Thursday, July 29, 2004

far north queensland

so spent all afternoon at 'the lagoon' which is the fake beach and ocean pool thing in downtown Cairns.  Goodtimes though as it was with much of the energy mob.  and let the record show that i am NOT sunburned!! finally learned how to use sunscreen maybe??  Anyway, got back, had a big meeting with activities to sign up for, and then went with Erica, Helen, Claire, Dan, and Mark to see what we thought was gonna be a live band. no such luck. just a dj... still chilled out, had a chai.  apparently i've got over my drinking stage - or i'm just that cheap ;)  went back and watched people heading out. too tired for that though. so to bed relatively early.  got up early as well as usual.  lucked out and managed to pursuade the correct authorities that a few of us should be allowed to go on the Duke program excursion.  So it was me, Dan, Mark, and Ben all hitchin a ride with the Dukies... a free trip!  huzzah.   So out to the Daintree rainforest for a 2 hr guided tour.  The aboriginal guide knew just about everything and i know i barely absorbed half of it.  awesome to actually  be walking around in a real rainforest... learned what some of the poisonous stuff was, where to find water in the tablelands, survivor-esque.  Then on to Port Douglas where we had a couple hours to just lay around on the beach and swim in the ocean. Such  a gorgeous coastline, I felt like i should be in a documentary or something.  more later!

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

They have a lot of wildlife in Australia...

Well, i dont really have much to update on.  they have a lot of bats in australia - and they are all GIANT. Classes are done though!! can't believe summer is running away from me so fast.  been spending most of my free time just hanging out by the beach.  felt unwell yesterday but have more or less recovered.  we are staying at a resort hotel which is incredibly awesome.  i'll enjoy the ammenities while i have them.  lots of japanese tourists in the area - so many that almost everything is written in both english and japanese.. crazy.  making plans to go snorkeling and such out in the reef and maybe rent cars with people for trips to the rainforest.  good times.  funny how i have almost completely stopped hanging out with anyone from my history class except for about 5 friends and another 5 acquaintances.... i put on the evaluation today that the whole thing would be a lot better if Georgetown weren't allowed to come.... not fair i know! there were some good people from there. still, yuck. anyway thank goodness the energy mob is around to always chill with.  alright,  out to the beach

Monday, July 26, 2004

Last week in Sydney

So anyway... I finished my gigantic history paper!! huzzah. definitely the accomplishment of last week.  Last Tuesday had an excursion around the Rocks area of Sydney with Bruce and Rawe - a great pictoral history with a free pint at the end ;)  quayle ale is good stuff!  lord nelson's microbrewery.  Met Jenn Fisher for dinner again on Wednesday - a great Indian place - with Emily and Helen.  Girls night.  Thursday finished the paper and went out with some engineers to The Palace to overcelebrate.  Friday got to get up crazy early for a wine tasting tour in the Hunter Valley of all things.  Tried about 16 wines plus 4 liquors of various sorts... 3 wineries and a pub were included.  I actually like the scenery best I think... rolling hills of vinyards with montains in all directions.  Saturday was the last day in the city and I tried to get in everything I'd been putting off.  Recruited Jaime to come along with me for company.  We wandered around Newtown for a few hrs. all sorts of bookstores, thrift shops and coffee/tea shops.  Then up to the Glebe markets and an insanely long walk (in the ever present saturday rain of course) through darling harbour to the rocks for a giant pancake dinner with the energy mob.  Sunday an early early flight and now i'm in beautiful sunny Cairns!!!

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Rugby league to the blue mountains

So I lied about all the wandering that was going to happen on Friday.  I ended up going to the library and reading, etc for the history paper. of course not getting any work done really.  then it was time for rugby league - the sydney roosters v. the st. george dragons! an intense quasi-local rivalry.  luckily it didnt rain or anything and the roosters pulled out a win in the second half.  still dont really understand all the rules though... ah well.  walked back to the dorm with some peeps and hung out the rest of the night. watched braveheart i think. random!  then saturday, helen and i actually did get up, check email, and head out to wander the city.  went to the rocks markets again for a short while and then took a long walk down Pitt st. and Oxford st. all the way to Paddington - good way to see lots of the town.  more markets while there, then a bus to the west part of the eastern suburbs (which are really in the south)  to a neighboorhood called newtown which is jam packed with thriftstores and coffeeshops.  definitely good times.  cant believe we actually did everything on our list!  got back in time to watch the rugby union australia v. new zealand game.  (the same as my first rugby match ever watched!) sunday then one of the engineering girls, Kasha, organized a group to go on a day trip to the blue mtns and i tagged along since i've been hanging out with the so called energy mob so much more then the georgetowners anyway.  i think there were about 12 of us that went - a good trip run by oz experience.  went via windsor, then stopped several times in the blue mtns to hike a bit, have lunch and look off cliffs.  did the whole scenic gondola ride and rode the worlds steepest inclined railway - 52 degrees and open on the sides and top.  definitely felt like you could fall out at any time.  on the way back stoppped at featherdale animal park where they help injured animals.  got to pet a koala and a bunch of kangaroo/wallabies.  not to mention staring now the cassowaries, taipan, tasmanian devil, and fruit bats!  so alright, now i PROMISE to go do history work!

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Sydney opera house

ah, i have left this too long again! so heres a wrap up of the past week:

saturday - as i left you, went downtown with Dukie program friends Helen and Nina where we wandered the area of Sydney market and visited the Rocks weekend markets for a couple of hrs. Finished up in the downtown area window shopping and hopped a bus back just as it started to pour. a quiet night for most of us that didnt want to get absolutely drenched. what sort of drought is this????
sunday - a massive plan for today was created the night before with Emily, Tam, Dan, and Mark. unfortunately rain usually does throw off the out of doors type plans. we did go to bondi in the morning and walked around the markets there for a while in the drizzle. again foiled from walking the entire cliff walk back to coogee so we took the bus. i'm pretty sure the rest of the day was spent doing nothing vital. thank goodness theres a big tv room and plenty of engineers to spend time fixing the numerous broken speaker wires and whatnot.
monday-tuesday - went to class, etc, etc. made it to the library to do some work even thought the dang place closses at 5pm!!! good lord. rough just because these were our first days of nice weather! monday had a history excursion to the hyde park barracks, st marys cathedral, hyde park, war memorial. walking around for about 3 hrs. of course at the end it started sprinkling. ack! walked down about 20 min to the opera house to see it all lit up and then headed back to uni
wed - class, whatever. finished paper #1 for environmental history. actually paper #2 if you count the short one for that class. grading is a joke and i shouldnt try even as hard as i do. habits are hard to break though! thought i'd allow myself to go out and celebrate and headed to The Palace down on Coogee with a hoard of studyabroaders. Danced for a few hrs till the place shut down at 1am. Then for some reason decided along with others that it would be a really good idea to go down to the beach (this place was right next to it) and jump in the ocean... haha. absolutely hilarious. defiitely a bit bracing as well!
thursday - class, gym, getting dressed up. luckily helen brought 2 of everything - actual nice clothes of the type that i dont generally wear or own. so got the little black dress and heels on and we both headed out. met up with jenn fisher in her office near circular quay (say it like 'key') then went with her and her boss for a quick bite before we headed up to the opera house. about 50 of our group there - in the back 2 rows of the ground floor. the opera was 'the mikado' definitely a good beginners opera as it is in english and funny as well! after that, wandering in heels - not so pleasant. randomly turned out that about everyone in the program ended up at the 'Three Wise Monkeys' bar downtown to listen to the cover band and chill for a few hrs. home relatively early and I still slept in! tons of sleep, most excellent. now i'm just supposed to get working on my 10 pg paper for history.... maybe later ;) i've got wandering to do through the thriftshop area of town. then a rugby match tonight! nothing like a good sporting event to get the bloodlust going. hopefully get some surfing in this weekend and maybe a trip to the blue mtns.

Friday, July 09, 2004

Surfs up on Bondi Beach

Well the past few days in Sydney have been incredibly busy - I feel as if I'm running from class to excursion to activity to doing work and finally to bed. The constant off and on rain has been a bummer too. It would figure of course that a city in one of its worst droughts would get rain from the moment I arrived. Yesterday after class I had my surfing lesson at Bondi. Went with several other people from the program. Thankfully the rain had stopped by the time we arrived and had to throw on wetsuits. The tide was in and the waves were high and strong. Usually they time lessons during low tide so the conditions are a bit easier - no such help for us! After signing our lives away (a list of dangers including interesting things like: 'you make be sucked out to sea' or 'you may be bitten by a fish or shark or stung by a jellyfish') we headed out to the beach. Streched and broke up into groups. We went out individually at first in attempts to jump on the board and kinda of stay lying down while riding a wave in. I have a distinct tendency to fall over when walking out and being hit by a wave and it took me a while to make sure my mouth and eyes were shut when hit, but I ended up doing surprisingly well. We went back to the beach and practiced standing up on the boards. Then again attempted individally and all together. You will be pleased to note that I stood up twice! and didnt fall off either - i was unanimously voted best in our group for my ride that went all the way into shore with enough time to pose like a surfer... and who would have guessed with my coordination? At any rate, I'm very tempted to take another 2 lessons. maybe audition for blue crush 2? haha. Anyway, Emily,Colleen, Evan, and I walked home from there which was quite a trek. Started along the gorgeous cliff walk that goes all the way to Coogee but turned inland when it got dark (about 5:45!) A quiet night as it was raining and I couldnt get enough motivation to take a bus all the way downtown in that. Watched 'The Gift' with a bunch of the energy engineers and then chatted with some of my group that got back early. Today I'm finally headed downtown to explore!

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Uluru and Canberra

What better way to celebrate the 4th of July then by sitting on a bus from 9am until 3:30pm? Ack. way too much sitting for me! The scenery, I suppose, was at least a good way of really feeling the emptiness that is central australia. We arrived in time to drop our stuff off in rooms (most of the program stayed in a hostel/lodge type thing) or in my case a tent (wasn't bad, had a real bed in it afterall) and then they bused us out to watch Uluru while the sunset opposite it on the horizon. I must say now that it is one BIG rock. I've seen plenty of mountans and such, but a rock of that size is just a bit odd. Definitely much cooler our in the desert as well. Got down to below freezing at night which was quite a shock after the 80s and 90s in Darwin. Our bus driver instructed us to start taking pictures at 5:40 and continue taking them every 5 min until after the sun was down around 6:15.... in cahoots with the film industry! but he had a point in that the rock changes color slowly but steadily. Starting off with its normal red sandstone color and darkening/deepening. Spent the rest of the night bumming around what is apparently Yuluru - the town/resort that we were staying at. I walked back with Claire from the lodge where the other groups were staying - probably took us about 25 minutes, but we got to walk through almost empty desert and enjoy the stars and almost full moon. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy and we only got patches of the sky.
The next morning they roused us all way to early to go watch the Olgas while the sun rose opposite them in the horizon (20 degrees from Uluru.) The Olgas are a number of large rocks (each significantly smaller then Uluru but in total taking up a larger space.) College students are never incredibly cheerful when woken up at 5:15 and dropped off at an outlook to wait 45 minutes for the sun to rise. I think however this was even more beautiful then the sunset although it was definitely a cold wait. It took quite a while because of cloudyness, but the Olgas almost seemed to be glowing pink just as the sun peaked the horizon and colored the underside of all the clouds blue and pink. Next they took us all to the culure center at Ululru before finally driving us right up to the rock. We took a Mulga walk around part of Uluru led by an aboriginal family who was translated by a park ranger. It was incredible to hear the stories of ancient ancestors visiting for sacred rites. It was explained to us that although the aboriginal man spoke English, these tales were too powerful to tell in that language. The path up to the top of the rock was closed due to high winds, but I wouldn't have walked anyway after hearing of the importance of the path and the requests of the native owners to not climb. We probably got 3/4 of a mile around it to see several of the caves where men, boys, and women sheltered for thousands of years. T

hen, unfortunately, our group had to head back to the buses to catch our flight to Canberra. Only the history and Michigan state journalism classes went to Canberra for 2 nights. We went via Melbourne, where we saw rain for the first time on the trip. Then a short hop to Australia's capitol - on that flight in the late evening you could look out of the plane window and see along the western horizon a bright spectrum spread in a thin band while the rest of the sky was in darkness - cool! If you know anything about Canberra you know it's not an exciting place. It was a totally planed city first built in the 1920s and 30s to prevent the capitol being Sydney or Melbourne. As a park city everything is incredibly spaced out, and the almost downtown area we stayed at a hostel in was completely dead at night. Luckily the hostel showed movies on its TVs in the evening! The next day was hectic as we visited the National Museum, which has incredible exhibits featureing "Land, Nation, People" but is under some controversy as the current Liberal (think republican) govt wants to remove many of the apologetic references to the european invasion, and then the National Gallery with art work of Australians. Yet another quiet night in the hostel before visiting the War Memorial on Wed morning. Australians are very serious with their war memorials - there is one in every town no matter how small. Their impression of war is completely different from ours. In WW I, they see themselves as a sacrifice of the British empire, and since then the idea of 'mateship' with fellow soldiers has been more important then demonization of the enemy.

Yet another bus ride - 4hours this time through quite different scenery. Even in this terrible drought, NSW is relatively green, with rolling hills and pastures. One can definitely understand why original explorers who were thousands of miles and many months away from their home saw English hills and meadows. Moved into the University of New South Wales last night. The dorms are a tad ghetto, but I have my own room which is plenty big so I'm not complaining! More important - free breakfast and lunch! woohoo! Today we had our elective class before going on an excursion to the museum La Peruse which has an exhibit over the French explorer of that name who landed in Botany Bay the day after Arthur Phillip and the English first fleet claimed the continent. Seems like I've been in a whirl since arriving - but had time to walk around and orient a bit this afternoon. Hopefully I'll be able to get all my papers written this weekend so as too have no work the rest of the trip! Anyway, it's cold here too! such a shock for it to be winter with highs in the 50s. and of course I'm going surfing at Bondi beach tomorrow! should be great if i can avoid sharks and pnuemonia!

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Alice Springs

Well I haven't really done THAT much, but I suppose that an update on location at least is deserved at this point. Monday and Tuesday of this week were great, relaxing, hang out around Darwin in the sun type days. I even managed to get up and out with people on Monday night! My elective class met on Wed. and Thurs. Environmental History of australia - taught by prof. Tony - a friend of professors Ray and Bruce. The first day was a repeat for almost everyone involved - most of the 18 of us are from history, wildlife and conservation, or the Duke program. We have watched some pretty interesting nature-type videos at least. Wed night my roomates and I took it easy and went to bed pretty early. However, Thursday was our last night in Darwin - not to mention Territory Day! Apparently July 1 is the only day that is legal for people to set off fireworks so they have to get a years worth in. Thursday is also the big night for the Mindil beach markets. I don't know if I've described them yet, but the markets start a bit before sunset and continue on until 9 or 10pm. Incredibly like a busy county fair - just replace tenderloin stands with those for chinese and various oriental food and the fried candy bar places with ones for smoothies. You can buy just about anything, from crocodile whips to tie-dyed clothes. At any rate, there was a huge official fireworks display from barges just off the beach. Then the unofficial display started. Along the whole coastline you could see and hear people setting off veritable truckloads of fireworks. Impressive in persistance even if they're just bottle rockets most of the time. Most of my group made a big evening of it, but for some reason I decided to chill out around the pool and just chat with people I hadn't seen for awhile. Friday morning was our flight from Darwin to Alice Springs. A public holiday here so everything was closed and Alice is a quiet town to begin with! Today I got to spend some time walking around, visiting the cultural center, etc. Just returned from the Desert Park where they have restored 3 different desert habitats and have various displays/seminars showing off bush animals. Tomorrow is the exciting 6 hour bus ride to Uluru!! What a summer!