kodi

Right now, Kodi's on my lap, which either means he apparated to Australia or I'm home. I'll let you figure out which one's true.

In the next few days, I will be posting up pictures (ok, I realize I promise this a lot and don't actually follow through, but this is for realsies since I don't have any excuse since I'm at home and on break with no obligations but to see my friends and family) and blogs of the last stretch of my trip which was described very briefly in the previous entry. Stay tuned!

The home stretch!!

Again, sorry for being a bad updater but I blame actually bad internet (or internet that is not free, anyway). Right now, I'm in Christchurch, which is a big city on the east coast of New Zealand's south island and in a couple of hours, I'll be boarding a plane to Sydney for about 3 days before heading home. My program officially ended about a week ago, and I've been traveling around with friends and alone for the past week. I visited Melbourne for two days and I've been in NZ (south island only) for the past 5 days. Things I did in NZ:

• Drove around a LOT. Well, I didn't drive, but I sat in the car while my friends drove on the other side of the road. NZ has GREAT driving scenery - driving was an adventure and treat in itself. Unfortunately, I started the trip still pretty sleep deprived so I missed some great scenery because I was asleep on our drives. In my defense, I had really bad allergies the first day so I took a Benadryl and couldn't hold my head up for six hours, but other times, I was just sleepy.
• Went caving and saw glowworms. Again, great scenery.
• Kayaked Milford Sound - this was by far my favorite thing to do!
• Hiked Franz Josef glacier. Super cold, but so worth it.
• Sailed in Akaroa Harbour. Saw a lot of dolphins up close!

I'll post a longer blog later, either when I'm in Sydney or when I'm home, complete with pictures, mostly pictures of scenery. I want to live in NZ. Or rather, I'd like to live in Australia so I can take more vacations in NZ. Six days is definitely NOT enough for NZ at all.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

I've been super busy with schoolwork and one last field day with the group, and trying to squish everything into the last week of the program here. It's actually extremely stressful trying to get everything done, on top of finalizing travel plans, which are ONLY A WEEK AWAY!!!! Super overwhelming, so while I have a lot to say about the past week, I'll leave you with some photos of my visit to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary today.

Click here for my Facebook album of the visit! No Facebook necessary!

It's not that different on the other side of the road

A lot of people have asked me what Australia culture is like. In my Australian Studies class, we learned that Australia doesn't really have a culture. For example, we had a class on Australian pop music where I learned that there's no such thing as Australian music. Basically, Australia really wants to be like the US, so they just sort of copy whatever's popular in the states. The thing is, they CAN have a good culture through the indigenous people here, but because Australia is extremely racist, they don't consider the indigenous culture to be a culture worth knowing. Shame.

But academics aside, I haven't really noticed any big differences between Australia and California. This is mostly because I have been in the wilderness and not around Australian people, just the same 47 people with some professors (which I really enjoy). But even when we are in the cities, I feel more like I am in a different state of the United States, not in a different country. Here's a list of the differences or general observations I've seen in Australia:

1. Australia is great about gluten allergies but TERRIBLE about nut allergies. Things here will have nuts even if the menu doesn't mention any nuts - this DOES NOT HAPPEN in the states. It's really annoying for me, but my friend who can't eat gluten finds it so much easier to eat here just because restaurants are so much more aware of her allergy. Still, though, it's quite easy to ask for things without nuts. It's just interesting because the allergy focus in Australia seems to be gluten, and not nuts, while in the US, the biggest and most common allergy is, by far, nuts.
2. There is no such thing as pedestrian right of way. This is incredibly unfortunate because every time my friends and I want to jay-walk, even though there are NO CARS around and have been no cars around, we still run across the street screaming because cars here drive FAST and they DO NOT STOP FOR YOU even if they are about to hit you. Seriously. Sometimes they go faster when they see you. EVEN AT CROSSWALKS!!!!
3. The lack of pedestrian right of way is also unfortunate because Australians drive on the left here. What's funny about this is that they do everything on the left, like walking. Did you know that Americans walk on the right? Think about it the next time you're in a crowded place. I never noticed that I have a natural inclination to walk on the right, but on the first few days here, I kept bumping into people as I walked. I finally realized it was just because I was going against the flow. Pretty funny! I never thought about that at all!
4. On another note, they even circle swim on the left!! This caught me completely off guard and it's completely weird because I've never had to flip-turn in that direction. When I went swimming here, I kept flip-turning to the right and then swimming over to the left side of the T. I crashed into the guy behind me more than once. It was awkward.
5. Things here are extremely expensive. I'm glad that the AUD is steadily getting weaker than the USD, but it's really not that big a difference. My first exposure to high Australian prices (in an airport public bathroom) is a prime example: feminine products in public toilets are never more than 25 cents in the states; they are $2 here. TWO DOLLARS!
6. Australian sausages suck. They serve them a lot here, but they just taste really weird. I really thought they would grow on me, but I just don't like them.
7. Australia is GREAT with efficiency. They have GREAT public transportation systems. I LOVE Brisbane's combined bus/ferry/catamaran/train system that's ALWAYS ON TIME. AND, if you travel more than once within an hour and a half, you only get charged once, to account for transferring between vessels! It's GREAT! Sydney also had a great Cityrail and ferry system that was so easy to use! Sydney even had a line of free buses throughout the busiest parts of the city! Much preferred to the Caltrain vs. Muni vs. VTA vs. AC Transit vs. Bart. Also much preferred to Caltrain's crazy schedule in general. The public transport system here really excites me, in case you can't tell. I love it. California definitely needs something like this.
8. Restaurants are also very efficient. At first, I thought the service here was subpar after my first week here, and I thought that might be due to the fact that tipping is rare in Australia - perhaps the lack of a tipping culture made the service worse. However, I really like that most restaurants use the cashier method of paying (much like Vietnamese restaurants) so you don't have to deal with arduous splitting of the bills, which is great for us cash-paying students. Restaurant service is just really fast in general. It's great. They also give you a bottle/jug of water per table, so you refill your cup yourself. Yeah. I know it doesn't sound exciting, but it's really awesome.
9. Apparently, waiters singing happy birthday is not a thing in Australia. Shame. We got a lot of weird looks when we asked the waiter to do that for my friend - they agreed to bring out a cake specially for her, but it wasn't free, there weren't candles, and WE had to sing. Which was fine, I GUESS, but it's such a shame.
10. Australia is prepared for rain. It poured like crazy today but as I walked around the city, I never once used my umbrella. There are overhangs everywhere that don't block out sunlight when it's not raining and they curve down so that the water drips down like a fountain into this pool! What a GREAT idea and a great and aesthetically pleasing way to keep everyone dry!
11. Public restrooms are everywhere and they are (almost) always clean. It's great!
12. Australia is very modern, which makes sense because it's a relatively young country, and, as I learned in my class, it loves modernity. The museums here are GREAT.
13. Australia is also very Asian. Obviously, you don't see a lot of Hispanic or black people here (save for the indigenous, but their population is tiny as well), which is interesting because in the US, a lot of workers are Hispanic, but here, they are Asian.
14. Australia is big on heavy food. It has a higher obesity rate than the US. On a side note, it is impossible to come by good Mexican food here. We've tried. Apparently, it doesn't exist, according to locals. However, Australia seems to be big on curry. And laksa soup. And pappadams? And they call bellpeppers capsicums.
15. I have only seen one Starbucks and it was in Sydney.
16. Australia doesn't use ice. Like, ever.
17. And finally, Australia, from what I've seen in Brisbane, Cairns, and Sydney, is super, duper clean.

Basically, Australia is AUSOME!!!!

I realize that most of what I mentioned above is probably not necessarily true of all of Australia and not necessarily different from the entire US, just the Northern California that I know. And also, these differences are pretty subtle. I wish I could say that it's SO WEIRD being in a different country on the other side of the world, but for the most part, it's not. It's really just like I'm in another part of the states. The biggest and most confusing difference? That I am always a day ahead of the states. It makes it IMPOSSIBLE to know what day of the week it is.

Boomerang

Also at Straddie, I threw a boomerang. That's what I call bad-ass.

Except it didn't come back to me. =(

Thanksgiving in Brisbane

After an awesome week in Sydney, we have now settled down at University of Queensland in Brisbane for the last three (now two) weeks of school. We're staying in dorms again, so it's a lot like being back at Stanford. Also, it's quite an investment of time and money to get off campus (the city is a 15-minute ferry ride away and the ferry station is a 10-minute walk from the dorm), so I sort of just mosey around our building all day. I've gone to the city a couple of times, but in general, it's just weird to have so much free time. In the next two weeks, we have an essay, a small presentation, a huge research paper, and a big presentation, but we just have "study days" where we have no obligations but to study. So it's weird to have so much time to do nothing compared to our jam-packed schedules of the weeks before. Also, it's super easy to procrastinate (which is why I'm blogging... haha).

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving, and Australia doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, but since we are Americans, we got the day off, as well as Friday. We decided to have a traditional Thanksgiving anyway, so we cooked our own turkey, pumpkin pie, yams, and all that goodness. This was a lot of fun - all 47 of us pulled together to cook a huge feast for everyone. The dorm chefs let us have control of their kitchen. They have the reputation of being the best dining hall on campus, and they definitely have the equipment to go with that. I made stuffed mushrooms and picked the herbs fresh from their giant herb garden outside. Everything was really fresh, too. There's no such thing as canned pumpkin in Australia, for example - my friends used real pumpkin to make pumpkin cookies and pie. The chefs were super friendly and helpful and didn't seem to mind at all that we were taking over their kitchen with our haphazard cooking skills, even though they still had to cook dinner for the other residents staying in the dorm. This was especially surprising, since our group almost always ends up irritating food or hostel staff, who yell at us and get annoyed at us because they don't like dealing with such a loud and raucous group of Americans (although we're really not that bad!!). For dinner, we invited our programs staff, including our teaching assistants, our professors, and our program administrators. The food was amazing - I was so impressed by the talent we have in our group, and by the end of the meal, I was so full. It was by far the best Thanksgiving I've ever had.

Anyway, I've put up a ton of pictures, so check them out! There are 7 picture posts - some will be on the next page, so don't miss those!

Overdue Pictures: Canberra

Canberra is the capital of Australia, but no one really wants it to be. The reason it's the capital is because Sydney and Melbourne are rival cities and they couldn't come to a nice compromise on which city would be the capital. So, they chose Canberra, the in-between city. We spent only one full day here, and this is how everyone felt about it:


There's nothing in Canberra but governmental buildings and politicians, and Australians really hate the government and politicians. So, they hate Canberra. Still, I think it's pretty, even though the population actually halves during the weekends because people flee Canberra as soon as they can to get on flights to Sydney or Melbourne. Canberra certainly has a view, at least.

Australia also has an inferiority complex. There's history behind why this is true, but basically, Australia really wants to be seen as a strong world power. We saw this when we visited the war memorial. It was really pretty:

And inside the war memorial, there was a huge museum that was dedicated to Australian involvement in all the major wars since WWI (mainly as an ally with Britian and the US). It was interesting because the whole entire thing was like, "Look guys! We fought the wars too! See?" It was really just like going through what I knew about the world wars and inserting bits of Australian into it. Honestly, compared to the big players of the war, Australia didn't do much, which is why this museum can successfully go through every single point during which Australians fought with detail.

The top of the Parliament building, which was really nice. I took a nap here. As the tour guide said, people like to go here because it's like they're stepping on the politicians underneath. Yeah, Australians love their government.

Overdue Pictures: All Things Harry Potter

My Harry Potter review session!

Explaining Book 6. Sorry about the profanity.

Premier Night: There are WAY too many pictures, so I chose some of my favorites.

My friends and I dressed up as the six horcruxes. I was the snake. (I'm already anticipating dressing up as the Deathly Hallows for the Part 2 premier with two friends from home, btw.)

The backs of our t-shirts. The bottom of mine says avada kedavra cal (sorry Cal fans).

The characters

The trio
Dumbledore! My favorite of the night, I must say. To my right is Padma. There was a Parvati and Lavender - I came up with the idea because the two of them are so close in real life that I didn't believe it when I heard that they didn't know each other before the program. Anyway...

Hagrid.
The Weasley children (minus Percy)

With Percy, Molly, and Arthur (but minus Ginny)
Kingsley Shacklebolt!

The Black family with Bellatrix

Luna Lovegood - she was in character the entire night. She took a picture of nargles and showed them to me.

Trelawney - she was also in character all night. It was SO FUNNY. She kept telling me in this crazy voice that I was in grave danger. She also called me "young one." It was HILARIOUS.

A lot of reenacting was going on. The following pictures are a series of reenactments that the horcruxes did with my friend who was the Sword of Gryffindor.

Here, Dumbledore uses the sword to stab Marvolo's ring. This is probably my favorite picture of the night - Dumbledore's face is priceless!

Ron uses the sword to destroy the locket.

And finally, Neville kills me (Nagini) with the sword.

Yeah. This was a lot of fun.

All the horcruxes with Harry and the sword.

Overdue Pictures: Views of Sydney and Bing Dinner

My friend, Huy, has an awesome camera, and took the following shots (he says photography is just a hobby, but he's become the designated photographer of the group). My three friends and I were climbing the Harbour Bridge at the time, so this is the sunset that we saw. It was amazing.

Bing Dinner! This dessert was $24 dollars.

Harbour Bridge before seeing the Twelfth Night at the Opera House

Pictures with friends at night after the show!

I really like this one!

And this one! In case you can't tell, I was flipping my head around to make my hair look windswept, but I whipped a little too hard and hit my friend in the face with my hair. Whoops.

Overdue Pictures: Sydney Opera House, Darling Harbour, and the Blue Mountains

Night at the Symphony!

I took a picture of the concert hall and my flash went off as the announcer said, "No flash photography." The entire audience laughed at me. It was pretty awesome.

Hanging out at Darling Harbour at night.

I really like this picture.

Hike at the Blue Mountains! The three peaks in the back are the Three Sisters. There's a story behind them (basically, they got turned into stone by a sorcerer, who eventually died, and no one knows how to turn them back.), but I just like that they're the three sisters because that's like me and my sisters!

Beautiful day for a hike!

Climbing up steps!

Overdue Pictures: SYDNEY!!!! - Manly Beach

View from the Manly ferry! The Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House!!!!

Lots of sailboats (and baby boats) on the harbour. The water was peppered with them.

Australia has weird water fountains. My friend and I demonstrate.

In case you can't tell, I'm trying to demonstrate how manly Manly beach is.

Yay! I really like how blue this picture is.

More pictures on the next page!

Overdue pictures: Straddie (Love Your Work!)

Straddie has the most beautiful beaches! This was at a lookout where you can whale-watch and see dolphins. I saw dolphins and a whale squirting out of it's breather thing, but not the actual whale itself, since it was farther off.

Sandboarding! My friend Aileen and me at the top of the hill.

Starting our descent...

Here we go!!

And we're going!!

And... we fall. It should be noted that I started in the front, and now Aileen's in front of me. She literally rolled over me. You also should note that Aileen and I are cracking up like crazy. Many descents ended like this.