This past week was spring break at UOW. Due to the fact that my friends visited Cairns and New Zealand, and I am going there with my parents at the end of my semester, I stayed here in town. There were about 50 other people out of the usual 600 to keep me company. I had a lot of fun exploring Wollongong and finally checking some more off of my bucket list. To start with, I finally tried fairy bread. It’s a big hit at children’s birthday parties although I’m not sure why. It consists of butter spread on the top of a piece of white bread with rainbow sprinkles on top. It’s not cooked or toasted and it takes just like bread, butter and sprinkles. I guess from a country that enjoys vegemite anything is possible. While on the topic of odd traditions, I had to visit the doctor for the first time and found my visit anything but normal. When I got back from Uluru I had a rash on my stomach and back. After hearing horror stories from my dad I had convinced myself I had a parasite and was going to die. At the doctor I learned it was just heat rash but I’m not too sure how smart this doctor was. When I asked how long it would take to go away he said he didn’t know. I asked what I should do if it wasn’t gone in a week and he said it would be gone. Hmmm. He then told me I had bacteria in my eye. When I asked how long I needed to wait until I could wear my contacts he said until the bacteria was gone. I then asked how long that would be, and he told me whenever it was done hurting…. It was an interesting appointment to say the least. But enough about my health problems and on to my adventures!
My break started and ended with day trips up to Sydney. The first trip was a trip to see an opera in the Sydney opera house! One of my friend’s moms used to be an opera singer and she gets tickets for free. After hearing my sob story about how I wanted to see a show but they were all too expensive, Ruby hooked Blake (another exchange student) and me up with some tickets. We went to see Don Giovanni which was written by Mozart. The show was in Italian but there were subtitles at the top of the stage to help people understand what was going on. I think it’s fair to say it was the best opera I have ever seen and while it is also the only opera I have ever seen, it was fantastic. The actors were very animated and all had beautiful voices. I think being in the iconic opera house may have had something to do with it as well. While the show was awesome and I’m finally able to say I’ve seen an opera in another language, my favorite part of the opera house was the bathroom. The stalls are arranged in an interesting pattern and the sinks are pretty neat as well. It’s tough to explain so if you’re curious I guess you’ll just have to come over here and check it out for yourself. After the show we met up with Jackie for lunch. (Anna’s friend from back home who is also studying abroad. I also went to Brisbane with her) She took us to a little restaurant in Circular Quay that was on the rooftop of a hotel overlooking the harbor. There we ran into one of my instructors from surf camp and enjoyed a few drinks with him and his friend. I also tried calamari for the first (and last) time. After taking in the views of the harbor, we parted ways with the boys and Jackie and I headed back to her host family’s house in Gordon, a northern suburb of Sydney. It was an unexpected trip so I wasn’t very prepared but luckily Jackie was and had already made me brownies and had the ingredients to make red velvet cupcakes as well. We enjoyed the sweets while watching Australia’s version of Beauty and the Geek. It was just like the American version but with better accents. After crashing at her place, I headed back down to Wollongong for some more exploring.
Since a few of the days presented me with rainy weather, I found some indoor activities to keep me busy. I was able to get some shopping done and bought a dress as a birthday present to myself. After spending money that I don’t have, I spent the rest of my rainy days inside reading books. I read Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, (weird) Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife (book= way better than movie) and Bill Bryson’s Down Under (almost the exact same as In a Sunburned Country-extremely disappointing). I also tried Bikram Yoga for the first time. It’s a hot yoga class where the room is about 90 degrees and you sweat the whole way through it. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it. While I don’t feel like I got as great of a workout as I would running or walking, I do feel as though it improved my flexibility and patience- it was a 90 minute class with some shirtless, old, hairy, sweaty men-yumm.
Although my appetite was lost after yoga I found it just in time to enjoy some popcorn during the AFL final. AFL is Australian Football League (Aussie Rules). It’s similar to rugby but has more of a soccer feel. I would try to explain it but there are a lot of rules and unless the game is being watched, they are difficult to understand. Aside from AFL I was also able to watch Australia pummel America in one of the world cup rugby matches. A group of people ordered chicken schnitzels, burgers and fries from a local restaurant called Fishnets and we watched the game in the projector room on campus. While it was nice having the rain because I was forced to stay inside and catch up on sleep and schoolwork, one negative was the aftermath. In America rain brings out worms, but in Australia it brings out the lizards. YUCK! They’re everywhere and the only part of Australia that I will NOT miss when I go home.
Even though it rained a few days, the weather eventually turned around and I was able to play outside. I borrowed my roommate’s bike and went down the beach about 3 miles to my favorite special spot. I took some pictures that don’t do it justice and read for a while while listening to the waves. I also explored the botanical gardens in Wollongong. They’re tucked into a not very pretty part of town so I wasn’t expecting much from them, but they were beautiful and definitely worth the trip. Sitting in the sun on our patio was a favorite activity that I don’t think could ever get old. I’m sad classes have to start back up again next week. At least we have Monday off for a national holiday-Labour Day, I believe. I don’t think I’ve spent more than three straight days in classes since I’ve been here. What a rough life!
My spring break ended on an extremely high note with another day trip to Sydney. This time I was by myself and had a heaps long list of things I wanted to do and see. Since every other time I’ve been to Sydney was to see or do one specific thing, I never felt as though I had truly explored. Well, today was the day. I had no time constraints and was able to do whatever I please. I started off my day with a tour of Fort Denison in the harbour. The fort, which took 22 years to build and is made of over 8,000 tons of sandstone, was built by convicts who were being punished for committing crimes once they were in Australia. In order to try to prevent incoming convicts from committing even more crimes, a dead body was hung from the fort for four years. Seeing as they still had enough people to build the fort, I don’t think this tactic worked very well. The fort was to be used as a lookout to help protect the harbour. By the time the fort was finished, all of the guns and cannons were too out of date to use and did not protect against modern day ships. Because the fort was built around the cannons, they are there forever and there was no way to remove and replace them. They still fire one of these cannons every day at 1 pm as tradition. While at the fort I was also able to see the rooms where they held all of the gunpowder and machinery. They had to use leather holsters to move the gun powder around in fear that if they accidentally dropped the bucket it would spark and explode. This same reasoning is why floors were made of soft materials. It wasn’t all work for the convicts, however, they had a swimming pool built into the fort where they could swim for pleasure. Although, I’m not sure how pleasurable it was because one day a shark was found swimming in the pool along with two swimmers-yikes. After opting out of going for a swim I headed back to the main land to continue exploring the city.
Since I was on a convict kick I decided to check out Hyde Park Barracks Museum. The barracks were built by convicts and gave them a place to stay in Sydney. They eventually turned into housing quarters for women immigrants and eventually into a courthouse. The barracks were supposed to hold 600 hundred men but sometimes had over 1,300 living there. They all slept in canvas hammocks with around one hundred people per room. Over a forty year span 50,000 convicts came and went. Since there was nowhere for the convicts to run away to in Australia, the barracks were pretty open and they were allowed to roam freely. The convicts did, however, have to do a certain task each day in order to build and maintain the barracks. It also helped that over 80% of the convicts were sent to Australia for crimes of stealing and not many of them were hard core offenders that needed to be feared. In order to help them repent their sins, they were required to go to church on Sundays. If they did commit more crimes while in the barracks, they would be punished with iron shackles or having to walk on the “punishment treadmill”. A better name for it would be the stair stepper from hell because convicts would have to step up a rotating wheel of stairs for 40 minutes of every hour. The purpose was to create power for the camp, but it looked horrible. One fun thing the museum had was a room full of original artifacts. When they began pulling up the floorboards in the building to create a sturdier foundation for the museum, they found that rats had stolen people’s soft articles of clothing in order to build their nests. This left over 80,000 artifacts hidden under the floorboards.
After the museum I went across the street to Hyde Park. People in Sydney refer to it as the “central park” of Sydney but it is nothing comparable. The park was pretty small, but I went on a day where they were offering free bike rentals, so I borrowed a bike to check it out. I saw the Anzac war memorial as well as some statues and fountains. I also biked past St. Mary’s cathedral where I saw two weddings taking place. The cathedral was breathtakingly beautiful on the inside and I was incredibly bummed I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. After returning my bike I headed to the New South Wales Art Museum where there is free admission to check out the works. I mainly looked at Australian and Aboriginal artists and then had a nice lunch in the coffee shop overlooking the harbour. It was then on to my next destination: Mrs. Macquarie’s chair. The “chair” is a chair built into stone at one of the ends of the harbour. Mrs. Macquarie, the governor at the time’s wife, used to sit out there and watch ships sailing in the Harbour. From her chair I continued my walk to the Government house and missed the free tour by an hour. Maybe next time. I was still able to walk around the grounds and see where the Governor of NSW lives. Then I headed off past the opera house to Observatory Hill. From the top of the hill I was able to check out the harbour and see a different side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge-the bridge I was about to walk across. Walking over the bridge was not as iconic as I expected but it’s still fun to know that I’ve done it. The arch of the bridge alone weighs 30,000 tons and 10 story tall buildings can fit underneath it. Needless to say, it’s a pretty big bridge. At the other side I met up with Jackie and her dad, who were also in the city that day, and we all went to Luna park (an amusement park in Sydney) to take some touristy pictures. From there we headed to a pub to enjoy my new favorite Australian beer, Cooper’s, while watching Samoa and South Africa play in the world cup. After the game I headed home back to Wollongong with a fulfilled feeling and plenty of pictures to show what a fun-filled day I had.
While I may not have traveled far for spring break I still had an amazing time. It was relaxing and nice to be selfish and only do what I wanted to do for a whole week! I’m off to bed for tonight but have to change my clocks first. Tonight is daylight savings time in Australia. Since it’s spring over here, I’m “springing ahead” an hour which will make the time difference even bigger…great. At least it means I get an extra hour to celebrate my 21st in three days!! I’m celebrating Australian and American time zones. Until next time (when I’m 21!!!) G’day, mate!
