Australia Semester Abroad 2009

Cairns: June 29-July 3

2009-07-07T00:53:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 29th, we headed back to Cairns from the rest of Bryan and Nathan’s stay. We were able to rent a car for $80 (It would have cost us $160 total to take the shuttle) from the Gold Coast to Brisbane. Unfortunately the Brisbane Airport was about one hour and 20 minutes from our hostel in the Gold Coast, so that meant leaving at 3:30am to get to the airport an hour before our 6:00am flight. Once again, I was able to sleep almost the entire 2 ½ hour flight from Brisbane to Cairns; I think I’ve got quite a bit of potential to sleep most of the way home on the plane.

After we arrived in Cairns we checked into our hostel and figured out when the next bus left for the Cairns Zoo. We got to the zoo around 11:45am, just in time for the snake show. I think the zoo was a pretty good experience for Bryan and Nathan-maybe even better than going to the Toronga Zoo in Sydney. They got to feed the kangaroos and hold koalas and pretty much see most of the animals native to Australia (minus the elusive platypus and cassowary).

After the zoo we went into Smithfield to get meat to grill at a barbeque in Palm Cove with a couple of students that were still hanging around the lodge. We grilled up some kangaroo sausages and fillets (kind of ironic that we were befriending these animals earlier in the day). It was pretty winding and a little cold on the beach, but it was still a good time nonetheless.

Tuesday, June 30th, was our trip out to the Great Barrier Reef to snorkel. Our boat left at 8:00am from the reef terminal in Cairns for the Oyster and Upolu Reefs. We spent an incredibly long time at the first reef because they were also doing introductory dives, but we still stuck to snorkeling. It always amazes me anytime I’m swimming on the reef with how fake the fish look. At Upolu Reef I saw my first sea turtle swimming along the ocean floor and I probably swam through six separate schools of fish. I was really impressed with Upolu Reef. After the two stops we headed back for Cairns.

When we got back to the reef terminal we went to look at the two huge ships in the harbor. They were a United States Marine and Navy ships (the U.S.S. Essex and Tortuga for you armed forces buffs). I’m not sure how long they have been docked since they had been there since we arrived on Monday. They were pretty massive vessels that held about 4,000 shipmen together. I’d heard through the grapevine that they were supposed to dock in Townsville (where they is a large Australian Army Base) but for some reason had been diverted by way of Cairns. I’m a little partial, but I would say this is an incredibly good thing for them as Townsville has nothing to do (at least from what I saw). The greater Cairns businesses would also agree as they have provided a HUGE boost in the local economy. Anyway now I’m rambling...

After we got back to the hostel we decided to make Spaghetti Pie for supper. Unfortunately our hostel is incredibly protective and nearly everything you have to pay a deposit on to use (I think they’d Chain the pillows to the bed if they could find a way). Low and behold they didn’t have any pots and pans because they were all checked out (though they definitely weren’t using them at the same time we were trying to) but luckily we found one person who loaned us a pan. Then we realised there weren’t any ovens in the communal kitchen either. We decided to make it a no bake Spaghetti Pie and it actually turned out pretty good.

Wednesday, July 1st, we rented a car and took Bryan and Nathan to two of our rainforest swimming holes, Josephine Falls and Crystal Cascades. Josephine Falls has a natural waterslide and Crystal Cascades has a jumping platform into the water. I think they both enjoyed these (Bryan especially) but Nathan I think was a little put off by how cold the water was. We started off a little late getting to Josephine Falls which is about an hour away and Crystal Cascades is about 10 minutes outside of Cairns in the opposite direction so we only got to spend about 45 minutes at Crystal Cascades.

That night we grilled burgers on the Esplanade with our two German friends, Andy and Falko. This was there last night in Cairns and they had to catch a 6am flight the next morning so we wanted to say goodbye to them before they left. After supper we headed over to the night markets to go souvenir shopping. After that we took Andy and Falko back to their apartment in Smithfield.

Thursday, July 2nd, was another day of rainforest excursions. We took Bryan and Nathan to see the Curtain Fig Tree and then further into the tablelands to do the waterfall circuit. We had lunch at Milla Millaa Falls and then went swimming in it. In the two other times going there the water was freezing cold, but on this particular day it seemed especially cold. Nonetheless, Bryan, Nathan, and I still managed to swim underneath the waterfall and stand behind it, but only for a couple minutes. After that it was back out of the water and then stopped by the other two falls, Zillie and Ellinja, which you can’t swim at.
Then it was back to Cairns to eat at a tavern called The Cock and Bull, it’s a pretty traditional Aussie tavern which serves heaps of food, which I thought Bryan and Nathan needed to experience before they left.

Friday, July 3rd, was Bryan and Nathan’s last real day in Australia so we started off early driving to Paronella Park south of Cairns by about two hours. Paronella Park is actually a Spanish Castle situated next to a waterfall in the middle of the rainforest, built in the 1930’s by a wealthy sugar cane farmer (Jose Paronella). Because the castle was built with poor concrete, the castle looks as though it is some type of ancient ruin, even though it’s only 80 years old. The whole place is really interesting. Even the creek that flows through the property is full of fish and turtles which you can feed. If you want to know the entire story of Paronella Park go to www.paronellapark.com

After having lunch next to the waterfall at the park we headed back for Cairns. We had originally planned on hiking what is known as Walsh’s Pyramid, but we really didn’t have enough time before dusk so instead Bryan, Nathan, and I went back to Crystal Cascades to go swimming again. It was probably more of an adrenaline rush than the hike would have been and also a lot less strenuous.

After Crystal Cascades we headed to the Marlin Coast Lawn Bowls Club, where recently I’ve visited quite often. We introduced Bryan and Nathan to the game of lawn bowls. I think they both enjoyed it and they probably did a lot better than I did anyway. The free sausages also made the night a pretty good one to end on.
After the game we headed back to the hostel, returned the rental car, and walked around the Esplanade which is quite beautiful at night. Then it was back to the hostel for them to finish packing. The two weeks with Bryan and Nathan were probably two the more intense weeks I’ve had, jet setting around an entire continent hopefully not disappointing them.

Gold Coast: June 27-28

2009-07-07T00:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 27th, was an early day as I woke up at 3:45am to shower at leave the hostel around 4am for the bus terminal. We made our flight in plenty of time and arrived in the Gold Coast at about 8:30am, sleeping the entire flight. We discovered our best transportation option was a taxi from the airport as our hostel was about 20km away. It was a very interesting taxi ride due to our driver not knowing where our hostel was. We told him the address, but with him being new to the position and possibly the language barrier, he had a very difficult time finding the place. Though we did finally arrive after almost an hour and a half to our hostel, which is only a block away from the beach.

We couldn’t check into our hostel until noon, but we were able to leave our luggage, and then we headed to the grocery store to get food for lunch and supper. After we made lunch we were able to check into our room. It is a six-person room and actually the first time we’ve had to share a hostel room. By this time the headache that I had since the flight was really bothering me so I decided to take a nap while Bryan, Nathan, and Danika explored the beach. They came back into the room around 3pm to graciously wake me up so we could go to a seafood market to pick up fresh prawns (shrimp) for the Pad Thai we’d decided to make for supper. We took a bus to the market and then walked back via the beach. I’m not entirely sure, but I think the beach is about 10 meters wider than it was about 4 weeks ago because I remember hearing about the huge surf they had when they had big storm off the coast, and this surf took about 10 meters off of the coastline back into the ocean.

Once back at the hostel we booked a kayak trip for tomorrow morning and reserved a rental car for tomorrow afternoon so we can take it to the Brisbane Airport where we fly out of early Monday morning. The one drawback about finding cheap flights is that they are usually the 6am flights. Brisbane is about 90 minutes away from the Gold Coast so that means we have to leave at about 3:30am Monday morning for the airport, such is life...

We then made the previously discussed Pad Thai with prawns which was pretty good for a meal cooked in a hostel. I was also able to introduce Bryan and Nathan to Tim Tams, two chocolate wafers with chocolate sandwiched between them, covered in chocolate, and yes, they are as bad for you as they are delicious. After supper Bryan, Nathan, and I attempted to go swimming in our hostel’s pool. However I hadn’t seen anyone in it all day and I discovered why when I jumped in and I think my heart nearly stopped. The water was freezing cold and Bryan and Nathan decided they didn’t want to go swimming. I was supposed to go with Bryan to an internet cafe a couple of blocks away, but he went horizontal and trying to wake him up to do anything is pretty much impossible once he’s fallen asleep.

Tomorrow it’s the kayak trip in the morning followed by the rental car pickup and possibly a trip back to the beach to go swimming if the sun comes out more than it did on Saturday (though it’s only supposed to be highs in the upper 60’s).

Sunday, June 28th, we got picked up at our hostel at 7:20am for our kayaking trip and headed to the bay a couple of kilometres down the road. They were two person kayaks so Danika and I paired up. For some reason I think we were not genetically inclined to ever paddle a kayak together. It seemed as if everyone else was going faster than us and we wasted a lot of energy going side-to-side. Nonetheless we still made it to our destination, South Saddlebrook Island, apparently one of the largest sand islands in Australia. It was from here that I did not realise that our five hour tour was a lot more than kayaking. For starters it was led with the help of an Aboriginal, Kaleb, who gave us a type of face paint, welcoming us to the island. From there we had morning tea and then went on a bush walk in search of wallabies and other animals that inhabited the island. After spotting a couple a pushing them to a corner of the island we had a spear, boomerang, a club throwing contest against the four other members of our group. I don’t want to brag, but I was the only one to hit the target on my first try with the club. However I was also the only one to successfully hit myself in the back of my head throwing the spear. You win some, so lose some. After the contest Kaleb pushed the wallabies back out towards us. We only saw two of them, but Bryan and Nathan will have plenty of time to see more in Cairns as they are everywhere north of Smithfield. While walking back to our kayaks, we encountered a snake, a carpet python to be exact, which apparently is non venomous, but I kept me distance until Kaleb grabbed it using only a club and his bare hands. After the bush walk we kayaked over to another island where we went snorkelling in the freezing cold water. It was pretty murky and wasn’t anything compared to the reef, but we were able to feed the fish and having them swim right up to you and even follow you as you swam was pretty cool. After that we headed back to shore.

Once back from the kayaking trip, completely exhausted we made lunch and then headed to pick up our rental car to take to Brisbane. It’s inconvenient but we wanted to visit the Gold Coast before we left the country and we also wanted to spend as much time in Cairns as we could, but unfortunately flights don’t leave the Gold Coast Airport for Cairns on Mondays so we’re stuck making the 90 minute drive north to Brisbane. Anyway, exhausted from paddling Danika and I (well mostly Danika) decided the beach would be an excellent spot for a nap. It was here I discovered that the sand on the beach is so fine it actually “squeaks” when you shuffle your feet on it, pretty cool. After our nap we returned to the hostel to find that Bryan and Nathan had the same idea, but could only make it to their beds, not the beach. After we woke them up we headed downtown to use an internet cafe to print off directions to the airport and stop by the grocery store to pick up something to go with the fish we purchased the other day at the market. Unfortunately we had terrible time management as we went to the internet cafe first, and then arrived at the grocery store after it had already closed. Dejected, we walked back to the hostel to make supper. After supper we had the urge to go on an excursion to find some type of sweet desert, back downtown. Bryan wanted chocolate cake, I wanted ice cream, we met somewhere in the middle and found a gelato place a block from the beach. After the delicious goodness, we walked back to the hostel via the beach to pack up for our 3:30am departure for Brisbane.

Monday it’s back to good ole Tropical North Queensland where we might show Bryan and Nathan the Cairns Tropical Zoo where they could be so lucky and hold a koala and feed the kangaroos, and then maybe a barbeque tomorrow night on the Esplanade, it should be fun.

Melbourne: June 25-26

2009-07-07T00:35:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 25th we got into Melbourne at 8:30am. We took a shuttle bus into the city which luckily offered a service to also drop you off at our hostel. Our hostel is one of Melbourne’s newest and was actually built to be a hostel (for those of you who have ever stayed at a hostel you know what I mean). Unfortunately they run the hostel it bit more like a hotel, and didn’t allow check in until 2pm. We then organised our Great Ocean Road tour for Friday and Bryan and Nathan went and got lunch while Danika and I went to a grocery store to pick up stuff to make lunch. By the time we ate and got everything organised it was 2pm and time to check in. However upon checking in I discovered that they didn’t have my reservation. I also didn’t have anything to prove I had reservation, but luckily they discovered they had made a mistake and booked the reservation a month too early. They apologised by giving us an upgrade to a 4-person dorm with a bathroom. The four person rooms are really nice because we can just spread our stuff out and not have to worry about securing our stuff because it’s just our room (pretty much a hotel room with bunk beds).
After checking in we walked into the Central Business District (CBD) to catch a free tram to the other side of downtown where we went to the old Melbourne Gaol (pronounced jail). It was a pretty neat tour and discovered it was where Ned Kelly, a famous Australian bushranger I learned about in my Australian History class, was hanged. After the tour we walked back downtown and ended up eating dinner at an Italian restaurant in the section of town known as Federation Square. We then walked home by way of the river. Friday is the Great Ocean Road tour that leaves from our hostel at 7:20am and is supposed to get back at 7:30pm that night. Hopefully everything is on schedule because there is an Aussie Rules football league (AFL) game Friday night at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (right next to where the Tennis’ Australian Open is held) that starts at 7:40pm. If we’re late to the game I wouldn’t care too much, the tickets are supposed to be ‘cheap’ and really I just want to show Bryan and Nathan (and Danika) how the game is played. Plus, Australians take their sport pretty serious so it’s pretty fun to watch.

Friday, June 26th, we went on our day trip to the Great Ocean Road, just to the west of Melbourne. Our bus left at 7:30am from our hostel and the day trip lasted about 12 hours. It was a pretty amazing tour winding along Australia’s southern coast. However one drawback of the long winding roads is that people sometimes tend to get carsick. This was the case for the boy sitting next to us on the bus. He also was unable to reach the puke bag in time so it smelled like vomit on the bus for the better half of the morning. After lunch we reached the famous rock formation off the coast known as the ’12 Apostles’. The views here were almost surreal as most of the pictures I took look like postcards. We were also lucky enough to see two whales about 800 meters out swimming, and or guide informed us this was the first time he’d ever seen whales in this area. We then headed along what is known as Shipwreck Coast to a place called Loche Ard Gorge where a famous shipwreck occurred in the late 19th century. This is also the site of a rock formation known as the Island Arch, unfortunately for us, the arch on the island collapsed on June 9th, and now it is just two separate formations. Our tour essentially finished at about 5:00pm, but now we were about 250km west of Melbourne, so we then had to make the 2 ½ hour return back to Melbourne, luckily for me my parents conditioning of putting me to sleep in a car paid off as I slept almost the entire way back.
We got back into Melbourne’s CBD at about 7:40pm, the same time that kickoff was for the AFL (Aussie Rules Football) game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Danika refused to go to the game as she had no interest in the sport, but Bryan, Nathan, and I rushed over to the MCG and purchased General Admission tickets for about $20. The funny thing about their general admission seating is that they wait until after the game has started, and when they’ve sold all the reserved seating they can, they just have the general admission seating where nobody is. So we found a spot in the upper deck at the start of the second quarter and Bryan and Nathan got their introduction to the game. I had never been to a game in person and had only watched it on television with my roommates. Luckily, one time I made Brett explain the rules to me so I was able to give Bryan and Nathan an overview of how the game is played (though it was a little like the blind leading the blind). After the game we walked back downtown, got a bite to eat, and then headed back to the hostel as we had to leave at 4:00am to make it to the bus terminal by 4:30 so we could make it to the airport in time for our 6:00am flight to the Gold Coast, public transport...

June 22-24: Sydney

2009-07-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 22nd I left Cairns, not for good, but to meet my brothers in Sydney. Bryan and Nathan were supposed to arrive at 6:30am in Sydney. Danika and I purchased our tickets early and were fortunate enough to get a great deal on them. However this also meant it wasn’t a direct flight to Sydney and we had a layover in Brisbane and were scheduled to get in at 10:30am. Everything was going ok until we got delayed and sat on the tarmac for 50 minutes in Brisbane because of rain. I had no idea scattered showers could be so disruptive. We eventually got into Sydney at about 11:15am, a mere five hour wait in the airport for Bryan and Nathan, and really what else do you want to do after a 14 hour plane ride than sit in an airport. However they seemed in good spirits when met up with them at the baggage claim and we embarked for the hostel in downtown Sydney.

After we got to the hostel (which was in a great location I might add, I don’t like to pat myself on the back, but $21AUD/night for a place that’s a 15 minute walk to the airport, come on) we planned out the rest of our day in Sydney. We decided on the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb for Nathan and myself. Bryan and Danika were going to hang out in the area around the Bridge, known as “The Rocks” which was the site of the start of the colony in Australia or as I cynically referred to it as the area where the Europeans started terrorising the indigenous people. Anyway, we made it to the Bridge by 2:00pm for our 2:15pm climb. Bryan was able to convince himself to do the climb, leaving poor Danika by herself. You’ll have to read her blog to find out what she did during the 3 ½ hour climb.

The climb was pretty impressive, ridiculously overpriced but when there are only 3 bridge climbs in the world you sort of have a monopoly on it. We had to get dressed in gray jumpsuits (see picture) to camouflage ourselves so we wouldn’t be a distraction to the drivers. Looking like a cross between the Ghost Busters and a gray Teletubby, we spent 3 hours climbing up the bridge to its highest point and back again. It gave spectacular views of the city and the opera house and the tour was over before I knew it.

After the climb, we went and found a place to eat on Sydney Harbor know as Circular Quay, a fairly large transportation hub. After supper we headed back to the hostel as Bryan and Nathan were feeling the same effects of jet lag as we did, getting incredibly tired at about 8:00pm and going to bed before nine.

Tuesday, June 23, we left the hostel at 8:30am to head to the opera house for a guided tour. The tour was very informative and discovered that it wasn’t nearly as big as I thought it was (the main auditorium only seats 2700). After the tour we had breakfast a small cafe adjacent to the opera house. It didn’t really hit me until later that I was having breakfast right next to Sydney’s famous icon right on the harbor.

We then made our way to the wharf at Circular Quay where we purchased a day pass for a harbor ferry. This turned out to be an incredible deal as we rode it about four separate times throughout the day and was only $30. We took the ferry across the harbor to Watson’s Bay. I didn’t realised how close it was to the ocean, until we got off and only walked about 500 meters to the coastline to a really neat park right along the ocean. After a lunch of fish and chips on Watson’s Bay we got back on the ferry and headed for Luna Park, an Arnold’s Park-like amusement park right next to the Harbor Bridge. Unfortunately in the winter months, the park is closed Tuesday-Thursday so we decided to walk up to the bridge and then walk across it, something Danika had done, but my brothers and I hadn’t. It gave a spectacular view of the harbor, but the one thing that stuck out to me was how heavily secured the bridge was. Just on sidewalk was “Bridge Security Officers” placed every 100 meters and cameras the entire length of the bridge. After we crossed back over the bridge we headed back down to Circular Quay to catch the ferry to Darling Harbor.

We took the ferry over to Darling Harbor to meet up with a friend of Danika’s from high school, Ashley Slota, who had just arrived in Sydney a week and a half ago to start an 8-week internship with a magazine. The internship sounded pretty neat (except for the whole not getting paid part) and her apartment was right in the middle of the city but it sounded like she was enjoying Sydney and the internship. It was crazy thinking about how different her experience in Australia would be from mine. Sydney is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world while Cairns is not, and I don’t think she’ll be able to just get up and go on a bushwalk with her roommate in the afternoon like I did with Brett. After dinner we headed back to the hostel as the jet lag was still hitting my brothers (poor guys, their circadian rhythms will be so messed up by the time they get back to Iowa).

Wednesday, June 24th we got up and walked to the Royal Botanical Gardens on the Harbor for a free guided tour at 10:30am. The gardens were beautiful, especially considering it was actually winter, though I don’t think I could have paid my mom to go anywhere near the park. The park is full of huge, beautiful trees, but has been taken over what seems like every bat (yes I said bat mom) in the greater Sydney area. The bats so concentrated that they break off any new branches on the tree, killing them. However the bats themselves are listed as endangered or something equivalent so the park has quite a dilemma on its hands. The tour was very insight full and I learned a lot more than I thought I would.

After the tour we headed back to our favourite Sydney public transportation hub, Circular Quay, to catch a ferry to Olympic Park. Once arriving on the wharf at Olympic Park did we realise everything that we wanted to go to was about 5km away. Danika and I had signed up to do a trapeze class (yeah, I know) but for some reason there was a mix up on what days we had reserved and we didn’t get to do it. We did manage to play a round of miniature golf with Bryan and Nathan at the golf centre, which definitely did not seem like an Olympic quality golf course, but I guess I’m not entirely sure what that would entail. Despite our setback with the trapeze we went for a swim at the Olympic Aquatic Centre. It was pretty neat, but I found out you can’t go anywhere near the diving platforms without a diving coach and a reservation (lame) but was able to put their hot tub to good use.

Feeling rejuvenated, we headed across the street to Olympic Stadium (now called ANZ Stadium) for the State of Origin Game II. This is the all-star rugby game between Queensland and New South Whales, which Queensland was up in the series 1-0. The stadium was probably 90% NSW, but it didn’t matter as Queensland won, and won the series for the fourth straight year. It was a pretty exciting game and I didn’t think I’d ever be watching a rugby game, knowing a majority of the rules and really enjoying myself. I even think Bryan and Nathan enjoyed the game. After the game we took the train back into the city where we ran into a couple of kids from the Cairns Student Lodge. They had mentioned that they were going to the game and maybe they would see us there and I almost laughed at them, because there were also 80,000 other people going, but I guess they proved wrong. We then headed back to the hostel with Bryan and Nathan making it to 11pm. I then had to pack up to catch a 5:40am train to the airport to head to Melbourne.

June 8-21: End of Semester

2009-07-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

Greetings all-

I am actually writing this portion of my blog much later (since it is July now) but I promise my trip to the rest of Australia and the last days in Cairns have a bit more detail. Anyway...

The week of June 8th was spent mostly studying for last two final exams, sociology and Australian History. I did receive some good news when I discovered we got to know our essay topics for our history exam ahead of time so I wasn’t trying to cram everything I learned over the last three months like I was attempting to do for my sociology final on the 16th.

The following week was judgment day/week. However the Monday night (the 15th) before my first exam I went out to dinner at Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park. Our bus driver, George, who I’ve talked of fondly before, put together a discounted buffet dinner and show for us. His daughter actually works for the park’s marketing department. The price was pretty steep ($60) but seeing how it’s usually $95 I felt like he went to a lot of trouble organising it, and the least I could do was go to the dinner (it’s not how much you spend, but how much you save, right Mom?) However since I’ve become pretty good friends with George, Danika and I were also put in charge of trying to convince other students at the lodge to go. $60 for one meal was a pretty tough selling point, and most students didn’t seem that interested in Aboriginal culture, but we did manage to convince seven other students to go.
The show was pretty good, with three separate performances and a huge all-you-can-eat buffet. I knew the show was going to be good when you got off the bus and an indigenous member of the Tjapukai clan was there to paint your face with traditional symbols.

The next day I had my sociology final and then it was straight into studying for the two essay questions for my history final that was in two days. The next day and a half was spent studying for the exam and then freedom was granted at approximately 2:45pm on June 18th. I then headed back to the lodge where Brett had decided that we should go to the movie Year One to celebrate. Still in a state of euphoria I agreed to this not realising it was a Jack Black movie. Let’s just say it’s worth waiting for it to come out a DVD, and then get it when you have one of those buy one, get one free rental things....I’m not a fan of Jack Black. Anyway...
Friday the 19th was spent cleaning up/packing up my room because I had to move out in three days. Packing up all your stuff from the semester is a lot easier when you only have about two (now three) bags of luggage worth of stuff to take back, and most of packing was finished that day except my laundry which I waited to do until Sunday night.

Saturday my wish finally came true when Brett and few of the other first year students took Danika and I to Crystal cascades. It was everything I hoped for and then some. Very much like some sort of scene out of a movie, and probably one of the highlights of my trip. That night Brett, Brenton, Danika, and I went out for supper at a place called the Cock & Bull, what I would consider a typical Aussie tavern.

Sunday, the 21st, was rather sad as Danika and I were one of the last few people still at the lodge. It was spent sulking and packing up the rest of my stuff. Luckily, our Canadian friend Megan allowed us to put our extra baggage in her room while we toured with Bryan and Nathan. I couldn’t thank her enough as the lodge would have charged me at least $20 to keep it for just over a week.
I apologise again for the quick summary of the middle of June, but trust me, it gets more interesting...

Week of June 1-7

2009-06-08T08:02:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 1st, I finally fulfilled one of the goals of my trip: to hold and/or cuddle a koala. I went with Danika and a couple of kids from Butler to the Cairns Tropical Zoo. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. They didn’t have a very big selection of animals like the Toronga Zoo in Sydney, but it had a lot more interaction with the animals where I was able to feed a seagull, see a tropical bird show, learn about the red panda (see picture), get too close for comfort with the world’s most venomous snake, watch them feed the crocodiles, and of course, hold the koala. It was an incredibly anti-climatic moment for what I thought it would be. I held him/her for only about 20 seconds, noticing the very distinct smell of eucalyptus. Koalas are a very interesting animal, I can’t remember if I wrote this in a previous entry, but their body is terribly inefficient at breaking down the food for energy so it sleeps roughly 18-20 hours a day. They might be my new favourite animal. The crocodile presenter told us that most crocodiles are harmless, and more afraid of us, than we are of them. I didn’t trust this croc sympathizer and knew that in fact they are ruthless, prehistoric, killing-machines with jaws that would crush concrete, let alone my bones. I am still very terrified of crocodiles by the way.

Tuesday through Friday was rather dull as I studied for my Australian People class. Looking back on the course, I think I’m glad I took it. The lectures were sometimes boring and the readings for class weren’t always the most interesting, but it forced me to learn about Australia’s indigenous people that I don’t think I would have otherwise. I think some of the lectures would have been more interesting had I known a little bit more of the context in which they were. I had no previous knowledge of the government’s positions and policies so everything was new to me. The one thing that has happened with most my courses is that the lecture notes aren’t posted until after the lecture, whereas I’m used to printing them off beforehand, and writing additional notes next to the specific topic. This made it hard to match up my notes with the course notes so I was and still am frustrated with that system. Nonetheless it was still a very insightful course into Aboriginal history.

However I did manage to go with Brett, Danika, and a couple kids from Butler town to the local pub on Wednesday to watch the State of Origin Game 1. This is the three game rugby series between New South Whales (where Sydney is) and Queensland (where Brisbane and Cairns are). I was expecting a rowdy bunch of Queenslanders as they take their ‘footy’ pretty seriously, unfortunately there was only about 30 or so people there and they weren’t really loud at all. The game was actually pretty exciting (Queensland did end up winning) and I never imagined when I first came here that I would be able to sit down and watch a game of rugby and know most of the rules and what’s going on. I’m now pretty excited for Game 2 which my brothers, Danika, and I are attending while we’re in Sydney.

Saturday, June 6th was pretty exciting. I got up bright and early at 7am to go take my test at the university at 8:15am. Yes, a final exam on a Saturday. I have no idea why they would start their semester examination on a Saturday, I feel like it makes it a lot more difficult for students especially with a later starting and less often Saturday bus schedule which so many students rely on. The examination period also lasts for about 14 days straight minus the queen’s birthday on June 8th. Now I know all you fans of British royalty out there are confused because you of course know the queen was actually born on April 21st. However Australia celebrates it on June 8th because of earlier in the monarchy one of the king’s wanted to celebrate his birthday (which was in the winter months) during a warmer time of the year. This perplexes me because Australia is in the southern hemisphere so celebrating her birthday on April 21st would actually have nicer weather than celebrating it at the beginning of June. It really doesn’t concern us either way in tropical north Queensland because it’s nice year round, but now I’m just gloating...

Anyway, the reason for the excitement- after I’d finished my test my roommate Brett and I headed to downtown Cairns for some roommate bonding. We had an early dinner together at The Sizzler, so early that we were still able to get the lunch menu prices, but we needed to eat early because we were headed to the Cairns Monster Truck rally. An event that not only included the monster trucks of Batman, Scooby Doo, Looney Toon’s Tasmanian Devil “Taz”, and the hometown favourite, “Outback Thunda”, but also the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine complete with a jet fighter engine, a man riding on the hood of a car through fire, and the world’s largest motorcycle which basically looked like half of a monster truck and weighed 14 metric tons. I don’t recall ever going to a monster truck rally as a little kid, and now I have no idea why parents deprived me of this opportunity. However the monster trucks continually were breaking down as they attempted to go over cars, (I have no idea why the suspension would break on a 5 ton machine thrown 10 metres into the air?) but they finished the night off with fireworks, a 50 metre car drop from a crane, and then melted said car with the Mystery Machine jet engine. A truly spectacular night. Apparently after the show the people that run the Cairns showgrounds were upset at the monster truck tour organizers because they tore up the grass. Which is pretty ridiculous if you ask me. That's like getting mad at swim meet because water is constantly splashing on the pool deck.

Sunday, June 7th, Danika convinced me and another IFSA-Butler friend, Bailey, who’s actually from Drake, to go to Yorkey’s Knob Beach for the afternoon. I hadn’t been to this beach yet and Danika had only been there the day before for some knob festival (for some reason she refused to attend the monster truck rally). The beach was really nice and was a lot bigger than the beaches to the north of the student lodge. It was also nice because we’re able to get into the ocean now because the jelly fish have left for the winter season. As we were getting ready to take the bus home Bailey brought to my attention that I had read the bus schedule wrong and the next bus wouldn’t be coming for another hour and a half, making us miss dinner. However my critical thinking skills came in handy and I called my trusty roommate Brett who convinced our neighbour at the student lodge to give us a lift back. Danika will never let me live it down that I was wrong and she has lost all faith in my reading bus schedule ability.

This coming week I have to study for my last two final exams. Which are next Tuesday (16th) and Thursday (18th).... My roommate has already started planning our last days together after our finals as he flies back to Nhulunbuy on the 21st, the day before Danika and I fly down to Sydney....Apparently a member of the Queensland State of Origin team contracted swine flu, putting the entire team in quarantine and now there are rumours that they might cancel game 2. I think this incredibly hard to believe it would happen because it’s equivalent to the United States cancelling the Super Bowl....A few more Aussie words that you may or may not know: pram (baby stroller).......eskie (cooler)..... boot (trunk of a car).....fairy floss (cotton candy-Danika claims this term is used in the U.S. but I have never encountered it and I’ve eaten my fair share of fairy floss/cotton candy)....capsaicins (peppers)....that’s all I can currently think of at the moment. Stay tuned....

Cheers,
Kevin

Pretty much the entire month of May (in a nutshell)

2009-05-31T22:39:00.000-07:00

Greetings-

Once again I have managed to avoid this blog for quite some time, well in all actuality, the entire month of May. I think the saying is April showers bring Kevin to avoid is blog for the entire subsequent month, or something along those lines. The truth is the last month has been rather uneventful. Three weeks ago, May 3-10, it was quite rainy. We had a bye week in rugby so there was no excitement there, and I’ve gone on just about every trip the international student centre has offered so there was nothing really to do besides dare I say...study. While my friends at the University of Iowa finished finals nearly two weeks ago, ours don’t start for another two weeks. We have a study break from May 31-June 5, with finals actually starting on Saturday, June 6^th. I’m lucky enough to have a final at 8:15am that Saturday so it should be fun.

I’ve spent the most of May working on final papers for my classes. My sociology paper was due at the beginning of May, my indigenous studies paper was due last week, and my Australian History paper and presentation were due two days ago. All of the papers were not on incredibly difficult subjects, but involved a lot of research on topics I had not heard about until this semester.

It’s hard to believe that I’m done with classes in three weeks and leave the country in a month and a half. In fact last Monday, May 25^th, we had our IFSA Butler final meal/presentation where Butler took us out to eat and gave us all the information we need for leaving the country and getting our grades once our finals are final. I realised that I haven’t gone out to eat a lot in Cairns, which is a good thing, but I’m still managing to spend way too much money, which is a bad. Money aside it was a good meal and I wake-up call for everything I still have to do (studying included) before I leave for Sydney on the 22^nd of June.

Anyway, the exciting stuff. Well, sort of. I regret to inform you that I have not gone on any real exciting trips since New Zealand. I was able to go on a bush walk with my roommate and another person from the student lodge at the beginning of May. It was probably only a 2 hour trek, but we hiked up the mountain next to the university and got a really beautiful view of the northern beaches (see pictures). Unfortunately it rained once we got to the top, but it was still fun nonetheless. Basically most of my adventures will have to wait until after my finals. My roommate Brett delayed his flight out of Cairns so for the three days after my last final we’re travelling around and Cairns and yes, I finally get my promised trip to Crystal Cascades.

In the past month I have managed to see the movies Angels and Demons and State of Play, both of which I actually got to see for free, thanks to my group winning a scavenger hunt at the beginning of the semester, and winning a wine and cheese trivia competition during orientation week. While I’m on the subject of my good fortune, I also happened to win a trip on a scenic railroad tour, all because I went to go meet the mayor of Cairns (see picture). I’m not quite sure why the Cairns City Council waited until the end of the semester, but I was pretty sure Danika and I were the only students at the event from North America (Cairns has a large amount of students from East Asian countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, etc. for English as a second language courses). I feel sort of guilty about winning the random drawing, because the prize before mine was a free haircut, valued at $10. But now I’m gloating...

Rugby has been going okay, I missed one game, because I didn’t make it to practice the Thursday before the game due to meeting the mayor, and we also decided to go lawn bowling. Since I’m playing reserve grade, they’re pretty relaxed on the whole participation in the club, I try to make it to as many practices as I can, but if something comes up, I’m not too worried about my absence. The practices have been a lot of fun though and I’m pretty sure I know most of the rules, though not always exactly what I’m supposed to do. I even looked into playing when I get back to Iowa, but Iowa’s club team might be more of a commitment than I’m looking for (plus I can’t use the excuse that I’m from the United States for when I mess up either).

I try to stay up to date on news back home in Iowa by reading the Des Moines Register online. So far I’ve been able to pick up that Shawn Johnson won dancing with the stars and Iowa got that new Fieldturf in Kinnick (looks good by the way). I haven’t noticed much coverage of the H1N1 virus or swine flu as it’s known outside of Iowa. In the last week it has spread like wildfire over here. Especially down by Sydney and Melbourne, closing schools, and places of work. It even got so bad they cancelled local rugby games, which seems almost sacrilegious over here. The government has had to deal with a big fiasco of an infected cruise ship coming into Sydney Harbour. After they thought they had quarantined the right people, the cruise left and headed up north toward Brisbane and yes, Cairns. However more people got the virus and the media was labelling it the ‘Cruise from Hell’. Fortunately it got so bad they quarantined the whole ship in Brisbane and cancelled the trip up to Cairns. However I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before it gets up here. I completely forgot that Australia is just starting their cold and flu season so it could get interesting over the next couple weeks.

Once again I apologise for my lack of blogging and hopefully I’ll try to do better in the last few weeks that I’m here. After finals my brothers, Danika, and me are hitting up Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, and Cairns before heading back to the states. Hopefully that will be a little bit more exciting than term papers and movies I’ve seen recently. Until next time...

Cheers,

Kevin

By the way, the two pictures at the top are of the bats I saw hanging in a tree in downtown Cairns, and the 'Stussi balls' were on the menu at the restaurant I went to with Butler and I think probably the closest thing I think I'll ever find to Steussy on a menu.

April 27-May 3: Lawn Bowls and such

2009-05-03T02:55:00.000-07:00

I probably shouldn’t have time to blog right now, especially since I’m in the middle of writing my major essay for my sociology class addressing how the media socially constructs youth as ‘problems’. It’s about as exciting to write as it sounds. Really I think I just had to prove to myself I could write a paragraph by myself without having to reference my source (Steussy, 2009). Never mind....

This week was rather uneventful. I stayed up way too late finishing my presentation after we got back to the Student Lodge at 1:30am Monday morning. Our flight was delayed from Brisbane so we didn’t get into Cairns until 12:45am, but the shuttle bus service we took home had to stop in downtown Cairns before it headed off to Smithfield so that took an extra 45 minutes. Then after a couple hours of sleep it was up to do my presentation which I think went okay, but I still haven’t received a grade on it yet.

Tuesday-Thursday wasn’t anything special, but Friday, May 1st, was our Butler ‘Cultural Event’ which involved us going to the local bowls club. Lawn bowls is a game very similar to booce ball, but the ball you roll is weighted on one side so you have to hold the ball a specific way in order for you to get close to the ‘jack’ or little white ball. The game was pretty interesting and I started off terrible, then became pretty decent, then towards the end, after my beginners luck wore off, I became pretty terrible again. It was fun and I discovered that they have this sort of thing every Friday night. For $8 you get your games of bowls, BBQ sausages on the grill, and cheap drinks, so I think it’s a pretty good deal and I might go back next Friday if I’m not doing anything else.

Saturday, May 2nd, I played in my second rugby game. I only played the last 20 minutes of the reserve grade (equilavent to JV, something I feel all too familiar with) game, but I didn’t think it was too bad of deal for someone who missed the previous game and last week’s practice. The last time I missed that much of a sport to go to another country I didn’t get to play for what seemed like a couple weeks and really tore down team moral, but that's neither here nor there.... I played forward this time so I was a bit more involved in the action, didn’t hurt my shoulder, and managed to help make a couple tackles. We beat the other team 82-0 and I think each try you score is worth 5 points if that tells you anything. They were from Atherton, a smaller community southwest of Cairns, only had 13 players (you need 15) and sort of looked like the island of misfit toys, comprised of players that looked younger than 16 and guy who I think must have been late 40’s early 50’s. However we have next week off so I’m going to have to wait another two weeks before any more playing time.

Well, I think I’ve wasted enough time procrastinating, I should probably get back to the paper. No big plans for next week aside from handing in this paper. Oh, and a Labour Day (tomorrow, May 4th in Australia) BBQ downtown if I can finish this paper before noon tomorrow. I’m still trying to convince my roommates to take me to Crystal Cascades next weekend so maybe I’ll push for that too. Oh well...

Cheers,
Kevin

April 26-The trip back home (including Brisbane)

2009-04-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

I wasn’t going to blog specifically about Sunday, April 26th, but it turned out a bit more exciting thanks to some convincing by Danika. I got up at 3am, showered and we were out of the hostel by 3:30am. I returned the rental car to the long term car park (parking lot) and made it back inside to the check in counter where I had dropped Danika off before we had to check in. This is where the only real problem with New Zealand occurred for me. I can deal with the sometimes more expensive products and monopoly stores place on goods (it’s interesting, while the U.S. dollar is doing far better than the New Zealand dollar, 60 cents equal 1 NZD, but some of their goods are so expensive that even with the conversion in exchange rate, it’s still about the same price in the U.S. or even more expensive). Anyway, the real reason I’m angry is that New Zealand will not let you leave their country without paying a nifty $25 “departure fee” or what I consider the epitome of nickel and diming you to death. I was not happy about this fee, but as much as I was unhappy about it, (including the fact that I was never informed of it, anywhere) I still needed to leave the country, so I paid the fee, mumbling under my breath and all. Much to my newfound scepticism, there was neither a “security fee” nor a “going-to-the-bathroom-after-you-go-through-customs fee” and we made it to our gate well in advance of our estimated time of departure.

After arriving in Brisbane at 8am local time and our flight from Brisbane to Cairns a mere 11 hours away, departing at 9:40pm, Danika convinced me to not spend the entire day in the domestic terminal, rather spend the $26 return pass to the Brisbane CBD. We arrived downtown at about 10am after waiting for the train at the international terminal for about 20 minutes. Once downtown we followed a large group of people away from central station to a pedestrian mall lined with stores and a stage in the middle. A band was setting up and I was shocked to see that it was the Salvation Army Band. I knew they delivered toys, but apparently they also have a percussion and brass ensemble. They played one song and then spoke about how Jesus Christ is the lord and saviour, inviting everyone on the mall to their Sunday worship service at 11am. I had no idea the Salvation Army had a religious affiliation, but I guess the “salvation” may kind of give it away. The band played for about 20 more minutes, and after they were done Danika went to go get a map of downtown Brisbane. It was during this time that one of the members from the trombone section spotting what he thought was a weak and wounded soul. He approached me, noticing my bags, about where I was from and where I was going, having a nice chat about how beautiful the weather is in Cairns. It was after this that he went for the strike, asking me “if I wasn’t busy” (knowing quite well that he had deceitfully just found out that I wasn’t busy) if I would stop by their service a few blocks away on a street I had no idea where it was. I then panned the blame off onto Danika telling him that I would have to see if my girlfriend would be interested in going (I’m not sure what the penalty is for lying to a religious group, but I think I’m going to hell now).

After Danika returned with the map we discussed places of interest to see around downtown. We decided on going down a few blocks to the state parliament house of Queensland would be a good idea. A good idea it was because once there, we discovered that they give free tours of building. We got a tour of the building from a middle-aged man, who I discovered during the tour is a fan of the death penalty and Texas politicians. That story would take too long to explain, but he showed us both houses of parliament, even though Queensland actually has a unicameral legislation with only their House of Commons (equivalent to our state house of representatives) because at one point the two houses were so divided on issues, they did away with the upper house (I’m not sure how this is constitutional to deal with opposition by just doing away with it). Now the House of Lords is just a room for ceremonial gatherings.

After the tour we walked across the street to Brisbane’s botanical gardens along the Brisbane River. The gardens were really beautiful and full of wildlife, though mostly water fowl. After the gardens we walked along the river to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and then all the way across the CBD up to a huge municipal park called Roma Street Parkland. The one thing I failed to mention earlier is that we had to carry all of our checked luggage around the city with us all day, sometimes getting confusing looks from people as well as a security guard who told me to think about how much better in shape I’ll be from it...I don’t know go figure. After a couple hours in the park we headed to the Roma Street train station to catch the airtrain back to the domestic terminal.

Currently I’m now sitting in the airport trying to finish my blog for my NZ vacation before we’re called to check in. Brisbane’s airport doesn’t have any restaurants before the security checkpoint so we’re stuck sitting outside of the check-in counter waiting for 7:40pm. Hopefully we’ll have an uneventful flight back home and then it’s a late night as I still need to finish my presentation for history class tomorrow. Hopefully she’ll go easy on me since it’s the first day back from recess, but I kind of doubt it. Anyway that’s all from my NZ journey.

Cheers,
Kevin

April 25- Swimming with the dolphins

2009-04-27T06:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday, April 25th, was our last real day in NZ. We got up at 8:30am to make sure we left by 9:30am for Akaroa, a town located about 75 kilometres away from Christchurch. April 25th is also ANZAC day in New Zealand as well as Australia. To sum it up, it’s a day that marks the invasion of ANZAC troops on a particular bay in Turkey that was horribly executed, resulting in numerous fatalities. I hate to try to make comparisons but almost a cross between Memorial Day and Pearl Harbor with almost every city having some type of memorial service.

Anyway, on our way to Akaroa we were detoured twice for these services as they always seemed to take place somewhere along a war memorial next to the main road. Nonetheless we made it to Akaroa at about 11am just in time to check in for our dolphin swim. The first order of business for the dolphin swim was getting into a wetsuit so we don’t suffer hypothermia. We also got cool little wetsuit shoes, gloves, and headgear along with a snorkel, but I don’t think I used it once to see the dolphins. Wetsuits are amazing. Apparently they work by trapping a thin layer of water close to your body and then heating it up with your body temperature, I feel like I should have known that before, but now I do. Anyway we took about a 20 minute cruise from the harbor to just outside the harbor where it meets the South Pacific Ocean. They had told us in our briefing that the dolphins would look pretty dark in the water with a fin shaped like a Mickey Mouse ear. About 5 minutes into the cruise I spotted what I thought for sure was a dolphin, sadly my premature assumption was just dark seaweed.

Fool me once maybe, but the second time I made my dolphin sighting was while I was on the stern of the boat with Danika and we spotted the dolphin swimming along with our boat for about 50 metres. It disappeared out of sight before I could alert the crew and I think they were hesitant on believing me for a second time. Luckily for us shortly after that we spotted about 5 of the dolphins about 500 metres from the shore. The dolphins we were swimming with are known as hector dolphins, one of the smallest in the world, measuring about 1.4 metres. They’re curious by nature which is what allows this dolphin swimming company to make money. After we spotted them, our boat of about 12 people slowly got into the water and stayed about two metres apart so the dolphins would see us individually. At first I was really disappointed that I’d “wasted” my money on this as I was freezing in my wetsuit before I heated that thin layer of water and had yet to have a dolphin even surface, let alone swim next to me. Then, after the dolphins had finally located us they started swimming in and around our group right next to you. Never did I imagine before this trip that I would be swimming with dolphins, but it was incredible. After about 15-20 minutes in the water the dolphins must have gotten bored of us because they eventually moved away. We then all got back into the boat until we spotted what seemed like only two dolphins to me, but as soon as we got into the water, I bet probably 10-12 dolphins were swimming around, and this time even more curious with groups of 2-3 dolphins swimming within an arm’s reach of my body (we were instructing in the pre-boarding briefing not to touch the dolphins though). My only regret is that I didn’t purchase any pictures of me in the water with the dolphins, but the company charges you an arm and leg per image and the pictures of me with the dolphins weren’t that great anyway. I was able to get a few pictures of the dolphins swimming alongside the boat as we were returning to the harbor.

Before I knew it, it was 2:30pm and I was back in the car headed back to Christchurch for the night. We went back to the city centre and walked around the area and looking at a few shops. We came across an overnight rally for what I think is called the Invisible Boys, a sit in protest for the kidnappings of Ugandan children who are then forced to fight in guerrilla warfare. I’m not entirely positive, but I think that’s the gist of it (I would google it, but I’m currently in the Brisbane Airport). They had speakers from Uganda as well as the Christchurch mayor who promised to take the huge letter all the demonstrators had signed to the NZ prime minister.

After staying for part of the rally we headed to a little Mexican restaurant downtown for nachos, and then back to the jailhouse hostel to pack up to go home. I basically had to repack my entire suitcase to get everything to fit, but luckily it was under the 20kg JetStar limit. Long day tomorrow have to leave the hostel by 3:30am to get to the airport by 4am, return the rental car, and check in for our 6am flight back to Brisbane.

Cheers,
Kevin

April 24-Queenstown and Christchurch

2009-04-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

Friday, April 24th, was a very interesting day. It started with me sleeping in until 9am for the first time this trip. After breakfast and checking out of our hostel, Danika and I went back downtown to check out some more of the shops around the area. We then had the rest of our groceries, mostly consisting of lunchmeat, bread, and Italian dressing, for lunch on a park bench outside of a church.

I then convinced Danika to a game of miniature golf before we had to return the rental car at 3:30pm. I won, but I don’t like to brag.... Still feeling a bit persuasive I talked Danika into the street luge I mentioned in my last post. However what I didn’t realize was that you had to a gondola up the mountain overlooking Queenstown to do it. I thought the street luging was pretty exciting, I’m not sure if Danika was happy that she spent the extra $7 on top of the gondola ride for the 90 second thrill. I really wanted to purchase another luge ride, but it was just after 3pm and we still had the 10 minute gondola ride back down the mountain.

After returning the rental car we checked in for our flight back to Christchurch. The Queenstown airport reminds me a little bit of that old tv show WINGS. I think the airport had a total of 6 gates and all of them you had to walk out onto the tarmac and up a stairway onto the plane (I also figured out that their version on handicap accessible consists of a “wheelchair box” connected to a forklift). After our 50 minute flight back to Christchurch we went and found our rental car in the long-term parking lot. Since our flight arrived 30 minutes after the rental car placed closed they park it in long-term and it costs you $19 to get it out. I was not happy.

We found our way to our hostel which is actually really cool. It’s an old jail which they’ve converted all the jail cells into rooms. Ours has 10 beds but is pretty big in size and doesn’t smell nearly as funny as the past hostel we stayed in. While we were leafing through the activities the hostel recommended we came across an ad for an improvisational theatre on Friday nights at 10pm. We decided we’d go and look around downtown Christchurch beforehand. We ended up getting tickets (only $12 NZD) for their 10:15pm “spill over” show due to the 10pm show being sold out. After going out to eat at a restaurant downtown we headed back to the theatre for the show. It was set up in pretty much the same format as “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” with various made up skits and games with four actors. I could tell it was also their spill over cast because only one of the four was really funny, and I think, saved the 90 minute show.

Overall it was a very strange day, never did I think I would fly, play miniature golf, street luge, and attend an improve show all in a 12 hour period. Tomorrow it’s swimming with the dolphins. That’s all for now.

Cheers,
Kevin

April 23- Return back to Queenstown

2009-04-27T06:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday, April 23rd, we headed back from Franz Josef to Queenstown at about 8:20am. We found a shortcut that we missed on our way up that goes mostly through a valley of a mountain range and saved us about 100km on the way back. We stopped in a small town outside of Queenstown called Arrowtown. Since we are in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are reversed and it is actually fall here right now. Lucky for us, this meant the Arrowtown Autumn Festival coincided with our stop. We walked around the shops and listened to an old-fashioned miners’ band. Everything was going great until I saw an older woman fell down across the street. She hit the pavement pretty hard and had suffered cuts to her nose and upper lip, but she was able stand up and I think she was more scared of the blood running off her nose than anything. After we helped her up we headed out to Queenstown and checked into our hostel.
After getting to our hostel I found out my rendezvous with Josh was not to be. Apparently he did receive one of the messages I left for him and stopped by our hostel earlier in the morning. Unfortunately, he was already heading up to the west coast for the rest of his break. He mentioned something about coming up to Cairns later this semester so we might still have a chance of meeting up on the other side of the world.

Sans roommate, Danika and I headed to downtown Queenstown. We looked around at some of the shops and then headed back to the hostel for supper (this hostel is owned by the same company as the one in Franz Josef and also has free soup at 6pm). After supper we looked through a bunch of brochures trying to figure out something to do tomorrow, we stumbled across an ad for store in downtown Queenstown for the Lord of the Rings trilogy (it was filled over here in NZ). However after heading back downtown and searching for the store, we couldn’t find it. We then headed over to the pharmacy to get some more cough suppressant for Danika’s cough. We then headed back to the hostel to get packed up for our flight tomorrow.

Right now I’m actually sitting in the hostel’s lounge attempting to blog and watch The Day After Tomorrow. I’m getting cold and depressed about global warming just watching it (I’m also impressed with how fast Dennis Quade can cover 40 miles in snowshoes). Anyway, tomorrow we’ll probably sleep in for the first time this trip and then probably take it easy before we have to take the Sunny back before our flight in the afternoon. I know Danika wanted to tour a winery so we’ll probably start with that. I read something about a street luge course on top of one of the nearby mountains that I’m still trying to convince Danika to try. Well the movie’s over and I should probably be heading to bed. It’s an 8-person dorm so we’ve slowly progressed from our 4-bed in Te Anau and 6-bed in Franz Josef. Actually I think the one in Christchurch is in a 10-person dorm, but it’s also in a converted jail so it should be interesting. Well that’s all for now...

Cheers,
Kevin

April 22- Franz Josef Glacier

2009-04-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, April 22nd, was our half-day hike on the Franz Josef Glacier. We left the hostel around 8:45am to check in at the Glacier Guide Centre and get our gear. They then took us over to the glacier, only a couple of kilometres outside of town, by bus. When we got there I noticed what looks like an empty river bed filled with rocks is actually the debris from the glacier as it basically cuts through a mountain. After we got off the bus we hiked approximately 2km to the base of the glacier. It felt like a lot more as we had to go up and around giant boulders and actually ended up walking up a creek flowing down from the mountain. When we reached the base of the glacier we strapped on our ice tracks and started our ascent. Almost of the paths we walked on up on the glacier were pre-existing and are even cut out to be like steep little frozen stairs. We spent about 2 hours up on the glacier and only made it up about 350m, pretty small considering the glacier itself is several kilometres long. Personally I thought our descent back down the glacier was a lot more exciting than going up (it may be because the blisters I had acquired going up didn’t hurt as much going down) mostly because we went down through a lot of cracks and crevices that I sort of imagined before going on the hike. All in all it was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had so far in the past 3 months.

After getting back from the glacier climb around 2:00pm we walked through the rest of the shops in Franz Josef and purchased some dry cough suppressant for a cold that Danika brought with her to NZ. I then tried to get a hold of my roommate from sophomore year, Josh Spain, whose studying abroad on the north island in Wellington, New Zealand. He’s somewhere on the south island at the moment and is supposed to be in Queenstown tomorrow (4/23) when we are. Unfortunately I’ve been unable to get a hold of him except a few vague facebook messages. Exhausted from my hike and my lack of communication with my ex-roommate, I took a nap.
We ate supper at 6:00pm at the hostel, not coincidentally the same time the hostel serves free vegetable soup to all of its guests. After supper we headed to the “Glacier Hot Pools” which are just three very large hot tubs at 3 different temperatures. There isn’t a lot to do in town if you’re not going on a guided tour somewhere so spending time relaxing in the pool felt great on my sore legs from the hike (I feel like I’m doing a promotion for them). After the pools we headed back to hostel, packed up and got ready for our trip back to Queenstown tomorrow morning. Hopefully I can catch up with Josh for supper or something. I figure if a roommate travels a couple thousand miles the least he can do is eat supper with me, right? Anyway I better get to bed, big drive in the morning.

Cheers,
Kevin

April 21- Ascent to the West Coast

2009-04-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, April 21st, was our journey from southern to mid south island. We packed up our rental Nissan Sunny and departed Te Anau at about 8:20am. As I sometimes have trouble waking up, (I slept through a fire alarm at Cairns Student Lodge last week) Danika has graciously accepted the role as my personal alarm clock, shaking my foot perpetually until I’m finally annoyed enough to get up. Anyway, according to Google the trip was supposed to take around 6 ½ hours give or take. However after managing to go out of our way along a highway we could have avoided, stopping for lunch, gas, and of course, pictures, we managed to arrive in Franz Josef around 4:30-5:00pm, about 1 ½ later than I thought. It was another amazing drive though. While we didn’t drive through anymore mountains, we drove up and around several, as well as right along the Tasman Sea for about 15km. It’s very interesting; almost every bridge we’ve crossed on the south island has been only one-lane, with a semi-confusing system of a yielding to a particular direction. I’m still waiting for an unintentional game of chicken to occur on one of these bridges when someone forgets to yield.

After we arrived in Franz Josef we checked into our hostel which is quite nice for being less than $15 USD per night. We walked around Franz Josef, which appears to be entirely a tiny tourist town with hostels, motels, small shops, and all the glacier guided tour central bases. Speaking of which, Danika and I leave at 8:45am for our half-day hike on glacier. The tour company we’re going through gives us gear, so we get those cool icepick boots, but I think we would have splurged and gone with the “adventure” tour we could have the helicopter drop us off further up on the glacier and climbed vertically up on the glacier with those picks you see them use on the Discovery Channel, but that’s for another day.

After our short walk around town we headed back for complementary vegetable soup as well as the sandwiches we brought with us for supper. We then attempted to use the internet, which is treated as some sort of precious metal in the Oceania regions I’ve been in. The big debacle behind all this is my registration for classes next semester back home at Iowa. I am fortunate enough to register early relative to most third-year students and am supposed to register at 8am on Tuesday, April 21st, Iowa time. However over here in the future I actually register a whole 17 hours ahead at 1am on Wednesday, April 22nd. I figured this problem would be solved by using the computers the hostel has, but for some reason the internet gods hate me and won’t let me use Iowa’s website to register. Thus ensued a mad scramble around the area in search of someplace that would not only let me use their internet, but let my use it at one in the morning. I tried an internet cafe, hoping they would let me use their wireless after hours, but they don’t even use wireless. I then was able to convince the woman who runs the Franz Josef Terrace Motel across the street from my hostel to let me purchase their wireless internet. I then went back to the internet cafe where Danika was now using their internet to explain my situation with me, however I walked in with my laptop in my hand and left with my laptop in my hand only to get accused by one of the workers for stealing their internet. Luckily the manager had seen me only talking to Danika and not using their precious internet (I could understand the clerk’s confusion though, who the hell walks into an internet cafe and says, “Oh, I’m not using the computer, I’m just here to talk to my girlfriend...”)

Crisis averted, I am now sitting in the kitchen/internet kiosk/living room of hostel at 10pm which is actually surprisingly dead for being full of backpackers. I’m finishing up this blog and then it’s on to my Australian History powerpoint presentation on Australian Federation (becoming an autonomous English commonwealth) and its pros/cons, personally I’m usually a fan of a self-standing government, but that’s neither here nor there. Basically I’m waiting it out for the next three hours so I can register, especially since I’m trying to get into an Abnormal Psychology class that has filled up before I could register the past two years. Fortunately for me, a young European couple took pitty on me and gave me the rest of their chips (fries) they were having for a late supper. In the spirit of not letting food go to waste, I was accepted their offer, unfortunately I’m left with cleaning my keyboard of my greasy paws. It’s probably best I get started on my powerpoint, that’s all I know...

Cheers,
Kevin

April 20-Milford Sound

2009-04-26T21:42:00.000-07:00

Monday, April 20th, we awoke bright an early for day trip to Milford Sound. Sadly I discovered today that the name Milford Sound is actually incorrect because a sound in a large body of water carved out by years of erosion from a river into the ocean; however it is a fiord, an area carved out by a glacier about 12,000 years ago. Anyway, we drove the 119km on the Milford Road, a road that resembled something out of a luxury car commercial with all its twists and turns through Fiordland National Park. Milford Road also has the Homer Tunnel, blasted through one of the mountains, about 20km outside of Milford Sound. I was expecting something like the mile-long tunnel my family and I go through every time we go from Denver to the Keystone-Breckenridge Area for skiing. This was not one of those tunnels. It was one-lane with no real walls to it, just the now exposed rock and a few reflectors on the side of the road. The tunnel was built in the 1950’s, but more so resembled something out of 50 years early with an asphalt/gravel surface and less than smooth road. The drive was still really pretty and we stopped a couple of times along the way at scenic lookouts, even though we needed to get to Milford Sound before 10:30am for a nature cruise. We arrived with plenty of time to spare before we hopped aboard the “Milford Mariner” for a 2 ½ hour cruise of the sound/fiord and just out into the Tasman Sea. It was a spectacular cruise that was so surreal I felt like I was in one of those Nature IMAX movies, learning more than I thought I would about the history of Milford Sound as well as the wildlife in it.

After the cruise we headed back to Te Anau, stopping and eating a late lunch on the rocky shores of Lake Gunn in Fiordland National Park, and then doing a short walk through another section of the park. While it’s considered a rainforest, it’s far different from the tropical one surrounding Cairns. There seems to be fewer trees, but a thick layer of moss covering everything on the forest floor. There were also a lot more trees, knocked over on the forest floor. On our cruise they described Fiordland as mostly thick rock so when trees grow, their roots create an intertwining network with the other trees for stability. However being located on a fault line doesn’t bode well for most trees so small tremors can often topple a tree as well as a large snowfall.

When we got back to Te Anau around sunset we walked around the downtown shops (I believe every store we went into sold an incredibly large amount of wool clothing, also a lot of possum skins but apparently they’re an invasive species who are destroying the wildlife and New Zealanders, or Kiwis, hate them with a passion). We then stopped at the local grocery store to buy our meals for the next four days before we fly out of Queenstown on Friday back to Christchurch.

Tomorrow we probably won’t get up as early, but well make the 500km journey back through Queenstown and up to Franz Josef for two days for some glacier walks and, according to one the travel guides I picked up while sleeping in the Christchurch International Airport, “glacial” hot springs, I’ll be impressed if they’re anything like the volcanic hot springs in Costa Rica, but somehow I’m not seeing how large slow moving masses of ice and hot springs go together, but who am I to judge.

I think I’m finally really comfortable driving along these roads, they’re much more narrow than those in the U.S. but you can tell New Zealand definitely appeals to tourists with arrows painted on the road about every kilometre of which direction the lane is supposed to be doing and signs that remind you to keep left. I’ve also adjusted to the steering wheel on the other side, but I still manage to turn on the windshield wipers when I am trying to turn if I’m not focussing on putting on my turn signal. That’s all I have for now.

Cheers,
Kevin

April 18-19, Airports & Te Anau

2009-04-23T04:10:00.000-07:00

Greeting from the New Zealand; Home to the Lord of the Rings, Flight of the Concords, and approximately 60 million sheep. Currently, I'm sitting in a hostel, and since I had some time on my hands I figured I'd start posting some of my new and improved NZ Blog. Enjoy....

Our journey to the south island of New Zealand began bright and early at 4:30am in Cairns. I’m not quite sure how I convinced my roommate to get up and drive us to the airport at 5am for a 6am flight, especially when he doesn’t have a car at school, but he managed to come through for me. JetStar, Qantas’s ugly cousin of a discount airline was a different story. The conveyer belt to take bags was somehow broken, which somehow didn’t allow us to check in until 5:50, but we were able to board the flight at about six, however the engineer who was supposed to check over the plane did not show up to work that morning so they had to call the backup engineer and we left Cairns 40 minutes later than the scheduled departure.

It was then on to Brisbane for a fun-filled morning/afternoon of the international terminal. Discovering that it costs nearly $30 to get into Brisbane we elected to stay in the terminal instead. After several naps and wandering through random airport stores including refilling my Subway cup four times (you see most restaurants in Australia don’t offer free refills, so when the opportunity presents itself, I take advantage of it). However a mere 8 hours after we arrived in Brisbane, we were boarded and headed for Christchurch. It’s only about a three hour flight to Christchurch from Brisbane, but it seemed like an eternity because I had the pleasure of sitting in the middle seat. Despite some fog around the airport, we were able to land at about 11:45pm local time, ending our air transportation for the time being. As a mentioned early we were trying to be as frugal as possible on this trip so we made the decision of spending the night at the airport since our flight for Queenstown left at 9am the next morning.

I do not recommend sleeping on an airport floor if you have the choice. However there were showers and after an especially long one the next morning after a few hours of sleep I was good as new and ready to start the day....sort of. We left for Queenstown and the airport gods must have been smiling down upon us for our sacrifice, because our seats were somehow in the “premium” section of the plane, despite paying the “economy” price. Somehow I knew the first time I sat in first class would be for a 40 minute flight, but beggars can’t be choosers.
After arriving in Queenstown we picked up our rental car and after figuring out which side of the car to get into we were on our way to our first stop Te Anau, right on the edge of Fiordland National Park. The road from Queenstown to Te Anau was picturesque to say the least, winding along the mountain road next to a glacier-formed lake. After the 2 hour journey we arrived at our hostel and I immediately proceeded to take a nap. Luckily Danika was on top of things and schedule a glow worm cave tour/sunset cruise for that evening. She then woke me (not an easy task) and we went out to eat before the cruise.

The glow worm cave tour was interesting, but I’m not sure I’d do it again. They take you through a water filled cave on a boat in complete darkness, until you see these tiny green flourcent lights. It was a pretty spectacular sight, but I don’t think I know enough about the glow worm to really appreciate how good it actually is. After the tour we headed back for an early bedtime as we have to leave at 7am tomorrow for Milford Sound for a nature cruise of the sound in the morning, and then a day hike in the afternoon. This nature cruise nearly promises penguins and dolphins so I’ve got my hopes up.

Cheers,

Kevin

2009-04-15T02:43:00.000-07:00

Once again I’ve let my blogging wander away only to get reminded that people apparently still do want to hear about my semester so far. If only I twittered it you would all get updates, I think. I actually have no idea how Twitter works, which is sad seeing how I’m 21 years old and senior members of the United States Congress can figure it out. But enough of this jiba jaba....
The weekend of March 28-29 was my “Adventure” weekend to Mungalli Falls about an hour and a half south of Cairns. Mungalli was located up in the tablelands so it was a lot cooler than Cairns which was a nice change of pace (85 degrees and sunny and humid can get so repetitive). We stayed at something that resembled a YMCA camp complete with a land slide (see pictures) and abseiling (repelling) off of a 15 meter cliff near the falls. Butler held an Australian trivia night on Saturday night which my team won. I don’t want to brag or anything, but I was the fastest person to eat a cracker covered with Vegemite. If you don’t know what Vegemite is, imagine it as something that tastes incredibly salty with the same consistency as motor oil.

The next weekend, April 4-5, Danika and I hung out in downtown Cairns. Cairns, being a tourist hotspot does a really nice job appealing to them with civic parks such as the Lagoon, a huge swimming pool right along the ocean complete with sandy beaches. I guess they had to do something because the entire coastline in downtown Cairns is all mudflats, not the most tourist friendly ocean access. On Saturday e grilled steaks for dinner and listened to live music in the park, a pretty uneventful day, but enjoyable nonetheless. Sunday we headed back downtown that night for Stomp the Nard, a local break dance competition. I did not enter this contest for fear that my mad American break dance skillz would embarrass other Australian competitors and be seen as an act of arrogance.

The following week dealt another blow to my search for volunteering at a physiotherapy clinic. After being turned down at three private outpatient clinics and both the public and private hospitals in Cairns, I went to meet with Far North Queensland Volunteers, basically a temp agency for volunteers. When I talked to them and told them what I was looking for they said it was “way too specific” of a field and they didn’t have any available positions to meet my needs. One of the therapists I did talk to said she would be glad to sit down and answer any questions that I had, she was probably just saying this out of kindness, but we’ll see how she responds when I approach her about it after I come back from lecture recess. There is some good news to report. I did volunteer to be a participant in study that measures the effects of antioxidants on exercise in male subjects. A postgraduate student is doing it as part of her PhD program and the set up of the experiment sounds remarkably similar to one I did last semester in my exercise physiology class that measured blood lactate concentration. Hopefully the people in their sports science program can help give me a little more insight on what to do.

Last weekend, April 10-13, I took a trip with the International Student Centre over Easter break to Magnetic Island, located just off the coast of Townsville, about four and a half hours south of Cairns. It rained for most of the weekend which was really ironic seeing how that region is considered the “dry” tropics, but it was still fun to go. We were able to feed wallabies, hike around the island, go koala spotting, and even find time to lie on the beach. I also witnessed my first ever Australian toad race. I went thinking I could bet on a toad for $5 double or nothing if the toad did/did not win. Instead I found out they auction off each toads for the night’s three races, with about an average price of around $70 per toad. Needless to say I did not purchase a toad, but watching people spend their disposable income in an economically tough time on amphibian races was enough fun.

This coming weekend Danika and I head off to New Zealand for nine days. We’re just touring the South Island and hope to hit up a couple of national parks, glaciers, and swim with some dolphins. Unfortunately our flight leaves on Saturday morning at 6am and with a nine hour layover in Brisbane, we don’t actually reach New Zealand until 10:30pm local time. I’m also excited for my international driving debut. I’ve been coached by my Australian roommate Brett on staying on the left side of the road.

Classes are going fine, though I’m beginning to find my indigenous studies lecture more and more repetitive. They give different examples of how Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders were discriminated against, but present them in a less than entertaining fashion. Our lecturer also likes to bring in guest speakers, who usually are indigenous, but when you compile an Australian accent over an Aboriginal accent I have a hard time understanding a word they are saying. The other week they showed a video in class interviewing indigenous people from North Queensland and I could have thought it was a foreign film without subtitles. I never thought I would face a language barrier in a British Commonwealth.

I’m still baffled with how much media attention the United States gets here. Every day there is something about Obama, it even went as far to cover the “big news in Washington everyone’s talking about” the Obama’s new dog, every news station here covered it; I think it’s a little ridiculous. I also never thought in Australia they would be talking about what’s going on in Iowa, but apparently when you legalize gay marriage it has a bit of an international effect.

Another thing I’ve noticed with Australia, at least James Cook University, is that they are about 2 years behind in cell phone or “mobile phone” etiquette. In every lecture I’ve had so far a cell phone has gone off, most lectures its more than once. It’s always been a pet peeve of mine, but it’s to the point where one phone will go off and then 5 minutes later another one will, also with the most annoying rings. The people at my orientation would probably try to classify this as “culture shock” but I think it’s just common sense. But enough of my ranting.

I figured I’d leave you with a bit of Australian fun facts that you may/may not know about Australia. There is no Burger King franchise in Australia, only a Burger King logo with the words “Hungry Jack’s”. Apparently somebody already had the naming rights to Burger King before the company went international.....I have yet to find cherry pepsi/coke anywhere in Australia, my roommate said they tried to introduce it, but Australians weren’t a big fan.....basically any type of truck, including a el camino-type one (see: http://www.holden.com.au/vehicles/Ute) that’s very popular over here can be considered a “ute”......contrary to popular belief, Australian Subway restaurants sell foot-long and six-inch sandwiches, not the 30.48 and 15.24 cm subs respectively..... people who follow Australian sport teams are considered supporters, not fans......toilets here flush counter-clockwise, I can’t actually remember what way flush in the U.S......the crest of the federal Australian government

(http://mediacentre.dewr.gov.au/mediacentre/images/crest.gif) has two animals on it, the kangaroo and the emu, because they cannot anatomically walk backwards, using them as a symbol of progression. That’s all the news I have for now. I’ll try to fill you in on my trip to New Zealand when I get back.

Cheers,
Kevin

2009-03-24T03:50:00.000-07:00

G’day mates. My apologies for failing to update my blog for nearly a month, but putting off my blog for a week, and one thing led to another, with whole host of other complications, and if you believe it or not, school work (it does exist abroad) delayed my blogging, but I continue…

Monday, March 2nd, it was back to classes with my history lecture along with my history and sociology tutorials (apparently called “tutes” for short). The most interesting class of the day was definitely my sociology discussion. I discovered I was the only student from the U.S. in the discussion, and apparently the automatically want the American opinion on the issue and right now we’re discussing the treatment and economic status of the Aboriginal community and it is remarkably similar the United States’ treatment of American Indians. One thing I have noticed with the Australian universities, or at least James Cook, is that there are a lot of older adults (35-50 year-olds) as compared to the University of Iowa. Also, Australian students (predominately these older adults) seem to talk a lot more during lecture than what I’m used to. I have no problem with people asking questions about confusing lecture material/topics, but these people answer rhetorical questions and sound off and give their opinion on an issue for really no reason at all. I don’t know if it’s this is way at all Australian universities, or even all the classes at JCU, but it’s really annoying when you’re trying to comprehend what the lecturer is saying when people just want to hear their own voices. But enough of my negativity towards the format of lectures…

Tuesday, March 3rd, was a fairly laid back day off of classes: slept in, did some readings for class and ended up by the pool in the afternoon. However Tuesday now has a new meaning to me, as does Thursday: Rugby practice. I think somebody forgot to tell my body that it’s supposed to be acclimating to the heat, but it’s having a hard time adjusting. We’re still doing conditioning drills and it sure feels like my body still isn’t conditioned, but I am learning more and more about the game and playing a game of touch rugby before practice is definitely the highlight of my day.
Wednesday, March 4th, was another pretty uneventful day and sadly this is where I stopped writing my blog for a week and a half. I’ve come to realize that at least my weekdays aren’t really terribly interesting. They consist of going to class, studying, and rugby practice. As exciting as that sounds, I’ll keep you posted if anything happens out of the ordinary Monday-Friday. So instead of a day-by-day entry, I’ll give you the highlights of my week/weekends and my overall opinion on my stay so far. So I continue…

The rest of my week was as usually, but unfortunately I failed to realize a tropical cyclone, Hamish, was set to hit Northern Queensland over the weekend, March 7-8, I was supposed to have an Outback trip (not to be confused with the bowl game I had over New Year’s) to Chillagoe (pronounced Chill-a-go) a small once-mining community about 150km west of Cairns. Unfortunately this was postponed due to the cyclone.

The next weekend, March 14-15, I headed to Chillagoe on Saturday morning. We arrived right around 12pm and ate lunch at our “resort” and headed to the balancing rock. Sadly I was at first disappointed about it because the Queensland outback was much more green than I would have pictured it. I later found out that the area had experienced more rain this year than it had in the past 20 years. However nonetheless, it was pretty spectacular. After our hike to the balancing rock, we toured an old mining smelter that had been closed since the 70’s. Apparently Chillagoe goes as the mining goes and for the past several years mining was not doing well. The town only has about 200 people and the people living there must either be retired or working with Chillagoe’s tourism industry (they get about 16,000 people a year) because there is really nothing in the town besides the Chillagoe Hotel Motel and the Post Office Hotel/Chillagoe’s only pub. Anyway, after the tour of the mine site we found a swimming hole with a rope swing (see pictures below) and it was pretty amazing. After the swim we headed back to the lodge to get cleaned up to eat dinner at the Post Office Hotel, but before we could enjoy a steak dinner we stopped to climb Castle Rock Lookout to watch the sunset, which was actually very anticlimactic because a storm was moving in and made it relatively overcast. We spent the night at our resort with a campfire and marshmallow roasting (courtesy of Danika). The next day we headed outside of Chillagoe to go spelunking. No every cave I’ve ever been in was very touristy with lights and guardrails and pretty views of the stalactites and stalagmites. This cave was not one of them. I should have know what to expect when we had to walk a kilometer through the bush (Australians consider basically any time of forest, tallgrass, etc. bush) that was only passable because our guide had cut it out two weeks earlier. The cave was incredible to experience with steep climbs, small crevices, and mucking around through mud and water. It wasn’t anything I was expecting, but may be one of the most fun things I’ve done so far in time here.

After recovering from my spelunking hangover the rest of my week (March 16-20) seemed pretty unremarkable. I did manage to finally purchase a flight to New Zealand, what we do on the South Island while we’re there has yet to be determined. I also bought tickets to the State of Origin Rugby game while Bryan, Nathan, Danika, and I are in Sydney. According to my Aussie sources the State of Origin series (there’s three games: Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane) is the Super Bowl of Australian Rugby. It sounds more equivocal to our All-Star games, but has a lot of state pride between Queensland and those pricks from New South Whales, sorry just hard to hide my support for the maroons, I have no idea what the colors mean, but NSW is blue, QLD is maroon, go figure. Anyway, I got the tickets for $30 which is kind of a steal, seeing how the other ones are $150, but they are kind of crappy seats, but it’ll be fun to explain the game to Bryan and Nathan. Oh by the way, Bryan and Nathan, and I know you read this blog, if you don’t, you’re a terrible brother, and you owe me $30 AUD.

Speaking of rugby, this past Saturday, March 21st, I experienced my first rugby game. It was pretty exciting and sort of reminded me of getting ready for football games in high school, except for some ridiculous reason they decided to play when it was 37 degrees Celsius (that’s 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you who refuse to use the scale the rest of the world is using) but all in all it was pretty fun. I even made a tackle, I think I hurt my shoulder, but apparently if you tackle the person with the ball out-of-bounds, your team gets the ball. The comradery on the team is actually kind of fun, the also practice surprisingly good sportsmanship for how brutal the sport is. I have also never been a part of an organized team where a player has left the bench to go check on his crying kid either, but it was really fun nonetheless.

This week, March 23-27, has been interesting. I gave a powerpoint presentation on the conditions of the Australian goldfields on Monday as well as turn in a sociology paper on an analysis of the sociological imagination (fun stuff). Today, Tuesday, March 24, I don’t have class and worked at Trinity Beach, unloading furniture and assembling it at a recently built five-star resort. It would take me too long to explain the connection between the Cairns Student Lodge and why they asked us to do this, but I get $100 a day and I think I’m going back tomorrow to finish up setting up the rooms for move-in next week. This weekend is the IFSA-Butler sponsored “adventure weekend” which involves repelling and some sort of natural mud slide. I have also attempted to follow the NCAA tournament, unfortunately I’m unable to watch the games online outside the U.S. I haven’t watched any games for quite some time, but now I wake up looking to see how I did in my bracket (Sara you’re going down). Other than that I try to read the headlines in the DSM Register as well as follow the Australian news here. Apparently bikie gangs are a real problem here, and just the other day beat a member from a rival gang in the Sydney Airport Qantas Terminal. On that sad note I think I’ll hold my writing until another night. Again my apologies for my month-long sabbatical and now seemingly hodgepodge of stories. If you have questions/comments/concerns/request for more pictures posted or are just bored feel free to email me at kevin-steussy@uiowa.edu. Cheers.

Kevin
(my roommates/just about every Aussie person still refer to me as “Kev”, I think I’m getting used to it, but I still would prefer Kevin)

Outback trip to Chillagoe

2009-03-17T20:49:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not posting regularly, but I've fallen behind. Anyway, enjoy these pictures of my weekend trip to Chillagoe, about 150km west of Cairns. I hope to write about my experience early next week after I finish my presentations for class. I believe Danika has an up-to-date post on her blog. Cheers.

Kevin

2009-03-01T05:37:00.000-08:00

Greetings all north of the equator- I’m once again terribly late in posting my blog and expect more delays as I get further and further into the semester. I still have a couple readings to do before tomorrow’s discussion for my Australian Society class, but my procrastination keeps increasing, and blogging is about the only thing left I have to do before I have to go over my notes and start reading.

Wednesday, February 25th, was my second day off of classes which allowed myself some time to sleep in before I headed over to the uni to put money in my printing account and go over my history notes. I printed off copies of my resume and finished going over my notes in time to catch lunch. This is the point in my blog where I’ll use it to go off on a tangent, or what I believe the people at the Sydney orientation called, “culture shock”: bananas in the dining hall. You would think in a tropical climate bananas would be extremely plentiful; especially with numerous fields of banana trees around (I know there are, I’ve seen these all around the countryside outside of Cairns). However, somehow our dining hall manages to have an incredibly large amount of apples but very few bananas. In fact, when the select few are placed out, they are all taken faster than you can say dijuridoo. I have only been so lucky as to have had only a few bananas in the several weeks that I’ve been here, and believe me, if this epic banana rationing continues, there will be a very poignant letter in the suggestion box. I will now step off my soap box.
The rest of my day went fairly well, sans banana, and I managed to talk to the people at the physiotherapy clinic across the road. The receptionist informed me that she would have to ask the manager about whether they allow observation/volunteer work, and informed me that Taryn, the manager, would respond back to me the next day. It is now Sunday. I think I might stop in to see if there’s any progress on calling me back.

Thursday, February 26th was officially my second day of classes. I had an Australian People: Indigenous and Anthropological Perspectives lecture. It will take some getting used to the 2 hour lecture format; Iowa just had 50 minute classes, two or three times a week. There’s actually only 3 hours of class time each week for each one of my classes and in the Australian University System are worth 3 hours of credit. Somehow back in the U.S. they are worth 4 hours of credit, I don’t know if I pick up an hour of credit coming back across the Pacific or what, but I won’t argue nor will I present this issue to Bulter. Thursday night was also my second rugby practice. It went better than the first, but it was still quite a bit of work. For the second night in three days I sweat more than I thought was humanly possible, and when I got back to my room, Brett (one of my roommates) was really confused because he thought somehow I’d encountered rain on my way back to the lodge, but indeed it was just rugby.

Friday, February 27th, I attended the “Cairn you dig it: American BBQ and volleyball tournament” held at the lodge. I think the intentions were good behind the BBQ, but I’m not quite sure about the name, it gave the impression of an American only BBQ and one week into classes I don’t think we want to be dividing the lodge into Americans and the rest of the people that live at the lodge. I also invited my roommates to come, but they deferred their invite. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the BBQ even though our beach volleyball team ended up losing both of our matches, good enough for dead last.

Saturday, February 28th, was the trip up to the Atherton Tablelands. We headed to Lake Eacham and Barrine National Park, stopped by the Curtain Fig Tree, got to swim underneath the Milla Milla waterfall, and tour a crocodile farm. All of the trip was amazing but my highlights definitely had to be swimming in and around the waterfall as well as feeding kangaroos out of the palm of my hand and holding a 2 year-old crocodile (side note: I am now deathly afraid of crocodiles, they are prehistoric killing machines with the jaws of life for a mouth. FYI: a crocodile’s jaw has approximately 300 PSI).

Today, Sunday, March 1st, was a lot more relaxed as compared to Saturday, I read some for my classes tomorrow and ended up taking a nap by the pool, as well as have Danika attempt to try to get my in shape for this rugby team by taking up running. She has high hopes for me, but I’m still skeptical. Anyway, I should go finish the rest of those readings and head for bed.

Cheers,
Kevin

First Day of School and Rugby Practice

2009-02-24T06:57:00.000-08:00

I just realized the format this blog uses to update posts so I’m terribly sorry if you’re reading this for the first time and its confusing, reading each entry and then having to go to the top of the page to see the next date, but I feel as though I must continue as I have already developed this style. Anyway, February 23rd was my first official day of classes, only 19 days after I had entered the country. My class was Australian History and the classroom reminded me almost of high school. It is technically an upper level course designed for second year students so there are probably only about 30 in the class, or so it seems. The professor went at lightning speed through her power point as probably much of the class already knew the basics to Australian history, only if you were an uninformed international student would you not know. The lecture lasted for only an hour and usually the next hour would be filled by my tutorial (called a discussion at Iowa) and then again the same Australian History class the proceeding hour after that, but with an entirely new lecture. All of my other classes have a straight two-hour lecture; I still have yet to discover why this one is broken in half. The lectures were fairly interesting and she let us out 20 minutes early on our first day.

My class schedule is now free until Thursday as I do not have class Tuesday or Wednesday. I know students that are taking more classes than me and are able to have Monday and Friday off, but I have no idea by the student with only three classes has a 9am lecture on Monday and a 1pm lecture on Friday afternoon, such is life. With this free time I attempted to check out my textbooks from the library because of the higher prices at the bookshop. It amazes me, Australia or at least JCU, needs to take a page out of just about every university bookstore in the United States and learn how to screw the students out of money. Iowa’s university bookstore makes so much money on purchasing textbooks for about a fourth of the original price and then selling them the following semester for about $20 cheaper than a new book. JCU doesn’t have a textbook buyback and thus it sells so used textbooks. I have no idea why this, but I feel as though they are missing out on a lot of money here.

Today, Tuesday, February 24th, I had my first rugby practice. It started off great with a warm-up match of touch rugby union. It was a lot of fun and I sort of understand most of the basic rules. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s similar to a cross between football and soccer with the kicking either being used like a punt for field position, or to score points. You can’t throw the ball forwards in rugby and seems like a big game of field position. I did however manage to intercept a pass (don’t ask me how) and even scored a try (equivalent to a touchdown) when I faked a pass and just ran the ball (you can run the ball forward, you just can’t pass it). While this was all fun and good I was starting to get very tired and I realized that this was just our warm-up. We then moved on to conditioning drills which if I was actually in shape, they probably wouldn’t be so bad, but instead were hell in 2 minute intervals. I still need a lot of work in the conditioning area. After what seemed like an eternity we moved on to ball handling drills. We also got punished in these if we dropped or overthrew a pass. What I didn’t understand was that it seemed like they always wanted to push the drills faster and faster but when they did they made more and more mistakes, I feel like in most practices when we would work on technique we may have wanted some speed, but most importantly we wanted to do the drill right, but I am unsure of what they are trying to accomplish, nor am I going to ask them to do it differently.
This was also my first real physical activity since coming here, I had run once before but it was a lot cooler in the day and I could control my pace. This was my first real welcome to working out in the rainforest. It was not a good welcome. I don’t think I have sweated that much in all my life. My body was completely covered. I kept looking for a dry spot on the side of my t-shirt but that was like looking for a dry spot in a swimming pool. I probably lost a good 3 kilograms (6.6 lbs.) of sweat and while drinking water throughout practice, still managed to cramp up getting on my bike to head home. While this sounds like an incredibly terrible experience, it was somewhat fun playing an organized sport again and I think my body could desperately use the conditioning so it’s probably good for me and that is why I’m going to attempt to do the same thing all over again on Thursday. Well it’s getting late and while I don’t have class tomorrow I have to go over to the uni and print off my resume because I’m attempting to get a volunteer spot at one of the nearby physiotherapy (physical therapy) offices. I’m not sure how they’ll respond to an American, but hopefully they’re Obama fans like 90% of this country and give me an opportunity to work.

Cheers,
Kevin

Cape Tribulation and Schweppes Lemonade

2009-02-22T07:08:00.000-08:00

February 17th I had my introductory orientation session for the faculty of arts and social sciences, or what is comparable to the college of liberal arts and sciences at most U.S. universities. The session was held in JCU’s lecture hall, I attended the session with a couple of students from Butler and it was very interesting since they, like the Australian students, had never sat in a lecture hall with 400 students. This was also hard for me to grasp, because coming from Iowa, the lecture hall had about half as many students as my environmental science class last semester, I was not impressed. Anyway, I had forgotten that the sessions I was attending were no longer directed specifically at international students. The 60 minute session was focused more on welcoming first year students and letting them know that they weren’t alone and not to give up on their studies. This was all fine and good, except I had already heard a version of the same speech 2 ½ years earlier at Iowa. After the session, I went to downtown Cairns to take Danika out for dinner as a belated birthday gift. We went to an Irish Pub called P.J. O’Brien’s. The dinner was a nice change of pace from the Student Lodge which offers relatively the same meal everyday of the week. After dinner we went and saw Slumdog Millionaire, I hate to pitch movies on my blog as I am in no way, shape, or form a critic, but it was pretty good and I really hope it wins best picture this Sunday.

February 18th I slept in and I think I’ve officially recovered from the infamous “jet lag”. I didn’t have any orientation sessions scheduled for the day so Danika and I checked out the Marlin Coast Recreation Center which is located about 600 meters from the Lodge. The rec center only has basketball courts and a couple of rooms they rent out for aerobics and what not. The people working the front desk did give me info on an upcoming basketball league which I might join as well as indoor soccer at the end of March (why they have indoor soccer in a tropical climate is beyond me, I guess they’re worried about it raining too much or something). We also checked out the community swimming pool which is really big and really nice, but does cost $4 every time you go. I don’t know if I would make a full-fledged effort to get my money’s worth every time I went so I’m not going to get a pass to swim laps their (they have a 50m length pool) but I might stop by again. Also, word on the street is that someone threw up in the pool at the student lodge a couple of days ago so I’m going to give the pool a couple more days for the water to recycle through and filter.

That night was JCU’s student association toga party at Stinger’s Bar. The interesting thing about this is that Stingers Bar is located on the JCU campus. I can’t imagine the public outcry if the U of I had a bar on campus, but apparently this is very common in Australia. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I choose to attend the toga party but as a party pooper not dressed in a toga as the only sheet I had was on my bed and then I would have to wash and dry my sheet for $5 and well the cons just outweighed the pros. The toga party was over by 11pm, but the “generous” student association offered free buses into the city to continue the party downtown. I did not partake in the bus ride downtown as being in the sun all day makes you want to go to bed at about 7pm every night. Plus, I’m also upset that the student association will sponsor free rides downtown on charactered buses, but it costs you money for their pancake breakfast the next morning (I did not attend) they also give you “great deals” on food and other such items but nothing free. I’m terribly regretting spending the $25 dollars to become a member in a club with no real benefits aside from a drunk bus for one night downtown, but I’m not bitter though.

February 19th I didn’t have anything scheduled for “O” week. I got to sleep in once again, and in the afternoon, Danika and I made the trip to the Smithfield shopping centre to get school supplies for the start of next week’s classes. It was at the shopping centre that I discovered a new favourite carbonated beverage, Schweppes Lemonade; it’s similar in taste to Sprite, but with a more lemony flavour. You’ll have to excuse my spelling as I have changed my Microsoft Word to English (Australia) and it changes the spellings of some words automatically. Anyway this lemonade is amazing and is only $0.89 for 1.25 litres at Woolworths (an Australian-wide grocery store).

That night after we got back from the shopping centre I attended the JCU rugby recruitment BBQ held at where else, but Stinger’s Bar on campus. I enjoyed kangaroo sausages again, and attempted to learn some of the rules of the type of rugby they play, rugby union. I might try to play with the team and plan on attending their next practice, the 24th. It seems to be a cross between soccer and American football or “gridiron” as they call it over here. I’m terribly out of shape, however most of the players on the team don’t look to be in peak physical condition either, but come Tuesday it could be a very interesting practice.

Friday, February 20th I attended a writing workshop on history essays for class. However, once again this section was more designed for first year students and didn’t get into any real specifics on writing style and specific formats for different classes, just how you structure an essay. That afternoon though, the Student Association, apparently trying to redeem themselves, gave away free pizza for lunch which was a nice change of pace from the deli meat sandwiches everyday at the Lodge. That afternoon I participated in a wine, cheese, and trivia competition. The trivia was fairly easy until they started asking Australian Soap Opera and cinema questions, and ultimately my team wound up in second place, good enough to win movie tickets, ironically enough, to brush up on those Australian actors not named Heath Ledger or Nicole Kidman.

Saturday February 21st the JCU international student centre sponsored a trip up into the Daintree Rainforest for the weekend. It took us about five hours to get to our backpackers resort due to a flat tire in one of the national parks and a river ferry crossing. Once at the resort, we discovered that we were too late to sign up for “Jungle Surfing” or zip lining through the rainforest and that they wouldn’t be taking any groups in the morning so that was a big blow to the enthusiasm. However I still managed a walk along the beach close to Cape Tribulation and swim in the resort pool to cool down. There was also a karaoke competition that night in which another girl from the Butler program, Bailey, and I did a stirring rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” that I’m sure Freddie Mercury would have been proud of. All in all it worked out extremely well for me as I ended up winning a trip for an Outback cave tour later on next month that’s worth about $140.

Today, February 22nd, we checked out of our resort and were able to swim at a freshwater swimming hole, crocodile free, that was pretty spectacular and even included a rope swing. After the swimming hole, we headed back towards Cairns and made a stop in Port Douglas, a once port town that is now much more a tourist hot spot which has had recent celebrity guests like Tom Hanks and Steven Speilberg stay at its luxurious resorts. We just walked along main street and got a bite to eat.

It is now just after midnight and I should probably be getting to bed since I have class for the first time in about two months tomorrow at 9am. I’m still getting adjusted to life in tropical Queensland. While the geckos everywhere no longer seem to be as intriguing as they once were, and I think I’m becoming more and more acclimated to the heat as I feel like I start sweating the moment I step outside. The cars travelling on the left side of the road don’t look that funny anymore, and I just expect every intersection to have a roundabout. However it’s still hard to adjust to removing tree frogs from the washing machine so you can do your laundry. It’s also an adjust to be labelled as having a funny accent or even having an accent at all, referring to all restrooms as simply, “toilets”, and still trying to keep everything straight in your head by converting Fahrenheit into Celsius, Australian dollars into U.S. dollars, and kilometres into miles. It’s been a real enjoyable process so far and I hope with the start of classes I meet I few more people and figure this region out a little better. Until my next entry.

Cheers,
Kevin

By the way, I've attempted to integrate the pictures into my post, but this is what it gives me.

2009-02-16T04:08:00.000-08:00

I figured I should post of couple of pictures so far. Top two: Josephine Falls middle: kangaroo/wallaby crossing in Palm Cove bottom pictures: stinger sign to indicate beach is closed in Palm cove and my bedroom at Cairns Student Lodge. I'll try a little better next time to put captions with the photos, apparently technology wins this battle.

First impression of Cairns

2009-02-16T03:54:00.000-08:00

February 10th I embarked for downtown Cairns. We took the van advertised by the Lodge that goes into the city every morning and picks students up every afternoon. However, much to my disappointment, I discovered that apparently the vans are for “international students” and not for us into the city. What Sam, the maintenance/custodial/bike repair/housekeeping/ audio technician/bartender/van driver (he’s a very interesting character, somebody I could write a novel about) meant was that students taking specific classes on satellite campuses in downtown, like English as a second language, were given priority to ride in the van. It was apparently not to be used as a more economical mean to get downtown without paying a $3.30 one way bus fare. Sam also informed us that he was “too busy” to pick us up, including the students who were going to class, and we would have to find our own way back to the Lodge (That’s the thing about this Student Lodge, it seems like one of those evil credit card commercials with all the hidden fees. They even specific fail to mention the Ethernet connection to the JCU system in hopes of having you pay an outrageously high wireless internet fee. Thanks to our newfound Aussie friends here at the Lodge, I don’t have that problem).
Yet despite what may have seemed like a catastrophic beginning to my Tuesday, we all made it to downtown Cairns by approximately 8:15am. We headed for the Lagoon, an incredibly large and shallow pool with its own sand beach, right next to ocean, free from stingers and various pathogens that might also be present in the non-chlorinated Coral Sea. After spending nearly three hours in the water and severely wrinkling my skin we headed out to explore downtown Cairns. I discovered a Casino with a rainforest Biodome on top of it aptly named the Cairns Dome. I found this very interesting as the Rainforest Dome in the Omaha Zoo sits thousands of miles away from the rainforest, giving people in the Midwest the unique opportunity to experience it for themselves, while the Cairns dome allows the same to people who don’t want to make the mere five kilometer jaunt to the actual rainforest. This may just be my thinking though. Downtown was very nice, very touristy, but I have a soft spot for four different stores on the same block all selling the same exact thing with store names like Koaland. After our downtown extravaganza we all headed back on the Sunbus to the Lodge.

February 11th Danika and I headed over to campus to the international student center to sign up for two separate day trips this weekend to the rainforest on Saturday and trip to Green Island on Sunday. We then rode our sweet new bikes to Trinity Beach, about a 15 minute bike ride north of where we are staying. Trinity Beach was much less touristy than Palm Cove and had a lot less people (though when the stingers leave and we can finally get in the water, I presume there will be a lot more people).

February 12th Butler sponsored our welcoming activity which was a snorkeling trip to the Great Barrier Reef. It was AMAZING! We took about an hour ride boat trip from Cairns and it seemed like just in the middle of the ocean we just stopped. You could tell we were in semi-shallow water with the different colored water, but it was incredible once you got off the boat. The reef was incredible and it was hard to fathom that everything on it was alive. One thing I did find funny from the trip was that it seems as though the reef trip companies have given up on trying to talk about clown fish by their given name, and instead refer to them as “Nemo” fish. I guess Disney would be proud of that. Some of the fish on the reef didn’t even look real, more like some little kid had decided to draw these fish with the brightest colors they have and big cartoon eyes.

February 13th I had another meeting over at JCU (or the “uni” as Australians call all universities). After the meeting I finally decided to make a visit to the doctor. You see, I had been suffering from a lower gastrointestinal illness that had been bothering me since about the time I had arrived in Cairns. After finally getting a appointment in the afternoon I spent 15 minutes of the physician’s time and $60 of my dollars for her to tell me that I was suffering from food poisoning. She gave me a new diet consisting of incredibly delicious items like white rice and plane spaghetti noodles. It was actually ok though because my appetite decreased dramatically and nothing sounded that appetizing anyway. Luckily though, I am happy to report that I am now able to eat more and even tried dairy foods tonight (Feb. 16th).

February 14th a small group of Butler students and I took a trip South of Cairns to Josephine Falls, Bramston Beach, and Babinda Boulders and Devil’s Pool. Josephine Falls was incredible as we were able to swim in a freshwater pool in the middle of the rainforest complete with a natural waterslide. Bramston Beach was kind of disappointing because it was pretty much like every other beach we had been too; closed. I didn’t think I would ever get tired of beaches here and I really haven’t, it’s just frustrating to get to the ocean and then not be able to get in to cool down. Babinda Boulders was also really fun and we were even able to jump off a ten meter cliff into the natural pool, very exciting.

February 15th another group of Butler students and I took another snorkeling trip, but this time it was to Green Island. The trip was a lot different than the one we took on the previous Thursday because the reef trip company just drops you off at this island and tells you to be back at the boat by 3pm. We snorkeled right when we got there, but it wasn’t nearly as fun as the first trip. This was probably mostly due to the fact that my mask leaked and salt water stings your eyes, but it’s any one’s guess. I did manage to lay by the resort pool and take a nap as well as walk around and enjoy the island so the afternoon was definitely not a total loss.

Today, February 16th, was the first day of “O” week. I didn’t have any major sessions I had to attend, but did manage to get my student ID card so I was able to apply for my tertiary card that won’t get here for another three weeks, but will be worth it when I do because it cuts your bus fare in half so it only costs $3 to get to downtown and back versus the normal $6.80. The international student center (see apparently we actually are) sponsored a BBQ for us this afternoon complete with kangaroo sausages. If you’re wondering, kangaroo is about as delicious as they are adorable, incredibly tender and juicy meat. I’m officially a big fan of kangaroo now. That's all the news I have for now, I think I'm headed back downtown tomorrow afternoon after my orientation session in the morning. I'm taking someone, who will go unnamed, out for a belated birthday dinner and hopefully finally get to see Slumdog Millionaire.

Cheers,
Kevin

Sydney to Cairns and everywhere in between, sort of

2009-02-09T05:51:00.000-08:00

I’m terribly behind in updating/starting my blog for this semester in Australia. Currently I’m 12, 000 meters above the eastern coast of Australia on route to Cairns where it’s expected to be rainy for the next few days with high humidity and temperatures reaching close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit (quite the contrast from Iowa where it was so cold at one point that I couldn’t start my car).

We landed in Sydney on February 4th at 11:30am local time (I’ll try to avoid mentioning specific days since technically I am 16 hours ahead in the future). We were supposed to arrive at 9:00am local time, scheduled to leave at 11:45pm on February 2nd from LAX, however some sort of an electrical issue delayed our departure until almost 2:00am.
Getting through customs was surprisingly easy, however, Danika did lose a piece of her luggage but Qantas was able to return it to her around 8:00pm. I am a big fan of Qantas for the record. They made the 14 hour flight seem a lot more bearable. Granted, when you sleep for 10 of those 14, I guess it would seem a lot shorter. I guess there’s something to be said for the innate ability to sleep anywhere at any time. IFSA-Butler picked us up and we headed to Narrabeen Lakeside Resort just north of Sydney. Once there we headed over to a beachside restaurant for lunch and a welcome introduction.

After IFSA provided us with a quick safety briefing of how not to drown in the ocean, the entire group headed to the beach. A lot of fun was had by all (ok I apologize but I do take some of my writing style from the Grand Junction news). The beach was a lot of fun and very refreshing after spending numerous hours in the air and in an airport. Since Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, it is summer in Sydney. Sydney feels a lot like Iowa in the summer, minus the whole Pacific Ocean thing, with relatively high humidity and cooler evenings. That night Butler did a cultural presentation on understanding culture shock and stereotypes between Aussies and Americans.

February 5th we headed to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney for a guided tour of animals native to Australia. This might be so far the highlight of my trip as I actually got to pet a kangaroo, actually it was a wallaby (fun fact: kangaroos and wallabies look almost indistinguishable, but an adult wallaby is under a meter in height while a kangaroo is much larger). We also saw the other signature creatures: koalas, Tasmanian devils, emus, and dingos.

After the morning zoo tour we hopped aboard a yacht in Sydney Harbor for a harbor cruise. The 3 ½ hour tour showed us some of houses around the harbor, some worth as much as $60 million. Granted with the U.S. conversion it’s like 35-40 million, but still. We sailed past the famed Sydney Opera House and under Harbor Bridge. I still hope to make it a point to come back to Sydney before I leave the country and take one of the bridge tours which allow you to climb to the top (possibly when the other Steussy brothers come?).

It was on this boat tour that I discovered just what exactly the sun feels like when there’s a hole in the ozone above you. Even with sunscreen applied numerous times I still managed to burn my arms, legs, and face pretty good. I even have a rather attractive sunglasses (or sunnies as the Aussies call them) tan that lets everyone know that yes indeed, I am a tourist.
February 6th we took a surf lesson on Long Reef Beach. The instructors claimed that it was a perfect day for surfing, but they must have been mistaken. After safety info and instructions on “how to surf” we headed out into the water. What the instructors didn’t tell you was how hard it is to balance on a surfboard. In what seemed like an eternity I finally made my way out far enough to “catch the surf”. I attempted to follow the instructions as best I could, however, I’m not quite sure God intended on me surfing. I believe it’s a Chinese proverb that says, “fall seven times, stand up eight”, unfortunately mine was fall seven times, attempt to stand up and then be destroyed by the water crashing down upon me. Though despite my pessimistic analysis of the experience, surfing in the Pacific Ocean was pretty awesome. I think if I attempt to surf again (up in Cairns it’s not the best conditions to surf in with the reef attenuating most of the waves) I would do so with an instructor to try to better myself a little bit more before I attempt it on my own.

February 7th was our travel day and the entire Butler group left for the Sydney airport around 9am. The flight to Cairns didn’t leave until 4pm, so the 12 of us headed to James Cook University had quite the afternoon sitting in the terminal. We arrived in Cairns at 6pm local time as Queensland isn’t on daylight savings so it was actually a three-hour flight (side note: Virgin Blue Airlines appears to amazing when you first enter the plane with live TV from around the world, but five minutes into the flight they tell you that you have to pay $10 to continue watching TV and food and beverage was only available for purchase) Anyway, stepping off the plane was comparable to stepping into a sauna, however it was not raining.

After a 15 minute ride north of Cairns to a smaller suburb called Smithfield, we arrived at Footprints, Cairns Student Lodge, the apartment complex where I’ll spend the next 5 ½ months. We ate supper and then were issued the keys to our room. The management split all 12 of us up in the hopes of immersing us in Australia culture with local students, but talking with some of the already present Aussie students, a majority of the complex is international/American students anyway so I’ll keep you updated when my roommates arrive within the next couple days before Orientation (or “O”) Week.

February 8th was a rather low key day. After eating breakfast, which I know continually do because: 1) it’s part of my meal plan and 2) I am either still suffering from jet lag as I enjoy going to bed at 8pm or I have reset my circadian rhythm to that of a 6 year-old. Anyway a few students from Butler and I attempted to figure out the public transit system and took a bus to Palm Cove, a somewhat touristy type beach about 15 minutes north of campus (I know it seems like JCU is 15 minutes from anywhere in Northern Queensland, but I’m really just bad at approximating times). The beach was really beautiful, but we were unable to swim in the Ocean as it is still stinger (jellies) season for another 4 weeks. Palm Cove has a very nice pier that sits out on the ocean about 300m and was a lot more comfortable weather wise out on the pier. After lunch at an overpriced bar & grill I took the bus back to the lodge to finish unpacking. While I was unpacking I turned on the television for background noise, but discovered an intense cricket match between Australia and New Zealand. I attempt to understand the rules, but failed (I will have to resort to Wikipedia).
February 9th all the Butler students had their Welcoming Packet presentation where we were issued our student ID number and password to use the internet, but were also basically told to come back on Friday for an international student meeting. I did discover that it takes somewhere between 10-15 minutes to get to campus because the walkway goes around the lodge and underneath the highway (you can’t walk across the highway, otherwise you’ll be slapped with a $300 fine, Australians apparently have no tolerance for jay-walkers). It was this discovery which led to my purchase of a bicycle from the lodge. It is a 21 speed Huffy that has seen better days, but with an adjustment of the rear brakes it should get me from A to B. I also tested out the lodge’s swimming pool, canopy cover and all. It’s an interesting adjustment with Cairns because nearly everything has a cover over it. When I was in Costa Rica I didn’t spend a terrible amount of time submerged in the rainforest, but hardly anything had a cover over it aside from houses. In Cairns, even the parking lots (called car parks here) have covers, and business owners go out of their way to specifically advertise how covered their business is.

It is now swiftly approaching 12am on February 10th, and I am supposed to catch a 7:45am shuttle into Cairns tomorrow morning to see downtown and swim in the lagoon, a safe swimming zone. If you haven’t figured out by how I’ve kind of pieced together this first entry as I didn’t have internet access for a couple days, and not nearly enough time to get my thoughts organized into this blog. If anyone out there aside from my mother reading this I would like to direct you to my girlfriend’s blog, www.danikaportz.blogspot.com, for a more in-depth analysis of the semester so far. If you need to get a hold of me for any reason feel free to email me at kevin-steussy@uiowa.edu or write to me at:

Kevin Steussy
Rm. 29.3
Cairns Student Lodge
10-24 Faculty Close
Smithfield, QLD 4878

I will do my best to respond to letters, but at the moment I am not quite sure how busy my semester will be with classes/weekend excursions. I hope you enjoy the blog and I apologize for any grammatical/syntax errors as I am tired and going to bed.

No Worries,
Kevin