Days 87-89 – April 28-30, 2008

Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday

Nothing much exciting. The usual going to class and working on papers during the days. My first of three papers is due tomorrow, and the last one is due next Thursday on the 8^th. I cannot wait until they are over with. It has been getting colder lately, and the temperature was in the 50s on all three days. I definitely didn’t expect it to get this cool, and I don’t think I brought enough long-sleeved clothes. I actually had to wear a coat to class on Wednesday, which I am glad I ended up bringing because I nearly didn’t pack it. Who would have known that Australia gets so cold? Monday the 28^th marked the two month point before I return home. On Tuesday, Emily talked to her teacher who said that he would move her exam up, but didn’t really give a reason for not emailing back in the last week, keeping us wondering. That was good news, so now we will be able to plan about a ten day trip to Thailand for the end of June, and I’ve been doing some research on that. I know it’s six+ weeks away, but I’m pretty excited about going there.

Days 84-86 – April 25-27, 2008

Friday

As I mentioned last time, Anzac Day is a pretty important holiday around here. Most stores didn’t open today. One of my professors even told us that Anzac Day is one of the three days in the whole year when the casino actually closes. I didn’t really feel like doing much work when I got up and just sat around on the computer for a while. Darcy came by at around 2:00 to go watch the Anzac Day footy game in the projector room. Essendon and Collingwood, two of the biggest clubs in Victoria, traditionally play in the Anzac Day game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a massive stadium in Melbourne with a capacity around 100,000 where they play a lot of footy and cricket games. It is the biggest stadium in Australia, and from what I understand, a bunch of different teams use the same stadiums as home field, so there are multiple games there during one week. The Anzac Day game is the second biggest AFL game of the year behind the Grand Final, and I tried to get tickets a few weeks ago but it was actually sold out. I have been watching some Aussie rules football since I’ve been here, and I don’t think the game is too difficult to figure out. It is completely different from American football, though. Collingwood dominated and the final score was 154-81. At halftime, I came upstairs to get some food and had an email from my politics professor saying that he would move my exam to June 4^th. Now, my last exam is June 13^th, so I should be able to travel to Thailand during June. I’m going to wait to finalize plans until Emily hears back about her exam on the 19^th, though. I wrote some of my essay, made dinner, and then hung around with Harry, Shelley, and Jorjie for a while for the rest of the night.

Saturday

Today was the Contemporary Australia field trip to an AFL footy game at MCG. A group of us international students met outside Howitt at around noon, then left to take public transportation downtown because we were supposed to meet our teacher, Rob, at 1:10. We arrived a little late, but the group of about 15-20 that I was with made up probably 90% of the students who would be attending. We met Rob outside, where he was waiting with some of his family, and then we bought tickets and went in. With a student ID, tickets only cost $12.80 each, and most of the seats were general admission. We went up to the third tier so that we could all sit together, but it was still a great view in the huge stadium. The field is so big that it is better to be up high so that you can see everything, and near our section was even where the TV cameras were positioned. There were quite a few open seats on the lower level, yet people were filling up the top level because of the view. Before the game started, we went to a portable Nando’s chicken stand outside (they allow re-entry into these games if you want to leave) for lunch and came back as it was getting underway. The match was between the Carlton Blues and the Adelaide Crows, and Adelaide was supposed to win. Carlton was winning for most of the time, but ended up losing it at the end. I had a fun time at the game, and the more I watch AFL, the more I enjoy it. The fans were getting really loud and excited throughout the match, but I noticed that there really wasn’t much heckling. Maybe because it’s pointless since the stadium is so big. I think I will probably try to go to a night game at the Telstra Dome, another big footy stadium in Melbourne, before I leave. After the match ended, Rob took us to a pub down the street. Almost everyone who had gone to the game went. It was kinda weird to be at a pub with a professor, but he didn’t seem to care and was acting like one of us. At one point, Adam Stein found this blonde wig and Rob put it on, which was pretty funny. We stayed there for a while, went to a place to get a snack and then came back. The burger place we stopped at had these post-its on the door with funny sentences on them. One of them said “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

Sunday

Today was mostly spent doing my essay. It is taking longer than I hoped, probably because I find it so difficult to do any work here at all. It’s just hard because I don’t really feel like I’m at school, so why should I be writing a paper? Went to the grocery store tonight. While I was at Pinewood Shopping Centre, I went to Cold Rock Ice Creamery which is basically the Australian version of Cold Stone Creamery. Now, I’m back to my room, where I will probably try to do more on my essay but mostly just waste time watching TV shows or something.

Days 82-83 – April 23-24, 2008

Wednesday

Today was the Monash Abroad Exchange Fair, and I had offered to volunteer at Miami’s booth. I had to get there by 10:30, and I stopped to have breakfast in the Campus Centre on my way, something that I will never plan to do again because it was pretty bad. The fair itself wasn’t too big, and they probably had about 20-30 booths set up along the walls. Miami’s was between California and Oklahoma. The people I hang around with here from Miami decided not to volunteer, but the fourth UM exchange student was there, as well as some Aussie girl who had studied abroad at Miami last semester. A few other internationals I knew were volunteering for their respective schools, and the fair got underway around 11:00. Quite a few people came by the Miami booth, although not as many as went to California next to us. I think Australians have this fascination with California, possibly because it’s the closest continental American state to them and has so many big cities. I left the fair at 1:15 with a free t-shirt, a $10 lunch voucher, and a free movie pass. Definitely worth it. My economics class was at 2:00, and Emily decided to “class crash” since she had tried to take the class but couldn’t get in and also needed an excuse to leave the fair early. Earlier in the day, I had sent an email to my politics teacher to request moving my exam up form the 24^th, but when I got back from class at 5:00, he hadn’t written me back yet. Instead of cooking tonight, I went to the dining hall, and afterwards, took the bus to Dan Murphy’s, a major bottle shop chain in Australia, with Jimmy, Adam, Ciara, and Kim. I had never been there before, but I heard that it is massive and has the best prices around. Both claims were true, and we all stocked up to avoid having to pay the $1.60 bus fare to go back anytime soon. When I got back, I finally started researching for my last paper and spent the rest of the night doing that before going to bed.

Thursday

With no class today, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get some research done on my essay, so I spent most of the morning and afternoon doing work on that. Around 5:00, I played in another small poker tournament in the basement, which I won, and then made dinner. Tomorrow is Anzac Day, which is one of Australia’s most important national days and commemorates a major WWI battle fought by the Australian New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). Because of that, pretty much everyone in Australia has Friday off, making Thursday night supposedly one of the biggest going-out nights all year. We had been trying to decide whether to do the usual Thursday night Nott or to go to a place off Chapel St. where Katie and a bunch of her friends who were visiting were going. We decided to go to Chapel St. because it would be something different and Katie also said that her friend would be coming with seven girlfriends. By the time everyone got ready, we didn’t end up leaving until around 10:00. We had to take the bus to the train to get there, and after we got off the train we had about a 45 minute walk, which we had not been expecting. We walked almost the entire Chapel St. and still couldn’t find the place, eventually realizing that we had passed the street. There were a lot of people all over Chapel St. and most of the clubs and bars had big lines to get in. By the time we got to the bar, it was around 11:30, and we were all a little mad that it was so late and we had walked so much. The bar was busy and it took a while to get service. Eventually, some of the people who Katie was with wanted to leave, so we went off to find another bar, which was apparently full and not letting anymore people in. We ended up back at BlueBar, the place we had gone to a few weeks ago. We only stayed there for a little bit and left to go get food and then returned to Monash.

Days 80-81 – April 21-22, 2008

Monday

For some reason, they don’t give you your final exam schedule at Monash until six weeks before the finals period begins. I don’t know if that’s how they do it in all of Australia, but I know that at Miami, you know when your finals will be on the first day of class. In fact, I can already check online to see when mine will be for the Fall 08 semester. So they released the exam timetable today, and I’m not too happy with mine. Exam period basically covers the whole month of June, but I was hoping to have mine clustered to allow for some travelling during that month. My first one, Contemporary Australia, is on June 2, which isn’t even officially exam-time yet; it’s like a pre-finals study period, but the teachers know that it’s not real class and let us get it out of the way early, so that one’s good. However, my economics exam on June 13, and my politics is on June 24. I feel like for having only three exams, that’s probably the worst possible outcome I could have had. One at the beginning, one at the middle, and one at the end. Also, my middle exam splits the time exactly in half, leaving 10 days on both sides. That is bad because, including a day or two before the exam to study, I have barely enough time on each end to go somewhere worthwhile. I will be figuring out when my friends have exams to try to coordinate travel, and I will probably attempt to move the economics exam up, to allow a few weeks of travel in the middle. I have my presentation for Contemporary Australia tomorrow in my tutorial, and apparently, they fired the lady who used to be the tutor for my timeslot, so now I have one of the lecturers. It’s too bad, because she was an easy grader, so I was looking forward to having her grade my presentation and final paper, but what can you do.

Tuesday

I talked to Emily in class this morning, who said that she was definitely interested in going to Thailand and some other places during finals, but she also has conflicting exams. We both have exams during the middle of finals month and decided that that would be the best time to go away. As of now, most of the other people I talked to either didn’t seem to be too keen on travelling during finals because they are staying longer after school or do not want to go so far away or want to go to New Zealand instead of Asia. (Australians use the word “keen” a lot. They also say “reckon” quite a bit, too.) Emily and I both sent emails to our teachers requesting our finals be moved, as we are international students who need to return home at the end of June and would like to travel during the month. We had been told that students in the past usually don’t have too much trouble getting them switched by using that argument. I had my presentation in my tutorial, and I think it went pretty well, so I should be looking at a decent grade for that. After I got back from classes, I checked my email and my economics professor had written me back with bad news. He claimed that he could not change the exam time, as it was university policy not to move exams and that it was out of his hands, although I know for a fact that people in the past have done it and I even know some kids this semester who have had theirs moved up. That got me pretty mad so I’m really not in the mood to do any work tonight and will most likely just watch shows on my laptop. My economics professor is new and probably doesn’t want to risk breaking the rules, but he seemed like a pretty cool guy, so I didn’t think he would have a problem with it. It really screws up my plans, though, so I’ll have to try to figure something else out. Emily hadn’t heard back from her professor, but the next idea may be to try and move the politics final up. On the way back from class, I bought a ticket to the MRS Ball, which is a big formal event they have every year, open to anyone in Monash Residence. The tickets had been on sale since last week, but it was lucky I decided to get mine today, because tonight there was an announcement saying that they had sold out. I definitely did not expect that to happen so quickly, and I know a lot of kids who didn’t get tickets. When I got mine at around 4:30, I was number 163, so they couldn’t have had too many tickets available.

Days 78-79 – April 19-20, 2008

I didn’t have a very exciting weekend, so there's not much to write about. I spent most of the time working on my assignments. I did pretty much finish two of my papers and my presentation for Tuesday is almost done, though, so I was productive, but didn’t do much else. After going out on Thursday, a lot of other people here were forced to do the same thing, as it seems like most classes have major papers due at the beginning of May. Aside from doing work, I also watched No Country for Old Men, American History X, and We Own the Night. I found it hard to actually do what I had to get done, so I took quite a few breaks and needed something to do during those breaks, and decided to watch some movies. I think I liked No Country for Old Men the best. I am definitely looking forward to getting these papers behind me, because after they’re done, I don’t have anything else to do until finals in June, meaning I can take it easy school-wise during May.

Days 74-77 – April 15-18, 2008

Tuesday

With Contemporary Australia cancelled this week because of their field trip, my tutorial on Tuesday was cancelled, so I just had two hours of class today. In addition to April 15^th being Michelle’s birthday, it was also Katie’s and Lewis’ was the 16^th, so we went out Tuesday night to celebrate. We all met in Jorjie’s room and some of the girls had made a birthday cake. Since we would be eating at the pub, everyone decided that it would be better to just save the cake for when we returned later. We had 13 people, so we needed a maxicab and a regular cab. The regular cab came first, and I jumped in that one. We were going down to go to Chapel St., a street in Melbourne that has a lot of bars and stuff. The first pub we went to was called Bridie O’Reilly’s, and on Tuesdays they have a “parma and a pot” special, which is a chicken parm meal and a pot of beer. Australia has a bunch of different names for glass sizes, but a pot is a half pint; the glass names also vary depending on which state you are in. The other cab took longer to get there and those people didn’t show up until we were done eating, so they all ordered and we stayed there for a little while longer. Being a Tuesday night, there weren’t really a lot of people here, so we decided to go elsewhere. We then went to a bar called BlueBar that was down the street. It was pretty small and a little more crowded, but we found an area with a bunch of couches that we posted up at. As the night went on, a group people who weren’t able to make it earlier came. This place was fun, and we stayed pretty late. When we got back, we went back to Richardson Hall to eat the cake. Ironically, Katie left early, was already asleep by the time we got back, and didn’t even eat any of her own birthday cake. The chocolate cake was pretty good, and we demolished it quickly.

Wednesday

The breakfast club met again this morning. We had originally planned on making scones today but had no tray to cook them on. We did, however, have a cake pan, so we used a recipe for a ring cake and just made apple cinnamon scone-mix cake. Surprisingly, it turned out really good and we also made some eggs. Wednesday night, I stayed up until 4:00 am working on my Washington and World Politics essay so that I could finish it and get started on some others. The whole time I stayed up was not spent working, though. I spend some time searching for and finding new episodes of How I Met Your Mother, Scrubs, The Office, and 30 Rock on DC++, so I was pretty excited to download those. I wasn’t too sure how it would be with the strike ending and new episodes being on, but it seems like someone on DC gets the new shows up there pretty quickly, which is certainly a relief. I did not want to return home and be overwhelmed with new episodes. The best part about DC is that it doesn’t affect my internet usage fees because it’s within the network. It also works really quickly. Like 30 seconds to download a show.

Thursday

I had to get to the library today to pick up some books for a paper I’m writing and to make copies of a reading for my economics class. After the library, I wasn’t very productive during the daytime and ended up watching the shows I had downloaded the night before due to a lack of motivation. I went to the Nott tonight. I realized that I hadn’t been in the last three weeks due to Spring Break, Tasmania, and one Thursday night I stayed in to work. It was the same usual fun there, although it seemed to be a little less crowded than it had been a month ago. At one point in the night I opened my wallet to buy a drink and realized that I had left my student ID in the copy machine at the library earlier that day. But then I realized that the only thing I use that ID for is paying for printing/copying and checking out books, so I decided that if I lost it, it was no big deal.

Friday

I had an email today when I woke up from Student Services saying that my ID had been found, so I had to go to Campus Centre to get it back. The rest of the day, I just worked on getting my Contemporary Australia essay done. With my economics essay being not only the longest but also the hardest I have to write, I want to give myself a few weeks to research and write it. There wasn’t a lot going on around here tonight, so I played in a poker tournament in the basement and ended up splitting the winnings with another guy. I just searched DC and found the episodes from this week’s Office and Scrubs are up, so you already know what I’ll be doing now before I go to bed.

Days 69-73 – April 10-14, 2008 (Part 4)

Monday morning, we got up and checked out of our hostel. Adam still had a lot of goon left over from the weekend and made the decision to finish it before the plane. That turned out to be a bad idea for him. We tried to figure out what to do with our morning while at breakfast, but since the car needed to be back by 11:00, we had limited options. Every hour that we kept it past 11:00 would cost us about $30. We had wanted to go to Mt. Wellington, but since it was cloudy and would not be worth the time, we decided against it. We also considered going to the Cadbury’s factory in Hobart, but apparently Friday was the last day they were giving tours, so that was out. As we were heading for the airport, we realized that there was no way we would get back by 11:00 and thought that we might as well get full use of the extra hour we would be paying for. We turned off the highway on a wine route but found a minigolf place on the road and went there instead. We only had about 30 minutes to get through 19 holes, so we rushed and ended up making it to the airport before noon. By this point, Adam had nearly finished the bag of goon and was really drunk. At the check-in, he had to pay an extra $20 because his flight was supposed to be Tuesday but he changed it to Monday with everyone else. However, he thought that he had already paid this and was getting pretty out of control with the lady at check-in. The way he was talking to her, I’m surprised they even gave him a boarding pass. Security was another adventure, as he continued to leave objects on his body and was forced to go through the metal detector about four or five times. When we got into the terminal, he passed out in a seat almost immediately, and we all messed with him for the rest of the time. Adam was definitely some good entertainment for everyone else. The flight back was fine; it wasn’t full so we got to spread out and take pretty much whatever type of seat we wanted. We arrived in Melbourne, got some food, and then took a cab back to Monash. I had a pretty fun weekend overall and I’m glad that I decided to go. Tasmania was definitely different than other spots that I’ve traveled to here; it just gave me a different feel, as it seemed to be much more about relaxing and enjoying the landscapes than other places. Most of the other people in Tasmania seemed to be older and more laid back than in places like Cairns or Sydney, and this was especially evident in the hostels. But I think that it was definitely a worthwhile trip, and I’m glad I went. This weekend marked almost the halfway point in my semester abroad. While it feels like so long ago that I was back in the US, my time I’ve been here has flown by and I can’t believe that it is already half over. With assignments starting to be due and finals approaching, I don’t think I will be doing as much traveling as I have been, but there are still a lot of things that I want to make sure I do and see before I return home.

Days 69-73 – April 10-14, 2008 (Part 3)

We make it to Salamanca Market around 1:00 or so and had a few hours to walk around. The Market was pretty sweet. There were shops lined all the way up and down the street, there must have been a few hundred little stands. Some of them had food and were giving out samples, so I tried some homemade honey and fudge. It was pretty similar to most markets like this, just with more Australian stuff, like koala and Tasmanian devil themed things. There was a band playing out on the grass area, so we sat there for a little while and enjoyed the cool afternoon. A few locals were dancing and it was pretty obvious that they were from a family of incest. We checked into our hostel, called the Pickled Frog, where we would be staying for the last two nights of the trip. All four guys were in one four-bed room this time and the girls were sharing with two others. The rooms were really tiny, but we had our own sink and the coldwater faucet wouldn’t shut completely and kept dripping. The hostel had a much homier feel than most that I’ve been to, and there were a bunch of couches, a pool table, a big TV room, and a bunch of booths to eat dinner at. The guy who ran it had a bar license and actually had relatively cheap drink prices for Australia. Eric, Ciara, and I went out to get some ice for our drinks at around 5:30, and after walking about six blocks down in the city centre, we realized that everything was closed, even though it was a Saturday. We returned empty-handed, but later the two of them took the car out to a gas station to get the ice. When they brought it back, they put it in the sink in our room, and after about 30 minutes, the owner of the hostel was yelling for us to fix the flood coming from our room, which had been caused by overflowing water due to the leaky faucet. I had Subway for dinner and then we came back to the hostel and sat around in the booths. We talked to the owner for a while, who turned out to be a really cool guy. Another of Shelley’s friends from Tasmania advised us on where to go out, so we went to some club that was fun. Needless to say, there were a lot of plumpies there. We eventually left this bar and went to a club down the street, but it was overly crowded and we soon left there, too. Harry and I took a cab to some souvlaki place with a few plumpies and then they went home and we walked about thirty minutes back to our hostel. The next morning on Sunday, everyone was pretty tired and we all slept in. By the time we got up, it was around 10:45 and we got ready quickly to go eat and get on with the day. We met up with Shelley’s friend Simon who would show us around for the day. On our way driving out of Hobart, we actually saw that weird inbred guy from the bar the first night who had gotten arrested. He was walking down the street with two girls about his age who also had the same red hair color, and I thought it was a pretty strange coincidence to see him again. We were planning on heading down to the Port Arthur area, and Simon happened to live around that way, so he came with us. Pretty much my only objective on this trip was to see Tasmanian devils, so I made sure that we would be going to the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Centre on Sunday. It was about an hour drive, but it was definitely worth it. By the time we got there, we had just missed a feeding, but it was still great. The devils looked so cute, but they were vicious. Apparently, you really can’t get too close to them or they will eat you. They kept making these really funny screams, and we would throw these apples into their areas and then watch as they fought over them. This place also had kangaroos and wallabies (which are basically like small kangaroos), and we were luckily there for their feeding time. With the kangaroos and wallabies, we were actually allowed to feed them ourselves, and that was pretty cool. They seemed pretty tame and relaxed, but at first we didn’t really know what to make of them and were pretty hesitant to approach. By the end, though, I was petting wallabies and trying to hop after kangaroos. We left there, and Simon said he could take us out on his boat. He had originally planned on us doing that for longer, but our late wakeup this morning make it so we didn’t have much time before it would be getting dark. So we drove about 45 minutes back to his house, stopped at a fish and chips place, and got on the boat. He took us on one of his friend’s boat because it was already right near the dock and we could save time by using it. This boat was pretty small, but definitely big enough to take all of us around on. He brought us to this sandbar in the middle of the water, and we got out and ate our food there. The sandbar was pretty nice and looked as if people rarely go on it. The sand itself was really soft and slippery, and there was a really steep hill that you needed to climb up to get to where we were sitting. After we finished eating, we had races on our stomachs sliding down and then trying to climb back up the hill. Everybody got sandy but it was a lot of fun. At one point, Ciara decided to go on her own adventure throughout the sandbar, and by the time the sun went down about an hour later, she hadn’t came back yet. A few people went out to look for her and finally found her on the complete other side. Simon then took us around on the water for a little while, hitting some waves and bouncing around in the dark. We went back to the hostel and relaxed for a bit. I went to dinner at some Indian place with Eric, Ciara, and Harry, but I don’t really like Indian food and I wasn’t too hungry, anyway, so I didn’t get much. We thought about going out, but decided against it, as going out in Hobart on a Sunday night probably wouldn’t be worth the effort it required to walk to the bar/club area. We stayed in, and I taught Shelley and Adam how to play tonk, and then I watched a little of a Premier league soccer game until I got too tired and went to bed. This was the last night here before the flight back to Melbourne tomorrow.

Days 69-73 – April 10-14, 2008 (Part 2)

Friday morning we got up around 9:00 am to check out of the hostel by 10:00. They had all the windows open in the bathroom and it was freezing cold to try and take a shower. After getting ready and checking out, Eric, Adam, and I walked a few streets to pick up our rental car from Avis. Since there were six of us, we couldn’t get a normal car and had to get a Toyota Tarago, the same type of car we had for the Great Ocean Road that seats eight. We went back to get everyone else and then headed to breakfast. The guy at Avis recommended a place for us to go, where he said we could get a deal if we mentioned that he sent us and showed them the Avis card. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case, and we quickly left the overpriced restaurant. While there, however, we saw a newspaper article with the headline “Tassie incest warning.” I was glad that the stereotype was turning out to be true. It was not past 11:00, so nowhere we went to was still making breakfast and I ate Subway. I honestly think there are more Subways in Australia than there are in America. They are literally everywhere over here. After eating, we left for Launceston, a city near the north of Tasmania. The island is so small that it only took about 2-2.5 hours to get there from the southern coast. The drive up was nice and scenic. We saw a lot of sheep, horses, and green mountains along the way. One town we drove through was called “Bagdad” and a sign we saw along the road said “Speedo Check Ahead Next 4 km,” which Eric and I laughed at. We got to our next hostel and checked in. Apparently, there had been some error in our registration and they had us down for three girls when we only had two. Most hostels have mixed rooms, but this one was different and Harry was put in the girls’ room. Tasmania has a lot of wineries, especially in the Launceston area, and we decided to go on a wine tour for the afternoon. Still being on antibiotics until Saturday, I offered to drive. We ended up going to about five or six before they all closed at 5:00, and I still had a good time even though I wasn’t really drinking. The lady at the first winery was nice and gave me a glass of apple juice to drink while everyone else enjoyed free wine. I tried a few wines that the others said they were really good and even bought a bottle at the last winery. Adam, Harry, and Eric also bought the same one that I did, in addition to some others along the way. We then came back to Launceston, dropped off the car, and went to dinner in the city. The guys decided to go to a Mexican place while the girls ate sushi. I am now officially convinced that they have no idea how to make a quesadilla in this country. My chicken quesadilla was far from what I would expect to get in America and the cheese inside was hardly melted. Also, the plate they served me was unbelievably hot, and I burned my fingers just trying to eat off it. After dinner, we got some ice cream, went back to the hostel to relax for a little bit, then went back out to a bar called Irish Murphy’s, where Shelley met up with some friend from camp who lives in Launceston. Everyone was pretty tired, and when we came back to the hostel, the people watching TV in the common room had Letterman on. Coincidentally, the people in the hostel the night before in Hobart were also watching Letterman. I just thought it was funny that Australians would be watching a late night talk show from America. The next morning, we got had to get up at 8:00 am in order to fit in everything we wanted to do. We went to a nearby gorge that had some nice hills, waterfalls, and an old bridge that we could walk on. Afterwards, we searched for a monkey enclosure that we had heard about. We soon found it in the City Park, and it had a lot of monkeys. They were pretty hilarious to watch and occasionally they would get aggressive and fight. But most of the time, they were just picking at each others’ fur. We got breakfast and I drove the ride back down to Hobart, where we wanted to get to in enough time to walk around Salamanca Market, which ended at 3:00.

Days 69-73 – April 10-14, 2008 (Part 1)

Thursday morning, I had to get up early to finish packing and get ready to leave by 10:30. I called a cab and met Ciara and Adam downstairs. The other people would be coming later that nigh to meet us theret. We had booked our tickets on Tiger Airways, which is probably the cheapest, most no-frills airline around. To cut down on costs, the people who check you in are the same people who get you to board the plane, causing check-in to close 45 minutes before takeoff. You don’t even pick your seat ahead of time, and it costs extra if you want to. They just assign them to you at the gate. Luckily, Ciara was the first of the three of us to check in, and the lady saw how tall she was and gave us the first row, which had max leg room. Tiger was not even a part of the main Melbourne Airport and had its own terminal, separate from the other airlines. It only had like three gates and obviously you have to walk outside to board the plane. At around 12:30, we boarded the plane and took off for Hobart, Tasmania’s capital city. I never really had any intentions of visiting Tasmania, even as recent as a few weeks ago. I knew it was over here, but I didn’t really think it had anything to offer. I also didn’t realize that Tasmania was a state in Australia and not its own country until I met someone who was from there. But after hearing that it was a nice place to visit and finding cheap and quick flights, I figured I might as well visit it while I am over here. On the mainland of Australia, the island of Tasmania gets made fun of a lot. It is supposed to be full of incest, and a lot of people joke about it. An interesting fact is that while Australia was a British penal colony, they sent the really bad prisoners to Tasmania because not only was it more southern and therefore colder, but it was just more removed from everything else, being an island. The flight was only about an hour long. We landed in Hobart and soon as I stepped off the plane, I noticed how much colder and windier it was here than Melbourne. We took a cab to our hostel downtown, and the cab driver who took us on the 20 minute drive was awesome. He was this old guy who seemed to have a slight Middle Eastern accent. He was talking about all sorts of crazy things. For example, after listing the many countries where he had lived over his life, he said “I am gypsy.” He also told us that all the women in Tasmania are “plumpies” and that they are “built for comfort.” He said that his wife is slim and “built for speed” but he actually prefers “plumpies.” From then on, referring to Tasmanian girls as “plumpies” became a running joke for the rest of the weekend. We checked into the hostel and dropped our stuff in the room. We had a six person room, so it would be just us in there, as we were waiting for three more. For the rest of the afternoon, Ciara, Adam, and I walked around and explored the city of Hobart. The downtown area wasn’t very big, and we soon found ourselves walking along the main strip by the water. I had heard that Hobart was one of the most beautiful cities in Australia, and it seemed to be true. To me, it had a much different feel than the mainland Australian cities that I have been to. The city centre area was much more green and less business-like. There were trees all over the place with leaves changing colors, and the cool breeze was actually refreshing. It definitely seemed like an old-fashioned city, and it certain aspects reminded me of a place like Boston or other New England cities. We walked down to an area along the water with a bunch of restaurants and bars and found a fish and chips place that was pretty good. We noticed a goldfish tank inside on the counter and thought it was a pretty funny thing to have in a fish and chips shop. As we were eating our fish outside, at least two or three people walking by commented on how good our food looked. Hobart is a city known for having a lot of old people, and some of them were pretty weird. We continued exploring and went to a place called as Salamanca Square, where they had some shops and a 24-hour bakery. Every Saturday morning, there is a huge market around here and we made sure to go to that on Saturday. While we were walking around, some guy who happened to be on our flight from Melbourne saw us and offered to buy Ciara’s winter hat for $20. She had just purchased this hat for $10 down the street, so she was definitely willing to sell for double what she paid. After that, we just walked two minutes back to the store where Ciara used his money to buy another, in essence getting herself a free hat. We found an old-fashioned candy shop and went in for a snack during our exploring, then went back to the hostel to figure out a gameplan for the rest of the weekend. The people working at our hostel had told us that there were some restaurants and shops in North Hobart, a short walk up from where we were, so the three of us headed up there for dinner. We left around 6:00 or so, and the streets were dead once it got dark. Granted, between North Hobart and where we were, there wasn’t a lot to do, but most places were closed and practically no one was walking or driving around. The streets with the restaurants and bars were busy, but everything in between was pretty much empty. On the walk up, one car drove by and called Ciara a “whore.” We made it to the heart of North Hobart, which consisted of a few restaurants and pubs covering about two blocks on one street, and sat around a bar for a little while. We went to a kebab place for dinner then decided that North Hobart was not the place to be and walked back. As we were walking down the street, some car drove by and threw an egg at us, almost hitting Adam. I guess they don’t like outsiders roaming the streets past dark. We headed back to the strip near the waterfront by Salamanca Square and went into some pub called the Customs House. On the way in, a group of three people outside yelled something to us and smiled, but we pretty much ignored them and went inside. We found a table and sat down. A few minutes later, those three people from outside came in and sat near us. These people definitely fit the description of a stereotypical Tassie inbred. One was a woman who looked to be about 40 and had greasy, black hair and no teeth. She smelled terrible and probably hadn’t showered in days. The other girl was definitely a plumpie. She looked like she was maybe 25 or so and was absolutely wasted. Soon as she came in, she spilled her drink all over their table. The third member of their motley crew was a guy who couldn’t have been 20 yet. He had dyed red hair and we guessed that he was about 15. They were really weird people and never gave us a real explanation as to how they all new each other. One said “old mates” while another was saying “we just met.” They brought their own goon in and were drinking it out of a mug, a Coca-Cola bottle, and the empty glass from Adam’s drink. They kept trying to talk to us, but we couldn’t really understand a lot of what they were saying. At one point, the plumpie jumped on the guy and appeared to be raping him. Soon after, the bartenders saw her spilling a few more times and decided to throw her out for being too drunk. About five minutes later, we saw her sneak back in and go over and get into an argument with the bar staff. Before I knew it, she was trying to swing at what looked to be the owner and people were restraining her, trying to force her out. She kept attempting to hit him and was getting pushed all the way to the door. They literally threw her outside, where she continued her tirade as we watched through the window. Apparently, she had bitten one of the female bartenders on the finger, who was then advised to get a rabies shot. Soon, the cops showed up and we were later told that all three of them were arrested. Ahh, local Tassies. Later at this bar, we ended up seeing the same guys from earlier who were on our plane and then had bought Ciara’s hat. I realized that in a city like this, we will probably run into the same people a lot while going out at night. Harry called around 11:00 and said they landed, so we went back to meet him, Eric, and Shelley and let them into the hostel, where we told them about the excitement that they had just missed. Everyone was hungry, so we all went down to the 24-hour bakery and then came back for bed. I’ll have to pick up here tomorrow.

Day 66-68 – April 7-9, 2008

Monday

I decided that I should probably get my knee checked out by a doctor, so after showering and eating breakfast, I went over to the health centre on campus. I had called to try and make an appointment when I got up, but they said that all the appointments for today were full and I would have to come in and wait. When I got there, the receptionist said that it would probably be about an hour wait, but within thirty minutes, a doctor called my name. Unlike the health centre at Miami or my doctor’s office at home, I didn’t see a nurse first who would normally take my vitals. Instead, the doctor himself called me right in and didn’t even do a blood pressure check or anything. I sat down at his desk and he said “Hi. Dr. Blandy,” pointing to the nameplate on his desk, as if proving that this was his office. He asked me some questions and we talked about the difference in medical systems in the US and Australia. He told me that my knee might be infected and prescribed me some antibiotics. He also said that he didn’t think I seriously hurt it structurally, and the knee itself should be better soon. But I will probably have to miss a few more weeks of football. Contemporary Australia ended early today, which was lucky because it getting was pretty boring. We also found out that we definitely will not have class next week. My registration for fall classes at Miami was tonight. My official time was 8:45 am Monday morning, but that corresponded to 10:45 pm tonight. I ended up getting all the courses I wanted and won’t have Friday classes again, but for some reason I had a lot of difficulty registering for Biochem. I think it had something to do with taking Organic Chemistry, a main pre-req for Biochem, at CCSU. It wouldn’t let me sign up and I had to email my advisor who did an override to get me in. Luckily, it was a class of 200 spots, but since all premeds need to take it, I was a little afraid that it might get full. After that, we had a meeting with the people who wanted to go to Tasmania. It was me, Ciara, Shelley, Jimmy, and Eric came later. Harry was doing a paper at the time but said he wanted to go, too. We also talked to American Adam online and he said he would also come. We decided to split up into two groups to get there, since some people couldn’t leave early on Thursday and the flights out Thursday afternoon were cheaper than the later ones. I booked mine with the early group. I’ll be leaving for Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania, Thursday at around noon and coming back to Melbourne Monday afternoon. I won’t have to worry about getting to class on Monday, as my only one is cancelled. Other people booked different combinations, such as departing Thursday night or returning Tuesday afternoon. I had never really had an interest in going to Tasmania before, but since I have been here, I have heard a lot of nice things about it, and it is a pretty easy place to get to. The flights are also relatively cheap and only take about an hour. Plus, I don’t think I can pass up the chance to see real Tasmanian devils.

Tuesday

Woke up today and went to my politics class at 11:00 am. Of course, the professor spent about half the class talking about the Cold War again. I don’t know what his obsession with the Cold War is, but every class I feel like I’m hearing the same thing. With the NCAA basketball championship beginning at around 11:20 am here and the class being boring as usual and lasting till noon, I was tempted to leave early, but decided against it as I was in the middle of the row and it would have been hard to get out. After class ended, I hustled back to Howitt to watch the game in the basement and as I walked in, there was an American guy watching who told me it just became halftime. So I went upstairs and made a quick lunch and made it back before the game resumed. For a while, it was just me, Adam from England, and the other American watching the game, but others arrived as the second half went on. The TV screen was in a big projector room and from the last few minutes of regulation through overtime, everyone was getting pretty excited. Luckily, the game ended at the perfect time for me to make my next class at 2:00, and I walked into it a couple minutes late along with about eight other Americans who are in the class and had been watching the game in their Hall. Coincidentally, the teacher was also late today and came in a few minutes after us. She claimed she was grading papers and lost track of time, but I have a suspicion that she was watching the game too. I got my first assignment back, the minor essay I had handed in before Spring Break, and got an HD (high distinction) which is equivalent to about an A. It doesn’t really matter to me though, because Contemporary Australia is the one class that I am taking for credit only and only need to pass. Because of that, I’m not necessarily shooting for A’s in this course, so I’ll have to be sure to put a little less effort into my next paper, which I started working on tonight. With the trip to Tasmania this weekend and three papers due at the beginning of May, I tried to get at least an outline done on the two I had yet to start. I spent most of the night doing a little preliminary research on those so that I can actually begin writing the essays sometime soon.

Wednesday

Pretty uneventful day so far. I had to go to the library to check out some more books for another essay. Economics 2:00-5:00. Cooked up some steaks on the grill for dinner. Today’s Eric’s birthday so tonight a bunch of us are going to the campus bar at Deakin University, which is across town. It’s supposed to be fun. Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Tasmania. The flight is at noon so we will have to leave for the airport at around 10:30. We finally booked hostels and the rental car tonight, so that’s all set. We will be in Tasmania until Monday afternoon. We don’t really have much planned so far, we’re kinda just taking it as it goes. I am a little rushed right now, though, because it’s 9:40 and we’re supposed to leave around 10:00, but I still have to pack for the weekend and get ready for the night. Be back on Monday!

Days 64-65 – April 5-6, 2008

Since I had stayed up pretty late doing my paper on Friday night, I didn’t wake up until almost noon on Saturday. I did some work during the day. Saturday night, I was going out for some Australian girl’s birthday who Katie knows because the girl had done an exchange at Michigan State. Dan, Eric, Katie and I met around 4:30 to go to her friend’s house. We took the bus to Caulfield and got dropped off near the girl’s house. We went to a “bottle shop” before we were picked up and found that they actually sold Budweiser. Obviously, we had to buy some. Laura, another Australian who did an exchange at Wisconsin, came in her car and picked us up and took us to her house, where everyone would be meeting up. When we got to the house, about five girls were already there as well as Laura’s brother and his friend. More people started to come, and we stayed there for a while. Around 8:00, we got in cabs and went downtown. The bar we went to was called Transport and was right in the center of the city. It actually looked over the Yarra River, where we had our boat cruise on Wednesday night, and I think I even remember seeing this building as we went to the boat. They had closed down most of the dinner menu by the time we got there, so I got a burger. The bar had like three floors and it started to get busy quickly. I noticed that it seemed like a more mature crowd there, and I was later told that it caters more to older people with things like higher drink prices. I did notice that the drinks were expensive. At one point in the night, I noticed a ferris wheel out the window that I had seen during the cruise on Wednesday. Someone suggested that we should go on it, so we did. It gave a nice aerial view of the city but lasted a little longer than we had wanted it to. One of the girls kept yelling for the operator to let her out, and every time we went around, he just kept saying “one more.” More of the girls’ friends started to come, and everyone seemed pretty friendly. I had a fun night and by almost 2:30, I was ready to go back. For some reason, Australia had daylight savings time at 2:00 am last night, so it felt like it was 3:30 (since it’s fall here, the clocks go back an hour) and I was getting tired. I also wanted to make sure I could get up today for the Final Four. Eric and Katie wanted to stay behind, so I left with Dan. There’s a bus service called the NightRider that operates late on Friday and Saturday nights and has a bunch of different routes that take people back from the city for pretty cheap. Since between the two of us we had about $25 cash, we decided that would be the way to go instead of a cab and made the 2:30 NightRider back to Monash. The driver was kind of a jerk; the bus was really crowded and people were standing from end to end, and at a few stops, the people that needed to get off couldn’t really get to the doors quickly. However, the driver didn’t seem to care and actually left before people could get off at their stops. They would yell for him to stop but he didn’t stop the bus it right away. This happened a few times on the forty minute ride. I got to bed around 3:30 and set my alarm for 7:45 so I could be up for the first Final Four game, tipping at around 8:00 am, Australian time. I was way too tired when my alarm went off and I didn’t get up until around 8:30. The Memphis/UCLA game a little more than midway through the first half. For the Kansas/UNC game, I decided to go into the basement and watch it in the projector room. When I got there, a few guys were already sitting down waiting for the game to start. ESPN International broadcasts the tournament games here, but they didn’t have commentary or highlights between the games; instead, it was a show about the And1 Mixtape International Tour that was probably normally on at that time. We were a little worried that they wouldn’t show the game, but right before the player intros began, they cut to it. Some more people trickled in as the game went on, and afterwards, I had some lunch. Did some reading and looked up online the possibility of going to Tasmania this weekend. At around 5:30, I met some friends to take the bus to the Nando’s chicken place and Coles, as we had done a few weeks ago. I tried the “chips” at Nando’s this time and they were really good. They tasted a lot like Roy Rogers fries. After shopping, I came back here and did some work. Now that the writers’ strike is over, I have some TV shows to catch up on, so I got some episodes for free on DC++ and also watched a few of them. Pretty tired from getting up so early today, so I’ll be going to bed soon.

Days 59-63 – March 31-April 4, 2008

Monday

Really tired waking up today. Did a lot of things around the room in the morning, trying to organize my life after a week away. Had to class from 4:00-6:00. Went to football and told them I couldn’t practice for a little while because of my knee, which is still pretty painful. The coach jokingly said “Time off? You just had a week’s vacation,” but then said that he was kidding and I could take all the time I needed. Way more laid back that I imagine a football coach would be in America. Then went to Subway and Coles with Eric, Adam, and Harry. I had to get groceries for the week and there was also an international supper on Tuesday that I had offered to cook for, so I had to prepare for that.

Tuesday

Woke up feeling pretty sick. I think Spring Break week is finally catching up to me. I tried to shower but didn’t feel well, so I went back to bed, intentionally missing my US politics class. I found out later that he began the class by saying that the material he was going over today would not be tested. Looks like I picked the right day to miss. Woke up again later feeling a little better and went to my tutorials. For the international supper, Eric and I had offered to make fajitas (Tex-Mex is kinda American, right?) so we used all of our ingredients and made twelve but decided that we deserved at least two each, leaving just eight fajitas for the international supper. The other dishes that people made were pretty good, but obviously the fajitas were the best thing there.

Wednesday

It was Adam’s turn to cook for the breakfast club in an effort to prove his worth after he had been late or missed too many mornings in recent weeks. He made a variation of a “full English breakfast,” which consisted of eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans (people here eat baked beans at breakfast!), and toast. It was pretty good. After that, Adam and I went to Pinewood to find outfits for tonight’s Howitt Society function, a boat cruise with an American Gangster theme. I didn’t have a damn thing to wear, but I found a $12 suit and a $15 overcoat at the thrift shop (called “op-shops” here, [the op stands for opportunity]). They didn’t have a huge selection, but I tried to imagine Denzel Washington in American Gangster when I was finding my outfit. I had my economics class from 2:00-5:00. Today was incredibly windy. Wind speeds reached over 100 km (62 miles) per hour. I heard that one person died in downtown when scaffolding fell over. The wind was blowing dust and anything else it could pick up, and it was really hard to walk anywhere without getting sand all in your face. There were trees down throughout campus, and they had to cancel classes in one building because the building itself was swaying too much in the wind. Before the boat cruise, we had a dine-in, where they served us free dinner. I got dressed up in my outfit and had to wear an inside-out dark shirt underneath because I hadn’t gotten anything to wear beneath the suit. A lot of people had sweet costumes. The boat cruise was fun; they took us on the Yarra River, which goes through downtown Melbourne. They had free drinks and snacks and it lasted until almost midnight.

Thursday

Woke up late with nothing really to do today. I did some things that I had been meaning to get done since I got back but hadn’t had the chance to. I had a lot of work backed up so I decided it was time to start some of that. I have three big essays due the first week of May, so I wanted to get started on at least one of them and spent a while working on my US politics one. In a responsible move, I decided against going to the Nott while most of my friends went. Some of them were in my room hanging out before and I somehow got my left hand squeezed between my desk and my leg, accidentally slicing off the wart on my hand. It was bleeding for a little while but then stopped. I think it will probably grow back, though. I stayed up late working on the paper.

Friday

Got up and did some reading. I went to the mall with Katie at around 2:30. I had some small things to buy and I also decided to return the George Foreman Grill that I had bought the first week I was here. With the public grills outside, I had yet to use mine and even if it gets too cold to go outside and grill, my floor has a George Foreman anyway. Kmart didn’t seem too upset that my receipt was from February 11. After the mall, I came back here and made some shrimp scampi with pasta and mushrooms. It was probably one of the best meals I have made since I’ve been here. I did some more work on the paper, and I’m now more than halfway done with the politics one. My hope is to get it out of the way by the weekend. Oh, and my knee is still swollen and is causing a limp when I walk.

Days 50-58 – March 22-30, 2008 – Spring Break (Part 4)

After getting up at 5:30 am to be ready for the 6:15 white water rafting pickup, they took us into Cairns to change buses. Our new bus had most of the other people who would be rafting on it, and then we were off to Tully. While on the hour and a half bus ride, we called up and booked a half day sky diving for tomorrow, the last day of our vacation. It would work out perfectly because we could sky dive in the morning and still make our flight out that night. We stopped at a place called Rafters around the small town of Tully to pick up a few more people who had come in from the south and to get coffee and snacks. This place was about thirty minutes from the river, and we had to watch an introductory safety video on the ride over. We got to the river and were given helmets and life jackets and split up into rafts. Our raft had seven passengers plus one leader, a guy named Miles. One of the guys in our raft happened to be someone who recognized the three of us from the reef boat the day before, as he had been there scuba diving as well. There were probably seven or eight rafts going out that day, all with six or seven passengers plus one worker from the company to lead the boats. The rafting was a lot of fun, and we hit some big rapids. At certain points along the river, they allowed us to get out and float ourselves down. After going down one rapid following lunch, they parked all the boats and said that we could float ourselves down. So everyone lined up along the river and people jumped in one at a time. I must have jumped in the wrong direction or not jumped far enough, and when I dove in, I banged my knee really hard on a rock. The whole rest of the trip down, I was thinking about how much my knee hurt, while getting water all in my face and mouth through the rapid. There were a few cuts, one pretty deep one. It was bleeding a lot when I got out, and I just tried not to get the blood on everyone sitting near me for the next two plus hours of rafting. If I wasn’t in the middle of white water rafting, it probably would have been a good idea to get stitches. The rapids themselves all seemed distinct, and they were given clever names such as the Theatre (“because that’s where the drama unfolds”) or the Shark’s Fin (because there was a big rock at the end that looked like a shark’s fin in the water) or the Maze (because it was really zigzaged and had a lot of different directions to go, this one was probably my favorite). The entire day, I only saw one other boat unintentionally flip over while going down a rapid, but at one point, every leader played a trick and told the passengers to go to one side of the raft for a “Splash Mountain-like ride.” We went down a waterfall, and since everyone was on one end, the boat obviously tipped and everyone but the guide fell out. There was a strong current at the bottom of this waterfall and it swept me underwater and took me around for a few seconds, but it was pretty cool. There were a lot of waterfalls along the river, and we stopped under one of them for a little while. There was a lot of nice mountain scenery along the river, and many low clouds came over the mountaintops due to the cloudy weather. The rain worked out perfectly because it was still warm out without being too hot and sunny. I wasn’t even cold except for the first few minutes of getting back into the water after lunch. We finished rafting around 3:00 and the bus took us back to Rafters for drinks and snacks. There was a photographer along the river who tried to sell photos and videos he took during the trip, but I decided against buying anything. We got back to Palm Cove around 7:00 and had to check out of our apartment tonight because the office wouldn’t be open when we would be getting picked up tomorrow at 7:00 am. We had dinner at a pizza place down the road and then went to a nearby bar that was doing karaoke. Emily refused to sing anything, so Eric and I sung “Quit Playing Games With My Heart” by the Backstreet Boys and dedicated it to her. Eric also did a solo version of “Lean On Me.” On Sunday, I woke up feeling pretty anxious, excited, and nervous because not only was it the last day of vacation, but we were to be picked up at 7:00 am for a 9:30 sky dive. We all got ready and collected our things and made it outside at around 7:00 with all of our luggage. My knee was still hurting, and I was walking with a limp today. The sky diving van pulled up and the driver parked it across the street and came over to talk to us. “Unfortunately, we had to cancel all of the sky dives today because of the weather.” He said there were low clouds and the probability of rain or something. We were all pretty disappointed; this was supposed to be the grand finale of our trip and it was cancelled because of weather that, while it did look cloudy, didn’t appear to be too bad. But I guess they have to be safe, especially with something like sky diving. So we went back into our apartment that we had previously checked out of. I instantly felt tired, losing much of the adrenaline that I had been running on at the early hour of the morning. We sat around for a little while, thinking about what to do and we all committed to booking a sky dive close to Melbourne soon after getting back. We decided to eat breakfast around Palm Cove and then go into Cairns for the day, as we really hadn’t spent too much time in the city itself. The first place we went to get breakfast at said they hadn’t received their shipment and had no breakfast food, so we went somewhere else. We tried to take a shuttle to the airport to drop off our bags and then go to the city so we wouldn’t have to carry them around, but it turned out to be cheaper and faster to rent a car. Eric didn’t have his license when we were at the rental car place, so I became the driver. We checked out of the Melaleuca Resort again and went to the city. The public parking was right near a casino, and with nothing to do all day, Eric and I made that our first stop, while Emily went off on a solo mission to explore the city. This casino unfortunately did not have craps, so I played blackjack with Eric. After losing $100 in about 15 minutes, I decided that was enough, and Eric was soon in the same position as I was after about another 10 minutes. We then went to walk around the city ourselves. For what is considered a city, Cairns isn’t much more than a small beach town. There are no skyscrapers whatsoever; the tallest building was probably a ten-story apartment building that was being built. Most of the shops are either restaurants or souvenir stores, and the downtown area is probably ten streets by five avenues. Needless to say, it didn’t take us long to explore the whole thing. We found a one-hour photo shop to develop our water pictures and eventually found Emily, too. Lunch was at some Mexican place where we were the only people in it when we arrived. I got a quesadilla, and they put salsa mixed in with the chicken and cheese. I had heard that they don’t typically have quesadillas in Australia and now I see why. We walked around to some more shops after lunch. At one intersection, we happened to see Steve and Joanna, one of the Irish couples that we had met on our Whitsundays sail. It was a pretty random coincidence to see them here, over 600 km away from where we had last met. We realized that everything around Cairns closed by about 3:00 in the afternoon, so we walked aimlessly for a while, all of us feeling tired after a busy week. We ended up back at the lagoon, where we found some of the Loyola people we knew and a few of the UC people, too. It started to rain a little, and we left to return the car and get to the airport. This airport didn’t even check our IDs once during the entire check-in and security process. Our flight was delayed about thirty minutes, and we got into Melbourne around midnight or so. After a forty minute, nearly $100 cab ride, we made it back to Monash around 1:00 am, and I was dead tired. I didn’t do much more than find my toothbrush in my suitcase so I could wash up and go to bed. Overall, I had a really great time on the trip. I also had a fun time with Eric and Emily; the three of us got along really well, even after spending nearly every minute together for the whole nine days of the trip. It worked out well because both of them also seemed to be interested in doing as much as we could while we were there and really tried to take advantage of being on vacation. The Great Barrier Reef was definitely somewhere I wanted to go during my time in Australia, so I’m glad that I had a chance to do that. We had the opportunity to do a lot of other cool stuff, too, especially the sailing through the Whitsundays, which I think was probably the highlight of the trip. As always, this vacation seemed to fly by and before I knew it, it was over, but now I’ll probably be spending a few weeks staying in Melbourne, hopefully planning the next trip for sometime in the near future.