“Chocolate and Castles”- Dunedin, New Zealand 7/27-29

On Wednesday I caught my bus from Christchurch to Dunedin. I met a nice couple while I was waiting for the bus who lived a little outside of Dunedin that had moved here from the US about 5 years ago. It was good to talk to them about a few of the fun things to do in Dunedin. The bus ride was about 5 ½ hours, but didn’t seem that long because I was taking in the sights most of the time, listening to music, and sleeping a little bit. We also had a really good bus driver. He said that he normally drove the bus that did big tours with commentary and stuff, so whenever we came to something important or interesting he would tell us a little bit about the things we were seeing. The drive was beautiful. Most of it was right along ocean. Some of the drive actually reminded me of the Palouse near Pullman, WA because of all the rolling hills.

I arrived at Stafford Gables YHA in Dunedin that evening where I stayed for two nights in a 5 bed female dorm. The first night, I was the last person to get there so I got the top bunk, which was a killer on my back to get up and down but luckily I was able to move to the single bed the next night. The hostel here is actually really nice. It’s a medium size hostel with about 60 beds in it or so. There is an internet lounge where I sat for a while that night and met some new people. A girl named May from Malaysia was really nice. We sat and talked about all of our adventures so far within the area. We decided to meet up in the morning and try to book a chocolate factory tour together in the morning.

On Thursday morning we got up and made breakfast before exploring the city. My favorite part of the city was the Historic Railway Station, which is the 2nd most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere! (Can you guess what the first is?.... The Sydney Opera House! Wow what an opportunity to get to see both in one trip!) There were a lot of beautiful buildings all over the city and we took heaps of photos!

After our little excursion through the downtown area of Dunedin we headed to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. It is the first Cadbury Chocolate Factory in the world. This week is actually their Chocolate Carnival week, so they had a variety of different activities going on, but these were all booked, so we just went on the normal tour. Before the tour started there was an area with different displays of Cadbury Candy from the past. The tour was pretty fun where we got to see a lot of different machinery and chocolate being made and got to try some of the liquid Dairy Milk chocolate. It was so good! At the end of the tour there was a huge chocolate waterfall too! They also had some old Cadbury milk trucks that we got to take pictures with.

After the Cadbury tour I had a little time to relax before my tour to the Larnach Castle. I thought it was going to be a tour bus that was going, but the tour guide pulled up to my hostel in a small car with one other lady. They were almost not going to do a tour that day because they had a big event at the Castle that morning but since two of us wanted to go, they made a small tour for us. It was really nice to just have two of us for a personal tour. The tour guide was really nice and took us around town to see a few different sights first and then stopped at some beautiful view points just so I could take pictures! He was very knowledgeable about the Castle as he told us history and stories as we drove through the hills to the Castle.

The Castle was beautiful from the outside and even more magnificent on the inside (but I couldn’t take pictures inside). It was really neat to see all the history and culture within the place. We even got to climb up on the roof and see the views and take pictures from there. It was amazing!

“Icing on the Quake”- Christchurch, New Zealand 7/26-27

I arrived in New Zealand on Tuesday afternoon. I was actually really lucky to be able to get into Christchurch because they got ‘heaps of snow’ in their terms that continued falling on Sunday and Monday. Many flights were cancelled coming into Christchurch on Monday and numerous flights could not get out on Tuesday, but thankfully mine was able to land, or that would have screwed up my whole schedule of plans.

I got through customs and security pretty fast, Australia and New Zealand are pretty lax compared to America… I’m not looking forward to going back through customs when I get to America. I then proceeded to try to figure out where I needed to be to find a way to my backpacker. There was this information desk in the airport but nobody was there… what help is that? So I waited outside for about 15 minutes until I found someone that looked like they worked at the airport and she said that it would be best to take a super shuttle but I needed to go over to the domestic area instead of the international area, so I trucked my bags over to the other side of the airport and got on the super shuttle which was $24 instead of the $50 or so that a taxi would have cost me!  

There were 7 other ladies on the shuttle and most of them were actually from the area so they all were telling me about different things we passed in the city and how things were before the earthquake. The shuttle driver said that the snow was just “icing on the quake”. It was a shame to hear that Christchurch hardly ever gets snow, but they had a bunch which was just another dagger in the reconstruction process of buildings.

There is pretty much nothing to do in Christchurch because the whole city center is considered a red zone, where it is all closed down that nobody can go into it. (I figured I would still be able to see some of the older buildings and stuff even though they were damaged, but there was no way.

Once I arrived at my backpacker, the Chester Street Backpackers in Christchurch, I was very surprised that it was still standing. A lot of the other buildings on the street were closed up with fences around them meaning that they were going to be torn down. The lady at the backpacker said that since their house was built of wood, it was still standing, because with a quake it just sorta rocks…. Not really sure how I feel about this…. She also said that they get an earthquake pretty much every day! Now that really made me feel reassured! HA!

Well the backpacker was just a little house with like 5 rooms in it. I was in a room with 3 beds and met a nice girl named Roxanne from France. It was actually really cute with a super nice lady working there, but it was freezing! I don’t think it would usually be that bad, but since there was snow outside, that made it worse. They had a stand up heater thing in each of the rooms, so in the gathering room where we watched TV we sat right by the heater.

Roxanne and I decided to venture out in the freezing weather to try to find something for dinner. She had gotten directions, but didn’t speak English very well and did not know how to get there. We ended up walking around for a long time asking people, but were unsuccessful at finding food because everything around us was closed down, so we gave up and went back to the backpacker. Unfortunately I was unprepared with no food, but they had a shelf of free herbs and stuff where I found something like a beef bouillon cube, so I made beef broth and had that for dinner…at least it was warm I guess.

Eventually we made our way to bed where I wore two pairs of pants, 2 shirts and a sweatshirt, and was still freezing, even with a heater in the room. Didn’t get much sleep, but by the morning I was glad I was leaving Christchurch very soon.

“Sydney Excursion” 7/23-25

We went with our group on Saturday to Sydney. The plane ride that morning was a little rough because we had been out pretty late celebrating Sabrina’s 20^th birthday the night before. Once we got into Sydney we took a shuttle to our hostel the YHA Sydney Harbour hostel. At first glance it looked very strange because you go in the doors into this archeological dig site before you go upstairs to the check-in and main area and then go back down some other stairs to get down to our room.

Our room was really fun in the hostel. We got the biggest room with 3 bunks for 6 of us: Taylar, Sabrina, Hannah, Daniel, Mark and I. It was a great group to share the room with. Every night was filled with laughter and jokes.

The first night we got to walk down through Circular Quay to the Sydney Opera house to do a little sightseeing and take some awesome photos of the area. It was really beautiful because we went right before sunset so the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera house were spectacular with lights.

Following our sightseeing we went to the Sydney Observatory where we got to watch some neat 3D star movies, tour the museum area and we got to see Saturn, rings and all, through the oldest telescope in Australia.

Sunday morning we went to Paddy’s Market. This was a huge market with lots of fun and reasonably cheap souvenirs. I was glad that I hadn’t bought very much in Adelaide for souvenirs because most of the stuff was the same and was way less expensive. Everyone seemed to find a lot of good things to take back as remembrance items from Australia. 

After the market everyone was pumped up for the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb. The bridge is an international symbol of Australia and it is “the largest single arch span bridge in the world.” I was a little worried about the bridge climb because I had been having a lot of pain from the pinched nerve in my back but I decided that it was an opportunity that there was no way I was going to miss.

For the bridge climb we got all dressed up in these really attractive blue jumpsuits and safety gear. At the beginning of the bridge climb we were a little skeptical because we were walking along wooden planks on the edge of the bridge that were super skinny… then we got to the actual climb. It was actually so much fun. At the start and end there were these sets of latters we had to climb up and down and then duck and squeeze through some small areas (the latters were probably the worst part because you couldn’t see very far ahead of you to know when the latters would end. Once we got to the actual edge of the arch that we walked along, there were steps along it where we walked to the very top and then back down again. We were kind of sad that we weren’t allowed to take cameras onto the bridge because it was an amazing 360* view of the harbour, but we did take a lot of breaks where the leader took pictures of us (except they were super expensive). At the top of the arch we were 450 feet above the water. By the end of the bridge climb we had climbed over 1,390 stairs! What a workout! HAHA. Everyone was saying that their calves were sore… but I didn’t think mine hurt very bad because of the extreme leg and back pain that I have been in. I was surprised that I made it through the climb without much pain, but that night and the next day were pretty horrible, where I was close to tears in pain. (I am getting really tired of this, but I don’t think it’s going to get any better because the chiropractor said that the misplaced disc in my back would take 3 to 6 months to heal.

After the bridge climb we all rested a little before we got on a ferry to take us to our farewell dinner at a really nice restaurant at Darling Harbour. I had some delicious swordfish for dinner with some garlic flat bread. It was one of the best meals that I’ve had while abroad… and the best part, it was paid for!

On Monday morning a smaller group of us went on the Sydney sightseeing bus to Bondi Beach while a few other girls went surfing and skydiving for the day. Bondi Beach was beautiful! I was surprised how many people were actually swimming and surfing in the water though. The group went on a scenic walk around the rocks on the edge of the beach, but I chilled out on a bench and took a short nap in the sun because I wouldn’t have been able to walk that far. (I tell you though; we really lucked out on weather! It was supposed to rain the whole time while we were in Sydney, but we only had once short time where it dumped for like 15 minutes one day and then the sun came back out.

After exploring around Bondi beach we hopped back on the Sydney Sightseeing double decker bus to continue on the narrated tour through the city. It was fun to hear some different stories and see the sights that we wouldn’t see by just walking around down town. One thing we learned was where the name Kangaroo supposedly came from. They said that when the British white men invaded Australia they pointed at this hopping creature asking what it was. The Aboriginal people yelled out Kangaroo which actually meant that they didn’t understand, but I guess Kangaroo stuck because they couldn’t come up with a different name. We continued on the tour until we reached the Botanical Gardens where we walked around and went to see the Queens chair built into the rock.

Our last night in Sydney we went out to another nice dinner with everyone there to celebrate before people went home to pack and say goodbye. I had to say goodbye to everyone before people went to sleep because I had to catch a cab the next morning at 4 am to go to Christchurch, New Zealand.

               

“Last Week in Adelaide” 7/18-22

I can’t believe it’s the last week in Adelaide already! Everything went by really fast. This week has actually been reasonably relaxing because my Australian Politics lecture is all done with so all I had to do for that class was finish the super long paper. For Indigenous Cultures and Histories I had 3 more lectures and tutorials with a paper on top of that.

I finished both of my papers by Thursday afternoon, so I was able to have some down time to just relax and do some last minute things before leaving the city. I wrote the Australian Politics paper on the Northern Territory Invasion and the Indigenous Cultures paper on Kinship in Australia. I actually learned a lot from both of these classes, so hopefully the papers are good.

Friday was a lot of fun, of course it had to be because it was our last night there! We were all celebrating our last night there and Sabrina’s 20^th birthday! A few of us went out to get Sangria and a small dinner at the Mexican restaurant across the street before we joined the rest of our group to go out to Swish, the 90’s music club that we went to the weekend before. It was a really fun way to end the trip in Adelaide with everyone.

“Here’s To The Corkscrew” 7/11-17

“Here's to the corkscrew - a useful key to unlock the storehouse of wit, the treasury of laughter, the front door of fellowship, and the gate of pleasant folly.”- W.E.P. French

Monday started out with a trip for Taylar and I with our Australian Politics class to the South Australian Parliament. We really felt like tourists because most of the people in the class had been there before and we were aw-inspired and taking a ton of photos! We got to listen to two different men who sat in the different houses of parliament, learned some more history about the practice of politics and got a tour around the building. We were both very happy when Wednesday was over because we were done with all our politics lectures and tutorials… now all that leaves is our massive paper.

Thursday was another fun day because I never have class on Thursdays. Another Kelsey and I went to Glenelg which is the beach everyone told us to go to. It was the first beautiful day we had seen in a while, so when we got up to the sun instead of the rain we were excited to take the 45 minute tram ride to the beach. Glenelg was a cute little town and the sites were pretty. Even though it’s winter time, we still went down to touch the water. The beach here is really different than the Oregon and Washington Coast because there are like huge piles of seaweed stuff all over the beach and the water doesn’t look very clear…so I was kinda glad we were not going swimming in it. (However, when we go to Bondi Beach in Sydney, some people are planning on going surfing… so we’ll see. That beach sounds like it is a lot nicer though as well) That night we went out to this Irish Pub, but it was super crowded and not very fun, so a few of us left pretty early. (When I heard Irish Pub, I got my hopes up to high after the awesome experience at Kells Irish Pub in Seattle with Scotty and Elora!)

Friday morning and afternoon was spent researching a lot for both of my long papers for my classes before our whole group got together for a night of fun. Most of us went to this club called Swish and Friday nights are all 90’s with 2 for 1 vodka drinks! This was probably the best night out so far. Taking it back to the 90’s with all the music was so fun…. S Club 7, Britney Spears, N Sync, Backstreet Boys, and many more! (We all find it hilarious that almost all the music we hear at the bars is American music!)

Saturday is the day that everyone has been waiting for! We got on our GroovyGrapes tour van to McLaren Vale and Victor Harbor. Our van driver was awesome and played great music that we were all singing and dancing in our seats for the hour ride to McLaren Vale- where the vines meet the sea. Our first stop was Shingleback. We had the whole wine tasting facility to ourselves…which was probably a good thing since we had 29 people. The tasting room was set up very nicely with couches and even a fireplace inside. I think they went through about 15 wines with all of us there. I would have to say that there weren’t any that I loved at this winery, but my favorite was a Riesling that they served.

We got done with the first winery a little early so we stoped at this little chocolate factory along the way that is famous for Fruitchocs. These are only sold in South Australia and I guess they are highly know and liked… but I was really not a fan. It was like an apricot/peach inside covered with chocolate. I don’t know if anyone in our group liked it.

Our Second winery we stopped at was Woodstock. This was a little drive further into the hills where we got to see some neat scenery. This winery was a little more crowded because there was a wedding going on there… I’m kinda surprised they let our huge group come. Luckly we were off in another tasting room where there were only a few other people… and they left fast. This room was a lot smaller and crowded but it was still a lot of fun. We got to try probably about 8 different wines there. I really liked a Strawberry Rose wine that they had there. (That was my favorite except for a Mascato wine that I have bought at the wine shop on our street. I have to find a Mascato at home, because it’s actually a wine I enjoy drinking with an Italian Pasta dinner) At this winery they also had dessert wines to try. I was excited because I thought I would like them because they are sweeter. Boy was I wrong! I thought they tasted gross! They were pretty much like syrup… no thank you!

We ended our excursion by going go Victor Harbor. We walked along the beach at Victor Harbor and across a foot bridge to get to Granite Island. Granite Island was where we went on a penguin tour. It was pretty cold for the tour because it was night time, you have to go on the tours about an hour or two after sunset because that is usually when the penguins come to the island for the night, but I guess since it was a really nice day and a full moon the penguins decided to stay out a sea longer. We only saw two penguins from a very far distance behind a rock and then two more tiny babies that were in a burrow where you can only see their heads. We all tried to take pictures but you can’t use the flash… so that was hopeless. Everyone was a little disappointed in this tour because it was freezing and we hardly saw anything. At the end we went to a nice hotel for dinner before heading back to Adelaide. They had a good salad bar and I had fish and chips for dinner. The fish was so good! (Especially since I love fish and haven’t had any in Australia so far!) And my friends were excited because I gave them my chips since I don’t like potatoes.

We had a pretty long ride back home where most people crashed on the bus and then went home to bed in preparation for a dolphin cruise on Sunday.

Today (Sunday), when I woke up it was nasty and rainy outside so I and most others decided not to go on the dolphin cruise. We figured being on a boat when it was cold and rainy would make the ride rougher and not be very fun. So today I’m working on getting a heap of both papers done before we go out to Outback Jacks for a birthday dinner for Sabrina. (Her birthday is next Friday, but that is the last night we will be in Adelaide, so she wanted to go out tonight for dinner and next week to the bar.)

I can’t believe our time in Adelaide is almost over! We leave in less than a week. Time to get down to business and finish stuff up!

“Exploring the Australian Culture” 7/6-10

This week was filled with a variety of different adventures. After going to the doctor for what I thought was a pulled hamstring, I found out that I had a pinched nerve and the doctor gave me medicine that was making me sick and really tired, but doing absolutely nothing for the pain… so I stopped taking that, and went to the chiropractor. I found out that I had a spinal disk out of place pinching the nerve and causing pain down my leg as well as having a twisted pelvis…so obviously, now I know why I’m in a lot of pain… and this is starting to play into my daily activities with all the walking we do. I just deal with it and try to forget about it. I’m going bungy jumping in New Zealand… so maybe that will just straighten everything out. Haha.

On Friday, my Indigenous Cultures and Histories class was canceled because my teacher in an Aboriginal person she was celebrating the NAIDOC week culmination with a large march. I did not actually participate in the march because WSU told study abroad students not to participate in political marches or protests, but a few of us went down to join the family fun day at the end of the march to learn a little bit more about the life of the Aboriginal Australians.

Friday night everyone was ready for some fun after a long week of classes. A big group of the girls and I went to a fun Mexican restaurant across the street for some food and margaritas before we joined the rest of some group for “pre-funking” and some card games. (Everyone questioned me when I said pre-funking because they all call it pre-gaming) Then we spent the night at Red Square, the dance bar we went to last weekend. It was a lot of fun, and we got to skip on the $15 cover charge again! It was a fun night that I think everyone needed.

Saturday started with what sounded like it was going to be awesome activities, but just turned out to be ok. We started the day at the Haigh’s Chocolate Factory. When we got there, this grumpy lady gave us a sample of chocolate as we went in the door and then shuttled us back into this hallway where we could see a few people working on machines. I guess the lady decided she didn’t like us because we were supposed to be taken on a tour of everything but that didn’t happen… the chocolate was good at least. Then we headed to the South Australian Migration Museum, the first Migration Museum in the world. I’m really not a big museum person, but it was pretty interesting. They told us some information that will help me with a few of my papers that I have to do for both of my classes… so that was good. A few friends and I finished off the day at a little dive diner for dinner.

Today I was excited because I got to take to a bunch of my family who are all at beach week this week. I was feeling a little home sick because I was missing my favorite vacation of the year with beach volleyball and jumping the waves, but it was nice to get to talk to everyone. Grandma said that I’m too far away and need to stay closer to home because she misses me! Today was also nice because I got to sleep in a little bit before our activity for the day. We all went to a Port Adelaide footy game. Despite being pretty cold and rainy and Port losing like 53 to 109 or something awful like that, it was fun to watch and try to figure out what they were doing with these 18 on 18 teams. I got to try a footy meat pie at the game that everyone said we had to try while we were here. It was interesting… and a lot better than I expected.

Tomorrow is off to the Parliament  for my Australian Politics class adventure.



This is our whole group!



"New Discoveries" 6/30-7/5

We were all happy for a little break and fun after the long first week of classes. On Thursday night we decided to adventure back down town to check out some cool bars that some locals had told us about. A bar named Apple, that we wanted to go to, was obviously popular because it was a two hour wait to get into… so we moved on down the street to a few other places. We eventually ended up down in the red district and could not find the other place where we wanted to go so a few of us left to go home. As 3 of my friends and I we ran across this really neat dance club that was supposed to be a $10 cover but we got in for free, so that was a lot of fun. It was kind of hilarious to watch how all the people danced there and reacted to us as Americans.

On Friday night most of our whole group went out to a smaller bar just right down the street from our apartment for Karaoke Friday!  It was a lot of fun to have a big group there and most of us sang songs. The song choices that I knew I could sing were limited, but we had a lot of fun. I sang “Story of a Girl” and “Check Yes or No”.  That night was kind of short as everyone was exhausted from the whole week.

Saturday was an ugly day! It had been so nice here, but it was gloomy and rainy the whole day long! Most of us slept in and stayed in the apartments to work on homework most of the day.

Sunday we woke up to the nice surprise of the sun shining again so our adventure plans for the weekend were on again. A group of 6 of us set out on an adventure to Hahndorf, a little German town in the Adelaide Hills. We had to take two buses to get to Hahndorf, which was only supposed to take 45 minutes… but the first bus was late, so that made us miss the second bus by just minutes…and since it was a Sunday we had to wait an hour for the next bus to take us to Hahndorf. We eventually made it there though. It was a fun little town where we got some amazing fudge, had a huge bratwurst dog, and explored the shops. It turned out to be a good weekend day trip.

Monday… Happy 4^th of July! We had all planned to do something big and extravagant to celebrate the 4^th, but that didn’t happen because there was absolutely nothing going on here. I mean come on… they celebrate Canada Day… why can’t they celebrate the 4^th of July? We ended up finding sparklers though, so that summed up our 4^th. Since there wasn’t anything going on a few of us went out to dinner. We went to Outback Jacks! This is a really cool restaurant. I decided to be adventurous and tried the kangaroo and alligator skewers. They were both actually really good… they kind of taste like steak. I liked the kangaroo better because the alligator was a little tougher. All in all, very good experience and I will probably get a kangaroo steak somewhere before I leave.

Today (Tuesday) has been an extremely long day, and I feel like I have pretty much been sleep walking all day. I guess I didn’t get a very good night sleep last night. I did my first presentation in my Indigenous Cultures and Histories class which was like a 10 minute speech on how the Aboriginal people were not passive participants in the invasion of their land. Now onto writing an essay plan for Friday for my Politics class. There is so much to do for classes here since it is so short, but everyone is feeling pressured because most of us go to class from 9-5 with like an hour break for lunch, so when we get home at 5 we are exhausted and not ready to do work again!

I already can’t wait for this next weekend! We are going on a Chocolate Factory Tour, to the Migration Museum, and to a Footy Game!