Apparently it’s already been almost two whole weeks since I last posted, but it’s been a two weeks in which much has happened, including finishing finals, the election and doing some more sightseeing in Melbourne. Back on Nov 2nd I took my last final exam (Large-Scale Weather & Climate), which went quite well just like my two other exams. I was quite relieved to be done with Monash exams, and to relax I took a train over to Flemington Park for the Melbourne Cup horse race, the “race that stops a nation.” Seriously, down here if you’re not one of the 100,000+ that sees the race in person, then you’re among the millions of Australians across the country that literally stop whatever they’re doing for two minutes to tune in to the horse race. The downside is that while it was sunny and warm when I left my exam in Caulfield, by the time I got to the racecourse half an hour later the weather had turned cold, rainy and windy, and stayed that way all afternoon and evening. Silly me, the hopefully-future-weatherman, forgot to check the weather forecast ahead of time, and so was stuck out in the cold rain in just shorts and a t-shirt. Oh well, if anything it made the race more memorable. Despite the drenching rain I squeezed my way out to the hedges along the home stretch, so I got to see the horses go by twice during their 2-mile race (I even got a decent picture of them running by!). I placed two $10 bets on a couple horses to win, but neither did (Vinnie Roe came in second though, so I almost won something). In the end the race was won by the favourite and last year’s Cup winner, Makybe Diva. I’d say the Melbourne Cup was not a bad place to see my first-ever horse race in person, or to place my first-ever real bets on anything. It was also cool seeing all the silly hats and costumes people put on for the race, although some of those were hidden by umbrellas or raincoats unfortunately.

On Nov 3rd I was glued to my computer and the internet all day long, except for the couple hours that I went down to the TV lounge in my dorm to watch a little bit of the election coverage. It was exhausting trying to keep up with all the news, but it was also fun chatting with some friends back home who were also able to keep me updated on what they were seeing. I think this election proved to me that the internet is a much more valuable resource for news than a TV, because you can just keep track of way more information from far more sources on the net. At any rate, at least this year I was able to go to bed satisfied that I knew who the winner was. It was also kinda fun to hear the Aussie news anchors trying to explain to their audience how the Electoral College works, hehe. But I am glad that I was still able to catch a little bit of American TV coverage of it, as Channel 7 had a feed from NBC and Channel 9 got a CBS feed (I didn’t feel like watching credibility-challenged Dan Rather though, so when 7 cut out for local evening news I went back to my computer and the internet, hehe).

I cleaned my room on Thursday (finally), in preparation for my friend Uriah coming to Melbourne for a visit on Friday and staying overnight that night. Uriah’s from UW-Eau Claire, who is one of my friend Rich’s buddies that I met while we were on vacation in Cairns. Anyway, we spent Friday evening walking through the city, past the Greek Precinct and the Old Melbourne Gaol (jail), and all the way up Lygon Street in Carlton, past the blocks upon blocks of ethnic restaurants there. It definitely is a treat to walk up and down Lygon Street at dinnertime, but a bit tortuous if you don’t have time to sit down and eat! Uriah & I were trying to get to a comedy club that our Lonely Planet guides said was on Lygon Street, but after we couldn’t find it we called them and said they were on Collins Street way back near where we started in the city. (Note to all travelers: always call and confirm the address of an establishment you wish to visit, even if your travel guide is really recent.) So we hightailed it back into the city and made it to the Last Laugh Comedy Club on time. It went from 8:30-11pm, and the headline act (Tommy Dean) was hilarious!! It was definitely $25 well spent.

On Saturday I went to James & Ali’s house for supper and stayed the night there. They’ve always been so nice to me, and once again they let me hook my computer up and use their internet. I only use it there because the firewall here at Monash prevents me from uploading photo albums to my website ( http://www.seenoevil.org/~jared/blog/ ). At any rate I got ten new photo albums put on my website, including from spring break when I visited the Whitsunday Islands and Atherton Tablelands. Check ‘em out!

I got a call on Sunday from another Gustie, Sarah Bovee, who’s been studying abroad this semester at the U of Wollongong (an hour south of Sydney), saying that she was in Melbourne that day instead of Wednesday (since she didn’t wanna go out to the Great Ocean Road on a rainy day), but unfortunately I couldn’t go into the city to hang out since I had left all my GRE studying until that day. Oh well. Maybe this’ll teach me to not wait until the last minute to do stuff. Or maybe not. I really am a hopeless procrastinator. But I took a couple of practice tests in the afternoon and then went to church at MBT in the evening.

Monday I went into the city and fortunately found quite easily the building where I was supposed to take the General GRE test. The test went fairly smoothly, and I’m pleased with my scores, despite the number of vocab words I’d never heard of before. Now I’ve gotta decide which extra grad schools to send my results to, along with starting the application process. I used my four freebies to send score reports to Oklahoma, UW-Madison, Penn State and Mississippi State. I need to find out application deadlines too. Sigh, even when I’m all done with exams there’s still all sorts of work to do.

Yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon I went back into the city to catch the Vikings-Colts game at All-Star Cafe at Southbank, and they were nice enough to put on the audio from it, and put it on all three big screens! Having seen now three games at All-Star is really helping me get through my gridiron (the Aussie term for American football) withdrawal symptoms, hehe. After the game I mailed a couple more postcards, spent 2-3 hours walkin through the Royal Botanic Gardens, and then wandered over to the Shrine of Rememberance (a veterans memorial). I hadn’t been to either the gardens or shrine before, and both were really cool. I got some awesome pics of the city from the shrine, especially after night fell. I also chatted for about an hour with a couple of really cool cops who were on patrol at the shrine, one of which told me all about the Red Centre, which he had just been to. He enthusiastically recommended that I go see Uluru, the Olgas & Kings Canyon of course, but also strongly recommended the “very very strange” opal mining town of Coober Pedy, in the Outback between Adelaide and Alice Springs, and which is two-thirds underground. I think he sold me on going there for a visit next time I come to Australia, whenever that happens to be.

A week from now I’ll most likely be on my way to Sydney, and I have a few tasks to complete between now and then, including figuring out at least a little bit of what I’m gonna be doing on my way to Sydney and in Sydney before my parents arrive on the 21st, planning out the entire itinerary for the eight days my parents are in Australia (my parents friends David & Karen, who we’re staying with in New Zealand, are arranging that whole part of everything fortunately), and also trying to figure out a little bit of what I’m gonna do while I’m by myself for two weeks in New Zealand after my parents return home. I sense a lot of Lord of the Rings sight-seeing coming on. But in the next week I’ve also gotta see a bit more stuff in Melbourne that I haven’t made it to yet, including the suburbs of St Kilda and Brighton Beach, both on Port Phillip Bay. And tonight I’m gonna be playing some “Risk” until late into the night with a bunch of mates, as part of a goodbye thing, and if I wake up early enough tomorrow I may head back into the city for the big Rememberance Day (Veterans Day) ceremony at 11am at the Shrine. The cops last night told me that everyone in the country observes a minute of silence at 11am on 11/11, even the radio stations. They said that everyone even pulls over to the side of the road for a couple minutes too, it’s just amazing. Oh yeah, and I’ve gotta start packing one of these days too. That and maybe figure out if I’m gonna mail or ship anything home and get that taken care of. Much to do. I can’t believe I only have one more week left in Melbourne, I really don’t wanna leave.

On Friday afternoon James & Ali picked me up for a drive down the Mornington Peninsula, about an hour south of Melbourne on the other side of Port Phillip Bay, and separating the Southern Ocean from the bay. It was a fine day around most of Melbourne, and we were hoping to see a beautiful sunset aways down the ocean-side of the peninsula, near the town of Sorrento. Unfortunately as we drove down the peninsula we discovered that it was blanketed by a dense fog — bummer. We still went around to some of the different beaches, and even though we didn’t get to see that elusive sunset I still had a good time. One of the highlights of the afternoon was actually a very hungry echidna that we saw next to the car park at one of the beaches. He was so busy gorging himself on ants that he let us get really close to him to take photos, and even let us touch his sharp spines!

Saturday night was time for the IFSA-Butler (Institute for Study Abroad, the group I came to Australia with) Farewell Dinner. It was the first time since orientation that all eight of us (nine counting Jodee, our cool IFSA coordinator) had been together due to busy schedules and different groups of friends that we’ve found, so it was cool catching up with everybody again. We went to a nice Greek restaurant at Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne, and the best part of it was that IFSA paid for it all! I’ll take a free meal any day. But we spent a good deal of the time talking about our experiences so far this semester, and about how it’ll likely be a bit tough to re-adjust to life in the States, something called “reverse culture shock.” I guess being prepared for it is half the battle of getting through it, since it’ll almost undoubtedly happen. It’s definitely not something you really contemplate much until you’ve been used to living in a foreign country for a few months already, but it’ll be interesting to see how it goes for me.

Sunday was definitely the highlight of the weekend, a surfing trip and drive down the Great Ocean Road sponsored by IFSA. Only four of us Butlerites from Monash went (Sharon, Caroline, Krista and me), and we were joined on the trip by a bunch of Butler kids from Melbourne Uni. After a rather interesting and frustrating taxi ride into the city in the morning (we were met with more detours than MNDoT sets up during the height of road construction season!), we finally headed out onto the Great Ocean Road, which starts about an hour southwest of the city in Torquay. Completed in 1939 and one of the world’s most-traveled roads (and hence one of Australia’s biggest tourist attractions), it hugs Victoria’s Southern Ocean coastline all the way from Torquay west to Warrnambool (side note: I love the town names here in Australia!).

Our first stop was at world-famous Bells Beach just west of Torquay. I’ve heard a lot about it (it’s a favourite for surfers), and it’s definitely a cool beach. After that we pressed on past Anglesea and on to Lorne, the surfing capital of Victoria, and our destination for the day. First we went a few k’s north of Lorne for a hike and some lunch in the temperate rainforest up there, and we got to see pretty Erskine Falls. When we went back down to Lorne it was time to put on the wetties (wetsuits), grab a board and get a few tips of instruction before we went out in the water (since for most of us it was the first time ever surfing). I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous about it all before I got out there, but that all went away when I caught my first wave all the way into shore. Even just riding on the board laying on my belly, it was so exhilarating speeding along with the waves! Once or twice I managed to get up to my knees on the board, but more often than not those attempts ended in me doing a “nosedive,” where the wave sends you and your board straight down into the water — usually because I did something wrong, like neglecting to hold onto the rails (sides) properly. But I was even having a blast when I’d do a nosedive and get spun around underwater like a coin laundry machine, the whole experience was so fun! Seriously, it was probably the most fun hour and a half I’ve had here in Australia. After that we made our way back towards Melbourne, stopping for a late afternoon bbq picnic at Point Roadknight Beach in Anglesea. I have some pictures from surfing and the Great Ocean Road on the October 24th post on my website ( www.seenoevil.org/~jared/blog/ ).

On Monday it was time to hit the books — well, sort of. I did do a bit of studying with BradWa, Simon and Connie (we don’t share any classes, we were just studying our own stuff), but when I say studying I of course mean playing frisbee and watching TV, hehe. Tuesday was a much more productive day study-wise, and Brad took Stefan and me down to Caulfield to show us where our finals were gonna be, which was nice. Wednesday was another study-heavy day, interrupted by a bbq party over at Farrer Hall for BradWa’s 21st birthday. It was pretty cool, and most of the people from Christian Union showed up to it, everyone was surprised at how many people came, since it was in the thick of finals and all. (We call him BradWa because there’s another Brad in CU, we call him BradWe, it’s according to the beginning of their surnames.)

Thursday morning it was time for my Fluid Dynamics final, which was my first one and the exam I was most worried about. But despite a couple tough problems I think I managed to scratch and claw my way to a decent grade on the exam. Finals are generally a bit more stressful in Australia, since they’re worth a bigger chunk of your overall grade than they are back home (this one was worth 60%). Another interesting thing is that all the Monash finals are near its campus in Caulfield (20-30 minutes from here towards the city), at the Racecourse complex, perhaps the finest horse-racing venue in all of Australia. They have these huge rooms all set up with desks (fortunately facing away from the windows overlooking the racing oval, lest we be distracted by sunshine and green grass , and at any one time there are hundreds of students (sometimes close to a thousand “candidates,” as we’re called when we take exams) taking exams simultaneously in each room for their respective subjects. It really is a different atmosphere for finals. And there are no professors or lecturers available in the room to ask a question of in case you’re confused by the wording on a question — it’s all sink or swim on your own. The thing I probably like least about the whole setup is that I have to wake up a good deal earlier just to get down to Caulfield, as it can take awhile waiting for the shuttle buses during morning peak hour (rush hour). I had another final there this morning as well, Climate Change, in what I correctly figured was gonna be my easiest final out of the three. 2 down, 1 to go! The downside is that my final on Tuesday falls on Melbourne Cup Day, which is an official holiday in Victoria, celebrating the Melbourne Cup, the biggest horse race in Australia. Maybe I’ll still be able to make it to the track for a race (fortunately it’s not at Caulfield, that’d be insane).

But once I’m done with finals I won’t be done with studying, as earlier this week I signed up to take the General GRE on November 8th here in Melbourne. I was quite fortunate to find a testing centre in Melbourne, or else I would’ve had to wait to take the GRE until I was back in Minnesota in January, which would’ve been too late for many grad school applications, which I’m probably gonna have to start working on down here before I go home. But there’s almost no way I’m gonna be studying on November 3rd, as I’m sure I’ll be glued either to my laptop computer or to cable TV watching election returns come in (after the Daylight Savings Time switch this weekend, Australia will be 17 hours ahead of Minnesota/Wisconsin, even closer to a full day ahead, which is why the 3rd is Election Day as far as I’m concerned, hehe). The plus side for me is that even if the election isn’t decided until the wee hours of the morning back home, I’ll still be wide awake in early evening! Get out there and vote!

So what’s happened in the Land Down Under in the last two weeks since I posted? Well, for starters, Australia held its federal elections back on Saturday the 9th of October. It was the culmination of a six-week campaign between incumbent Prime Minister John Howard of the Liberal Party (like Republicans), a close ally of the US, and challenger Mark Latham of the Labor Party (like Democrats). Not only did Howard trounce Latham in a landslide victory, putting him back in The Lodge for a fourth term, but Howard’s conservative Coalition (between the Liberal & National Parties) increased its majority in the Lower House of Parliament, and gained control of the Senate. It marked the first time in over 30 years in which the sitting PM was re-elected and his party increased its majority in Parliament, which made it an even more resounding victory for Howard. It’s been an exciting time to be in Australia, for both the Aussie and American election campaigns; since I’m a political junkie I’ve spent much of my time down here reading news articles about both elections. I also wrote an article about the Aussie elections that will appear in the Commentary section of this week’s October 22nd edition of the Gustavian Weekly.

Last week on Thursday I mailed a couple packages of TimTams to friends back home, and I got into a conversation with the girl at the Post Office. She was aghast when she found out that I didn’t even know the proper way to eat a TimTam, a TimTam Slam, so she told me how. (A TimTam is a rectangular chocolate wafer-type thing with chocolate filling in the middle, it’s soooo good!) First you bite off one corner, then the other, and then you dip one of the bitten corners into a hot cup of Milo, sucking on the other end. The Milo comes up through the TimTam, giving you a hot rush of chocolate, and simultaneously melting the TimTam so that you have to then just cram it in your mouth before it falls apart on you. And then when I told her that I’d never had Milo either yet, she was like, “okay, that’s it, I’m going in the back and making you a cup of Milo.” Milo is a chocolate powder somewhat like Nestle Quik, only much better. The proper way to make a Milo is to pour some powder into some milk and stir it all up so that it’s all frothy, and then add some hot water to it (and some Bailey’s if you’re adventurous). Delicious chocolatey goodness! I was just pleasantly surprised once again at the awesome Aussie hospitality and kindness that most everyone down here has. I mean, how many of you have had a girl make you a Milo while you’re waiting in the Post Office? So then on Sunday night at Monash Bible Talks after we were all done with the main part of the service I made myself a Milo and did my first TimTam slam, it was fun. I think I’m gonna be busy doing demonstrations when I go back home, I just have to figure out how many packages of TimTams I’m taking back with me, hehe.

My classes on Monday were cancelled, so I went into a sports bar in the city in the morning to catch the Sunday Night Football game between my beloved Vikings and the Saints. But it was a double feature, as on one of the other big screens next to it at the front of the bar was also Game 4 of the Yankees-Red Sox game (the third screen had an India vs Australia cricket test match, so it was fun trying to figure out what actually is going on in that strange game, when both the others were on commercials). It was only the second American football game I’ve seen down here (isn’t Culpepper a machine this year?!), and seeing the Red Sox come back and avoid the sweep against the Yankees in dramatic fashion was an added bonus. I’d say that after the Twins, the Red Sox are my second-favourite team, so I would love to see them end the curse this year. Especially against the Yankees in Game 7 tomorrow/tonight (depending on your time zone!). Don’t get me wrong, I love Australian sports, but getting the chance to see an American game once in awhile has been a treat.

It’s been becoming more and more apparent that the end of the semester is at hand, because all the organizations are starting to do their end of year celebrations. For instance, this week was the last week of Tuesday activities for Christian Union this semester (Campus Bible Talks, growth groups and evangelism training). It still feels like I’m gonna be hanging out with these people for a long time yet, so I’m having trouble bringing myself to the realization that I only have less than a month left here in Melbourne. Tuesday was most likely the last time I’ll be around all of them as a group, so it was a bit sad, but I’m hoping to stay in contact with all or most of them. You never know, I might possibly be coming back to Monash for grad school too, so I might see them again. But all the goodbyes that will be coming over the next few days and weeks will probably be a bit tough, I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye to my Australian friends quite yet. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone back home even more now since it’s getting closer and closer, but I’m also wanting to leave Australia that much less, I really do like it here.

My official Wisconsin absentee ballot arrived in the mail a week ago, and today I finally voted and stuck it back in the mail, to make sure it gets back in plenty of time before Election Day. I was pretty fired up to vote, since Wisconsin’s a battleground state this year, and since this is the first time I’ve been able to vote in a presidential election. I hope everyone that is reading this that is an eligible voter goes out and votes, it really is an amazing privilege we have. I also prefer the voluntary voting system in America, as opposed to the mandatory system in Australia, where every citizen 18 and over is legally required to vote, under penalty of a $50 fine if they don’t.

I’m not sure what I’m gonna do the rest of the week, I might go into the city one of the next two afternoons and take a walk around the botanical gardens in Melbourne. It’s supposed to be pretty warm the next two days as well, around 30 C (near 90 F); spring has most definitely arrived in Australia. Then this weekend my IFSA-Butler study abroad group will be having our farewell dinner, and then we’ll get to learn how to surf at Lorne on the Great Ocean Road on Sunday! I’m both excited and a bit nervous for that…

At any rate, if any of you want to see pictures of Australia or some of what I’ve been up to, feel free to check out my regular blog at http://www.seenoevil.org/~jared/blog/ . I haven’t gotten the photos from the Whitsunday Islands up there yet, but hopefully I’ll get a chance to do that this weekend. I’m also gonna try to see if Gustavus IT can help me get a couple of photos on this page too, to add a bit of colour and break up the monotony of text.

Last Sunday (the 26th of Sept) I flew up to the Whitsunday Coast, at a resort town called Airlie Beach (about a 12 hr drive north of Brisbane, 10 hrs south of Cairns). The first day I pretty much just bummed around the town all afternoon and evening, waiting for my friend Rich to arrive on a Greyhound bus late Sunday night. The beach at Airlie Beach itself isn’t all that great; it looks nice enough at high tide, but at low tide it’s an ugly, muddy, rocky harbour. But that’s why it’s not an attraction in and of itself, but rather the gateway to the amazingly beautiful Whitsunday Islands. But the weather couldn’t have been better the whole time we were in the Whitsundays, it was in the low 80s and brilliantly sunny every day. Quite the change from Melbourne in winter, hehe.

On Monday the 27th (which was my 21st birthday!) Rich & I went parasailing in the morning all over the bay, about 200 feet above the water. I’d never been parasailing before, and it was so much fun! We were up in the air for probably ten minutes or so, and towards the end of it they slowed the boat way down so that we’d gradually fall into the water. Once we’d been dunked a couple of times and were good and wet (and reminded of just how salty the ocean really is), they went back to full speed so that we went way up in the air again, but it was still nice and warm! And the views from up there were breathtaking, the aqua and turquoise water, islands visible in the distance, and the marina in one part of the harbour, it was incredibly pretty. We just took it easy in the afternoon, since we had two full day-trips ahead of us.

On Tuesday we took an Ocean Rafting trip (essentially this big unsinkable yellow raft that could hold 20-30 people), which took us on a cruise through the Whitsundays at around 30 knots or so. Our first stop was Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island, and we got to climb up to a small peak to get a postcard-view of spectacular Hill Inlet, which is at the northern end of the beach. Then we went down to the beach for a nice lunch (included in the tour). Whitehaven Beach is 9 km (6 mi) long, and is made of the whitest sand I’ve seen in my life. It’s so white that it stays cool even on a hot day because it reflects so much sunlight. It’s 99% pure silica, so it squeaks when you walk on it, and it’s such pure silica that NASA used sand from that beach to make the lens for the Hubble Space Telescope! Also, if lightning were to ever strike the beach, it would turn that section of it to glass instantly, which is an amazing thought. Anyways I got trained to snorkel there (since I’d never been snorkelling in my life) before we went to a bay over by Hook Island to go snorkelling amongst the coral reef! It was so fun, and I got some great pictures too, using a one-time use disposable underwater camera I’d bought. I even bumped into the reef pretty good accidentally with my hip, as the tide was so low it was a little tough sometimes to swim around and avoid touching it.

Some of the coral was even poking above the surface of the water too. Then it was time to head back to Airlie Beach, but on the way back we saw a few dolphins (one of the rare species apparently, our guide said it was only the fourth time in his life he’d seen that kind of dolphin). For Wednesday we took another day tour with a different company. We got to cruise around a different part of the Whitsundays, a bit further south around Hamilton Island, before going up to Whitehaven Beach again. We got to spend a good deal more time there that day than on Tuesday, which was nice. It felt good just to lay in the sun listening to the gentle surf, even though my back got badly sunburnt. Oh well, it was worth it. Then they took us snorkelling again, this time at two different places, so that was cool. And the bbq kebab lunch they had for us was amazing! We took the second trip out there because we wanted to spend as much time as possible at Whitehaven, and go snorkelling as much as we could, and it was definitely worth every penny.

Overnight Wednesday night Rich & I took a Greyhound bus up to Cairns. We had planned on renting a car and driving up there, but the rental agencies in Airlie Beach told us they required a minimum 3-day rental, and if we were gonna leave the car in Cairns, they’d charge an additional $300 relocation fee. That was totally ridiculous ($500-600 total just to rent a car for one day’s drive), so we just took the bus instead. We of course didn’t get much sleep on the bus, so the next day in Cairns we were just kinda tired, so we didn’t do much. We met up with some of Rich’s friends who were on vacation in Cairns, and went to see “Dodgeball,” in addition to bumming around the city a little bit.

Friday the four of us (me, Rich, and his two friends Lee & Uriah — I was the only one not from UW-Eau Claire, but it was cool hanging out with a bunch of fellow Wisconsinites in Australia!) rented a car and drove all around the Atherton Tablelands, a region with some beautiful countryside a little southwest of Cairns. It felt so good to drive again, I guess I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. We stopped to see a couple of enormous fig trees, several waterfalls, and we swam in Lake Eacham in Crater Lakes National Park (it felt good to swim in freshwater again for a change!). The lakes still seemed so much like northern Minnesota or Wisconsin, it really felt like home. And it was humorous to notice how just about every lake in Australia is made into a national park since lakes are so rare here. I drove about half the time, and I got used to driving on the left side of the road really quickly actually. It wasn’t until late afternoon on a little country road that I had the obligatory “wrong side of the road” incident. Fortunately I managed to avoid the oncoming van in plenty of time, hehe.

On Saturday morning it was time for me to fly back to Melbourne (and for Rich and his friends to fly back to Brisbane), and when I got back I had the lovely task of finishing research and starting writing for a 2000-word essay that was due on Monday for my Climate Change class (I’d meant to get a start on it the week before spring break, but procrastination took over, hehe). The first part of this week was really busy with assignments due (and a test in Fluid Dynamics yesterday on Wednesday), but the last part of this week has been a nice breather again, before I dive right back into lots of assignments next week. Seriously, I didn’t have all that much homework the first 10 weeks of uni, and now in these last three weeks it seems like everything’s due.

Some big news here in Australia are the national elections that are coming up this Saturday, October 9th. The incumbent Prime Minister is John Howard of the Liberal Party, a staunch ally of the US who is seeking his fourth term. The challenger is Mark Latham of the Labor Party. The top two issues seem to be terrorism (in particular since the Australian embassy in Jakarta was bombed three or four weeks ago or so), and the economy (which has been going very well the last 8 years during Howard’s administration), both of which favour Howard. And another issue that just popped up this week was Tasmanian forests, which now also favours Howard after Latham announced his policy (essentially banning logging). But still the polls this week show that it’s a very tight race, with Howard up 52-48%. It’s been interesting following the campaign down here, and the general public is a bit more interested in what happens since voting is mandatory here (if you don’t vote you get fined $50). Also, you don’t vote for a specific person, you vote for a party (and hence all the candidates from that party running for office. And voting is on a preference system, meaning you rank the parties 1-6 or however many there are. If over 50% of the ballots cast rank a particular party as #1, then they’re declared the winner. If not, then the #2 rank votes get added to each party’s pool, and then the #3 votes and so on, until one party reaches a total of at least 50% of the ballots cast in their column. I might be wrong, but at least that’s how I understand Australia’s confusing voting system. And even though I’m way down in Australia, I’m still keeping up on the debates and campaign back home, and I’m also cheering on the Twins! The last couple of days, either during lab or between classes, I’ve snuck a peek online to check out the latest score updates (night games are on late morning/early afternoon here). I confess, I’m a hopeless sports addict, even when I’m on the other side of the world. Anyways, sorry about this post being horribly long, if you’re still reading at this point, you deserve a medal or something. Either that or a bag of TimTams. Mmmm, TimTams….

At Wilson’s Prom itself, my group spent the first night (Friday) camping at a place called Tidal River, on the western coast of the park. After having wombats shred their way into a few people’s tents in search of food (fortunately ours was spared), we packed up Saturday morning and hiked south to Oberon Bay, and then went straight across to Little Waterloo Bay on the eastern coast of the Prom. That was a long hike actually, 17 km. Friday and Saturday were kinda miserable days, it was cold, windy, cloudy, and raining/spitting on and off. Fortunately after a rainstorm Friday night it cleared out, because Saturday morning I got up early (5:30am) to go watch the sunrise over Little Waterloo Bay, it was absolutely beautiful, probably the highlight of my weekend. The beach was sandy white, and had clusters of big boulders basically bookending the beach, so for the sunrise I climbed up one and just sat there, enjoying the solitude and taking photos, for well over an hour. Then we broke camp again, and had a very tough, up-and-down hike of 15 km, past North Waterloo Bay, up to Kersop Peak (from where we could see the lighthouse at the southernmost tip of the Prom and of all of Australia), past Refuge Cove and onto Sealers Cove where we made camp for the final night. I woke up for the sunrise again, but unfortunately the cove wasn’t oriented the right way to see it, which was a bit of a bummer. For the last day we had a shorter hike of 11 km inland to Telegraph Saddle, where we were picked up in a bus and driven back to Tidal River before heading back to Melbourne (we got back to Monash around 6:30pm). Despite getting a bit tired and sore from all that hiking with a heavy pack, it was an amazing weekend. Sunday and Monday were absolutely gorgeous days, sunny and warm (upper 60s), which lifted our spirits a ton. I’ll never get tired of the ocean, and I was constantly in awe of all the beaches, bays and coves we constantly saw, and with how blue, green and turquoise the water always was. And then inland we’d hike through some areas that had mostly scrub brush for vegetation, some impressive eucalypt forests where all the trees were at least 150-200 feet tall, some very mossy forests where the very air would seem to be tinted a verdant green, and some small rainforests too, there was an amazing amount of variety. I’d definitely like to go back to Wilson’s Prom sometime again if I could, and maybe this time hike down Telegraph Track to the lighthouse and the southern tip of the continent.

Tuesday morning I headed into the city to catch the Vikings-Eagles game at a sports bar downtown at Southgate. I had a craving for seeing some American football, and even though the Vikings lost, I still loved getting the chance to see a game finally. It was just a bit weird watching a “Monday Night Football” game starting at 11am on a Tuesday morning, hehe. After that I just wandered around the city for awhile, soaking in the wonderfully sunny and warm day (upper 70s). My feet didn’t exactly appreciate all the walking I did on Tuesday though, at least not after all the hiking over the weekend. On Wednesday a couple of my friends from GAC wished me happy birthday, mistakenly thinking that it was my birthday. I very much appreciated the sentiment, but my 21st birthday isn’t until this coming Monday (the 27th), hehe. Wednesday night I went to the Strike Bowling Bar on Chapel Street over in Prahran for the MWACS Bowling Night (MWACS stands for Monash Weather and Climate Society). It was the coolest bowling alley I’ve ever been in, and for just $5 we got to bowl two games, have a go at sumo wrestling, and use the karaoke machine as much as we wanted. MWACS basically had the run of the place for the night, it was pretty cool. It was a very fun way to spend a Wednesday evening as well, I had a good time.

This afternoon after class I went back into the city to see “The Impressionists” exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), before the exhibit closes on Sunday. Regular admission was $20, but I got in for an after-dark student discount for just $10, woohoo! The exhibit is basically 91 paintings, almost all of which are on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, including works by Manet, Monet, van Gogh, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, Pissarro, Sisley and others. It was awesome getting to see so many fantastic and famous paintings. I really liked the ones by Monet and Pissarro in particular, but my favourite was definitely “Starry Night Over the Rhone” by van Gogh, I was just captivated by it. Last year I bought a poster of that for my dorm room back at GAC, so I was thrilled to get the chance to see the real thing in person. Starting 12th October, the NGV will have an exhibition featuring the works of Edvard Munch, which could also be interesting to attend. After wandering around the Impressionist paintings for almost three hours, I managed to get some really cool photos of the city at night, before I came back to Monash.

We have just one day of class left before spring break. It feels kinda weird saying that in late September. I doubt that I’ll have a blog post next week, as I’m gonna be spending Sunday-Wednesday night or Thursday morning at the Whitsunday Islands, and then on Thursday renting a car and driving up to Cairns, before flying back from Cairns on Saturday morning. I’ll be going around with my friend Rich from high school, who’s studying abroad this semester at Southern Cross Uni in Lismore, a couple hours south of Brisbane.

I’m really looking forward to getting the chance to see the Great Barrier Reef, it’s one of my “must-sees” while I’m down here. And then when I get back I’ll have to finish up a big research paper that’s due on Monday the 4th for my Climate Change class (I’ve done most of the research for it, just none of the actual writing so far), among some other assignments, so I’ll be rather busy. But I’m really excited to finally see some things outside of Victoria, considering I haven’t left the state since I landed back on 6th July. Well, I should get some sleep now. Next time I post on this blog I’ll be 21!!

My bronchiolitis has been slowly improving overall since Friday or Saturday, now I’m not coughing quite so much and my chest hurts a bit less.I’m very eager to get well, largely because I’m tired of having been mostly cooped up here on campus for the last three weeks. I’m looking forward to getting out and doing stuff.

Class was class this week, not much to say there, other than my first class this morning was cancelled due to a staff strike. It appears that Monash is the protest capital of Australian universities. The staff were protesting what they perceive as low wages compared to other universities around Australia, but the student activists (of which there’s a fairly large number, and they’re quite vocal) regularly protest a lot of stuff, including some fellow student protesters being charged with assaulting police officers after a clash last semester, but most commonly the protests are about student fees. Not all that many years ago the Australian government paid 100% of everyone’s uni fees, so it was totally free to everyone. But lately the gov’t has started to go a bit bankrupt through that scheme, so they’ve started instituting small fees, so that the students are at least paying for a small portion of their education. Needless to say that’s sending all these whiny activists through the roof, and every time there’s a tiny increase in some fee they scream bloody murder. The student and staff activists have posters all over the place all the time calling Monash “Australia’s Meanest University.” Whatever.

I’ve been getting ready today for this weekend’s 4-day/3-night camping and hiking trip to Wilson’s Promontory. The Prom is a national park about two and a half hours southeast of Melbourne, and it occupies the little peninsula (promontory) that is the southernmost point on mainland Australia. It’s an amazingly beautiful place too, from what I’m told. I’m gonna be sure to take lots of pictures, and I’m sure I’ll have a blast, even though I’m still not feeling 100% yet. Maybe hiking and getting some exercise will help me finally get over this stupid cough. It’ll probably be fairly cool though most of the time (50s), what with sea breezes off the Southern Ocean, and always the threat of a passing shower. But after getting everything packed in my backpack, I was pleasantly surprised with how much it weighed. It’s several pounds lighter than what I packed to go camping with in the Grampians a month ago, so that’s a definite plus. Well, I should get some rest now, but I’ll tell all about how Wilson’s Prom was next week!

I’m really hoping the drugs start doing their job soon, because it’s getting old being in pain whenever I move my upper body at all. Even breathing, but especially coughing, is painful. It really sucks. The doc said that he’s surprised at how many American students come down with respiratory illnesses every semester here in Melbourne, that it just must be some differences in the strains of whatever that we Americans aren’t used to. And I’m certainly not the only one with a cough or other respiratory crap, Patrick, the guy who lives across the hall from me, and a bunch of his friends from Loyola College that are down here either are already sick or are getting sick too. So what have I been doing in between coughing fits?Last weekend I sat by the TV most of the time actually, catching three of the four first-round AFL (footy) playoff matches. Brisbane slaughtered St Kilda 149-69 (Brisbane had been up by 100 for a little while, an absolutely astounding margin), Essendon edged Melbourne 104-99 in a fantastic back-and-forth match, Sydney survived a thunderstorm and treacherous conditions to knock off West Coast 75-34, and Port Adelaide trounced Geelong 117-62. In footy, a goal is worth 6 points and a behind is worth 1 point, so as you can see it’s typical for a team to kick around 15 goals in a game. Pretty much any game decided by more than 30 points is considered a blowout, less than 10 is really close. The AFL also does playoffs a bit different from the NFL back in the States. In the AFL the top 8 teams (out of 16 total in the league) make the playoffs, and the top 4 get the “double chance.” Basically the top 4 teams play each other in the first round in what are called qualifying finals, where the winner gets a bye the next week and the losers play the winners of the elimination finals, which are the first-round matches between the bottom 4 teams in the playoffs. So even though St Kilda and Geelong both got creamed last weekend, they’re still alive, but Melbourne and West Coast are done for good. This weekend both games are at the MCG, Sydney-St Kilda (winner goes to Port Adelaide next week) and Essendon-Geelong (winner plays Brisbane, the three-time defending AFL champs).

On Tuesday MWACS (Monash Weather & Climate Society) had “Vorticity Day,” with guest speaker Dr Greg Holland from Aerosonde and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research. He gave a very interesting talk about vorticity, a concept that’s pretty important in fluid dynamics and meteorology, and afterwards there was a Q&A session, where I sussed out from him why he went to Colorado State University to do his Ph.D. in meteorology (instead of other top schools for weather, including Oklahoma or Wisconsin). He told me that the important thing in looking for a grad school was to find someone that you would be able to work with for a few years. Basically his advice was to read papers on topics that really interested me, then find out who wrote them, then find out what university they’re at, and that I should base my decision on that, not just on the reputation of the grad school in the field. That’s basically very similar advice to what I’ve also gotten from Dr Cecil Keen at Minnesota State University-Mankato, in all my talks with him. Anyways, Dr Holland also went on to tell us some stories, including from when he was stationed up in Darwin as a forecaster at the time when Tropical Cyclone Tracy struck the city dead-on on Christmas Eve 1974, causing massive devastation. Tracy is still one of the most talked-about weather events in Australian history. In that respect it’s probably similar to how Hurricanes Andrew or Hugo are still talked about back in the States.

Other than that there hasn’t been a whole lot going on, other than finishing up a paper on Wednesday for my Aussie Landscape class. I’m starting to do some research for my Climate Change essay that’s coming up, examining the evidence for rapid climatic changes in Earth’s history. I’m actually learning a fair amount by doing this research, but some of the papers I’m having to read are so long, and at this stage it’s hard to tell what’s going to be relevant to me or not. Sigh. And there’s no rough draft of the essay to hand in, like there might be back in the States. Here the prof won’t pre-screen your essay either, they’ll only look at a small section (like a paragraph) if you have a specific question. But they’re also pretty open about helping the students do a little research if they’re having trouble finding resources, so that’s cool. The only challenge for me will be getting motivated enough to do very much before it’s almost due.

Well, that’s all for me now. I’m really hoping I get better soon, because I don’t want to be prevented from going anywhere or doing anything with anybody for a third weekend in a row because of this cough. I’ve already been frustrated enough the last two weekends, I don’t need a third. If nothing else I need to be better by a week from tomorrow, when my Aussie Landscape class is taking a four-day camping/hiking trip to Wilson’s Prom. Let’s keep those fingers crossed, but now that I have drugs I think I can actually hope I’m gonna start getting better finally.

But lastly, in memory of the victims of the September 11th attacks, I’d just like to say that we will never forget that day. I for one will never forget finding out about the attacks while standing outside the cafeteria at Gustavus that September morning three years ago as a freshman in my first or second week of classes at GAC, staring dumbfounded at the TV along with a group of other students gathered right outside the caf. We will never forget.

On Tuesday evening I went into Melbourne with Meghan, Sharon & Krista, (some of the IFSA students here at Monash), and met up with some of the IFSA students from Melbourne Uni to see the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of the play “Dinner.” It was a dark comedy, and I’d give it a marginal thumbs up. The plot and story left me wondering “what’s the point?” most of the way through, but I loved the set. It was a theatre in the round, and the set, which was very simple and elegant (a red dinner table and six chairs, off in one part of the circle), was on a turntable, which itself rested on three larger turntables beneath it. The topmost turntable would turn very slowly during each act, so sightlines usually weren’t a problem for more than a couple minutes at a time. After the play Jodee (the IFSA coordinator for Monash & Melbourne) took us all out to eat at Blue Train Cafe on Southbank, a really cool (if a bit pricey) restaurant that was pretty laid back. We all jumped at the chance to get real beef steaks, they were so good. And the slices of cheesecake were the biggest I’d ever seen at a restaurant, they were soooo good! And then Jodee paid for a taxi ride back to Monash for us too, so the entire evening was very enjoyable. Today I had two tests, a midterm in Large-Scale Weather & Climate, which I think I did fairly well on, and the second test in Fluid Dynamics, which I feel like I nailed. The further I get into Fluid Dynamics, the more I feel like Gustavus Physics prepared me really well for being able to take a class of this difficulty essentially on my own, without the support network that I had automatically built-in back at GAC. And starting this week we have a new lecturer for the subject. Dave May took the first half of the semester on incompressible fluid dynamics, but now Prof Paul Cally is teaching us about compressible fluid dynamics, which is a good deal tougher. So far I really like Prof Cally’s teaching style, it’s fairly similar to the style of instruction that I’m used to at GAC, it actually reminds me a lot of the style of Prof Paul Saulnier in the physics dept at Gustavus.

Oh, and with the US election all over the news back home (in addition to down here), the Australian election has finally been set. Last weekend Prime Minister John Howard set the date of the federal election to be 9th October. Here’s a quick lesson in Aussie politics: an election for the Prime Minister (and I believe the Senate and House as well) must be held at least every three years. At any time during the PM’s term, he may call for an election, so long as it falls at least a month after his announcement, no more than three years after his last inauguration (although I think there might be a couple ways around that), and the election is also required to be on a Saturday. So the six weeks of campaigning are actually the most that’s been had in 20 years downhere. It’s kinda different being in a place where six week long campaign is termed “long,” as opposed to our campaigns, like the current one, which seems like it’s been going on forever. The only debate between the two main candidates, John Howard of the Liberal Party, and challenger Mark Latham of the Labour Party, will be televised this Sunday, and I’m gonna try to watch it, since I’m a bit of a political junkie (in addition to being a sports junkie, hehe). Howard’s going for a fourth consecutive term, which would make him the second-longest-serving PM in Australian history. The polls are tight here too, but last I heard Howard had a slight lead, just like Bush does back home.

Well, I’ve got a couple of papers to either start writing or researching this weekend, hopefully I can force myself to start on those. But I should really get to bed, I’d like almost nothing more than to be rid of this awful cough at long last.

Last week I started getting a bit of Olympics fever. On Monday night I stayed up till after 3am so that I could see what was being dubbed down here as the “race of the century,” the men’s 200m freestyle final (swimming), in which the “Thorpedo,” the incomparable Ian Thorpe of Australia, held off “Hoogie” from The Netherlands and Phelps from the US. I was barracking for Thorpie anyway, and now he’s the most successful Aussie Olympian in history, with five golds. There were another three swimming finals on right after that, so I stayed up a bit longer. And then on Tuesday night I went to bed early (midnight) so that I could wake up at 3:40am for the men’s 4×200m freestyle relay final, pitting arch-rivals Australia and the US together in a race for the supremacy of the pool. There were a few Aussies that woke up to watch it too, but I was the only one barracking for America. And I have to say that it was one of the most fantastic and exciting races I have ever seen in any sport, definitely better than the race the night before, with Klete Keller and the US holding off a hard-charging Ian Thorpe and the Aussies. But right after the race we all went back to bed. I love the Olympics!

I didn’t get around to writing a post last Thursday because I was a bit busy getting everything ready for my 3-day camping trip to the Grampians (four or five hours WNW of Melbourne) over the weekend. It was the first of two field trips for my Experiencing the Australian Landscape class, the other being a 4-day excursion to Wilson’s Prom in mid-September. We left Monash at 8am on Friday and didn’t get back till 7:30pm Sunday evening, but it was an awesome trip. It was also the first time I’d ever really been hiking or camping too, so pretty much everything was a new experience for me. On Friday afternoon we went to Brambuk, the Grampians National Park & Cultural Centre, where we all had a couple go’s at throwing a boomerang, sampled some native Australian berries, herbs and meats, including emu (a bit dry), crocodile (very dry, a lot like chicken breast that hasn’t been given enough water in the oven), and kangaroo (a very distinctive taste, very gamey like venison). We also learned some about the culture of the separate groups of Koori (Aboriginal) peoples that used to inhabit that area, and watched a couple of movies depicting their dreamtime stories of how Gariwerd (the Grampians) was formed, so that was pretty interesting. And the Brambuk centre was a very interesting building, as it was built to be reminiscent of a cockatoo, the totem of one of the local groups of Koori people. Inside it had a winding ramp up to the second level which symbolized an eel, the totem of another local group.

On Saturday we woke up bright and early to go on our hike for the day in the Wonderland Ranges region of the Grampians. That was a pretty strenuous hike of almost 10km and an altitude change of over 400m (more than 1300ft), but we got to see lots of cool landscapes and rock formations, including Stony Creek, Cool Chamber (an large overhang of rock with a small trickle of a waterfall), Grand Canyon, Silent Street (both of those are fairly narrow rocky gorges), and finally The Pinnacle, which is one of the most famous landmarks in Gariwerd.

It’s an outcrop of rock that sticks out from the cliff, and overlooks a sheer vertical drop of over 410m to Halls Gap below. Even though there was a railing there, I must say that I regained my respect (not fear) of heights. I was being very cautious up there (particularly with the gusty winds), mostly because I didn’t want to lose my balance or accidentally drop my camera over the cliff. After making our way back down to Halls Gap (which, while not as tiring as climbing up, was certainly more strenuous on the ankles and knees), we drove over to MacKenzie Falls, but in order to see that we had to go down and then back up a steep 200-300m elevation change. It was all worth it though. Then on Saturday night back at the camp, the 44 of us were split up into four groups, and told about the landscapes around our homes, and our preconceptions (and impressions) of the Aussie landscape (we all had to write a brief paper on that before the trip). I thought that was fascinating, especially since in my group there were three people from the US including myself, three from Sweden, one from Spain, one from Germany, two from the UK, one from Israel and one from The Netherlands (this class is really aimed more at international students). And I got to hear some about South Korea as well, since my tentmate was from there.

On Sunday morning we packed up all the tents and moved out to the northern parts of the Grampians to hike up Hollow Mountain (half of us did that, the other half went to Mount Zero and Mount Stapylton). Hollow Mountain was a steeper climb than what we did the previous day to get up to The Pinnacle, but a fair bit shorter, and most of us thought Hollow Mountain was cooler as well. Unfortunately there were lots of low clouds around (some grazing the top of the peak), so we didn’t have quite the visibility we had the day before, but the views were still spectacular. After spending the entire morning up there, we went just across the road and hiked up Mount Zero. Due to time constraints, we had to go fast and made it up to the summit in just 25 minutes on a typically 45-minute hike! It was cool looking over at Hollow Mountain from up there and seeing where all we’d climbed, and how far we’d actually hiked. Fortunately the rain held off until right when the other group was getting back from their hike, it was wonderful timing. The bus ride back was really long though, on a cramped and very uncomfortable 24-person bus with everyone eager to just get back to uni so that we could take a shower and be clean again, hehe. But this weekend was really good in that I got to know quite a few new people, and even met a couple of people who were friends with Karolina, the Gustie who was down here last semester.

The coursework has really been starting to pick up around here in the last couple weeks, with a test a week or two ago in Fluid Dynamics, an assignment due tomorrow (which took hours, but I’m done with it at last), and another test next week, plus an assignment and a test in Weather & Climate next week, a 1500 word essay about the trip to the Grampians due either next week or the week after, and then of course there’s always the big research essay for Climate Change looming over my head that’s due the day we get back from spring break. And I’d really been enjoying my bludge semester to this point too, oh well.

But speaking of spring break (which down here is the last week of September), yesterday I booked some flights to go see the Great Barrier Reef that week. I’ll be starting out by flying to Airlie Beach, meeting up with my friend Rich who’s studying over in Lismore, spending a couple of days in Airlie Beach and the beautiful Whitsunday Islands, and then making our way up to Cairns for a couple of days before flying back to our respective unis. The Reef is one of my “must-sees,” so even though it’s a bit pricey to get up there, especially since it’s spring break, it’s still worth it.

But first things first, tomorrow I’m going to another footy match! It’s the last week of the regular season in the AFL, and I’m going to the Collingwood-Carlton match tomorrow night at the MCG with my friends Rowan, James & Stuart (if he isn’t sick by tomorrow). Neither team is going to make the playoffs this year, but apparently they’re bitter rivals (like the Packers & Vikings), so it’s always a good match, no matter what their records are. It should be a good time!

On Saturday afternoon I was invited out to go see Phillip Island (an hour and a half southeast of Melbourne) by the same people that I went fishing with last weekend. We took a tour of several of the beaches on the island, including the “Punchbowl,” Woolamai Beach, and the Nobbies. At the Nobbies we saw quite a few penguin holes in the hillside, where fairy penguins made their homes, but we didn’t see any penguins since it was daylight (more about them shortly). There were also at least two or three thousand seagulls. Most of the time they were just sitting there on the hillside or on one of the small rocky islands just off shore (the “Nobbies”), but occasionally something would startle them, and they’d all launch into the air, turning the sky into a swirling mass of white and grey, it was actually pretty cool. Pretty cool, that is, until one of them crapped on me. Yep, right on my shoulder, but at least it missed my footy scarf, as that would’ve been a bit tougher to clean than my rain coat. James told me that it was good luck to get crapped on by a bird, “because cows don’t fly.” I guess when you put it that way a seagull isn’t all that bad, hehe. But we stayed at the Nobbies awhile to see the beautiful sunset, and I got quite a few nice photos. We went back to Melbourne after sunset instead of sticking around to see the world-famous Phillip Island Penguin Parade, because that costs around $20/person (they kick everyone off the island after sunset anyway, unless they want to pay the entry fee); most of them had seen it a few times before, and I’m planning on going when my parents come down in November (that way they pay for my ticket!). The Penguin Parade is a nightly event on the island, where hundreds and even thousands of fairy penguins make their way from the ocean to their homes in the hillside to feed their young. I’m told it’s quite a sight, and like I said I’m definitely planning on going at some point.

On Sunday afternoon I played in my first-ever footy match. It was my dorm (Roberts Hall) vs Richo (Richardson Hall), and we came out on top by a slim margin of 3 points. It was on the same footy oval that I played frisbee on on Friday, and it was a whole lot muddier. As in 2-3 inches deep over most of the field, it was great getting fun getting all muddy and tackling people in the muck, hehe. Let’s just say that after both frisbee and footy, my running shoes will have a tough time ever being white again, hehe. Sunday evening I checked out Monash Bible Talks, which is another activity sponsored by Christian Union. After having supper together we had a house-church service at Rob’s house. It felt almost just like home, since my family’s involved in two house churches back home. On both Tuesday & Wednesday nights I was also at Rob’s house with a bunch of other CU people, to hang out, play games, and also listen to a guest speaker from Sydney on Wednesday night (last night). And this coming Saturday, CU is organizing a “Snow Day” up at Lake Mountain (a couple hours northeast of Melbourne), for some fun tobogganing and snowball fights. Snow in August, what a strange thought…

I’ve spent much of the afternoon and evening so far trying to find the cheapest way to travel to a few places. My friend Rich from back in Cumberland is also studying in Australia this semester, at Southern Cross University in Lismore (about three hours south of Brisbane). We’re trying to arrange to meet up in Cairns during spring break (27th Sep to 1st Oct for both of us), but I’m finding that it’s gonna be a bit more expensive just to get there than I’d originally thought. Right now I’m trying to decide between flying up there, or taking 2-3 days to go up by bus and actually see a bunch of the countryside. Seeing the Great Barrier Reef is one of my definite “must-sees” while I’m here in Australia, so I’m gonna go for it anyway. I’m going to try to persuade Rich and his other UW-Eau Claire friends to swing down to the Whitsunday Islands, because they have better beaches than Cairns, plus you can learn to sail there, in addition to snorkeling at the Reef! And it’ll probably be a bit less crowded than Cairns too. Hopefully I can get my spring break plans finalized within a week, as prices will only go up as we get closer to break. I’ve heard that the weather back in Minnesota this week has been a bit chilly and autumn-like. It’s been fun telling the Aussies that while it’s mid-winter and in the mid-50s here in Melbourne (which most of the locals still think is pretty cold), it’s mid-summer back home and the same temperature this week! I’m probably not doing much to inspire tourism to Minnesota and Wisconsin amongst the locals, hehe.

Today’s Aussie culture lesson is actually about cuisine. I’ve discovered that it’s popular down here to get hamburgers with “the lot.” It’s similar to getting “the works” back in the States, only “the lot” includes a lot more: beet, egg, carrot shavings and pineapple, in addition to the usual bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion, tomato sauce and mustard. Now, the thought of beetroot, an egg and pineapple on a hamburger might sound a bit dodgy, and I’ll be the first to admit that I was a bit skeptical. But it’s amazingly delicious! Beets, carrots, and pineapple make their way into a surprising number of sandwiches down here. Seriously, I might become addicted to “the lot” while I’m down here, and then go into some serious withdrawal when I go back to the States. And on a related note, it might seem like Aussie tomato sauce is equivalent to American ketchup, but it most certainly isn’t. Tomato sauce is good, although a little sweeter than ketchup. Most Aussies that have tasted ketchup in America or other parts of the world actually can’t stand the taste of it. And they’re appalled that Americans could even think about putting maple syrup on french toast. So what do Aussies put on it? You guessed it, tomato sauce. I really don’t understand that one. But don’t understand why Americans can stand peanut butter & jam together on the same piece of bread, so I guess it’s even. There are quite a few other culinary curiosities that I could list, but I figure that that’ll give you at least a taste-test of some of the differences between American & Aussie cuisine.