that would be today for me. tomorrow for all of you at home ;) more class today. 10% of our grade done with now. We held a mock 'Royal Commission' to investigate the causes/means of prevention of the racial tension and violence that occured when the country was first being colonized. I was the first Governor - Arthur Phillip and had to speak as him during the investigation. Apparently we all got 10/10. again, its a rough class... haha. Then, we were supposed to watch a documentary but apparently Raylein's daughter had taped over it with Charmed. So we got out early, I hit the gym, then we had yet another excursion. We went to the Esplanade in Darwin to see the statues commemerating a German explorer, the US Pearly, and ANZAC soldiers. Also went to the telegraph house, did exercises about the pictures there, talked to the oldest morse code/telegraph guy in Australia - 96 yrs old! Then on to the Supreme Court, a cemetery, and finally the Northern Territory museum with everything from aboriginal art to natural history stuff to a NASA exhibit. Admittedly, pretty tired now but headed to the $5 BBQ!