I Think It's Day 8?

Hello from sunny Airlie Beach!

By sunny, I mean vaguely hazy from remnants of the wicked dust storm that hit Sydney two days back (definitely worth taking the two minutes to search google for pictures of Sydney turned red from blown-in outback dust) but also warm and beautiful. Lots has happened since I left Sydney and I'll update accordingly (though still on YHA internet, so it will again be brief due to 15-minute blocks of time being charged to my account).

On Tuesday morning (fairly early), I left Sydney for Brisbane. The flight took about 90 minutes (60 in the air) and I arrived with plenty of the day left. After checking in at the hostel, I spent most of the afternoon wandering down to the CBD and beyond. There's a great pedestrian street in the middle of the CBD lined with shops and restaurants, which I quite enjoyed checking out. Afterwards, I walked down to the botanical gardens and took the path through the gardens along the river. (Like most major Australian cities, Brisbane is centered around a body of water - in this case a nice river much like the Yarra in Melbourne.) In the evening, I joined many fellow hostellers for pizza night (cheap pizza and meeting new people) on the roof of the hostel. Brisbane's hostel is 5 floors and the top floor has outdoor sections where you can sit by the pool or catch great views of the city at night. I made friends with a girl from Germany and three guys from Ireland, Canada, and England whom I sat with for dinner. I went to bed early as a result of having had to get up early for the flight.

Wednesday was my one full day in Brisbane so there was lots to do. In the morning, I rode a CityCat ferry up the river from the botanic gardens all the way to the University of Queensland and back to the CBD, about an hour ride. I love the Brisbane ferry, which operates much like the Melbourne tram system with single ride or daily passes, all the way up to monthly and such for commuters. When I hopped off the ferry at the CBD, again at the bustling pedestrian street, my plan was to get lunch at a cafe along the street before heading across the river to South Bank (creatively named, as in Melbourne). Instead, I found a big weekly farmers' market taking place right at the entrance to the street, so I got to wander through that. A nice unexpected surprise. I ended up with, among other things, some absolutely delicious Greek yogurt.

After the market, I did cross the bridge to South Bank just after the dust storm that had hit Sydney was sweeping into town. It was windy and visibility was reduced to the point that you could barely see the buildings on the other side of the not-too-wide river. Fortunately, my next planned activity was an indoors one. I checked out the hands on ScienceCentre at the Museum of Queensland. There were lots of fun exhibits, including a table and chairs 75% larger than normal ones so adults sitting in them could get the size perspective of a 3-year-old sitting at a table. I also played myself in a very intense game of 4x4x4 3D tic-tac-toe. Blue won. After the ScienceCentre, I decided to stay indoors because the dust was still everywhere outside so I went and watched Funny People at the cinema. I had another early night due to a plane the next morning.

Yesterday (Thursday), I flew from Brisbane to Mackay then took a Greyhound bus up to Airlie Beach. The bus broke down on the side of the road for about an hour due to a blown hose, but my newly-made Canadian friend and I enjoyed sitting on the grass playing with an energetic local puppy named, according to his tag, Minus, so it was all good. During the rest of the bus ride, they showed the movie Hairspray. In the evening, I hung out with Lara, my travel buddy for the rest of break, at the hostel. We made a delicious dinner of veggies, chicken, and rice; it was fun to cook as well as to eat.

Today (Friday) was our big day in Airlie. Airlie Beach is a big tourist destination as a starting point for sailing trips into the Whitsunday Islands (of which there are 74). I went out sailing on a boat called Camira (an aboriginal word meaning 'of the wind'), which fit about 60 people on its roomy outdoor deck. Lara was on a different sailing trip, so I thought I wouldn't know anyone on the boat. As it turned out, six friends from Melbourne, including 3 from my original Melbourne-Welcome orientation group, were on the same boat. I also made a new English friend who joined our group for the day. It was great to have lots of friends on the boat (especially as a fun surprise like that) and we had a fabulous time.

In the morning, we sailed a couple of hours out to the famous Whitehaven Beach, which is 7 kilometers long and comprised of fine white pure silica sand. (I think the actual silica content is about 97%, which is ridiculously high.) We played an intense game of catch in the water, then much of our group played English v. Americans cricket on the beach. (I stuck in the water with a friend since the air now felt cold compared to the lovely amazingness of the water.) Though the English prevailed, I think, the Americans did have a very solid showing. After a delicious lunch on the boat (they also provided both morning and afternoon tea), we sailed a bit further to go snorkelling over coral. I got to see all colors of coral - pink, yellow, white, purple - and all sorts of fish. My favorite was a bluish-purplish-green fish with little blue fins with red centers and a bright yellow tail. I also loved the tiny bright blue fish that were about 1 1/2 inches long. Once we had snorkelled for a solid hour, we returned to the boat for our sail back to Airlie Beach. This evening, Lara and I went to a bar with my new English friend, where we watched the rugby league semi-finals. For anyone interested (and you should be), the finals will be broadcast in the US on Spike TV at 11 AM next Sunday. Definitely worth checking out. The team I was going for won and it was lots of fun to finally get to see a full rugby league game.

Synopsis: Lots and lots of fun and sun and amazingness. Many nice new fellow hosteller friends. Everything is wonderful and happy, which is good.

What's up next? Tomorrow, we board a bus for Townsville, about 5 hours up the coast, where we'll be able to take a ferry out to our hostel on Magnetic Island. The next afternoon, we head to Cairns for what's apparently the best snorkelling ever. So I've been told.

Have fun!

Spring break - Day 4

Greetings!

This will be shorter than last time, because you only get five minutes of my time rather than fifteen (take it up with my email accounts if you wanted more).

Today was wonderful. I took a tour up to the Blue Mountains, which was a lot of fun. I was thinking it might be quiet on a random Monday, but we had a full group of 21 travellers, plus our guide. We walked two trails of about 45 minutes to an hour each and got to see the iconic Three Sisters rock formation and some lovely waterfalls. We walked down into rainforest and took the steepest railway in the world - with an incline up to 52 degrees - back up to the top. For those of you who aren't math nerds, that's real real steep.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Brisbane for more fun in a new city.

Enjoy your day!

Whoo!! Cabo!!

Greetings from sunny Sydney!

Okay, that's a bit of a stretch; it's past 5 PM so really more of a sunset purplish-grey, but it WAS sunny once upon a not-so-distant time. I'm writing this from the Sydney Central YHA (hostel, for those of you who don't speak backpacker), where you're about to get 75 whole cents of my time (75 cents being equivalent to 15 minutes internet-wise). In that time, I'll update you on days 1 through 3 of spring break. (Yes, it is spring here.)

Day 1: On Friday morning, I flew to Sydney after far too little sleep. Fortunately, my ride to the airport was with Arcadia friends Mitch and Mara, both of whom are morning people, so we were all quite talkative and energetic in spite of it being just after 5 AM. The flight was a bit late but generally smooth and I made it to Katie's dorm at UNSW (another Arcadia friend) by about 10. In the afternoon, Katie and I ventured into the city, where we wandered through the botanical gardens for a few hours. The gardens have a harborside path with wonderful views back at the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. We took lots of pictures of the scenery, as well as a few of our shadows dancing and such.

In the evening, we managed to stay up all the way until 9:45 (having both slept not-quite-enough the night before) then got lots of wonderful sleep.

Day 2: Yesterday (Saturday), I met up with Lauren, a camp friend whom I hadn't seen in 3 years, at Circular Quay (where the bridge and opera house are). We took a ferry to Manly, which is about 7 kilometres away. In Manly, we walked along the coast for awhile and looked in lots of the shops along the main street. We enjoyed some delicious ice cream from a shop called Copenhagen, where they'll dip the edge of your cone in chocolate just before filling it and they had free toppings such as nuts and sprinkles which you could add yourself. We also had dinner on the harbour where we could watch the sky change color as the sun set. We took the ferry back in the dark, so the Sydney skyline was all lit up and beautiful.

Upon our return to Sydney, we found a pub where we could watch sports. Lauren's local footy team (footy in Sydney referring to rugby league football, not aussie rules as in Melbourne) was playing Brisbane so I got to watch rugby league for the first time. (Rugby union is the international game, league is an Aussie game which is rather like touch rugby with tackling.) We left before the end so we could head to our respective homes for the night; for me, this entailed taking a bus out to Bondi Beach for my stay at the Bondi Beach YHA.

Day 3: This morning, I woke up at 5:50 AM for some inexplicable reason and decided to go down to the beach (about 10 minutes down the hill) to watch the early-morning surfers for a bit. After that chill time, I had a lovely breakfast of yogurt and muesli (Aussie version of granola) at a cafe across the street from the beach then headed back up to the hostel for a nap before check-out. After I checked out at 10, I walked back down to the beach to spend some time in the sun and enjoy the later-morning busy-ness of Bondi. There were hundreds of people all along the beach and the crowd of surfers 20 meters out had multiplied fivefold. In the afternoon, I took the bus back into the city (Bondi, the closest ocean/surfing beach to the city, is about 30 minutes outside of it) then went to a grocery store for food and made myself a delicious late lunch here at the hostel. While I was dining, there was an announcement over the intercom that there was a Brazilian festival today at Darling Harbour, so I wandered over to that after lunch, stopping by a giant market (Sydney's indoor version of Queen Vic) on the way. Tonight, I meet up with Katie for dinner before lots of rest for a trip up into the Blue Mountains tomorrow.

More later!

Sydney

After my adventures in Adelaide, I headed to Sydney to continue my wanderings. I checked into the Sydney Central hostel on another beautifully sunny afternoon then decided to walk down and see the big sites.

First, I went and checked out Darling Harbour. I sat in the sun and watched a little choo-choo train circle by on its way to the aquarium, much like the one in Look Park at home.

I made it to Circular Quay just in time for sunset. As I walked down to the Harbour, I found the perfect spot to watch both the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

Two nights later, I went with friends to the Australia-New Zealand rugby game. It was one of the best games I've ever watched, finishing 19-18 New Zealand with Australia left on the try line 5 meters from scoring at the final whistle.

The kickers for both teams were amazing. Australia's 18 points all came off penalty kicks; they were a perfect 6 for 6. New Zealand had 4 penalty kicks, but won because they also had one try (and, of course, made the conversion). As usual, there was also a bit of violence. Elegant violence, obviously.

It was a fabulous game, capping off a wonderful trip. After such a busy ten days, it was nice to return to Melbourne to catch up on sleep. And classes, too.

Adelaide

I haven't posted as regularly as perhaps I should recently, but rest assured that it's because my time has been filled with activities of vital importance such as

- watching a free pre-screening of a movie tonight ("(500) Days of Summer") with a friend down on Southbank (that being the south bank of the Yarra River, for those of you not yet hip to the lingo)

- booking hostels and such for spring break, which commences in less than two weeks

- walking all the way to my 9 AM lecture this morning only to find it cancelled for the second week in a row (fortunately, I had NOT walked there to find that out last week) ... proceeding to spend lecture time looking at train routes through New Zealand

- reflecting on the fact that people back home are just starting classes while we're already into week 7 of 12

- sometimes even writing essays on such topics as the Black Death and the perceived 'Americanisation' of Australia

As you see, lots happening, but I still wanted to take a few minutes to share some pictures with you. These ones are from the trip I took to Adelaide back during week 4 of classes (when I went on an Outback trip with Arcadia then headed on to Adelaide then Sydney).

Adelaide is a smaller city than Sydney or Melbourne, with a cool mixture of old and new architecture.

My day there was beautifully sunny with perfect warm spring temperatures. The city has lots of parks which are wonderful for lounging, many of them bordered by classically-inspired buildings such as these.

After touring a chocolate factory in the early afternoon of my first day there (and my wonderful used bookstore stop that morning to pick up some Australian plays (unintended result)), I went and sat by the river. Lots of joggers went by on some sort of active business people running event. This black bird floated over to say hi a couple of times.

All in all, Adelaide is a beautiful city, perfect for a wandering day or two of visits.