By arosema93
For many of you the weather is starting to eventually cool down and you are leaving behind the heat of summer, but down under we are just getting started. The flowers are blooming; the leaves are growing back…actually just kidding about that one. All trees in Australia are evergreens and do not lose their leaves in winter because it is still too warm. Therefore, the word ‘evergreen’ here does not refer to pine trees as it does in America. While there are some trees, especially around campus, that lose their leaves, this means that none of them are actually native to the country. It is awfully sad how Australians import trees from other continents when they already live in such a beautiful place. Anyways, spring means….spring break!! Although it isn’t even called that here.. I’m just finishing up the first week of spring break. Instead of going on any big trips for this break I am mostly hanging around Canberra to continue working as much as possible and catch up on some big assignments. However, since the break is two and a half weeks long, there is still plenty of time to have some fun.
One of my favourite things about Australians is how in shape most of them are and ready to participate in physical activities. ‘Bushwalking’ or hiking is a very common hobby among families and friends of all ages. Thankfully, this means there is never a shortage of friends who want to go spend some time bashing around the bush. One day last week we went caving…yes again. At this point we have explored half of the caves in Australia (there aren’t very many). This time we spent 8 hours underground between 3 separate caves and encountered all the dangerous of the subterranean world including, poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, and rabid bats. Any animals that live that deep underground are probably not something you want to be bitten by.
We will also be going on a hiking trip this weekend that I am starting to get really excited about. It is supposed to be a very intense climb up the side of a mountain with some outstanding views and hopefully waterfalls! To give you an idea of how hard it is, it is a 10 km trail. I can run that on flat ground in under an hour. This hike will take us the better part of a day. More to come after the event. Most people head north for the holidays and I might join them up in Brisbane for several days. It can take some used to heading up north for holidays and warmth. Typically I have always associated south with warmth and tropics. For me, North has always meant the cold frigid upper peninsula of Michigan, not exactly someplace you would want to spend a spring break. One other thing that will take getting used to is that the two week break means that we are half way finished with our semester!! Exciting news school wise, but I am certainly nowhere near ready to return to America. For GW, the fall semester started up just two weeks ago or so. I feel like I will be finished by the time most are still getting their routine down for the year.
On a completely unrelated note, swans in Australia are black. Some things down here will never cease to contradict everything I think I know about the world.