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Tag: Australia

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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.

Published on

By arosema93

Well the Australian election was today. So was the Australia vs. South Africa rugby game (Wallabies and Springboks). In terms of importance to the rest of the world I reckon the rugby game was probably more important. Australia got destroyed but it was heaps of fun to watch with a bunch of friends. In the election, the Liberal Party won by a landslide (read Liberal party as equivalent to the American Republican Party). I enjoyed seeing the results simply because I am a huge supporter of third parties, and in Australia those can actually make a difference. Over 20 parties were represented in the election with 8 or so candidates for prime minister. These included parties from all ends of the spectrum including things like Animal Justice, Bullet Train for Australia, Stable Population Party, and many other extremely interesting parties. While none of those actually gained any representation, some did, with one seat in the senate even going to one of my favourites, the Australian Motorists Enthusiasts Party.

In other news, spring is starting to get beautiful in Canberra. The first days of spring here are already just as warm as the summer is in America. Flowers are blooming, and there will be an upcoming festival in the next weeks known as Floriade which is just a massive park filled with hundreds of thousands of flowers. Supposed to be really pretty, but we will see how my allergies hold up. That is one thing I have noticed though, it seems that allergies in other countries for me are a lot different, meaning basically non-existent.

Last week I spent the weekend in Wollongong and Sydney and had a blast just spending time relaxing down at the beach and fitting in with the local culture by pretending I am a good surfer. Unfortunately, in reality, I was probably just laughed at the whole time. I have some family down in Wollongong, although they are very loosely related. However, their hospitality has been amazing. It seems that many of the exchange students here have some sort of family somewhere in Australia. I don’t know how loosely related, but it seems that everyone knows someone here which goes to show for the multicultural-ness of Australia. In fact, approximately a third of Australia’s population was not even born in the country! People come here from all over, and some simply choose to stay. Each year, there are tons of new immigrants and people applying for permanent residency and with such a beautiful country with a strong economy; it isn’t hard to see why. This is impressive progress considering the country allowed virtually no immigrants and only white ones up until the end of WWII. Now, only half of the country has parents who were both born in Australia.

Those figures are astounding as an American from Michigan where probably 50% of the people I know haven’t even been out of the country, and some have never even left the state. Perhaps the multicultural-ness of Australia is partially due to their small population, but Americans have never in the same way been as multicultural, or had such a love for international travel.

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