I’m not intending for this to be a complete re-hash of everything that was posted on the Christian Grads in Australia blog, but I’ll still recount a few things, borrow some text, but also add some additional description of my own, and of course add plenty more photos. Even if you don’t feel like reading all the text, enjoy the photographic eye candy!
Mon-Tue 2-3 Aug
Travel was travel. Our American Airlines flight from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles had to make an unscheduled refueling stop in lovely Tulsa, however. The reason? The center fuel pump was inoperative. They actually went into a lot more detail than that, which I found quite interesting, but others thought was over-sharing. But we were assured repeatedly that the plane was of course totally safe. 🙂 Ash & I were both reading Bill Bryson’s hilarious travel book about Australia, In a Sunburned Country, and cracking up pretty much the whole flight. It was Ash’s first time reading the book, my third. It’s still just as funny! Tracy & Ash got seats next to each other for the Los Angeles to Melbourne flight, but I was seated somewhere not near them. I was also in a middle seat, so I didn’t get too much sleep. Maybe 3-4 hours total? I had forgotten how long 15.5 hours on a plane was. Oh, and 3 Aug basically didn’t exist. We departed Los Angeles shortly after 11pm on 2 Aug, and landed in Melbourne at 8am on 4 Aug.
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Wed 4 Aug
Read Tracy’s perspective here
We hit the ground running. Mike Shepski, the Student Life (Campus Crusade) director for both The University of Melbourne and the state of Victoria as a whole, picked up the three of us from the airport, and we were able to get a much-appreciated shower at his place and chill a little bit before we went out for our first meeting. We had some time to wander around the campuses of RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) and Melbourne Uni before our afternoon meeting at University House (a private club for professors/staff and grad students) with Malcolm and Sandy, who both help run the Christian Union group at Uni Melb. We had a wonderful and encouraging meeting with them, and came away definitely feeling like a partnership could work out with them. A few days later Tracy checked out a women’s grad student Bible study that Sandy ran, and two Sundays later Ash went to church with Malcolm and his wife, so there were some additional connections made there.
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After that meeting Mike dropped us off at Melbourne Central station with our luggage, and we made our way to our hosts for the evening — Ash & Tracy to a Student Life staff couple’s house in Nunawading, and me to Joel & Rosey’s house in Blackburn, just a couple stations earlier on the same line. I think some of the other Aussies on the train near us were amused while listening to me trying to explain to Ash & Tracy everything that “no worries” means in Australia.
Joel & Rosey had dinner waiting for me (as well as my favorite Aussie breakfast cereal, Just Right, and a package of Tim Tams!), and little did I know but they were also hosting their church small group Bible study right after dinner. I almost zonked out a couple of times, but I managed to stay awake the whole way through the study of Leviticus 4-7. I even managed to participate a little bit, but man oh man was I tired by the end! I made it to 11pm, I was impressed! And so were Joel & Rosey!
I met both Joel & Rosey in the Christian Union group at Monash in 2004. Rosey’s currently on staff with CU, and Joel’s working in pest control while trying to find an engineering-related job. They’re probably the friends I’ve kept in most frequent contact with since I left Australia. They’re both nerdy (love to play Starcraft and watch Stargate), and Joel is fairly reserved, but Rosey is quite possibly the most outgoing person I’ve ever met.
Thu 5 Aug
Read Tracy’s perspective here
After a morning meeting at RMIT with some Campus Crusade undergrads from UVA and Virginia Tech who were on the last day of their 6-week “summer project” in Melbourne and hearing some of their stories, Ash, Tracy & I did a little sightseeing, walking around the Old Melbourne Gaol (Jail), an oddly astroturfed courtyard, which is now part of RMIT. A sign outside proclaimed the Gaol as Australia’s “FINEST” tourist and cultural attraction. I’m sure the museum part is interesting, but the finest attraction in all of Australia? Somehow I doubt it. 🙂
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From there we walked all the way down Swanston Street to the Yarra River. We were all fans of the super-wide sidewalks on Swanston. We took the tram back up to Melbourne Uni to meet with Mike again, and we also got our schedule set up the next day at Monash Uni. Then we trammed it back to Federation Square, where I thought about paying $25 to partake in a big wine tasting festival there, but decided it’d be better if I were still awake for dinner, hehe.
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That evening we met up with Simon Camilleri of The Backyard Bard for dinner. Simon came to Penn State back in September 2008 during his US tour of the show, “Elijah.” We didn’t have phones yet, so we arranged to meet him in front of the National Gallery of Victoria at a particular time — because that was a place I knew of (and, not gonna lie, I wanted to see if those crazy u-turn traffic lights were still there in front of the NGV!). Simon took us to one of the many, many Italian restaurants on Lygon Street, a street just outside the CBD (central business district) that’s lined with ethnic restaurants (especially Italian and Greek ones). After dinner we stopped at an irresistible gelati shop to top it all off. It was a great evening catching up with Simon.
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Fri 6 Aug
Read Tracy’s perspective here
We spent the day at Monash University. Joel & Rosey offered me the use of their car, but I wasn’t yet comfortable enough with being on the left side of the road and driving on unfamiliar suburban streets, so I walked up to Blackburn station and then took the bus from there down to Monash with Ash & Tracy. Read my previous post here about the day at Monash, including our meeting with Graeme, the campus director of Monash Christian Union, plus the first of my research seminars.
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After my seminar I made my way back to Joel & Rosey’s place, where they were hosting a reunion for everyone from Monash CU from when I was there in 2004. I got to the party a bit late though, because before the party, I had to drive Joel to the army barracks in Ringwood. It was his weekend to go there for army reserves, unfortunately, but because Joel & Rosey were planning to loan me their car the next day, he needed a ride. While that morning I wasn’t comfortable with driving on the left, I had to make myself comfortable that evening. So, while driving at night on a pretty busy but unfamiliar road, I quickly had to reacquaint myself with driving a manual transmission (and the quirks of that particular manual) and with driving on the left side. Throw in trying to adjust to shifting with my left hand and signaling (indicating) with my right, and I was all screwed up — the windshield (windscreen) wipers came on several times, hehe. I only got honked at once though, and that was for not accelerating quickly enough out of a traffic light. I consider that a success. 🙂 And by the return drive to Joel & Rosey’s, I felt like I was finally getting a hang of how that car drove.
Quite a few people were already there by the time I got back to the house. I was so excited to see everyone again! Some folks weren’t able to make it, but many were able to come, it was great! I didn’t get a chance to talk to everyone as much as I would have liked, obviously, but the really cool thing about the evening was that most everyone there hadn’t seen each other in several months either, so everyone was catching up with everyone else. Even when everyone lives in the same metro area, life can still get in the way and prevent friends from seeing each other much. So everyone was glad that I gave them an excuse to get together again finally.
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Sat 7 Aug
Read Tracy’s perspective here
Using Joel & Rosey’s car, I picked up Ash & Tracy and then we drove east of Melbourne out of the city on the Maroondah Hwy. We were all very glad to see some of the countryside at last. We drove through Yarra Ranges National Park to see the town of Marysville, which was devastated by the terrible Black Saturday bushfires in 2009. As we were driving through the tall, majestic eucalyptus forests in Yarra Ranges we noticed the bases of all the trees were charred, but above about 20-30 feet there were no burn marks. Along the road that crested the mountain and descended into Marysville, all the eucalyptus trees looked “furry” — the entire trunk was sprouting little branches and leaves. That’s apparently what happens to eucalyptus trees after being severely burned. Driving along that road, I was better able to imagine the frightening and hellish scenes of what it must’ve been like for the residents trying to escape the intense fire. Sobering. I hadn’t ever been to Marysville before, so I didn’t know what it looked like before the fire, but it was pretty clear that something bad had happened. There was a good deal of new construction, temporary buildings, and open lots with signs like, “We will return.” We walked around town a bit, and hoped to check out the Marysville Reconstruction Centre, but it closed right before we got there. Also, we noticed that all the mountains surrounding Marysville were brown instead of green — an indication that all the trees were dead. Gum (eucalyptus) trees can often withstand bushfires (though their resin is highly flammable, so they have a tendency to “explode”), but the fires that day were just too intense.
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We drove back the way we came and stopped for lunch in Healesville. First we poked our heads into the White Rabbit Brewery and enjoyed a couple samples. I was definitely shocked by the $19 pricetag on the 6-packs, and $65 tag on the cases. Egads. But as it turns out, that’s not too out of line for beer prices in Australia. For a culture that loves to drink, I have no idea how they afford it! We got some lunch at a bakery next door, and after I got a meat pie, sausage roll and lamington, Ash & Tracy followed my lead and also got meat pies. Meat pies are kind of similar to pot pies here in the U.S., but a whole lot better and much more common. I really don’t know why we don’t have them here, as they’re pretty good. And the traditional Aussie thing to do is to squeeze tomato sauce (very similar to ketchup, but not exactly the same).
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After lunch we went to the Healesville Sanctuary (which I visited once in 2004), so that we could see some Aussie wildlife. I was hoping to pet some kangaroos again, but they were being lazy and somewhat antisocial. We also got to see emus, dingoes, snakes, pelicans, Tasmanian devils, platypuses (platypi?), and lyrebirds, among others. The Australian pelicans and the lyrebirds are definitely among my favorite animals down there. Lyrebirds are really cool in that they can imitate just about any sound they hear, including other birds, car alarms, mechanical sounds, and even people talking! They really are incredible birds. Nearby there’s an exhibit that plays many of the lyrebird calls, but a guide told us they had to turn the volume down on it because it was distressing the male lyrebird in the nearby enclosure, hehe.
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We got back to Joel & Rosey’s, where we met up with my friend Paul and his girlfriend Susannah, and then rode the train into the city to go to an Australian rules football game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (read Tracy’s take on the game here). We kind of lucked into it being the most-hyped game of the entire regular season and the hottest ticket in town, between the top two teams in the league, the Geelong Cats (the team that Paul & I both cheer for) and the Collingwood Magpies. Since we’d arrived, when we’d mention to people that we had tickets to that game, they were universally jealous. Anyway, more than 90,000 people showed up for the game, and it seemed like about two-thirds were Pies fans. While the game was going on, Paul & I explained the rules to Ash & Tracy, and Paul was actually rather impressed at how well I was able to explain details of an Australian game even though I was an American. 🙂 It was a fun atmosphere and a really good back-and-forth game, until Collingwood took control in the 4th quarter to pull away for the 107-85 victory. Geelong seemed off their game much of the night too, and had sloppy passing — turnovers killed them. Oh well, it was still a lot of fun!
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And now to start working on part 2…