Ultra-Adventure in Queensland -- Spring Break 2010! -- PART 1

So this is the blog that I have been waiting to publish for about a while now.  For Easter break off from Uni, my friends and I planned the most EPIC adventure up through Queensland.  For this phenomenal 9-day trip, I channelled my inner adrenaline junkie as every day was literally an wild and crazy whirlwind adventure.

AIRLIE BEACH

Day 1:

The first leg of our trip was to fly into Airlie Beach on the coast, where our Whitsunday Islands sailing trip would embark from the next day. We were way amped!  Upon our arrival, we were greeted with angry windstorms and pouring rain.  At this point, our hype and excitement took a back seat as we grabbed our soaking wet baggage and listened to our sarcastic bus driver joke about how we had poorly chosen to come during Queensland's rainy season.  Debbie Downer himself also mentioned that it was also their stinger (jellyfish) season and that their beaches were ridden with salt-water crocs.  At this point we were nervous as to how our adventurous spring break would unfold.

Luckily, the rain calmed down for our first night in Airlie.  We stayed at Beaches hostel, which is known for its young backpacker atmosphere and base-bumping dance parties.  Airlie Beach was literally a street long and consisted of sailing companies, hostels, and of course a "Mackah's" (McDonald's).  After checking in with our travel agent for our sailing trip, we enjoyed many of the wild street performers and sights in Airlie. This included a scary tree woman mime, drunk Cookie Monster and Elmo, and even a suitcase jam-packed with boxed wine (or "goon" as the Aussie's call it) [See right]. We started off our night by checking in with our travel agent for our boat trip, and soon after we hit up the nightlife.  The rains were gone and the beach lit up.  We tore up the dance floor and celebrated being young adventurers.  We found a solution to the lack of beaches that night, but swimming in the manmade lagoon just across the street from our hotel.  Chicken fights, games of keep-away, and high fives were aplenty there.  Once the lagoon closed, we decided not to waste a moment and went right back to the dance floor in our swimsuits.  It was an excellent first night, filled with great music, great dance moves (not as great as Pete Galante's though), and great friends.  The night came to an end as we fell asleep in our creaky hostel beds.

WHITSUNDAY ISLANDS

Day 2: 

After spending a relaxing morning hanging by the lagoon and feeding potato cakes to   tropical birds in trees, we met the crew that would man our sailboat throughout the Whitsunday voyage.  Our lively crew consisted of Skipper Greg, Deckhand (or "dickhead" if you have a New Zealand accent) Phil, and two Aussie girl cooks.  Our stylish boat was named Habibi -- not to be confused with the hookah bar in Westwood.  What was interesting was that there was a strict no shoes rule, so we would be barefoot for the next three days.  Also, they had encouraged travelers to BYO (bring your own).  Considering we were college students on spring break in Australian islands, let's just say we came will prepared with "our own."

In no time we were way, way, way out to see after setting sail, and many of the travelers wasted little time before digging into "our own."  It was really awesome chatting with all of the other people aboard.  I met two cool blokes from Germany traveling on an 4-month adventure, a super smart and successful couple from the Midwest, fun explorer girls form England and Canada, and another small group of American exchange students.  That night the cooks served us a traditional Australian "barbie" (BBQ) of steak, sausages, and veggies.   It was so awesome, and it was really great to eat food that did not come from a college kitchen.

Now the sleeping arrangement is where it gets really interesting.  They had a few small rooms with bunks for about 3-4 people, but that did not accommodate everyone.  Everyone, except for six of us Americans, was called to sleep in one of those small bed cubbies.  Me and 5 other girls were directed to the "party room," the crew called it.  Basically, the party room was a GIGANTIC bed located at stern of the ship.  What a joke! We were dying of laughter at the ridiculousness that was the party room, and it was actually a pretty comfortable bed.

Day 3:

Whitehaven Beach: The skipper woke us up at the crack of dawn, painfully reminding us that we needed to get up to enjoy the day and that we had the rest of our lives to sleep in.  We all tiredly dragged out feet up the steep ladder to the deck, and were greeted with phenomenal clear skies and sunshine.  Of coure, this quickly snapped us out of our sluggishness.  It was beautiful and so awesome to overcome wrath of Queensland’s rainy season, even if only for a short time.  We spent the morning hanging, tanning, playing catch, burying people in the sand, and swimming at WHITEHAVEN BEACh.  Crystal clear waters and super smooth sands made up this paradise.  According to the skipper, the silky sands are made of a majority of silica, which comes from the defecation of fish that eat the reef.  He then continued by informing the girls that the smooth silica sand would be great for exfoliating the skin – although I don’t think any of the girls scurried off to give themselves a silica facial after learning about its source.  Now I’ve got to talk about our trendy stinger suits.  In addition to protecting us from pesky jellyfish, these spandex bodysuits were also great for performing various forms of acrobatics and aerobics (see left).  I accredit these luxurious pieces of water-wear for the fact that I can now hold a handstand for over 20 seconds.  All in all, the beautiful Whitehaven might almost beat Thailand’s Ko Phi Phi for the most incredible beach in my book.  It was totally unreal.

After Whitehaven and a bit of tea and biscuits (cookies), we sailed over to Hook Island, where we finally got to snorkel over some reef.  We went to two different snorkeling sights.  On the first one, we had fun donning our super cool stinger suits again, but this time with snorkels and fins too.   We spent about an hour checking out the radiant sea life.  Giant schools of fish would often startle us and you knew when they were coming, as people nearby would start screaming and flailing like wild baboons.  So funny!  The second snorkel sight was PHENOMENAL!  We were just hanging and observing the little tiny fish, when our deckhand Phil came over in a dinghy and started throwing turkey cold cuts into the water.  We were confused at first, but soon there were ENORMOUS fish swimming to the surface to dine on the meat.  Literally, they were like the size of a large microwave!  Phil told us to chill out and introduced us to his fish comrades.  First up were Elvis and his girlfriend Delilah (see right).  Elvis and Delilah were a enormous green fish, called Giant Maori Wrasses, that were super slimy and soft to the touch.  There was also the more intense-looking, darker, and sharp-finned Rufus.  Scary Rufus would often startle us, as he’d quickly dart through our group.  I have never been in the water with such monstrous fish and it was an extraordinary experience!

That night we played some interesting dinner games on the boat such as Bite the Box and the Awesome Foursome.  I cannot even do these games justice in description so you'll have to imagine those ones on your own.  We also learned how to speak Kiwi from our cook, Mel.  Now here's your lesson.  For the words "bid" and "bed" are switched in NZ language.  Also, "six" and "sex" are switched in Kiwi tongue.  Lastly ad most importantly, they do not eat "fish and chips," but rather "fush and chups" instead.  Hope you enjoyed that lesson!  To end the night, the Aussies taught us the popular Bushnut dance—check out the link below to learn this commonly known Aussie jig.  Also, the 4 of us Mary's kids performed our fresher dance on the bow hangout area of the ship.  Such good times and great memories!  It was an epic last night in the Whitsundays!

Nutbush Dance -- Best I could find on YouTube

Stay tuned for the next part of my tremendous Easter Break adventures through Queensland!

A Few Words on College Life and Australian Uni

So as I have been documenting my travels throughout Southeast Asia and Australia, I figured that I would take a moment to shed light upon the experience that I have been having at my home-base at St. Mary's College and the University of Melbourne.

ST. MARY'S

One of the best decisions that I have made in this whole going abroad process was definitely choosing to live in one of the residential colleges at the University of Melbourne.  This not only granted me the ultimate welcome experience during O-Week and super fun turns, but there are also many more experiences that are very particular to living in a college as opposed to an apartment complex.  

Robing up and Meals

Meals at Mary's really enhance the community experience in the college.  Every meal of the week runs on a schedule and it is awesome for everyone to get together and catch up.  Also, the students and faculty have special about three times weekly where we wear our black academic gowns, or "Accys."  These dinners take place on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights.  This may sound ridiculously similar to a little franchise called Harry Potter where student wizards constantly dawn black cloaks for meals and classes at Hogwarts, but it is actually pretty fun.  It was a bit hard to take the these dinners seriously at first, as we cracked all kinds of jokes and even played some Harry Potter tag throughout the hallways.  However, robing up for dinners surprisingly soon became like second nature and normal believe it or not.

On the Tuesday and Thursday Accy nights, we have what is called High Table.  At High Table dinners, the faculty sits at a higher table and there are various forms of fun entertainment such as  guest speakers, student singers, and performers.  I really appreciate these frequent cloak dinners because it unites everyone at the college and totally structures our week.  Who else gets to have Harry Potter-style dinners in their lives?  It is such an awesome culture!

Work Scheme or Work Scum?

This is one of the parts that I did not recall reading about before coming to Mary's.  At the beginning of the semester, every student was asked to submit their weekly availabilities for Work Scheme.  Here is our college Handbooks portion that defines Work Scheme:

"WORK SCHEME 

Each student is required to contribute up to two hours each week to the Student Work Scheme which assists the College to contain fee increases. Students are responsible for co-operating whole-heartedly with the organisers of the Work Scheme and fulfilling the work assigned to them or if unavailable to arrange to swap with another student. "

Work Scheme is really not as bad as it seems, and it is one of the reasons that St. Mary's is one of the less expensive Colleges on the College Crescent.  Although it often feels like a drag, it too is slowly becoming part of the routine of living at Mary's.


Foods

I have definitely noticed differences in common foods since coming to Oz.  One of the major ones is Sweet Chili sauce.  This sauce is a tangy yet zesty condiment that can pretty much go on anything here in Australia (think the equivalent to American ketchup or "tomato sauce").  The BEST thing I have eaten with Sweet Chili sauce has been over seasoned potato wedges with sour cream.  Another food that is very common in Mary's is cordial.  Now I had never heard the word "cordial" before in my life, but I have definitely learned to, not necessarily like, but accept it.  Cordial is a concentrated sugar syrup that you mix with water to produce a cheap and easy-to-make "juice"-like drink.  I learned this simple recipe after filling a jug with straight cordial concentrate and serving it to a table at lunch... Oops! It's not a personal favorite of mine, but I have gotten used to it here at Mary's.  Another common snack food here is meat pies.  These things are NASTY! I am uncertain as to what they put in these things in addition to meat, but whatever it is oozes purple from your mouth after the first bite. That's an Aussie food that I often pass on haha. 

PUTTING THE "UNI" IN UNIVERSITY

"Uni" is the abbreviation here for University-- if you haven't noticed from my lingo descriptions in previous posts, Australians love to summarize their common jargon.  After many questions regarding the differences in University life between the states and here, I have discovered that there is not really too much to say.  FYI, the classes I am in are "Global Marketing," "Brand Management," "Business in Asia," and my personal favorite"Australia Now."

They have a different marking system which includes H1's, H2's, H3's and other random letters; but the fundamentals are all pretty similar.  The business school here is super modern and and exciting.  The building where I have most classes is called The Spot because it has tons of spots all over it, resembling a metallic leopard-speckled cube.  I often spend time in there at a modern cafe, quickly cramming before tutorials.  Oh yeah, for each class you have one 2-hour lecture a week plus a 1-hour tutorial.  What is different here is that we often have TWO 2-hour lectures in the states, so there is a little more free time during the week at Melbourne which is excellent! 

Class sizes certainly vary.  Most of my commerce classes are pretty small, but my Australia Now class is HUGE!  This class is filled much like a GE at USC, but it is definitely my coolest class here.  We have learned so much about the brief Australian history including topics such as politics, Indigenous Australia, religion, sports, music and cinema.  Who knew that Australia was first colonized by Britain a prisoner retention base? Wild...

St. Mary's is Bulletproof-- Fresher Dance Off Champs 2010

So as I mentioned, I was chosen from the many students of St. Mary's to compete in the inter-collegiate competition, The Fresher Dance Off.  That's right! Believe it or not I, of all people, was chosen to represent my college in a super intense battle royale.  Basically, every college teaches their new members an obnoxious dance to a currently popular song.  Ours was to "Bulletproof" by La Roux.

After weeks of painstakingly early practice, the day finally came.  The entire day of the competition was spent alternating between intense practice and making our costumes.  By the way, our costumes sick!   They costumes consisted of tights (blue for guys, red for girls), white sneakers, Hawaiian lei wristbands, facepaint Superhero masks (red for guys, blue for girls),  and flouro yellow tank tops with hoods sewn onto them by our awesome choreographer and dance team member, Dela. Oh yeah and for out bottoms, we wore granny panties because they came in cheap packs of 3 for $10 and they looked just smashing!

When we arrived to the venue, we had time for one stage rehearsal and a casual team beer.  The butterflies definitely kicked in when they called St. Mary's "on deck" and we anxiously waited backstage to go on.  By the way, our glamourous performer's dressing room backsatge was an old converted bathroom backstage.  Anyways when the team before us wrapped up, there was no more time for butterflies or anxiety.  We took the stage proudly and were amped to showcase our fancy footwork and hard-hitting rhythm.  The feeling of being on stage was completely surreal and amazing.  The best part was that we did not really change much of the dance from what we learned during O-week.  Because of this, the rest of Mary's was able to mirror our dance moves in the audience, which was way awesome! We felt like superstars jamming on stage! Haha

Anyways, the video pretty much sums up our phenomenal performance that won us the title of FRESHER DANCE CHAMPS 2010!! Check it out!

If you have trouble viewing it or want to see it in bigger and better quality, here is the link:

Fresher Dance

Also, here is a fan video that was sent to me by none other than the infamous Pete Galante.  Enjoy!

Fed Square, Graffiti, and Roommate in Melbourne

Directly upon my return from Sydney, my buddy Danny came to visit Melbourne.  Besides seeing him in Sydney, it had been about a full month since we both parted ways at the airport in Thailand. Needless to say, it was time to do some epic sightseeing and super fun nights out in the city. 

When Danny first arrived, we decided to go do some sightseeing.   Starting off, we went to Federation Square to check out some happening film-related exhibitions.  My favorite was an ultra-interactive exhibition called Screen Worlds.  There, we saw the full historical scope of motion pictures from the earliest pieces of movie machinery to wild upcoming forms of hyper-experience entertainment.  Who would of thought that Chinese shadow plays and magic lantern shows from the Roman Renaissance would be considered the earliest forms of cinema? Next, there was a section entitled Voices that showed the Austtralians have contributed to the moving image.  Sensation was by far the coolest part of the exhibition because they had an array of displays that put you into sensory overload like a Matrix-like multi-camera room that filmed a 360 degree video clip of us jumping and waving like wild animals (that was hard to explain).  We killed about and hour there and then moved on to check out the elaborate downtown alleyways.

Let me start by saying that Australia does graffiti right. .  In terms of legalities, graffiti is shockingly legal to certain degree here; however, these were not just your typical amateur thugs that sloppily stained their names throughout downtown.  These alleyways were true exhibitions of modern artists’ vibrant creativity and imagination. I have a full photo compilation of us taking edgy pictures with this graffiti—it was way, way, way awesome.  Images of hip-hop doughnuts, psychedelic ponies and Indian elephant gods were to be seen.  I have admittedly been back heaps of times since. J

Danny and I also went to check out and Australian Rules Football match, or “footy” as the locals refer to it as.  This was an awesome experience because footy is the ultimate favorite of the Aussies.  I would say this game is like a bunch of different sports mashed up into one.  The ultra athletic players attacked the ball with powerful soccer kicks, volleyball-like passes, and American Football (or “gridiron) goal-scoring.  Although Danny and I had no idea what was going on for the most part, we just enjoyed eating meat pies and chips and rooting (or “barracking”) for our teams.  I was recruited early on to root for the St. Kilda Saints and Danny barracked for the Western Bulldogs.  We had a blast.

To wrap up Danny’s visit, we explored the downtown nightlife.  Admittedly, I had not yet ventured past the local Uni pubs, so this was definitely one of the more extreme times going out out.  We saw the awesome Melbourne city skyline at Rooftop Bar, caught up, danced with some fellow Trojans at Revelers Bar, and partied all through the chain of clubs at Brunswick Street.  Needless to say it was a wild and crazy few nights, but it was definitely filled with some good times to remember.  Danny ended up catching his red-eye flight back to the states after a late, sleepless night out in the city.  Literally, his alarm went off as we were walking back to Saint Mary’s, so he had to quickly pack and catch a cab at 4 AM.  A funny little bit, is that he accidentally packed a pair of my jeans in his suitcase. When he mailed them back, we had to employ one of the cheesiest jokes ever… “Brotherhood of the traveling pants.”

Sightseeing in Sydney

So, still trying to catch up on my blogging entries.  Now, I have finally gotten to the part where Nicholas C. Galante goes to explore the city of Sydney.

The whole trip got off to a wild start.  The night before our plane left, St. Mary’s College had a Color Turn (a turn is a St. Mary’s only party).  This turn required all fresher to wear white, 2^nd years to wear red, and third years to wear blue; which surprisingly enough are the three colors of St. Mary’s.  I donned a killer white ski vest with some white short shorts and tube socks.  Anyhow, this turn was way fun and we celebrated late into the night…later than we had expected considering that our flight was scheduled to leave at 6AM.  Luckily, I had prepared by setting 3 alarms that shocked us into consciousness at 4:30AM so we could pack and catch a cab.  We arrived to the airport just in time to hear that they had cancelled out flight.  Because we were so tired, we were pretty neutral on the matter and decided to cozy up on the floors of our new terminal gate and took a two-hour nap.  So classy! What were we really going to do in Sydney at 7:30AM anyways, right?

Sydney Harbor

We literally hit the ground running after our plane landed.  We dropped off our things at the hostel we were to stay at and ventured off to explore the harbor.  The concrete footpaths of the harbor were cluttered with tons of people, and ther were many wild sights to check out.  We jammed with a few body-painted, loincloth-wearing, didgeridoo-playing Aboriginal street performers, and later set off to conquer the Sydney Opera House.  The opera house was just like it had appeared in many esteemed films such as Finding Nemo.  I thought it was awesome; totally a piece of architectural candy.  We took all kinds of touristy photos in front of it and even considered grabbing tickets to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  We then cruised over to take on the epic stretch of road and steel arches that is the Sydney Harbor Bridge. According to The Guinness Book of World Records, it’s like the widest long-span bridge or something…crazy!  We successfully walked over the bridge and feasted our eyes on the most epic view of the harbor.  Later we went back to our hostel, where we barbequed up some burgers and enjoyed heaps of bats sailing through the sky. 

After drinking a bit of boxed wine, we set out for a night of adventure.  An awesome coincidence was that my roommate Danny, who I had traveled with throughout Southeast Asia, was in town.  We met up with him and began an epic bar crawl downtown.  It was honestly kind of strange to see Danny, but before we could really catch up, he got punched in face by a local—total buzzkill!  Anyways, after we had bought a pack of iced peas to stop the swelling on his eye, we hit up some really fun bars and danced the night away at a club called The Gaff.  It was a blast!

Blue Mountains

For our second day in Sydney, we purchased a Blue Mountain bus tour package. The tour kicked off with a visit to the Featherdale Wildlife Park, where we got to cuddle koalas, lounge with some kangaroos and even witness a crocodile feeding.  The koalas were way cuddly and cute, but I still managed to have an allergic reaction.  Little known fact, koalas are constantly on a high due to their constant nibbling of bamboo—so funny!  We also got watch our tour guide throw a real—life boomerang.  We also hit up some sights such as the Three Sisters, huge waterfalls, and other mountainous sights.  For the majority of this part, we couldn’t see the sights due to the barriers of fog and mist – we still took tons of touristy pics and laughed it off.  The tour ended with a trip to Sydney’s oldest candy shop, a visit to the Sydney Olympic Park, and a boat cruise through the Sydney Harbor.  Such an kickass tour! Once we arrived back in the harbor, we ate at a little Italian place at The Rocks, where I later learned had once been dines at by my parents years before.  Another crazy coincidence!