End of the Adventure? Hardly

Hey Everyone!

So here I am, sitting back in my home in Minnesota.  It's surreal to be back.  So many emotions have flooded through in the last 48 hours:  sadness to leave Melbourne, joy to see my family, boredom on the longest non-stop flight in the world, content to be at home,  just to name a few.  Amidst all this, I've been doing some reflection of my favorite moments in Oz.  There are so many, but I'll try to stay brief.

Jumping off a sand dune in Fraser Island, the largest all-sand island in the world.

Living at St. Mary's, a home away from home.

Diving on the Great Barrier Reef - twice.

Living in Melbourne, probably my favorite place on Earth.

Traveling along the Great Ocean Road.

Petting Kangaroos in Ballarat

Having my name in an Australian pub for drinking 100 pints of Guinness.

The breathtaking views at Phillip Island.

Making lifelong friends who I'll see when I go back to Oz.

I suppose you may be wondering what I will be doing this summer.  That makes two of us.  I don't have many plans beyond a family vacation to KC and a visit to Chicago to catch up with some UIUC friends.  Hopefully after the jetlag wears off I can find something to occupy my time.

While I can look back and say "that was an incredible adventure!" - which it absolutely was- it's not over yet.  Every experience that I've had has changed me and made me a better person.  I will always take what I learned abroad with me into the future.  Whether I'm back at Illinois or working or doing something else with my life, I'll always have that piece of me that's still in Australia.  The future is bright and I can't wait to see what post-Aussie life holds for me!

Cheers!
Paul

Great Ocean Road

Hey Everyone!

I've been quite busy the last two weeks.  I've had my two final exams along with a trip down the coast of Victoria, and now it's nearly time for me to say goodbye to Australia.  I fly out tomorrow.  I definitely have some seriously mixed emotions about the whole thing:  I'm so excited to see my friends and family back home but I don't want to leave my new friends and life I have here.  This has been the experience of a lifetime, and I will always remember my time here.

Now, onto a less nostalgic topic.  The Great Ocean Road is considered one of the most beautiful and incredible scenic drives in the world - lucky for me, it happens to be two hours away from Melbourne.  The road follows the coastline of southwestern Victoria along Bass Strait, going all the way from Geelong to Warrnambool.  As this final week was approaching I scrambled to make this trip happen as I couldn't bear leaving Victoria without seeing one of it's most beautiful features.  Thankfully several of my friends, Pia, Bec, Georgi, Aaron, and Alex were keen to go with me and drive me along.

The first day we set up camp in Anglesea where Bec has a summer home.  From there we drove to the Split Point Lighthouse, which is a pretty lighthouse on a large cape.  When we got there, however, the wind was howling and it was raining really hard.  We were worried that this would be the weather for the rest of the day, but thankfully it was not.  The weather oscillated between heavy rain and clear skies, which gave some very pretty rainbows along the way (I think we saw something like five or six).

After the lighthouse we stopped at the official marking of the Great Ocean Road and then moved to Lorne, which is known for its beaches and waterfalls.  We visited two waterfalls in Lorne, Erskine Falls and Sheoak Falls.  Both were magnificent and showed the natural beauty of Australia.

  

The next drive was incredible; most drives just get you from A to B but on the Great Ocean Road the drive is something to be admired.  The splendid beauty of curving roads along the hilly cliffs was like candy for the eyes, making me realize what a gorgeous world we live in. 

After seeing the wonderful landscape we stopped in an alcove to look at Koalas and Kookaburras.  It was really cool to see these iconic Australian animals in the wild.  Afterward we were made our way to Apollo Bay for lunch.  The next drive was through Great Otway National Park, and the forest was incredible to drive through.  

 The next two hours was a push to our final destination, the Twelve Apostles.  The Apostles are a collection of rocks jutting out into the ocean.  There are only six Apostles left seeing as the constant erosion from the sea is knocking them down one by one.  We arrived there just before dusk and were able to see these natural beauties.  However, the wind was crazy at the lookout:  I couldn't hold my camera steady and it took some getting used to.  In the end everything worked out and I was able to see one of the natural wonders of the world. 

That night we took a 3 hour drive back to Anglesea and left for Melbourne the next day.  Overall the trip was incredible and I can't thank the Australians enough who made this trip so memorable!  I'm really going to miss this country and all the great times that I've had in it.  It is truly one of the best places on Earth and I plan to come back some day.

Awesome Aussies

On an unrelated note, I've been having a bit a cheeky fun in Australia.  The nearest Irish pub, Pugg Mahones, has a challenge to its patrons:  if you buy 100 pints of Guinness while there, you become a member of the "100 Pint Guinness Challenge" and get your name on the wall.  Well, I succeeded:

I have left a small piece of myself back in Australia, and when I visit I know where to head back.

Now what waits me is a 24 hour flight back home.  I can't wait to see my family and friends, and I will have so many stories to tell of my time here!

See you on the other side of the Pacific,
Paul

How to Speak Australian: Part 2

Hey All!

This week is devoted to studying for my two exams on Friday and next Monday.  Not too much going on but a probable trip to the Great Ocean Road before my time is up.  It's gone by so fast!  Anyway, I figured I should teach you all some more Australian while I'm still over here.

One particular phrase that I am pretty keen on is exactly what I just said.  To say "I'm keen" is equivalent to saying "I'm interested".  While this may be self explanatory, it's not very common in the US.  I'm excited to keep using "keen" in every day speech when I get home.

Another interesting turn of phrase is "sweet as".  A proper way to use it in a sentence is "that is so cool!  That's sweet as!"  In fact, it works more generally as "--- as".  "Cool as", "great as", "keen as", and seemingly any adjective + "as".  I think at one time down the line it was supposed to be comparative, as in "that is sweet as (something really awesome)".  It's just another example of how Australians are lazy with their language.

Finally, sus is an unusual word.  In Australian it has two meanings:  to be suspicious or to go and find something out.  The former would be used "you are being so sus stealing extra toast from the kitchen" whereas the latter would be used "I'll go sus out what's going on over there".  Another peculiarity to people down under.

I realized I haven't mentioned the one word I tend to use the most:  Cheers!  This versatile word has many meanings apart from the obvious act of cheering during drinks:  it's common as a thanks, a sign off, a good-bye, and a word of general good being.   Cheers will definitely be coming home with me to America!

Cheers!
Paul

Diving in Paradise

Hey Everyone!

I just got back from my trip to Cairns up in northern Queensland and what an adventure it was!  I went diving, spent time in the sun (not too much though, I'm not even burned!), looked at the stars, met some cool people and lived out over the Great Barrier Reef!  It was absolutely amazing.  I'm so thankful I got to spend some quality time in this wonderful part of Australia!

I took a late flight up to Cairns on last Thursday and arrived a day before my dive trip would begin.  After a night in the hostel I took the day to wander around Cairns were it was sunny and 25 degrees C (80 F).  I swam in the pool, met some scottish backpackers and had a bbq with them.  That night I laid low and got to bed early, with an early day ahead of me.

The next day I went to the dive shop to get ready for our trip at 6 am!  It was an early start but we were meant to fit in four dives on the day, so we needed to get going.  We climbed aboard the ScubaPro III and headed out to the Great Barrier Reef.  The first reef we visited is called Milln Reef, and provided some cool vantage points for diving.  I am fortunate to have an underwater camera (as you might remember from my previous posts) and so I got some pretty cool pictures.  Here's just a few:

After four dives including a night dive at Milln Reef, we were all super tired and crashed.  The next day we went to Flynn Reef, which proved to be just as beautiful:

The next two days were spent at this reef at different spots.  One was like a gigantic wall of coral about 30 m (100 ft) tall.  Another spot was called the coral gardens, which had some awesome outcroppings of coral everywhere.  The visibility of all the places was usually pretty good too, so I had a wonderful time Diving!  Of course the thousands of fish that we saw (including Nemo, sea turtles and reef sharks) were the definite highlight!

I also did my advanced certification for diving, which allows me to dive up to 40 m (130 ft), dive wrecks, and generally make me a better diver.  I had to do some cool tasks, involving buoyancy control.  When diving, you have to use your breathing as a means to control yourself.  When you breath in, you go up.  When you exhale, you go down.  Controlling it is a skill that can be tricky to master even though it seems so easy.  As a test, we swam through hula hoop rings to prove we could control our buoyancy well enough:

And of course out on the ocean the stars were phenomenal!  In the southern hemisphere can you see the Southern Cross and the entirety of the Milky Way.  It was breath taking, especially at 3 am.  I was thankful to get up there and experience something so amazing.

I also met some really cool people on board:  a family from Aussie, Adam from Scotland, Peter who's a doctor in Cairns, heaps of people from Germany and Czech, and the crew of the boat who were from Germany, Poland, New Zealand and Switzerland.

Finally, after 11 dives and a truly incredible adventure, we came back to Cairns.  You are supposed to wait 24 hours after diving to fly, so I figured I'd spend a day in Cairns, relax and fly out the next night.  However, my flight got cancelled and I was moved to the next day, so I had two nights in Cairns.  It was a small hiccup, but in the end I got to spend an extra day in paradise and wonderful weather.  I spent most of the time reading two books, 1984 and the BFG, out by the public pool near the ocean (Cairns doesn't have a beach front, just mud flats).  All in all, it was worthwhile.

One more day of this?  I'm all right with that.

Now I'm back in Melbourne, gearing up for my exam next Friday.  I still have a bit of time but it's not too soon to begin preparing.  Hopefully all goes well and I can do well on my exam!

Cheers!
Paul

Diving to the Max

Hey Everyone!

It's been a while since I posted last, but up until recently not much has been going on.  I was busy working hard on finishing up my final projects for my subjects and now we're in the study week before exams.  My first exam isn't until the 17th, so I've been twiddling my thumbs for a couple days.

However, I've been keeping myself busy.  I've been biking with my friends bike around Melbourne and touring the city a bit.  Last weekend I went diving down in Ocean Grove, very close to where I dove for the first time in Melbourne.  We dove a site called "Castle Rock" which, like the name suggests, is a castle shaped rock underwater.  It's about 30 ft tall and has cool embankments on the edges that gives the appearance of standing on the edge of a castle.  We saw port jackson sharks and even a seal!  It was such an awesome dive that I was inspired to do something a bit rash...

I'm going back to Cairns!!!  I decided to book some flights and go on an incredible adventure to the great barrier reef!  I'll be living aboard a boat for three days, diving 4 times a day and getting my advanced open water diver certification!!!  I have my open water cert now, but with AOW I can dive much deeper (30 m, 100 ft) and I can dive in wrecks and will become a much more experienced diver.  I'm so excited for my trip!  It'll be warm and I'll be on the ocean, doing something I love.  I couldn't ask for any more.

So one more grand adventure before I leave this wonderful continent.  I still have plans to travel the great ocean road and to see some of my friends in the country, so June should prove to be a great month!

Cheers,
Paul

College Day and Mannix vs. Mary's Day

Hey Everyone,

Friday was St. Mary's College Day!  College day is a celebration of everything awesome about living at St. Mary's.  Our college day was a blast.  We woke up at 7:30 for an early breakfast, followed by a phony debate between the staff and students on some trivial topic, which was quite funny.  We then ran around to several lectures on campus to obnoxiously sing our St. Mary's Chant.  After lunch we had an auction where people sold whatever they had laying around.  Some people sold themselves as "slaves" and others sold haircuts or t-shirts or whatever.  All the proceeds went to charity.

The afternoon was definitely the most fun.  We had huge inflatables with a slide, obstacle course, gladiator ring and moon bounce.  It was practical a carnival.  I still have rug burn from jumping down the slide and fighting my way through the obstacle course!

That evening we had mass for College Day.  I was asked to give a speech about why I love St. Mary's and I was happy that it went well.  I was a bit nervous beforehand, but once I got going the speech went well.

After a formal dinner we headed to the common room for a turn.  Boys wear red, girls wear blue.  I had a great getup, as you can see as I was hanging out with Aaron and Seamus.  After the turn we went out for a few drinks at Puggs, our favorite Irish pub.

Fast forward two days: Mannix vs. Mary's day on sunday.  The day is a sport competition between Monash University's Mannix College and our very own St. Mary's.  We met up with them to play Aussie rules football, basketball and netball (a variation of basketball).  I was happy to try a new sport and play footy, which was a blast.  Fortunately we won boys footy, but lost girls footy, netball and basketball.  We entertained the Mannix people in the afternoon by taking them to two of our favorite pubs, Turf and Puggs.  Everyone enjoyed meeting new people and getting a chance to mingle.  A busy weekend for sure!

I have four more days of classes left and then exam period.  I have 3 weeks until my first exam, so I will hopefully be doing some traveling in that time.  We'll see what the future holds!

Cheers,
Paul

Another Weekend, Another Dive

Hey all!

First of all, today's my birthday!  I'm the big 20 now (even though it's not quite May 17 back home), and I'm going to enjoy being alive in my third decade in Australia!  I haven't properly celebrated my birthday on my birthday for a couple years now (the last two times were spent in a car), so it'll be good to have a proper birthday celebration.

Anyway, on to the festivities of the weekend.  Classes have been winding down, and I've been focusing on completing all my final assignments.  However, my friend Susan turned 21 on Friday, so we went out and celebrated at an Irish pub.  It was heaps of fun, everyone enjoyed sitting around having a beer or two.  That night I had my favorite beer in Australia to date:  Little Creatures.  It's brewed a couple kilometers away in Fitzroy, another suburb of Melbourne.  I know in the future that I'll be having another Little Creatures.

They looked exactly like this

On Sunday I made my way down to Mornington on the east side of Port Phillip to do some diving with the Melbourne Uni diving club.  The water was cold, 14 degrees C (right around 56 F) and by the time the dive ended I could barely use my hands from being so numb.  However, it was one of the coolest dives I've done so far.  We swam under a pier between all the columns.  It looked like a massive cathedral from 20 feet underwater.  There were schools of small fish everywhere, starfish littered the sea floor, and big pufferfish darted around the bottom of the large wooden posts.  Despite being so cold, it was a wonderful dive. 

I have one half week and one full week left.  It's going by so fast!  However, I have some plans in the making for a trip to Tasmania.  It should be really cool.  I'll keep you posted when the time gets near!

Cheers from this new 20 year old!
Paul

The Event

Hey Everyone,

Things have quieted down a bit since my vacation, and not much has happened in the past week.  However, on Saturday, St. Mary's hosted and event aptly named "The Event".  It was a formal cocktail dinner hosted in the Melbourne Aquarium, in the fishbowl (a gigantic fish tank with tunnels and a big atrium area).

Pretty cool place to sip Champagne and eat h'orderves

Afterward we went over the Yarra river the the Crown Casino for some clubbing and gambling.  I went to the club but didn't much feel the urge to gamble.  All in all it was a great night!  Friends, Fun, and Fish.  A special thanks to Pat Randell, our vice president who put it all together!

I'll keep you updated when more exciting things happen!

Cheers,
Paul

Fraser Island: There's sand everywhere!

Hey everyone!

Time has come to let you in on my last leg of my super trip.  We made our way to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world!

Day 8

We left Cairns in the mid-afternoon to arrive in Brisbane.  A quiet city, Brisbane is the third largest city in Australia after Sydney and Melbourne.  We had a taxi ride to our hostel, which was very nice.  Once there, we decided to explore the city a bit.  We found a pub that had $5 burritos and enjoyed even more texmex in Australia!

Day 9

The next morning, we woke up bright and early to catch a Greyhound bus to Fraser island.  One bonus to waking up that early is that I got a wonderful view of the Brisbane skyline in the morning:

Because it was raining, we were able to see a glorious rainbow as well:

Maybe I should go back to Brisbane...

The trip took some time (7 hours) but it was nice to see the beautiful Queensland countryside.  Though the ride was beautiful, we had some confusion when we arrived in Hervey Bay, the nearest city to Fraser Island.  We caught a cab to catch a ferry to the island where we were staying.  When we arrived on the island, we found out that, due to our traveling, we would only be able to participate on one day of our three day tour.  We were obviously very disappointed because we had spent a lot of money on this tour and were a bit angry and out booking agent, who we felt didn't inform us completely that we would be missing so much.  Everyone was tired, there was sand everywhere, and worst of all the hostel rooms we stayed in were not very nice.  Needless to say, all three of us were on edge.  However, we found some really nice staff members in the kitchen who helped us out and gave us some other options to make our time worthwhile on the island.

Day 10

The next morning, still a bit on edge, we headed out on our tour at 8 am.  We had no idea what was in store for us.  We started by four wheeling through the rainforest to the east side of the island, which is basically a 90 km (50 mi) straight beach.  There we passed the Maheno Shipwreck, a part of the island since the 30's when it crashed into the island after being towed through a storm and lost at sea.  No one was hurt, and now it's just a cool part of the island.

Next we made our way up the coast to the northern part of the island where there were some large sand dunes.  Large enough to jump off and get some serious air.  Here's one of Dani, Susan and I all taking a jump.

My favorite part of this picture is Susan's look of terror.

I think my favorite shot of me on this trip

After we got tired of flying, we made our way over to the Champagne Pools which is a group of rocks immediately at the edge of the ocean so the waves smash about it and make some cool turbulence in the pools.  Dani had some fun standing in front of the waves as they crashed about us.

We then made it up to the Indian Head, which is a rocky outcrop sticking out into the ocean.  It's one of the few rock formations above sea level on the island.  Driving down the coast, we passed by the Cathedrals, a collection of red/orange colored sand that has collected there over the eons.  Then we made it down to Eli Creek where we relaxedly floated down to the ocean.  It turned out to be a fantastic day with wonderful weather.  We were feeling much better about our decision to come to Fraser Island when we got back to the hotel.

Dani and Lilani

That night, the three of us met up with Lilani, who was Dani's maid when they lived in Singapore many years ago.  Dani had not seen her since she was 8, so it was a wonderful reunion.  Lilani lives outside of Brisbane and traveled to Fraser Island with her husband Arunot to visit Dani.  It was an absolutely wonderful night!  Both Lilani and Arunot are delightful and were gracious enough to treat us to a three course meal.  It was insane.  I've never eaten so well before.  I had kangaroo meat and I have to let you know, it was pretty good.  They left on the last ferry of the night, and we couldn't ask for a more friendly pair of people to spend our time with.

Day 11

Our last day had arrived.  Because we couldn't go on the tour, we instead hiked out to Lake McKenzie, a huge freshwater lake on the middle of the island.  It has a high pH of 3.4, about the same as orange juice, so nothing really lives in the lake and it is extremely clear.  I had some fun with my underwater camera and enjoyed swimming in such a clear lake.

We had a quiet lunch there and made ready for our two hour hike back to the hotel.  Though it was long, it was incredibly beautiful and I couldn't help but look around all the time and enjoy immersing myself in God's beauty.

Finally, the trip back.  We took a ferry to the mainland, a bus to the airport, a small turbojet plane to Brisbane, and a proper jet back to Melbourne.  All in all it took 8 hours, but by the time we got back we were just glad to be home.

In reflection of my trip, it was a wonderful experience.  I got to travel up and down the coast of Australia, dive on the great barrier reef, sleep on a beach near the rainforest, jump off dunes 60 feet high, and see one of the most beautiful countries on earth, all with the companionship of two good friends.  I would say that I'm pretty lucky.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my adventures.  Who knows where I'll go next?  Once I find out when I have finals, I would like to go to Tasmania, the Outback, and the Great Ocean Road.  All await.  And I can't wait.

Sunset over Hervey Bay

Cheers!
Paul