Remnants from the Sunshine Coast

To tide you over as I reenergize for more major updates, here are a couple final pictures from our time in Caloundra.

Here's the beachside resort we stayed at while in Caloundra.  The windows and balconies of our suites were on the left side of the building, looking out to the ocean about 70 metres away.

Here's the aboriginal guy playing a cool instrument.  For perhaps obvious reasons, this is known as a 'male' instrument.  There are both male and female instruments and tools, classified primarily by shape.

Here's our other Aboriginal guide, who was both very quiet and an excellent dancer.  I like the juxtaposition of Aboriginal tools, instruments, and artwork with modern building, clothes, and coke bottle.

Our fearless leaders, Lyndon and Cam, worked pretty hard at the Australia Zoo.  As six of us wandered, we chanced upon Cam (left, brown shirt) and Lyndon (right, blue shirt) taking a nap in the grass.  The only other time we saw them, they were riding around on the little tram that goes through the park, heading to an area we had just finished which was only a short walk from the rest of the park.  To their credit, they had most likely been up early surfing before the day's program began.

Orientation, round 17

Greetings from Melbourne!

Before we begin today, I'd like to offer a brief weather update.  Though it was sunny and perfect yesterday, it is actually raining as I write.  Yes, it does rain even in Australia.  It was fortunately quite beautiful all day until about two hours ago, neatly coinciding with the time I chose to come inside for the afternoon.

Tons has happened since my last post (1.5 weeks, 1.5 orientations) so I'll try to give a rough overview.

Caloundra remainders:

The surf & beach safety lesson was fabulous.  One of the Kings Beach lifeguards showed us a brief video on surf safety filmed at Bondi (bon-dai) Beach, the popular Australian beach with the most rescues each year.  We learned how to spot a rip tide and what to do if caught in a rip.  We then got to see the standard equipment the guards use at Kings Beach (including jet-ski-like rescue craft) and go up in the lifeguard tower.  The tower is actually a small building with a glass-fronted second floor from which two guards look down at the beach.  Their primary responsibility is the area between the two red-and-yellow flags that mark the swimming zone (rule 1: always swim between the flags), but they also watch further down the beach for surfers, who need to stay away from the swim zone (a blue flag marks the beginning of the designated surfing area).  I got a good sense of the effectiveness of raising your hand if you get caught in a rip upon seeing the view from the tower.  It seems much more sensible when you realize how effectively it would help the guards notice you from that angle.

After our on-land safety lesson, it was time to plunge into the Pacific!  The water was a bit chilly, but it IS the middle of winter.  For the Atlantic, it would have been a warm late-June day.  We practiced dolphin dives to go under waves and running with high knees to get through the shallows quickly.  After pairing up to rescue a buddy with a tube, we learned how to body surf.  Three words: so much fun!  

I was a bit nervous at first, but legitimately so.  The basic idea is that you pick a wave, time your movement so you push off the bottom towards shore to just catch the front of it, then hold a tight streamline as the wave carries you in.  After providing this explanation, one of the two instructing lifeguards showed us his neck scars from having broken his neck engaged in similar activities when he was younger.  I believe this was supposed to stress the importance of keeping your hands out above your head.  It also served to remind us to avoid choosing a wave that would crest as we pushed off, because then you can get dumped straight down rather than surfing in towards shore.

One attempt later, I discovered that a healthy fear is good to have but any other nervousness was completely unwarranted.  Body-surfing is so great!  As you hold tight and kick as hard as you can, the wave carries you into shore.  Suddenly, you're ten metres (more Aussie-ism) from where you started having just rushed through water faster than Ian Thorpe.  Okay, maybe not QUITE as fast as Ian Thorpe, but faster than Johnny Weissmuller, at least.  (JW of course being both the original Tarzan and an Olympic champion freestyler in the 1930s.)  I love how orientation combined information and cultural exposure with interactive fun at every twist and turn.

At the airport:

The next morning (Tuesday 14 July - 8 days ago), we headed to the airport for our flights to Sydney (UNSW - University of New South Wales - kids) and Melbourne (us Melbourne Uni-ers).  We got through security incredibly quickly since it's the most chill process ever.  You get your carry-ons scanned and walk right in, no ticket check or anything.  Since we hadn't had lunch, we enjoyed some delicious Aussie food before boarding our flight to Melbourne.  The flight was smooth and 2.5 hours later we were touching down in our new home city!

An air travel anecdote:

During orientation, we had split up into Melbourne and Sydney groups to learn a bit about our respective cities and unis (that's universities for those of you across the Pacific).  Lyndon, our student coordinator here in Melbourne, told our group to call him 24/7 in the event of an emergency or anytime during the day with whatever issues come up.  Emergencies, he noted, include broken bones and such but not finding a Huntsman spider in your room.  He explained this while showing us a slide of a Huntsman, which is apparently non-venomous but also about the size of a light switch cover, directly after explaining that this was the type of creepy crawly we might find in our room during the semester if we didn't clean up enough.  We all, of course, felt that an in-room Huntsman sighting really should constitute an emergency, even at 3 AM.  The moral, regardless, was that Lyndon is our person to call for help.

Andrew, who is studying at Melbourne but has one music class down the hill at RMIT (the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, which has lots of art and design classes, among other things), had to fly down early because RMIT classes start two weeks before Melbourne ones.  (Our first day of the semester is next Monday.)  While our flight was shortly after noon on Tuesday, he had to leave for the airport around 4:15 AM.  He overslept a bit, but was out with Stewart (another Arcadia person, whom we endlessly quote in his use of the word 'sauna' - Stewart's pronunciation: sah-OOOO-nuh, with the OOOO being louder and higher pitched) by about 4:30.  

In spite of a smooth arrival to the airport, Andrew unfortunately ended up missing his flight.  He had already checked his bags so had a couple of Australian dollars and little else.  He used some of his money to call Lyndon from a pay phone, since none of us had Australian cell phones yet.  Lyndon, our reach-me-anytime contact, did not pick up.  Andrew ended up reaching Vera, who works in the Melbourne Arcadia office, and getting on a later flight, ultimately barely making it to the last part of his class.

Yesterday, we had an enrolment session for classes - all 433 study abroad & exchange students here this semester - after which all of us Arcadia kids were hanging out chatting.  As he'd said he might, Lyndon showed up!  (Exclamation point because we hadn't seen him in a week as he was orienting another group of 80 Arcadians heading elsewhere while we had our first round of Melbourne orientations.)  In the course of the conversation, Andrew asked, "Lyndon, I missed my flight and called you from the airport.  Why didn't you pick up?"  Lyndon's response: "Sorry mate, I was out surfing."

I like the Aussie attitude this story hopefully shares with you.  Everything will, people figure, work out.  Go surf, party, have fun and get your work done in the interim.  As they say here, "No worries, she'll be right."

Next time: into the city!

Welcome to Australia

Specifically, welcome to the Sunshine Coast.  Until tomorrow, I'll be here in warm Caloundra (cull-AOUN-druh), about an hour north of Brisbane on the east coast of Australia.  As it is the middle of winter on this part of the planet, the weather is high 70s and sunny.

We arrived in Australia around 5:30 AM on Saturday after a 14-hour flight from Los Angeles.  I was fortunate to overhear a couple of people talking about Arcadia in the airport terminal at our gate, so got to talk to some fellow study abroad travellers before it started.  This included a guy who was sitting in the row behind me and agreed to trade his aisle seat for my window seat.  His beneficience made the flight infinitely more wonderful.  It was still very long.

Though the flight was a group flight, we weren't all seated together so I didn't get to meet other Arcadia-study-abroaders until we landed in Brisbane.  A few of us found each other and waited for luggage together then cleared customs and met up with the rest of the group.  Cam, one of our fearless leaders, met us at the airport with a smile and a great accent.  We met Lyndon, our other fearless leader, a few minutes later.

We had to wait about 30 minutes for our bus, but dropped half of our bags with the storage company which will be watching them until tomorrow then got to meet lots of people.  (It's times like this that I'm glad I'm fairly good with names.)  We then hopped on our bus and drove to Caloundra.  The day was filled with fun activities like Vegemite tasting in town (much better than I'd remembered it from camp), playing cricket on the beach before dinner (a delicious 'bundle' of fish and chips), and Australia trivia designed to keep us awake long enough to start getting on the right time zone.  We also had a couple of information sessions, but they keep them short and painless, which is wonderful.  (This morning, Stewart not only did not read slides aloud, deeming them important but obvious, but 

also told us lots of good stories about keeping coal in the bathtub of the Scottish hovel in which he grew up and such.)

Thanks to jetlag, I woke up early on Sunday (I thought 7 AM breakfast would be hideously early, but many of us were up by 6:15 or even much earlier) and got to see the sun rise over the Pacific.  I took this sunrise picture on the beach about 30 meters outside of our resort hotel.

In the afternoon, we went to the Australia Zoo, which was owned 

by Steve and Terri Irwin.  We took a zoo bus over which had 'Crikey' in big letters on the side with a picture of Steve, the infamous Crocodile Hunter, holding some dangerous animal in an enthusiastic manner.  I was thinking, "Oh zoo, cool," but thought it might be rather low-key as I'd seen most of the animals before.  We got to do lots of fun new things though.

I saw cassowaries wandering around, enclosed but not separated off by glass or big fences.  They have beautiful necks, a patchwork of vibrant blues, greens, reds, and oranges.  This one, viewed from above, is displaying his lovely curl on top of his head.

I got to pat a koala.

They had a big kangaroo enclosure, where we could wander around with and feed the kangaroos.  Here I am offering a kangaroo some tasty food pellets.

A group of us wandered through the zoo together.  (In total, there are about 30 of us here in Caloundra for training, all headed to U. of Melbourne or UNSW - University of New South Wales - outside Sydney as other Arcadia schools have their orientations on other weekends depending on when school starts.)  Here we are with a kangaroo (L to R: me, Sophia, Kristen, Mendissa, Sophie, and Cassandra (my future UC - University College - roomie)).

Today has been another laid-back day thus far.  After another sunrise (possibly my last in my time here, especially as it will only get earlier as we move into summer) and breakfast, we had an information session on culture and safety followed by a great couple of hours learning from an Aboriginal guy who lives in the area.  He and another guy showed us some Aboriginal dances and we learned a few cool terms.  For your edification, 'wanye' (WAN-yuh) means welcome in Gubbi Gubbi (GUH-bee GUH-bee), the area Aboriginal language.  (There are over 600 different Aboriginal languages across Australia.)  It functions rather like 'aloha' in that it can also mean goodbye.

We also got to see him play a really cool musical instrument which they create by testing small trees for internal termite damage.  He showed us some Aboriginal art and explained the meaning behind the design.  For example, a U-shape represents a person in Outback art, because the U mimics the shape left behind when a person stands up after sitting cross-legged in the sand.  We got to try our hand at spear-throwing and instrument-playing before our lunch break.

This afternoon, we head down to the beach for surf safety with a lifeguard and an opportunity to swim in the Pacific (reminder: yes, it is the middle of winter).  Tomorrow, we fly to Melbourne for three - yes, three - more orientations before we start classes in a couple of weeks.

G'day!