The End.

Well folks, this is it. We’ve finally come to the end of my five-month adventure in Australia. At the beginning of this journey I had no idea what to expect of this country. As I’m leaving, I realize that it has become a second home to me. Before all my friends left on June 26^th they kept saying how it didn’t feel real, that they weren’t really leaving Australia. Or, that if they were leaving they would be coming back for fall semester. But, alas, we are not. I didn’t think I was going to get that feeling because I figured that being all over the country an extra three weeks would make me eager to go home and it definitely has. It is so true though- I always think I’m going to go back to the Gold Coast come September. I love Merrimack and I would not change my college experience there for anything, but right now as I am flying over the Pacific, I just keep thinking that in a few months I’m going to be back on this plane to go to school with Jenna, Cathy, Julia, Tanya, Jill, Brittany, and everyone else who has made this abroad experience amazing. I talked to Jenna shortly after she got home and she said she finds herself saying “in Australia…” a lot and I can understand why. Although we’ve lived three years at Merrimack, this experience has been unbelievable.

When I arrived in Cairns on February 12^th, I honestly was scared about what was going to happen or if I was going to make friends. And just when I was comfortable there, I was dropped off on the Gold Coast with no explanation as to where anything was or how to live. I was completely on my own and it was weird. I’ve come a long way since then I think and Australia has helped me achieve that goal. From having to cook all my own food, clean my room, to watching after myself after a crazy night out in Surfer’s, I’ve grown up a lot and I don’t think I would have turned out the same if I hadn’t been abroad and taken this experience for everything it was worth.

I’ve had some of the best times of my life in these past five months. Let’s reminisce for a minute… There was the time I held a koala and it pooped on me. And the first time I went to Sydney and met my future husband who has been to almost every continent except for Antarctica. Or there was Mid-semester break when Jenna, Jill, Brittany, and me rented a RV and frozen to death all over New Zealand. And one of my favorite times, going to Byron Bay and doing absolutely nothing but laughing for three days. All the family dinners cooked, teasing Cathy relentlessly everyday of her life, laying out by the pool on a Thursday between classes, and running to my room at 8:30pm on a Tuesday night to get dressed because the bus to Surfer’s would leaving in 10 minutes. And these past three weeks with my mom have been unforgettable! So many memories that I’ll never be able to forget with people I’ll always be friends with no matter how close or far away they live.

I’ve been on this plane for 7 hours already and I still have another 6 to go until LA and then it’s another five and a half to Boston. This may be the longest and saddest Thursday of my life. Although I still can’t believe this is the end, it is. I know I’ll be back some day, but it won’t be the same. This semester has been incredible and I couldn’t have done it without the help of everyone at Merrimack and my family. The End.

The City Round II

It’s been so long since I’ve written about what we’ve been doing that I almost forget all the activities we’ve been up to. I know that we got to Sydney on Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel on Darling Harbour and then went to Hunter Valley on Saturday. Sunday we walked in whipping winds to Circular Quay where mom caught her first glimpse of the Opera House. Then we headed toward the outdoor markets in the Rocks and looked around. We got some corn from a street vendor and then hopped on a bus toward the Sydney Football Stadium. We had purchased tickets to a rugby game where the Sydney Roosters would play the Penrith Panthers, a team that had been on a five game win streak. The Roosters (the worst team in the NRL) surprisingly pulled off a victory and we had a ton of fun cheering them on in the process. The stadium was not even a little bit crowded. In fact, I think the total number of people attending was less than a full Fenway Park, somewhere around 12,000 people showed up. Everyone there, however, was a true fan; completely decked out in Rooster red and screaming their heads off in true Aussie fashion.

Monday, we had booked a trip to the famous Blue Mountains. I don’t know what it is about me and my mom, but I think we attract people who can’t hold down their lunch. Half an hour into our journey a little kid got sick on the bus making the rest of the drive absolutely miserable. Luckily, most of our trip was planned for outside and it was amazing. The Blue Mountains are home to another amazing Australian nature made landmark- the Three Sisters. The Sisters are Australia’s second most visited sight and were incredible. They are three freestanding columns in a row. Across from them are other sights such as Orphan Rock and Solitary Mountain. Solitary Mountain, according to our tour guide, is same in size to Ayer’s Rock in Alice Springs. The Blue Mountains get their name from the constant blue haze that is given off by the millions of eucalyptus plants that live in the valley. The leaves refract the sunlight and create a bluish fog, which was unreasonably obvious on the cloudless day that we went. After we saw the Three Sisters, we got back on the bus and headed to Scenic World. Whilst at Scenic World, we took three cool rides in the valley. The first was a Skyway, which is essentially a horizontal gondola that has a glass floor; it was cool, but not my favorite part of our trip. After we ate lunch, we boarded the Scenic World Railway. Our bus driver had told us that the railway was one of the steepest in the world at 52 degrees vertically, but honestly what does that even mean? Well, it means that when you get in the train you are almost laying down in your seats and then when the train goes it is practically straight up and down. The ride was all of a minute long, but it was so cool. Everyone was screaming because the train goes through caves and is pitch black and going down a steep mountainside. Next, we walked through the Blue Mountains national park and saw a lot of cool artifacts left from the mining that used to be done there. The last ride of our trip was the Cableway, just a cable car, but still fun. We left the Blue Mountains and stopped in a town called Leura to look around. Then we drove through Sydney’s Olympic Park before finally getting dropped off for a boat ride into Circular Quay. They views from the boat were spectacular.

Tuesday I got to sleep in and it was awesome. After I finally rolled out of bed at 10:45am, mom and I started walking. We walked about 5 miles or so starting from our hotel to the Opera House. We looked all around the iconic building and then walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens and sat on Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair. For lunch, we had a little picnic while mom inhaled her first kebab- an experience that will not soon be forgotten considering she called it “the best ‘sandwich’ she’s ever had.” After fueling up, we walked another few miles over the bridge and into Luna Park. Luna Park is very similar to New York’s Coney Island because it is an old time amusement park, but it still runs and people love it. We then took a ferry back to Circular Quay and looked around the Rocks again. We came back to the hotel after a drink at Jenna’s favorite bar, Lowenbrau. Since coming to Australia I had a few goals. One was to get an Australian accent, which I didn’t do. Another was to learn about myself and have as much fun as possibly. And the last was to get a haircut because my hair was too long even before I left in February. I know you’re thinking this is completely random, but it’s not. You see, after we walked a lot we came back to the hotel to relax and we had a brilliant idea to let mom cut my hair. It actually didn’t come out that bad and it made for a good story! We went to dinner at the Hard Rock Café and made friends with our Italian waiter Carmine. Tomorrow is our last day in Australia and we have quite a mission.

We woke up on Wednesday morning to a overcast sky, which was unfortunate because we were planning on going to Bondi Beach for the day. Bondi is one of the most famous beaches in Australia because it is situated in Sydney. It takes about half an hour to get to Bondi Beach by train and bus. Mom and I got there, walked down to the water, and just had a look around. It was really cool to be there in the winter because Bondi is host to a Winterfestival and there was an ice skating rink on the beach and a ski hut. We had lunch down there then headed back into the city for some last minute souvenier shopping. I had planned on taking mom to a seafood restaurant right in Darling Harbour, but apparently it had closed down between March and now. We ended up eating a disappointing last dinner in Chinatown, but it was ok. Tomorrow is Thursday and we have to be in a shuttle to the airport by 7:15am. It definitely hasn’t hit me that I’m leaving yet. Prepare for the most sentimental post ever tomorrow.

The Capital

I’ve been to Washington, D.C. twice and absolutely loved it. As a lover of politics, I can’t help but be obsessed with the endless amounts of history to be learnt and the tours to take around our nation’s capital. While visiting Canberra, I got a very similar feeling. Although Canberra is usually thought of as a tiny city that doesn’t offer much compared to big cities in Australia like Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, I found the Canberra to be quite enjoyable. Canberra, pronounced like Can-bra, was chosen as Australia’s capital for one reason alone: there was no way to choose whether Sydney or Melbourne was larger, so they picked a spot in the middle to represent the country as a whole. When asked about their capital, most Aussies will say that they’ve never been and aren’t exactly sure of the whereabouts of the ACT or Australia Capital Territory. The reason for this is simple. Although the political end of government is drawn out in Canberra, most of the housekeeping, campaigning, and other aspects that go into politics take place in either of the two other cities.

Mom and I only spent one night and half a day in the capital, but we mostly enjoyed our time. We arrived around 7pm on Friday, which meant it was dark outside and our only source of guidance was our GPS that we had named Helen on our 5-hour trip from Melbourne. Canberra is well lit and from the outside looks as though it has a reasonable amount of nightlife to offer. We drove through the city expecting our hotel to pop up at any given moment. Before we started our journey, we knew not to expect much because we had booked our one night in a Best Western “Resort”, but we did now know exactly where this hotel/motel was located. It turns out that we had entered into the scariest place to stay in the entire continent of Australia. Ok, it wasn’t that bad, but the only other people we saw at the Best Western were an elderly woman running the front desk and a chain smoking truck driver who just happened to be in the room right next door to us. Honestly, I felt like I was in the beginning of a bad horror movie and that at any point in time someone was going to break into our room (the book Julia gave me to read didn’t help either as the chapter was about a break-in to the main characters home).

After not sleeping all night, we awoke to the coldest day yet. The thermometer read 1 degree Celsius and I was bundled up like I was going skiing. We drove to the Parliament House for a tour around and a better understanding of the confusion that this country considers government. The Parliament building was amazing. The entire inside is made of marble and surprisingly you are allowed to sit in both the Senate and House of Representative chambers even whilst they’re in session (if you’re lucky enough to be there when they meet, which is rare). We learnt a lot by walking around and mom purchased a giant map of Australia with all different facts in the gift shop. We then headed out of Canberra and started to make our way to Sydney.

We got into Darling Harbour around 6pm after making a few tourist drives through small town on the way from Canberra. It was as if we were royalty especially considering the motel we had just come from. Bellhops to take our bags, separate beds with down comforters, and free wifi in the lobby; we are really getting spoiled and we definitely don’t mind. We unloaded and then decided that we “fancied an Indian” for dinner so we walked across the bridge and ate some of the most delicious Indian food. We headed to bed fairly early after stopping at an Irish pub for one last drink. Saturday, we drove the car a couple hours north of Sydney to an area just outside of Newcastle called Hunter Valley. We checked out a few breweries that we knew were in Australia’s “wine country” and bought some cheese, then said goodbye to Helen as we took the car back to the airport.

When mom first told me that we were spending 6 days in Sydney, I was a little nervous. I wasn’t sure if we would find stuff to occupy our time for that long and I didn’t know much about the city, but now that we are here, we are both concerned whether we’ll have time to fit in all the activities we want to do. It’s been a day and a half and mom still hasn’t really seen the Opera House. The closest she came is when we accidentally drove over the Bridge! We have so much planned for the next few days and we’ll be tired and busy, but we’re excited. I have to make the absolute most of my last few days in this country. As of today, it’s been exactly 5 months since I’ve been home. I am eager to get back, but I can’t imagine leaving this place. It truly has become a second home to me.