The Stuart Highway Roadtrip

The Stuart Highway is a rather large highway that stretcher from the Northern territory to South Australia. My tour went from Darwin at the very top of the Northern Territory to Alice Springs at the very bottom of the northern territory. Our first stop on the tour was at some hotel near Adelaide River for some breakfast. Typically, Australian breakfast sandwich is bacon & egg on toast, but I asked if I could have sausage instead of bacon. I got three big pieces of sausage with egg on toast. IT WAS AWESOME! You’d be exited too if you were an American living here. Anyway, the Bull from Crocodile Dundee was here too. Next was a lot of driving through the tropical landscape.



We stopped at Katherine Gorge to do some hiking. The gorge was beautiful. I took a cruise down the river to see some scared aboriginal area including the resting place of Bulong, the Creator and Destroyer. Bulong is a giant rainbow serpent fyi. I really enjoyed all the aboriginal stories.



Our next stop was camp. Camp was pretty sweet. They had permanent campsite with tents. We ate a good meal and that night played some cards. It was a REALLY great time. It was a good group of people I was traveling with. Three ladies were from Austria and didn’t speak clear English. So it was really interesting communicating with each other to play some card games. For example, we call the cards a “spade,” while they called it “pic.” It was a lot of fun. The best part was the stars. I never seen so many stars in my life. I could in the entire Milky Way and the Southern Cross (like the stars in the Australian flag). It was truly a site to behold. I’ll never forget it.

We were up bright and early next morning. Unfortunately, someone did not turn off the lights over night in the bathroom so in was infested with bugs and frogs. When I went to the toilet, the frogs are just chilling in the toilet bowl and on the flush handle. Well, when you got to go…you got to go! I did not even want to brush my teeth because the amount of bugs were really bad. Literally, the sink was full of bugs.
After some good sleeping on the bus, we ended up at a thermal pool. It was a natural spring. Soldiers have build walls around the spring during the war to make it more like home. It was nice cool swim on a hot day.



The bus rides were always fun. I mostly hung out with Renae from Perth, Lawa (pronounced “Lava”) from Germany, and Jsmuni (pronounced Shh-moonie) from Switzerland. There was also the UK couple, Tom and Catrina. There was the funny Vancouver couple, Gordon and Mariam. Another couple was Christian from Scotland and Karan from Australia. Lastly, there were the three lady friends from Austria.



For lunch we stopped and cooked at the famous “Daly Waters Pub” in the middle of nowhere. It was the most random bar ever! Each wall had random stuff from around the world of it. The tradition now is that if you visit the bar, you leave something behind for next time. Therefore, I left my SXU ID there. Some walls were full of pictures; others school ID’s and one full of various currencies from around the world. On the ceiling hung signed t-shirts and bras. The patio was equally interesting. The Australian have such a blunt sense of humor. The highlight of the patio had to be the “Thong tree.” Thongs in Australia are what we call “flip-flops.” It was a small patio in the shape of a tree with a thongs nailed to it. It was a bit dirty and smelly, but worth sitting under and reading peoples smelling footwear. It was “heaps fun.”





After stopping for gas and holding a Black-headed python our group once again hit the open road and a bird too. R.I.P poor birdy. We had a long drive and it was a good time to call shot-gun and talk to the tour guide, Ruth, for a while. I really liked her, but not many others did. She had a strange-sense of humor that I enjoyed. She also loved Kakadu and hated Ayers Rock, which was a bummer since I did not get to see Kakadu, but planned a trip to Ayers Rock. I was all in good fun though. She just seemed bored seeing the same rock over and over again. Ruth loved to sing too. We plugged in my Ipod for awhile. She enjoyed my taste in music.

The next stay was on a horse farm. We ate dinner and I ran into the owners Dalmatian. Made me miss Poscha, my dog, a lot. The farm was my favorite campsite thus far. There were termite mound in front of my tent. Termite mounds are HUGE and feel like concrete.



The next morning we went off to my favorite place of the tour, the Devil’s Marbles. I was like a kid in a candy store. I just climbed about every rock there was to climb I had so much fun. It was the start of seeing actual desert and not tropical trees.
We ended our trip at Alice Spring were we ate at “Bojangles.” It was another random bar. The bathroom was really funny. Ask me why?





Tomorrow morning I left for the Outback!

Scuba Diving

Diving in one of the wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef, is simply indescribable. I surprisingly did very well for my first dive. Breathing underwater is easier than you think. It is something everyone deserves to experience at least once. It's an entirely different world underwater.

Darwin

After my break from Cairns (pronounced “Cans”), I had one day to relax and pack my things for my week long trip to the Outback and Center of Australia. I was most looking forward to seeing what a hostel is like, and how Aboriginals as well as the “white fella’s” lived in the desert-like terrain. Aboriginals were called “black fella’s” and the Australians “white fella’s.” It’s not racist, its just what they called each other. Me and Amanda had a late night flight to Darwin. We arrived at the small airport, grab a shuttle bus, and arrived at our hostel, the Nomeds on Cavanagh, around 2am. I felt bad waking up the two people, Jasper and Rosanne from the Netherlands, who were there earlier in the day. We all slept in and after being able to take a shower, I hit the city of Darwin.



Darwin has about 3 main streets and a waterfront. The area is more up and coming in tourist attractions. The city was very small. I felt like I pretty much seen the whole city in less than 3 hours. Darwin is most known for the city that the Japanese attacked in WWII because of their large oil depots. Some of the only big attractions in Darwin were related to this attack. However, this attack really made the land what it is today as far as population goes. I’ll explain what I mean more later when I talk about Alice Springs.

We took the heritage walk around town. We passed this old outdoor movie park, which looked nostalgic and heaps of fun. However, they were not playing any movies that night. The told the story of the attack on Darwin and lead us to the waterfront. The waterfront was very modern and new. They had a wave pool you could pay to go into. I laughed inside as I thought I work next to a beach that gets better, natural waves and it’s free. It was a humid day.



Darwin had some funny graffiti. In fact so did a lot of the towns in the Outback. However, it was not vandalism. It was art made by young kids. I again saw more graffiti in Alice Springs. There were paintings of kangaroos, lizards, and cockatoos. At a first glance though you would think its “bad” or gang-related graffiti, but after look into it that was not the case.



We ended the night at a local bar called “the Tap.” I was talking to one of the locals earlier in the day and she said it was the place to go for a good “Fishbowl Drink.” She was right, it was very good!



The next day we had the whole day free to do whatever we wanted. So naturally, I wanted to go swim with the crocodiles and I did. After come hotcakes at McDonalds, me and Amanda took off to the Oil storage facility near the waterfront to pretty much look at giant oil storage tanks underground and learn some more history. The tanks were HUGE! Inside the tank, they had old pictures of Darwin back when it was first being developed and of the aerial attack on Darwin.



After the oil tanks, we were off to Crocsaurus Cove. This was a mini zoo found in the center of the city mainly designed for crocodiles and reptiles. We saw fishes, rays, lizards, snakes, and a whole bunch of crocodiles. The cages with the baby crocs were crazy! There were so many of them in such a small area. Baby crocs are pretty cool. They can even make their entire body jump straight out of the water to catch their prey. However, when they get bigger and heavier they won’t be able to. However, when you’re a full-grown croc not many people or animals are willing to mess with you. Just look at the video below.



Feeding time was the best time at the cove. We ended or visit at Crocsaurus Cove by getting into a glass cage and put smack in the middle of the 3 croc exhibits. The first one had a croc couple, Houdini and Bess. Houdini was the most fun because he actually swam around us unlike the other two that just sat there. Crocs are a lot of huge close up. One of the crocs, Denzel, had his jaw open so I was able to look inside. He’s got a big mouth, literally.



Knowing we were to be picked up at 5:40am the next day we hung out in our air-conditioned hostel for the remainder of the night. It was the first time I slept in an air conditioned room since I been to Australia. The hostel was very bland and the bathroom had ants. However, there was a working television with about two good channels so I was content.

It's Common to eat.....

My favorite topic, FOOD! Now everyone puts different things on their burgers, but you ever put a fried egg and beet root on it? Well, that is pretty common here. Beet root is just slices of cranberry. The only time I see cranberry in America is during Thanksgiving dinner. To be honest, its all pretty good and worth trying.

When you go to 7-11 at home, you can get a Coca-Cola or Cherry slushie always. However, here everything is raspberry. You can get either the Coke or a raspberry slushie anywhere you go.




Almost any chicken sandwich or kebab is served with some type of chili sauce. I REALLY like the sweet chili sauce. It will defiantly be one of the things I miss. There is also a variety of what I consider exotic meats to try. Kangaroo is one of my favorite meats her. Similar to steak, but has a unique taste. Roo burgers are pretty common and delicious to get in Australia too. Crocodile is also delicious. When I was in Cairns, I ate this awesome croc-burger. Lastly is camel meat. Camel is a bit dry and chewy. You really have to cook camel to loosen up all the meats fibers. I had a camel pie (seen below) at "Bo-jangles" bar in Alice Springs. It was okay, but even better was camel sausage that my tour guide cooked while I traveled in Outback.



Today, I felt lost in translation when I went in the local Woolworth's grocery store. I wanted rice, but I never knew there were so many types of rice. Uncle Ben is not in Australia. Thinking about it, I haven't seen Aunt Jemima or Mrs. Buttersworth either.

It's not Ketchup, it's tomato (ta-mate-a') sauce here. For breakfast, most places offer bacon & egg Sandwiches rather than sausage & egg sandwiches. The bacon is not dark stripes either. It's more like Canadian bacon. It's more thin, pink, and round.

Random Pictures around Sydney

An Average Weekday

What do I do on a weekday? Mondays and Thursday I wake up around 6:30am to go to work. The internship usually takes up my whole day between the 8 hours of work and the nearly 4 hours of commuting. Sometimes I have a special GLP lecture to attend from 6-9pm on those days so literally off the train to the lecture. GLP stand for the “Global Leadership Program.” It’s a program with a series lecture. Themes of the lectures vary from this like Cross-Cultural Communication to Effective Writing to Sustainable Leadership to Global Intelligence (like CIA or KGB). It’s pretty interesting and I’ll get a reference letter at the end to add to my resume. I am lucky to fit in dinner sometime I these days. On Tuesday, I usually sleep in and do laundry. My parents usually call and skype, which is nice. After my afternoon class, I tend to go into “prostitute courtyard” on campus to do homework among other things. There a odd statue of a white stone women leaning on a post in the courtyard hence the dubbed name. The courtyard also has stands to plug your laptop in so it’s an ideal place to do homework while enjoying the weather. Wednesday I start class at 11am so I am up a bit earlier than Tuesday. I usually meet up in class with my buddy, Sam. He is a cool local guy. We did our Consumer Behaviour group project together. His vocabulary and knowledge of the course is more vast than mine, but his grammar and writing skills kinda suck. Luckily, that is more my forte. I have a 3 hour gap in between my Consumer Behaviour and Russian class, so I usually end up going to the gym and killing some time till Russian class.



Most nights, me and Amanda cook dinner together. It’s nicer eating with someone than not. Amanda’s specialty is Garlic Noodles and mine is Tuscan Eggs, but we attempt to switch up the menu frequently. The carrots here are incredible! They taste really sweet and are extremely affordable. I could be a vegetarian in Sydney with no problem. However, I love meat to much. Kangaroo is so good fyi. It’s better than eating out all the time. It’s almost impossible not to spend 10 bucks when you eat out. Most of my roommates are not around or are off doing their own thing, so I end up in Amanda’s room. I get along with her flatmates pretty well. I am the unofficially 5th flatmate. Thursday night is U-bar night. The U-bar is the universities on-campus bar. They have themed parties every week. The patio there is a really great spot to sit and socialize among other things. I don’t count Friday as a weekday so I am not going to write about it.

Classes

Classes are sectioned off into Lectures and Tutorials. Depending on some “units” (aka courses) you can have one or three a week varying in hours. Nearly all classes are then followed by a tutorial at another time for the same unit. Lectures are pretty much were a conveyer or lecturer pretty much talks for 1-2 hours. Some of my lecturers are better than others. I can tell when lecturers are pretty much readings off a piece of paper, which does not hold my attention very long. The tutorials are more intimate and similar to a seminar style of teaching a class. I am “enroled” (that’s the proper way to spell “enrolled” here) in 4 units, which is a full boat load in Australia. I do not think there is such thing as a “blow off” course in this university. All courses are research intensive. I am grateful that I am very familiar the Saint Xavier library database because it is very handy to know. All my courses are really interesting. It took me 4 weeks to settle on my classes, which is normal apparently. I started off in Japanese 101, which was too advance for my. In the first week I had to learn how to pronounce, recognize, and write all 46 characters of the hiragana Japanese alphabet. Needless to say, I decided that the class was far to fast paced without any prior teachings. Many students I talked to in the unit had taken some form of Japanese in high school. I switched that class to a Philosophy course, but that only lasted for a week. I dropped that course to make room for an internship I was offered during week 4. I find it odd that it took me nearly a month into school to settle in a course. Makes me wonder how other students handle all this.


(Random picture of me at the Aquarium with the Dewgongs; they're so COOL!)

My most interesting course it my “from the Beats to Big Brother: Popular Culture since the 50’s” unit. This is a modern history course where we look at history through popular culture. I liked that we had a 10-15 minute conversation about the significance of panty raids in the 60’s in reference to student activism. The class really talks about American history often. One lecture was all about the “black revolution.” The lecture touched upon the Black Panther, MLK, and Rosa Parks. I thought to myself, “I know all this already.” A good portion of lecture I actually am quite familiar with everything because she, the lecturer talks about America culture. This makes me feel bad, that I don’t know next to nothing about Australian history. I get to use the “Alien” series as a primary source for my tutorial paper. I am SO EXCITIED. I get to write a paper about my favourite movie (no that’s not a spelling mistake STEVE T, that’s also how you spell favorite here).
My “Russian Society and Culture” is pretty cool. I have a couple different tutors in this class and their all females from Russia. They have nice accents. This class has only a few students and it’s a combination between a lecture and tutorial. The lecturer does read off a piece of the paper most of the times, but the material is worth listening to. There are a lot cool people in the class to talk to so that’s a benefit. A couple of the students are close friends and have an after class drinking ritual. Its quite funny that every week when I see them, I ask how there day is going and they mention how their clothes same like beer or just got over there hangover. Australia truly is drinking culture. The best with I can put it is that in America if you have a just you offer them something to eat or drink. In Asia, they offer you something to just eat. In Australia, they offer you beer to drink.
Consumer Behaviour (again that’s how it is spelt in Oz) is a pretty awesome lecture. The lecturer, Alex, uses a lot of dry humour (again not a spelling mistake). He tells jokes during break too. There not very good, but he makes fun of his wife a lot. The material in the unit is really intriguing. We look into the mind of the consumer. We dissect a lot of advertisements. There is heaps of funny Asian commercials. The best one though was for a Veg-a-mite commercial that involved Hitler getting pissed. You can Youtube it. Just type in “Hitler i.Snack 2.0” and I am sure it will pop up. I wrote my first paper for this class and got it back. I got a 6.5 out of 10. At first, I was angry. I thought I wrote a really good paper and even had a teacher proof-read it. However, after I looked at the grading rubric. My paper was marked with mostly “above expectation” and some “meet expectations. Basically, from the way the rubric mapped out my paper I got a “B.” However, a 6.5 out of 10 is a “D” back home. A 6.5 is actually pretty good as far as Macquarie University is concerned, but I wonder what Saint Xavier will do?
My last unit is my internship course. I have to complete a 120 hours of work. I really wish it was a paid internship, but it still counts as credit. I go to my internship every Monday and Thursday. I try to work between 8-9 hours a day. All my other classes are on Tuesday and Wednesday.