Hello from Queensland, the sunshine state in Australia! I've been in Cairns since Friday and the weather has been sunny and hot - about 27 degrees in the day and 22 at night. This truly is a tropical paradise.
The city of Cairns is a grid of streets in a valley surrounded by rainforest and mountains. At its best, Cairns is breezy and warm, fresh white linen and palm trees. At its worst, it is drunken and wild, with cheap souvenirs, too-loud music and the smell of spilled beer. This is the jumping-off point for exploring the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and the Daintree Rainforest, a UNESCO world heritage site.
I got my first introduction to hostel living on Friday when I arrived in the six-bed dorm to find clothes and empty beer bottles strewn about the room. The beds were all unmade (including mine) and the carpet smelled like it had been soaked in beer. But I rectified the situation with reception and, after downing a beer at the hostel bar, I quickly recovered from my trauma.
Saturday I went on a tour to the Daintree Rainforest, which included a cruise down the Daintree river. Crikey! We spotted some crocs sunning themselves on the shore. After a hike in the Mossman Gorge, we ended up at the swimming hole. Of course, I was the only one in the group to go swimming. The water was cool and clear, with fish swimming around me. It was paradise.
On Sunday, I went with Corey and Shwin, two American college boys, on a Reef cruise. The Reef is a huge industry in Cairns, apparently responsible for about 60000 full time jobs and billions of dollars in revenue. Our boat held about 60 guests (and 10 tanned and muscly crew). After an hour cruise out to the reef, we all donned wetsuits, finns and snorkels to play in the "garden" for many hours. It was so beautiful and peaceful to float amongst multi-coloured fish and beautiful coral - the designs and colours were inspiring.
Shwin, who is the most serious and organized 19-year-old I've met, wanted to experience Cairns nightlife in a serious way. So, like a drill sergeant, he marched our crew from bar to bar ("Only one drink because we have to move on!") until we had toured every major place in Cairns. Not bad for a Sunday night.
After all those tours, I was happy to sleep in this morning and spend an organic day wandering the streets of Cairns and then renting a car with Corey and Shwin to visit Port Douglas in the afternoon. They were so happy that I'm over 25 - a cheaper rental. I drove in Australia for the first time and managed pretty well on the other side of the road (aided by a whole lotta back-seat driving). The road to Port Douglas winds along the coast with blue blue ocean on one side and rainforest on the other.
Port Douglas was a much slower pace than Cairns. On Four Mile Beach, we played in the water and the boys buried me in the hot sand. Later, we walked into town and found that "Douggie" is the kind of place where neither shirts nor shoes are required to get service at a restaurant. We had drinks at Soul'n'Pepper on a lovely terrace near the Yacht Club. A boy at the end of the pier caught an eel which wriggled off the hook while the boy called for his dad to come help him. Down at the St. Mary's church, which is supposed to have a two-year waiting list for marriages, a happy couple tied the knot on a sunny Monday afternoon. We finished the day by hiking up to the lookout for a lovely sunset view of the coast.
I'm now back in Cairns, waiting to board the night bus to Airlie Beach. In the meantime, I'm going to check out the night markets and maybe get a cheap massage from one of the dozen massage stalls. More news to follow...lots of love to everyone back home.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Melbourne friends
Here are a few pics of some friends in Melbourne, including Channie (my korean girlfriend), Kelly (one of the Texans), Jenne (a wee Scot), and Sebastian (german hottie).
The Great Dissenter
Last week, I had to opportunity to hear Australian High Court Justice Michael Kirby speak at the Melbourne Law School. The biggest auditorium at the faculty was packed full, with people standing at the back and sitting in the aisles. The crowd was excited and chattering away, but when Kirby walked into the room, everyone stopped talking and gave him a huge round of applause.
Kirby is known at the Great Dissenter – he is the judge who always disagrees, respectfully, with the majority decision of other judges on the High Court. As a person who has always followed the “rules,” I found his speech very inspiring. First of all, he has a great sense of humour, “I bet you all curse me because I’m the one who makes your readings longer!” But he was also serious and sincere. He told us that the beauty of common law is that there is room for differing opinions and organic growth of the law. “The law is a noble profession in the protection of human values,” he said. “But a drawback of being a lawyer or judge is that you are at risk of withdrawing into objectivity and losing your emotional abilities.” He advised students to work hard, but also to find someone to go home to at the end of the day and share the personal side of life with.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that experience. I feel like it is illustrative of all the inspiring things I’m being exposed to. I know I’ve been making jokes about not going to school or studying – but maybe being on exchange is more about learning the big lessons instead of the minute details of statutes.
In a few hours, I’m boarding my flight to Cairns…once I find internet access, I will write again about my time in the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef! Lots of love to everyone back home.
Kirby is known at the Great Dissenter – he is the judge who always disagrees, respectfully, with the majority decision of other judges on the High Court. As a person who has always followed the “rules,” I found his speech very inspiring. First of all, he has a great sense of humour, “I bet you all curse me because I’m the one who makes your readings longer!” But he was also serious and sincere. He told us that the beauty of common law is that there is room for differing opinions and organic growth of the law. “The law is a noble profession in the protection of human values,” he said. “But a drawback of being a lawyer or judge is that you are at risk of withdrawing into objectivity and losing your emotional abilities.” He advised students to work hard, but also to find someone to go home to at the end of the day and share the personal side of life with.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that experience. I feel like it is illustrative of all the inspiring things I’m being exposed to. I know I’ve been making jokes about not going to school or studying – but maybe being on exchange is more about learning the big lessons instead of the minute details of statutes.
In a few hours, I’m boarding my flight to Cairns…once I find internet access, I will write again about my time in the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef! Lots of love to everyone back home.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The darling buds of May…uh, I mean September..
Spring has sprung in Melbourne! September 1st marks the official beginning of the season. Today was a beautiful sunny day with a strong, hot breeze blowing around the intoxicating scent of new blossoms. Everyone is thrilled that winter is over: outdoor terraces are filling up, construction workers play footy in the park during their lunch breaks and the Uni campus is overflowing with flowered dresses and thongs (NB: in Aussie-land, thongs are footwear not underwear). Of course, weather is still very unpredictable: I felt like one of those nannies in Mary Poppins on the way to class, very nearly getting blown away by the strong wind. And the clouds may roll in at any minute, spit down rain, and roll away again just as quickly as they came.
The nice weather is making it increasingly harder to study…but that’s okay because I can’t let my schooling get in the way of my Australian education. A few weeks ago, I went on a field trip to Philip Island, about 140 km southeast of the city, with the Melbourne University Outdoors Club. It was a glorious sunny day and our international group (mostly Americans, Brits, Germans, and a few Frenchmen) began the day with a wander on magnificent Wollamai Beach. The sky and ocean seemed to go on forever. I was the first to kick off my shoes and stick a toe in the water…still pretty cold!
After a hike on the cliffs overlooking the beach, we piled back onto the bus and continued to the animal sanctuaries to spot koalas high in trees, feed kangaroos and avoid being trampled by emus. We watched the sun go down over the west point of the island and were treated to a beautiful rainbow over the ocean – I imagined that it ended in Antarctica. Then, the highlight of the day, we gathered at dusk for the penguin parade. Every night during breeding season, dozens of little penguins make their way from the water, across the beach and into their nests in the dunes. They were so cute! The park rangers don’t allow people to take pictures of the penguins, but you can check them out at http://www.penguinfoundation.org.au/.
Back in Melbourne, I recently admitted to myself that I’m a foodie. Maybe trying new foods is my way of experiencing the local culture? The realization that I’m preoccupied by food occurred after a particularly international weekend: Friday night I ventured with my Texans to Footscray, the “ethnic” neighbourhood in western Melbourne, for Ethiopian food. As we wandered the streets looking for the resto, it was obvious that we weren’t locals. A group of Ethiopian men sat outside a café, drinking beer or coffee, and one of them called out to us, “Welcome to Footscray!”
Then, on Saturday, I met up with Chae-yoon (everyone calls her Channie but I like to call her my new Korean girlfriend because she’s such a good date) for Korean BBQ and a chick flick. Sunday afternoon I found myself at the footy (Aussie-rules football) with a beer in one hand and a meat pie in the other. I was still hungry after the game…so I went for a thali at a little Indian place on Bourke Street, in the shadow of the State Parliament building. Seriously, you’d think I’d be getting really fat after all that eating – but this food obsession is more about tasting than gorging myself.
Speaking of footy, going to the game is one of my favourite ways of immersing myself in Aussie culture. The game we saw was the St. Kilda Saints against the Essendon Bombers. We had standing-room tickets and I stood in the crowd surrounded by Aussie blokes sculling (ie. chugging) beers and shouting incomprehensible expletives at the players. Footy is sort of a cross between soccer and rugby: it iss a fast-paced game played on an oval field and the players can kick or run with the ball - they sometimes run up to 20 kilometers in a two-hour game.
Each team footy team has a song. St. Kilda’s is one of my favourites: “Oh when the Saints go marching in, Oh when the Saints go marching in, Oh how I want to be with St Kilda when the Saints go marching in.” (As an aside, I was recently at the sea baths on a lazy Tuesday afternoon in St. Kilda and the footy team happened to be there too, in matching black speedos…how lucky I was to be in St. Kilda when the Saints came strutting in!). The Richmond Tigers, another footy team, have a good song too, called Tigerland. Maybe I’ll let you decide for yourself which song is better (and which team is hotter) by offering these video links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWLsYAqEl8M&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfz8IRmzdRA.
Most recently, I had the pleasure of a visit from Rachel, a fellow McGill law girl who is on exchange in Sydney this semester. She shares my passions for food and shopping so we inevitably had a great time! In between power-study sessions in the sunny courtyard at Graduate House, we bought heaps of fruit, bread and cheese at the Victoria Market, scoured the funky shops on Brunswick Street and had a romantic girl-date, complete with pink bubbly, at a tapas place in Middle Park.
For the next week, I have to hammer down on the schoolwork because (gasp) spring break is right around the corner! I leave for Cairns in a week and I’ll be spending two weeks traveling down the east coast of Australia, stopping to snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef and take a three-day cruise on a catamaran in the Whitsunday Islands before continuing on to Fraser Island and Byron Bay. Don’t be jealous…I’ll give you all the juicy details and photos on my blog and Facebook! In the meantime, lots of love to everyone back home.
The nice weather is making it increasingly harder to study…but that’s okay because I can’t let my schooling get in the way of my Australian education. A few weeks ago, I went on a field trip to Philip Island, about 140 km southeast of the city, with the Melbourne University Outdoors Club. It was a glorious sunny day and our international group (mostly Americans, Brits, Germans, and a few Frenchmen) began the day with a wander on magnificent Wollamai Beach. The sky and ocean seemed to go on forever. I was the first to kick off my shoes and stick a toe in the water…still pretty cold!
After a hike on the cliffs overlooking the beach, we piled back onto the bus and continued to the animal sanctuaries to spot koalas high in trees, feed kangaroos and avoid being trampled by emus. We watched the sun go down over the west point of the island and were treated to a beautiful rainbow over the ocean – I imagined that it ended in Antarctica. Then, the highlight of the day, we gathered at dusk for the penguin parade. Every night during breeding season, dozens of little penguins make their way from the water, across the beach and into their nests in the dunes. They were so cute! The park rangers don’t allow people to take pictures of the penguins, but you can check them out at http://www.penguinfoundation.org.au/.
Back in Melbourne, I recently admitted to myself that I’m a foodie. Maybe trying new foods is my way of experiencing the local culture? The realization that I’m preoccupied by food occurred after a particularly international weekend: Friday night I ventured with my Texans to Footscray, the “ethnic” neighbourhood in western Melbourne, for Ethiopian food. As we wandered the streets looking for the resto, it was obvious that we weren’t locals. A group of Ethiopian men sat outside a café, drinking beer or coffee, and one of them called out to us, “Welcome to Footscray!”
Then, on Saturday, I met up with Chae-yoon (everyone calls her Channie but I like to call her my new Korean girlfriend because she’s such a good date) for Korean BBQ and a chick flick. Sunday afternoon I found myself at the footy (Aussie-rules football) with a beer in one hand and a meat pie in the other. I was still hungry after the game…so I went for a thali at a little Indian place on Bourke Street, in the shadow of the State Parliament building. Seriously, you’d think I’d be getting really fat after all that eating – but this food obsession is more about tasting than gorging myself.
Speaking of footy, going to the game is one of my favourite ways of immersing myself in Aussie culture. The game we saw was the St. Kilda Saints against the Essendon Bombers. We had standing-room tickets and I stood in the crowd surrounded by Aussie blokes sculling (ie. chugging) beers and shouting incomprehensible expletives at the players. Footy is sort of a cross between soccer and rugby: it iss a fast-paced game played on an oval field and the players can kick or run with the ball - they sometimes run up to 20 kilometers in a two-hour game.
Each team footy team has a song. St. Kilda’s is one of my favourites: “Oh when the Saints go marching in, Oh when the Saints go marching in, Oh how I want to be with St Kilda when the Saints go marching in.” (As an aside, I was recently at the sea baths on a lazy Tuesday afternoon in St. Kilda and the footy team happened to be there too, in matching black speedos…how lucky I was to be in St. Kilda when the Saints came strutting in!). The Richmond Tigers, another footy team, have a good song too, called Tigerland. Maybe I’ll let you decide for yourself which song is better (and which team is hotter) by offering these video links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWLsYAqEl8M&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfz8IRmzdRA.
Most recently, I had the pleasure of a visit from Rachel, a fellow McGill law girl who is on exchange in Sydney this semester. She shares my passions for food and shopping so we inevitably had a great time! In between power-study sessions in the sunny courtyard at Graduate House, we bought heaps of fruit, bread and cheese at the Victoria Market, scoured the funky shops on Brunswick Street and had a romantic girl-date, complete with pink bubbly, at a tapas place in Middle Park.
For the next week, I have to hammer down on the schoolwork because (gasp) spring break is right around the corner! I leave for Cairns in a week and I’ll be spending two weeks traveling down the east coast of Australia, stopping to snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef and take a three-day cruise on a catamaran in the Whitsunday Islands before continuing on to Fraser Island and Byron Bay. Don’t be jealous…I’ll give you all the juicy details and photos on my blog and Facebook! In the meantime, lots of love to everyone back home.
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