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July 13, 2004
G'Day from Down Under!
At last! I finally have internet again! I don't have everything working yet, like email (Apple Mail specifically, I can still check GAC via webmail, which is kinda crappy because my address book is in Apple Mail only), iChat (but AIM is working, which makes it even stranger), and MSN Messenger will not work at all for me while I'm down here, unless MSN comes out with a Mac version of it that supports getting out from behind a firewall. Grr. So if you're on my MSN list and reading this, chances are I won't be able to chat with you for the next six months unless you sign up for AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). So do me a favor and sign up with AIM, and then let me know your screen name. :-) Anyways, back in the days before I had internet access down here, I wrote up a couple posts. Here they are in order, starting with the oldest. This'll be a bit long. :-) Hopefully sometime in the next few days I'll get around to adding a few pictures to this post to spice it up a bit (and changing the top four pics to an Aussie theme!).
Friday, July 9, 9:30am
Well, I’'m finally in Australia! Oz is such an awesome place! We’'ve been at orientation ever since we arrived on Tuesday morning, and right now it’s Friday morning and we’'re heading to our farm stays. And believe it or not, but this is the first time since Sunday afternoon in the Los Angeles airport that I’'ve even opened my laptop. I think this is one of the longest stretches I’'ve gone in quite some time without being on a computer, hehe.
Back on Sunday morning I had to wake up around 5am CDT to finish getting ready, so that we could leave by 7 and get to the airport by 9 for my 11am CDT flight. I called Mike at the radio station on Sunday right before we drove out, and he put on “"Down Under"” by Men at Work and “"Pianoman"” by Billy Joel with a little send-off on the air for me. Thanks Mike, you rock the Fox! So then we got to the airport and it was time to say goodbye to my parents for five months, until they fly down to Sydney in November.
The Northwest flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles was jam-packed, but otherwise fairly uneventful. After we landed in LA just before 1pm PDT and I managed to find the international terminal, I had the opportunity to just sit there for the next ten hours! Woohoo, that’s just what I’ve always wanted to do! But it was alright, I read a book for awhile and found a couple people to talk to that were also flying to Melbourne.
By the time 11:30pm PDT (LA time) rolled around, we were ready to begin our wonderfully long 15 hour flight to Melbourne. The flight was very long, but thank goodness Qantas is like the best airline ever. It was very comfortable, the food was excellent, and each seat had its own video screen! They even had free drinks! With dinner I ordered my first-ever legal drink, a Foster’s, appropriately enough. Too bad most Aussies dislike Foster’s (and rightfully so). It wasn’t that bad, but I’'m definitely planning on trying a Victoria Bitter (called “VB” for short, which the Qantas people said was way better) before I have another go at a Foster’s. All in all it wasn’t too bad of a flight, but we were all very glad to get off the plane a tad before 8am on Tuesday, July 6th. But let me just say that baggage claim is the bane of my existence. In the midst of spending over an hour going through customs and quarantine, I found out that Qantas had sent one of my bags to Brisbane for some reason (my other bad made it to Melbourne though). Oh well. They ended up tracking it down and delivering it to our orientation site that night though, so it wasn’t a huge inconvenience.
Once we all got through customs and quarantine (the Aussies are extremely concerned about foreign seeds, soils or bugs getting in), we were whisked off to IFSA-Butler orientation, at the Xavier College campus just outside of Buxton, a small town a couple hours northeast of Melbourne. The countryside scenery was absolutely beautiful the whole way up there. But as for Xavier, saying that it’s a college campus might give the wrong impression, because it’s actually an outdoor education center. It had a very “summer camp” feel, with a big centrall lounge/dining hall, and then three or four buildings for dorms, that was it. But it was in the middle of a forest of giant eukalypts, and very near Cathedral Range State Park. Tuesday and Wednesday were both cold, rainy and just plain miserable outside, but fortunately Thursday was bright and sunny, and in the upper 50s. Not bad for the dead of winter.
Tuesday they didn’t have much scheduled for us, which was good because we were all exhausted and wiped out from jet lag. I think I was the last one up, and that was only because I forced myself to stay awake until 9pm. Most people were having lots of trouble even making it to 7 or 8. We all got our free cell phones in the afternoon though, but the downside is that there wasn’t any reception way out there in the woods. On Wednesday afternoon we took a hike for a couple hours in the Cathedral Range State Park, even though it was raining pretty good for most of the hike. But on that hike we got to see a bunch of wildlife, including one wallaby, three kangaroos, a wombat and a koala! It was so cool! We all drank from a river along the way too, and it was the coldest, cleanest water I’ve ever tasted! On Wednesday evening we had an Aboriginal culture session, including a demonstration on the didgeridoo. It was all incredibly interesting, but we were all still horribly jet lagged. I bought an authentic boomerang from him too, one that’ll actually return! I gave up trying to stay awake by 10pm. 
Thursday morning we went rock climbing out in Cathedral Range! Let me just say that I have a lot more respect for rock climbers now after having done it. I was having lots of trouble on my first go, the rocks were cold and wet and I couldn’t find any grips. I wanted to give up probably three or four times, but they wouldn’t let me, and I actually made it all the way up to the top! My second go was on another section of the cliff, and that one went much more easily. I’m still all scraped up and sore from climbing though. Thursday night we had a big bush dance in the lounge for two-three hours, it was fun but extremely exhausting! Other than all that I’'ve spent quite a bit of time playing ping pong with the other study abroad students, it’s been a fun time.
And that brings us to this morning. We just left Buxton a bit ago, and we’re on our way to our farm stays. All eight of us Monash students are gonna be at the same farm, but the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University (both in Perth) students will be split up amongst the other few farms. I’'m almost out of battery power here on the bus, so I’'ll write more later!
Friday, July 9, 8:30pm
All eight of us from the Monash crew arrived at our farm today. We’re staying at the Holcombe Country Retreat near Glenlyon, a small town about an hour northwest of Melbourne. It is such a nice place, and our hosts John and Annette are treating us so well! We’re definitely getting spoiled by all the wonderful food, warm beds and space to roam (not to mention a tennis court!). This afternoon John drove us all around the area. We went to the nearby scenic town of Daylesford to visit its Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens, and stopped by some mineral springs in neighbouring Hepburn Springs. On the way back he drove us to Mt Franklin, an extinct volcano (one of a group called the “Seven Bald Volcanoes” around here), for a bit of a scenic overlook of the area. But it’s really cool to be able to get to know the other Monash kids finally, instead of being with a huge group of students going to universities in Perth as well. The eight of us are from all over; CJ from St Thomas (Minnesota), JR from Boston (unfortunately JR is confirming all the stereotypes about Americans - loud, rude, obnoxious, not watching his mouth - ARGH!), Sharon from Texas, Meghan from Kansas City, Caroline from Chicago, Krista from Oregon and Vanessa from Alaska. We’re all super-excited to get to Monash on Sunday and experience Melbourne, but we’re also very glad to have the chance to be at the farm right now and relax for a couple days. Tomorrow we’ll be going to a wildlife park somewhere, and who knows what else John and Annette have planned for us.
Monday, July 12, 11:45pm
Back on Saturday John and Annette took the eight of us to Ballarat, a city of 90,000 about an hour from their farm (and an hour northwest of Melbourne), and we went to the Ballarat Wildlife Park. It was pretty cool, we got to see all sorts of kangaroos, plus a few emus, koalas, Tasmanian devils, and a good deal of dangerous Aussie reptiles. After that we had a picnic lunch (the temp was only about 50-55 F, mind you) next to Lake Wendouree, across from the Ballarat Botanical Gardens. We poked our heads in some shops on the way back (everything is more expensive in Australia than in the States, some things much more). Back at the farm on Saturday night we watched some footy on the telly. I'm really coming to like AFL (Aussie rules football). It's a fast-paced game, much more so than American football, the scores are higher, and best of all, there are no TV timeouts for commercials! The TV still crams in a 30-second commercial after a score, but action on the field doesn't stop for television, which I think is bloody marvelous. The NFL could learn a thing or two from the AFL. And John and Annette kept asking us all if we thought "Georgy" was gonna win in November or not (almost all Aussies we meet are constantly asking that). Even though they don't care for Bush a great deal, they're still glad to have a strong alliance with America, because they're very nervous about Indonesia possibly trying something against Australia in the coming years. It's very interesting to hear people's takes on world affairs from a different part of the globe, we're definitely getting a different perspective.
Sunday morning it was time to leave the farm. None of us wanted to leave, it was such a relaxing time, and John & Annette showed us such amazingly wonderful hospitality (not to mention all the super-delicious food we could've ever wanted!). But we met up with the other Butlerites in Kyneton (John and Annette's farm was about halfway between there and Daylesford, since Glenlyon probably is too small to show up on most maps of Australia), and rode the bus to the Melbourne airport (so that the other Butlerites could fly to their unis over in Perth), and then the eight of us rode on to Monash University. At the airport Jodee gave me all of the stuff Karolina left for me (thanks Karolina!!), so I had quite a time trying to carry everything to my dorm. I'm living in Roberts Hall, which has a fairly similar setup to Wahlstrom Hall back at Gustavus (ants, 2-3 single rooms and a bathroom every half flight, arranged in stairwells, but only one common area for the entire dorm, way in another wing of the building), only I'd give Wahlstrom a slight nod over Roberts in terms of nice-ness. How's that for a ringing endorsement? :-) It's actually not that bad, I just need to find where a bunch of stuff is here first. After getting stuff unpacked, and getting invited by a couple of the RA's to watch "All Saints" (the Aussie version of "ER"), I spent a good deal of time last night trying to get my computer connected to the internet (with mixed results, as mentioned way at the beginning of this really long post, back before Friday's entries).
Today was the first day of Monash Abroad orientation. Lots of info/materials, a campus tour, and a free lunch, but it was all marred by having to stand in line for THREE HOURS to get our pictures taken for our Monash student ID's. Grr. But this afternoon I also got a back account set up at Commonwealth Bank, so that I don't have to carry around traveler's cheques anymore, and so that I can pull money out of an ATM down here for no fee, yay! After all that business, Sharon, Vanessa, Krista and I all went down to K-Mart to get some essentials (like laundry soap, etc). K-Mart here is a bit better than in the States. (For a fun fact, Target is a very upscale store and very expensive down here, as we found out a couple days ago.)
The Monash campus is extremely huge, especially having come from Gustavus. We've met some students that have been here for a semester or year (or more) and still don't know where everything is. Monash is the largest university in Australia, with 22,000 students on this campus (in Clayton), and over 40,000 overall in three countries (eight campuses in Australia, plus others in South Africa and Malaysia). Tomorrow will be more orientation, and hopefully in the afternoon/evening we'll venture into the city for the first time!
Photo albums from orientation and the farm stay will hopefully be upcoming in the next few days if I get a chance, as will an email to a bunch of people with my cell phone and room phone numbers, plus my mailing address. If you want to make sure you get added to my email list, just drop me a line to my GAC email. I'm still trying to get settled, but it's definitely sinking in now that I'm in a very different place! I'm in Australia!! Woohoo!
Posted by Jared at July 13, 2004 12:56 AM