Our whole program went to Melbourne for a class field trip, so the bus picked us up from the UniLodge where the internship people live at 9:15 and we were off. I've never had an easier time getting into an airport. I didn't have to show my ID once (although that may have been because we were a part of a group, and they got our boarding passes for us), and I didn't even have to show my boarding pass to get through security. In Australia, you can still go into the terminal even if you're not flying - so you can meet people at the gates, like old times in the US. You can also bring liquids through - water bottles, shampoos, lotions. They don't care. It's great. And, i forgot to take my phone out of my pocket before walking through the metal detector - it didn't even beep. Such a different world over here. So, after breezing through security, we found our gate and had a little bit of time before boarding to relax. The flight to Melbourne is only about an hour - they brought us drinks and cookies, and before we knew it, we were landing in Melbourne. The bus brought us to the UniLodge Melbourne, where we stayed for our 3 nights there, and Pascal (one of our program directors) gave us a brief tour of the city. Melbourne is a great city, more European than Sydney, and the architecture is so cool!! There are so many awesome buildings, and they have these great trams, kind of like the streetcars in San Francisco that run along the Embarcadero. The city is based on a grid, which makes it really easy to find everything, and there are lots of hidden treasures in the laneways and alleyways off the main streets. After our tour, my roommates and I then did a bit of shopping - Sammy and I and three of the other few Jews in the program were planning on going to services for Yom Kippur Sunday night and Monday during the day and I stupidly only brought one temple outfit, despite knowing we were planning on going both days. So we set off with the goal of finding me something nice to wear to temple, and though we did have quite a few misses, we finally found this little store that looked rather sketchy but boasted cheap prices. So we decided to check it out - it was actually pretty cool! They did have a lot of crazy stuff, but they also had some really cute stuff, too, and for good prices. So I found a great dress to wear to temple (and a really cute skirt), and got home just in time to change and make it to our pre-fasting last meal. We went to an Italian restaurant called the Spaghetti Tree, which turned out to be really good! Our waitress was really funny and nice, which is just the norm here, as people don't tip in Australia. I had the lasagna, which was fantastic, and very filling. We finished just in time for sundown, and hopped on the tram to get to St. Kilda, one of Melbourne's suburbs, where the temple was. The temple we went to for Rosh Hashana recommended this temple to us, and it was great! At the end of Sunday night's services, the president of the congregation (an American, actually) went up to the Bima, saying that he heard there were Uni students from Boston in attendance, and asking us to come up to the bima to arrange someplace for us to break fast the next night. So we went up, and both the president and the founder of the synagogue offered to have us over - since there were 5 of us, we agreed to split up. We were so excited by their hospitality!! Perhaps the thought of a nice home-cooked break-fast meal made Monday's fast one of the easiest Yom Kippur fasts I've ever had. Monday morning, we got up and went to morning services, which were very nice. During the break between morning and afternoon services, four of us went to see the Dali exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria, which was fantastic. We had to wait in line for 20 minutes to get in, and it was very very crowded while we were there. But the art was really cool, and they also showed "Destino," a short film made by Dali and Walt Disney - it was fantastic. We also found out that in one of his painting, Dali used an octopus to create texture on the canvas - very interesting. We made it back to temple for the last two hours of the service, and were very relieved to hear the final shofar blow, indicating the end of the fast! Right before that last shofar blast, however, they had a havdala ceremony where all the children walked up with multi-colored electronic candles - it was so cute! The synagogue had biscuits (or bikkies, as they say - it's what they call cookies) and soda water to break the fast, and then Sammy and I are our friend Ariel went with the president of the synagogue and his wife to their home for break fast. The whole evening was so nice. They had a beautiful home, and two very cute dogs. Their youngest daughter (though older than we are) joined us for Break Fast, and the food was delicious. We had homemade bread, vegetable soup, and blueberry blintzes. His wife also made an apple crisp for dessert, which she served with ice cream, of course. It was fantastic, and it was so nice to be in someone's home and eat a home-cooked meal. The conversation was great as well - they were all such nice people and it was just great to have somewhere to go and someone to be with on the holiday, a time when we are usually with family.
The next day, half our group went on a tour of the Great Ocean Road, which was fantastic. We found a great belgian waffle stand around the corner from the UniLodge for breakfast before we boarded the bus at 8 am - I got mine with strawberries and chocolate, and it was delicious. We had an awesome tour guide on our bus, Mac, who was hilarious and fun and gave us lots of great photo ops and advice on where to eat and what to do when we stopped. The great ocean road is quite like the Pacific Coast Highway - it's a stretch of highway right along the southeast coast of Australia, and it's absolutely gorgeous. Our tour was essentially a day long bus ride, but we were able to get out, walk around, and take pictures along the way. We got to walk along some gorgeous beaches, and the view was just stunning. We stopped for lunch in a cute beach town, where we got fish and chips made with shark, which was actually pretty good! The highlight of the trip were the 12 Apostles, which are sandstone formations that have become separated from the coast. They are absolutely breathtaking. There are no longer 12 of them, in fact, I don't think there actually ever were. But they are certainly a feat of nature - you can see the lines of where the sea level used to be, and the parts that are still eroding. I heard from someone that they actually might not be there in 10 years, although Mac didn't say anything about that, so that might just have been hearsay. We also saw some of the named formations, like London Bridge, a part of which, ironically, actually fell about 20 years ago. Mac also brought us to one of the formations that was off to beaten path - we had to go down a sketchy dirt road to get there. But it was so cool! It was called the Baker's Oven, because there was a hole in the rock in the shape of a semicircle - it kind of looked like a pizza oven. Mac said it was actually so big that a bus could fit in it! The coolest part was that the waves would crash right at the hole, causing the water to go through and form a waterfall on the other side. It was so awesome. We also stopped at Loch Ard Gorge, a beautiful little hollow cleared out over the years by the water, where the Loch Ard ship crashed in the late 1800s. There was this little cave off to the side that I didn't go in because the tide was coming up and the waves were HUGE, but the beach was gorgeous, and there were all these cool stalactites hanging down from the walls of the gorge. It was awesome. And we stopped at a tourist park that had koalas living in the trees - they were so cute! We also did a rainforest walk, which was awesome. I took a ton of pictures, but none of them seemed to do justice to the beautiful coastline. We didn't get back to Melbourne until ten pm, but it was our last night in Melbourne, so we decided to get out and try to see the nightlife. Being a Tuesday night, there wasn't too much going on. We went over to the Croft Institute, a sketchy bar down one of the many graffiti covered alleyways in Melbourne (although the graffiti in Melbourne is awesome and artful, as opposed to offensive and rude). Inside, the Croft Institute is decorated like a mental institution - with lab tables, beakers and test tubes on the wall, and they even serve shots in syringes - although we didn't stick around for that. The creepiest part was the bathroom - they had a hospital bed up in the bathroom, and it really creeped me out. It was a pretty cool place, but it was pretty much deserted when we were there - it would have been fun to see it on a weekend, when there were more people there. We didn't stay long, but it was cool to see. We ended up wandering across the street to another alley, where we found Eurotrash, a bar/club that played great music. We stayed there for awhile, dancing the night away, which was really fun.
Wednesday I had a field trip for class to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is where the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne were held. On the way over we passed the Rod Laver Arena, where the Australian Open is played. The arena is surrounded by tons of tennis courts - it was pretty cool. We got a very extensive tour of the MCG by one of the members of the Melbourne Cricket Club. We got to see the dressing rooms, go on the field, even go up into the broadcasting booth. At the top of the MCG was a great view of the city skyline, so it was really cool to be up there. Following the tour, we went down to the Sports Museum, which was awesome. We didn't have a lot of time to look around there, so I would love to go back sometime. After talking to Mom today, it seems that I might actually go back to Melbourne with them in December, which I would love. Especially with Yom Kippur taking over Monday, I felt like I didn't get anywhere near enough time in the city. After the sports tour, I went to lunch with our leader, David, who teaches the sports module of our Australian culture class, and one of the guys from the internship program at Stalactites, this great Greek diner. The food was delicious! They also had great Greek beer, which I really enjoyed. After lunch, we went to check out the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, or the ACMI, which was right around the corner from our dorm. It was SO COOL! They had lots of interactive exhibits, like a screen that would animate your silhouette, and a room where they had a rotating sculpture that, with the addition of strobelights, looked like it was animated. It was so awesome. And then, before we even knew it, it was time to go back to Sydney. Our flight was great - they gave us dinner, and complimentary wine or beer! On an hour long flight! I couldn't believe it! I fly from Boston to Oakland all the time, which is a 6 hour flight, and they only give us chips and soda. Go figure. Dinner was chicken and rice - not too shabby. And the wine was quite good, as well! We got home around ten, giving me just enough time to unpack and repack for the Outback, as our flight left the next morning at 6:30 am!
So, Sammy and I caught a taxi at 4:30 in the morning, right back to the airport, to begin our Outback adventure! We actually had a layover in Melbourne (go figure), so we walked through the terminal thinking, wow, we haven't been here in, oh, 12 hours... Though our flight to Melbourne was slightly delayed, so was our flight into Alice Springs, so it turned out to be ok, though we did rush about the airport a bit in a nervous frenzy. Nothing like a little stress to keep you on your toes. However, we made it into Alice Springs just fine, although the end of flight was very bumpy, and a bit nauseating. Coming into Alice Springs, however, was the definition of awesome. Looking out the window and seeing nothing but red sand and spinifex bushes as far as the eye can see is incredible. Even though English is a language with perhaps more superlative adjectives than any other language, I still feel like I'm running out of words with which to describe the things I am doing and seeing. We disembarked the plane right onto the tarmac - the airport was only one story and had only 9 gates, so they pulled the steps up to the plane and we walked on into the terminal. It was incredibly windy in Alice Springs on Thursday - which is probably why the flight was so bumpy. The hostel we were staying at Thursday night had free transportation from the airport, so we had to wait for the bus to fill with other travelers and we got into the hostel around 2. It was pretty nice - we checked in, and our room had 4 sets of bunk beds, and its own bathroom with a shower. We dropped our stuff off and decided to check out the town of Alice Springs, which was certainly an interesting afternoon. First off, Alice Springs is tiny. It's a grid city of about 4 blocks by 4 blocks, and it's not very busy at all. We were on a mission to get a couple of things for our trip: a flashlight (or torch, as they call them here) and water bottles. We walked through some of the malls and found the flashlight easily, and then stumbled upon a small REI type store called the Lone Dingo where we got our water bottles. We also walked up to the top of Anzac Hill, a small hill at the northernmost end of town that offers a great view of the city (town seems to be more fitting a term, as there are no skyscrapers, or any buildings taller than 2 or 3 stories) and the McDonnell mountain ranges - although being a Northern California girl, they weren't really mountains... Though they were pretty cool looking. It was only about a ten minute hike up the hill, but the view was pretty awesome. It started to get even windier as we were up there, though, so we headed back down and wandered the town a little bit more. We found a great Aboriginal Art gallery that we walked through for a while - the Aboriginal art is really cool, I like it a lot, but it's also really expensive. Alice Springs has a large aboriginal population as well, so it was interesting to see so many of them, since not many of them live in Sydney. Though it was certainly an experience walking around Alice Springs, I have to say it's definitely not my favorite Australian city... We grabbed dinner downtown and headed back to the hostel for an early night - our tour left Friday morning at 6:10 am!
After an early wake up call, we boarded our bus Friday morning and met our "family" for the next 3 days. Our tour had 24 people - Sammy and I, seven Germans, three Danes, two Canadians, three people from Hong Kong, four Irish girls, one British girl, two Aussies - and our tour guide, Miles. He was great - although he sure had a lot to say. He was only 22, which was actually younger than most of the people on the tour. He didn't look 22, but he sure acted like he was, which was pretty fun. Once we had all checked in, we piled onto the bus for our very long trek out to Uluru, or Ayers Rock. Our first stop was at a camel farm, where I got to ride a camel!!! It was only about a 5 minute ride, but it was really cool! The hardest part is when the camel gets up and gets down, because it's kind of jerky as they push up off their knees and stand up, and vice versa for sitting down. But it was actually a pretty smooth and comfy ride - and we even got to canter in the last bit - I was bouncing all over the place. It was really fun!! Our camel's name was Mona - she was great. Right before we got to ride, the local news team was actually doing a segment for their morning news, so we got to see the filming of that, which was pretty cool. The guy had an earpiece in and was talking to the main newsroom and everything. It was like a little behind the scenes look at how the news is filmed - how ironic that we got that on our way to the outback! The total drive from Alice Springs out to Uluru is 5 hours, so we made a few more stops in little "towns" that were really nothing more than a gas station, convenience store, and pub. When we finally got out to Uluru, we stopped by our campsite for lunch - sandwiches - and then headed out to hike Kata Tjuta, another rock formation near Uluru. Even though Uluru is the famous one - you've probably never heard of Kata Tjuta, unless you've been there yourself - Kata Tjuta was amazing. Its name means "many heads" - it's a collection of about 36 dome-like rocks, and in Anangu language (the aboriginal tribe that lives in this region of central Australia), their counting system went 1, 2, 3, many, since they had no need to have exact numbers for larger quantities - which is how the name "many heads" came about. We hiked up and around a few of the rocks, which was just mind blowing. The rocks themselves are brilliant - they each have so many different shades of that beautiful red rock, and they are in the coolest shapes. Especially against the incredible blueness of the Australia sky, they are an amazing sight to see. Miles talked to us about the geology of the region and how the rocks formed - the coolest part is that most of the rock is actually underground. After hiking Kata Tjuta, we drove back to Uluru to watch the sunset - I don't know that I've ever seen so many beautiful colors in the sky. The coolest part was seeing Uluru itself change from the bright red color when the sun was shining on it to the more muted orangey color it became once the sun went down. And the rainbow of colors the sunset created behind it were phenomenal as well. It was just gorgeous. We then headed back to camp for dinner (Miles made stir-fry, which was actually really good!) and hanging out around the campfire. We had the choice to either sleep in cabin-like tents or to "swag it" - sleep outside under the stars in a swag, which is a mattress encased in canvas that you put your sleeping bag in and sleep in. A lot of people in our group chose the tents, but I really wanted to try the swag, and Miles also called everyone wimps who were sleeping in the tents. So Sammy and I and about 5 others decided to "rough" it with the swags - it actually ended up being Sammy's favorite part of the trip! It was actually incredibly warm in there - the sleeping bags we rented from the tour company were really nice, too, which helped. But it was awesome to sleep under the stars - even though the moon was full and made it harder to see the stars, they were still amazing.
The next morning we got up at 4:30 so we could make it back to Uluru for the sunrise - and since it was so early, we got to wake up under the stars in addition to going to bed beneath them the night before, which was really cool. We had a quick breakfast of cereal and toast at camp, and piled back onto the bus to get to the sunrise viewing spot. It was packed with tons of other tour groups, as the sunset viewing spot was the night before. It was freezing - perhaps because it was 6 am in the desert, and at first it seemed like it was going to be rather anti-climactic, because it was already relatively bright out before the sun technically rose. But then, all of a sudden, it was like someone had turned the lights on - Uluru became that great red color again, and we knew the sun had risen. It was unreal. We then had the choice of either doing the Uluru base walk - a 10km walk around the whole rock - or the climb, in which you climb to the top. I would have loved to do the climb, however, the Anangu people request that visitors don't climb the rock. Not that that actually stops most people, but I felt it was important to respect their wishes. The base walk was incredibly cool anyways. About every 100 meters or so, the rock face changed, giving way to new formations and patterns, and a lot of the features of the rock had Anangu stories that went along with them, explaining how they got there. One of the coolest things we saw was one of the watering holes, and we happened to get there right as another tour guide was telling a story about Goss, the explorer who was the first European to see Uluru. He found the rock, named it Ayers after his boss, and named the watering hole he found Maggie Springs, after Ayers' daughter Maggie. He was hoping that naming the rock after Ayers would get him on Ayers' good side, and naming the most beautiful spot on the rock after his beautiful daughter would win his favor and would, in turn, win him Maggie's hand in marriage. Alas, when he returned, Maggie had been promised to an Englishman and was on a boat back to the motherland, and so they say Goss left his heart on the rock - right above the watering hole is a heart-shaped imprint in the rock. We really liked that story. But all of the shapes and different colors and such in the rock were absolutely amazing, and though it was a rather long walk, it was well worth it. Miles then took us on the cultural walk, in which we got to see some caves that the aboriginals used to use. One was the waiting cave, in which the elders would send young boys to teach them patience. They would send them there to wait until they returned for them, which could have been hours, days, or even weeks. Their mothers or sisters would bring them food, but they would have to just sit there and wait. The point was to teach them patience for when they are out hunting as men. There was also a cave that was more enclosed, and therefore a bit cooler than the air outside. On really hot days, they would use it as an infirmary for the elderly and sick. There was also a cave used for cooking, and one that they think was used for birthing, although that has not been confirmed. There are also several sacred sites around the rock, where we weren't allowed to take photos. All in all, it was incredible to learn all about the rock, and I think I got a lot more out of it by walking around the whole thing and seeing all the intimate features than I would have by climbing it, anyways. I learned a lot about the Anangu culture, too, which was awesome. After our morning at Uluru, we returned to camp for lunch (sandwiches again) and then headed off for our next leg of the trip, another 3-4 hour drive out to Kings Canyon. We stopped along the way for Milkshakes - although milkshakes in Australia mean flavored milk with a scoop of ice cream and whipped cream on top - Thickshakes are what they call what we think of as milkshakes. I got a coffee one, and it was good anyways. When we got to our Kings Canyon campground, we got settled at camp, and Sammy and I took showers, which felt amazing after 2 days of sitting in a bus and hiking all day. Miles made us spaghetti bolognese for dinner - with a few very interesting secret ingredients, including, if you can believe it, vegemite!! It was delicious though. We also got some time to sit around the fire and talk to the other people on our trip. Everyone was really cool!! Of the Germans, two of them were a couple that were living and working in Sydney (we shared a cab home with them from the airport yesterday), and they were really nice. Three of them were medical students, doing a program in Melbourne, and two of them are actually coming to Sydney next, and are even going to be living in the UniLodge, where the BU Sydney Internship people live! So we'll most likely be seeing them a good deal when they are here, too, which is great. To top that off, one of them is actually going to Boston in April to do a medical program with Harvard and Tufts! What a small world! She was super nice, too, and I look forward to seeing more of her, for sure. The other two Germans were girls who were studying in Melbourne. The three Danish people were a girl, her boyfriend, and his brother. I had never heard Danish spoken before - it's a very interesting language! It sounds kind of slurred, and like nothing I've ever heard before. The Canadians were also a couple, and have been traveling Australia and New Zealand since January! They were really nice, and we ended up spending a lot of time with them. The four Irish girls were awesome too - they'd also been in Australia for about 7 months and had been living and working in Melbourne. They were actually our hostel roommates our first night in Alice Springs. The two Aussies were a couple of girls who were also medical students, from Queensland, and were doing a 5 week program at the hospital in Alice Springs. The day after we got back they actually went out to Western Australia to do check ups for Aboriginal children. They were also really nice. And the British girl was a solo traveler, which I commend her for! I don't think I could ever handle traveling alone. But she was great, as well. And the three people from Hong Kong were super nice, too. One of them had this amazing camera, and was always taking photos, but they actually reflected the amazing things we saw, unlike my crappy little point and shoot. The best part was he had these little plastic m and m figurines that he would take pictures of at all the places he went - which I think is so clever! Basically, to sum that up, we had an awesome group, and we got to meet some awesome people. After our campfire time, we had another early night, in preparation of catching the sunrise on our way up Kings Canyon the next morning...
Sunday (which was the next day) we were out of camp by 5:30 again, and we started our hike up Kings Canyon with Heart Attack Hill - which was a really steep climb for about 1 km. It was really cool though. I was certainly winded by the time I got to the top, but the view was amazing. It was like we were on the edge of a cliff - and we weren't even at the canyon yet! Miles showed us a bunch of cool plants along the walk, and where to take the best pictures of the canyon. We also walked down into the gorge, where we saw the "Garden of Eden" - it's where all the trees and plants grow because they have access to water. We then walked down to a beautiful watering hole - Miles said it was his favorite place in Central Australia - and had some bikkies and just enjoyed the scenery for a bit. The different shades of red on the rocks, the green plants that thrived on the water from the watering hole, and the still pool of water sitting there, waiting for rain to flush it out. We then hiked back up to the top of the canyon. Surrounding the canyon are these incredible rock formations that kind of look like hundreds of beehives - red dome-like shapes that go on as far as the eye can see. So cool. We then got around to the other side of the canyon, from which the view was phenomenal! The hike back down to the car park (which is what Aussies call parking lots) was awesome, too. It was our last of three awesome hikes, and possibly my favorite. It's hard to decide, though, because they were all so cool! We then stopped back at the campsite for chicken burgers for lunch, and then it was time to drive back to Alice Springs - a 5 hour bus ride. I slept for most of it, which was nice, and got back to the hostel with just enough time to shower and change and meet everybody for dinner at another backpacker hostel down the road which had a $5 meal deal for the tour groups. We had one last meal with most of our group and Miles, which was great, and that was it! We flew back to Sydney the next day, which was mostly uneventful, except that I guess we just barely made it into Sydney, as most flights after ours were cancelled due to the wind and rain.
Phew! I commend anyone who read that whole thing. It feels great to have it all written out. I'm far too lazy to proofread it, so I apologize for any type-os or anything I forgot. Let me sum up by saying it was an incredible week, and going to the outback was perhaps my best decision so far on this trip. It was an unforgettable experience that, despite the hundreds of words you have just read about it, was indescribably amazing. Now that I'm back from gallivanting across Australia, I'm reminded that I'm here to teach and study, and I have to buckle down and get a lot of work done - lesson plans and a paper for my class. After my final on Saturday, however, we head off for our last big adventure - a week in Cairns and the Whitsunday islands! So here's to getting all my work done so I can enjoy my last week of relaxation before becoming a real teacher! Miss and love you all!!!
Photos: So... they are a bit out of order. But here's what they are: 1. Some of the twelve apostles 2. the coast along the great ocean road 3. london bridge 4. uluru (and the moon) at sunset 5. kata tjuta 6. our group photo during our hike at kata tjuta 7. sammy and I riding camels 8. alice springs 9. me at the top of king's canyon 10. sammy and I in our swags 11. me at the top of heart attack hill 12. a view of uluru as we walked around it 13. uluru just at sunrise 14. another view of the coast along the great ocean road and 15. me and kaelin at loch ard gorge
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