on my way home. . .

I'm in the San Francisco airport right now. I wasn't going to post again until I got completely home, but my flight was (is) delayed, so I'm bored. I'm saving my book for the flight, my iPod is charging, and I'm exhausted. (Which will probably become apparent as this gets longer).

I spent my last full day in Melbourne running around, getting gifties for my family, and spending time at my favorite spots. I spent a few hours at the Queen Victoria Market, in the "souvenir" side - this runs the gamut from clothes to jewelry to knicknacks and there's even a pet store. (It had super cute puppies. I didn't think they'd clear customs, though.)

I got up (late) on Saturday and took a shuttle-bus to the airport with some of the other IES students who were also leaving today. Emma and I had the same set of flights to San Francisco, and so we hung out at the Tullamarine Airport and the Auckland Airport. The flight from Auckland to San Francisco had the worst turbulence I have ever experienced on a flight. Because of that, I didn't get much sleep, and so I've now been up for 24 hours. I don't get home for another 5-6 hours, so I'll be pretty much certifiable by the time I see my family. Emma and I parted ways at SFO, since we were at different terminals.

I'm super excited to be going home. Its been a long, wonderful 5 months, but I'm ready to be back. Minneapolis, here I come!

And I'm done!

I took my last exam this morning; and it was lovely! Well, lovely to be done, at any rate. Its super sunny today, and so the exhibition hall was actually warm-ish. My seat was in the back, and the sun came through the windows to hit the back of my neck and it made me all warm and toasty. It was a nice change from the normal icicle I've been in my other exams. This is the fountain right outside the Royal Exhibition Hall, where we took our exams. Its in what are called the Carlton Gardens, which sandwich the R.E.B and the Melbourne museum. There are several playgrounds, one of which Cari and I hung out at after our Famine exam, and the whole area is about the same size as Grinnell and its all green-space. Its really nice.
This is a sketchy panorama of the Royal Exhbition Hall right after the morning exam. Obviously, the building is not skewed the way it is in the panorama, but you can get the feel for how big it is, and the students.

After the exam I went out to lunch on Lygon Street with Nerissa, my study-buddy from the lecture. It was a nice way to finish out the educational bit of my semester. I really love Lygon - its got tons of italian restaurants, and also lots of cafes, gelato places, and really fun clothes stores.
I spend a fair bit of time on Lygon - its really close to Uni, and theres a lot to do. I've been out to eat several times there, and love window shopping. Plus, the closest movie theatre is on Lygon - and it shows mainly Australian (ie independent) films.

Kate, Cari, Olivia and I went to Federation Square and checked out the museums there. Olivia and I bailed after the first one, though - we're both super exhausted. The museum we went to had several galleries of Aboriginal art - both traditional and modern. I think it all was created post 1970. The explainations next to the art were fascinating. It reminded me of the Chicano Art Exhibit at that super cool art museum at the U of M several years ago. The pieces varied from highly political to self-expression to traditional work. Most of it was variations of the "traditional" pointilist style depicting dreamtimes and/or landscapes, but some pieces were woven statues and figurines. It was a really powerful exhibit.
This is a painted pony outside the Melbourne Racing Museum.

I realized that I've never included an image of a tram. This is (I think) a 19 tram, which I can take from the east side of Uni to RMIT or into the city. The line ends at the Flinders Street Station. I go through a 10x2hour pass about every two-three weeks. I take the tram mostly to go grocery shopping, though I used to use it to go to training. The tram system makes it really easy to get around the city - I have a map of Melbourne with tram routes posted on my wall, and I can get almost anywhere by myself. Its decently cheap, as well, which is nice, because taxis are super costly. And to close, I found this image while studying for my Statistics exam with Nerissa in the bathroom of the Economics and Commerce building. It is so ridiculous I had to share it; I can't imagine anyone actually needs these instructions!

Birthday! and exams

Happy 21st to me! Instead of having a party, or doing anything special, I studied for an exam. It was a little lame, but I think I did well on the exam, so. . . Instead, I've spread my birthday celebration out. On my birthday, I opened the birthday cards my family sent me - it was so nice to have cards! On Wednesday, Cari and I went out for dinner after our exam to "celebrate" the end of our class and my birthday. And then last night, Cari, Amanda, Carolyn and I went out for Indian at this super fun, cheap place in one of the northern suburbs. And tomorrow I'm going on a pub crawl. So I'm having the longest birthday ever.

I've had one exam, and still have the two I'm most nervous about to go. Our exams are held in the Royal Exhibition Hall (I'll take a picture at some point). Its a huge building on the World Historical Buildings Register or something like that. Its really pretty inside - I'd take a picture to show you, but they're really strict about electronics in the exam hall. About 2,000 students take exams at the same time. We get split up into two groups, depending on which side of the hall we're on, and we're assigned a number - I was 706 in my last exam. The hall is set up with rows and rows of desks and chairs. My Famine in the Modern World class took up about 3 columns of desks, which would be about 120 students. Its super intense. I miss exams in a small room, but obviously that wouldn't work here. The exam hall is also really cold, even though they have portable heaters spread throughout the hall.

My Famine exam wasn't too bad - it was 100 questions multiple choice, and a lot of them were pretty straightforward. Cari and I decided that our favorite question was "Patriarchy is indirectly responsible for child malnutrition. True or False". (True). I'm glad its done; it was a pretty depressing subject, and studying for it was a downer.

I have just over a week left, and then I go home. I'm getting excited to go home - I miss my family and friends, and I really want some mexican food. Its a little hard to believe I've been here almost 5 months - it seems like I just got here! I'll be sad to leave Melbourne - I really love this city. Cari and I were discussing how sad we are to leave the amazing tram system; the buses in Minneapolis just don't compete. I'm starting to plan out how I'll pack in my head, which is helping with the anxiety. I'm terrified I'm going to miss my flight, or lose my passport, or something else stupid and travel inhibiting. I've triple checked my flight time already, but I know I'll check it several more times before I leave next Saturday. I'm getting excited for next semester at Grinnell, too. I've been hired as a manager at Phonathon, and I've been elected one of the captains for the Ultimate team, which I'm pretty excited about. I've signed up for my subjects, and already have homework in one of them - of course, watching four movies isn't much of a hardship! So I'm pretty ready to go home, even though I'll miss Melbourne.

Adventuring!

Yesterday, I had adventures! They weren't particularly exciting, but they were a lot of fun.

I spent the afternoon shopping and exploring with Olivia. We went to the CBD, to Meyer, where we both spent more money then we meant to, and had fun examining ridiculously expensive clothes. We then took a tram to Collingwood, which is a suburb northeast of Melbourne. We accidentally took the wrong tram (my fault) and so ended up doing a lot more walking that was originally intended. Collingwood is a really cool part of the city. Its a bit like Uptown, only not so many chains, and a bit like Linden Hills, but much bigger. Gertrude Street is the main street in Collingwood, and the intersection of Gertrude and Smith is where the main part of the shops and cafes are. We walked by a bunch of independent clothing labels, and indie/artsy cafes which I would love to stop at. I bought a camera bag at Crumpler, which is the Aussie version of Timbuk2, except much cheaper. We stopped at a shop that sold African imports, and chatted with the owner for probably a half hour. They had some way cool metal statues - I'm trying to figure out how to get one home for you, mom! We also stopped at a funny park where they had statues of Russian stacking dolls.

Russian stacking dolls in the park.

We then turned down a side street and walked to the Cathedral of St Patrick, which, despite its imposing size, I had never seen before. The cathedral, from a block away. It covers a city block, more or less.

It was starting to rain, so I slipped inside to check it out. It was super quiet, but I've been spoiled by the cathedrals I've seen all over the rest of the world, and while the outer architecture was pretty cool, the inside was nothing new. I lit a prayer candle, and then had to explain my non-protestant love of ritual and the Virgin to Olivia. Oh well. It was a nice place to stop - and I haven't been inside a church since I left the states.

This was over a doorway on the street we took to get to the Cathedral. The buildings were all at least 100 years old on this block, which is pretty old for Melbourne.

On our way back to RMIT, Olivia and I cut through the CBD, and discovered all the expensive shops. We were clearly out of place. There is something about walking by Prada, Ralph Lauren, Hermes, and other big names in fashion while wearing converse that just feels wrong. And everyone else in the area was super dressed up, either in buisness-wear, or just plain fancy-wear. I'd never actually seen any big name stores before - they're way imposing. And they have security. I did like walking by and window shopping, though I'm still much more partial to the more independent lablels we found in Collingwood.

Last night, I went to see an Australian film with Amanda called Mary and Max. Its claymation, and fun, but really bizarre. I liked it. The basic premise is that theres a little girl named Mary who lives in Australia and has a pen pal named Max who lives in New York. Max is 44, obese, and has a mental disability. Mary is 8, has a crap home-life, and has no friends. It was a sweet movie, in a weird way. One of my favorite parts was Max describing a frisbee: its like a boomerang, but it doesn't come back.

There are a couple of other Australian films out right now that I'd like to see, but one of them is (I hear) a complete tear-jerker. I guess thats to be expected with a title like "Samson and Delilah". I am hoping to go see "My Year without Sex" sometime in the next few weeks. Its supposed to be really good.

So far, I'm enjoying my SWAT-vac. My adventures have been fun, and I've added a few places to the list. I've made a schdule for my days, and I spend the morning working, and either the afternoon or evening on an adventure. If I'm not adventuring, I do some more study. Its working pretty well.

SWAT Vac!

No, I don't know what SWAT stands for either. But this is my reading period, which is a week long. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with myself - a whole bunch of my friends went to New Zealand, but I stayed in Melbourne. I'm planning on doing a lot of city-exploring; I already have a couple of destinations in mind. I'm going to go shopping - I have a gift certificate for one of the main department stores, plus directions to a "cute, indie" neighborhood with cute shops and cafes. I also plan to go to several art galleries, some museums, the aquarium, and back to the beach.

Last weekend, I had a tournament in Bathurst, which is in New South Wales. We drove 10.5 hours to get there. Bathurst is about as far away as Sydney, and I think its as close as I'll get to Sydney. Our team was mixed, meaning we played with a 4-3 gender ration - 4 men, 3 women. We won three of our seven games, and came in 7th, breaking seed by two. I had a fantastic time. Two of the other women played for Honey as well, and it was really fun to play with them again. The men were pretty fun to play with as well - they all respected the playing abilities of the women on the field. I'm pretty bummed that this is the only tourney I'll get to play with Moho - the Melbourne Uni team. The major tourney - Uni Games, is a month after I leave, and there are no tournaments between now and then, unfortunately.

Its hard to believe the classes portion of my semester is already over. I leave Australia in 28 days. Its making me feel panicky - I want to get "everything" done before I go, but I also have exams to study for. I'm really excited to go home - my bed is possibly the most wonderful thing ever invented, and I miss my family and friends. But I also suddenly have realized that my time here is short - and getting shorter rapidly. Several of the women I played ultimate with have left to go home - be it Canada, the US, or somewhere in Europe. Others are getting ready to do some major travelling - Annie is going to Nepal, where she's going to hike to the base camp of Everest or something crazy like that. In some ways, its nice that others are leaving as well; it makes it easier to prep to go home emotionally, since most of my friends here are other internationals.

Honey Bee, lets fight! Want that disc? Its ours tonight!

This last weekend, I went to the Australian Ultimate Championships in Perth (also known as nationals). The championships are a four day tournament, with two days of pool play, and two days of bracket play. There were 11 women's teams - including three from Victoria -Honey A, Honey Bee, and Team Box. The favorites for the women were Team Box and Wildcard (from Sidney). There were many more mens teams, but again three from Victoria - Heads of State A and B and Chilly.

Tournament logo on a disc. Black swans are native to Australia.

Honey Bee was the only "B" team at the womens tournament, and every team we played were impressed with both the fact that Honey had a development program, and by how hard we played. Honey Bee did, in fact, lose every single game we played, and our total points throughout the weekend would have won us one game. However, we were upbeat and positive every game - we knew going into this that we weren't going to do very well!

I missed the first day of the tournament - thursday- since I had tutorials I couldn't miss. I then managed to miss my flight (I never, ever want to go through that again); but I got into Perth at about 12:45 that night. One of my teammates drove to the airport to pick me up and bring me to the "villas" where we were staying. We stayed in Scarsborough, right off the beach. We had a full kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath in our villa, and the other was just like it.

Honey Bee cheering before a game. Visible players are
(from left to right) Carolyn, Amanda, Annie, Pam, and Emma.

On Friday we played three games. One of them was against Honey A, and we scored twice against them. The first point we scored was a play-book perfect point - we did absolutely everything correctly. It was beautiful. One of the Honey A women - Mel Gange (who reminds me forcibly of Hart) told us that seeing us play that well brought a tear to her eye. Which, as corny as it may sound, was one of our biggest confidence boosters all weekend. We scored a grand total of three points that day, but we did (mostly) make the other teams fight for their points. We were in the "top" pool, and pretty much had no chance against any of the teams. (For all you stickies out there, it was like playing a pool made up of Luther, Carleton, and Madison). On Saturday, we played light-years better than Friday, scoring four points in a game, which was fantastic. Our flow was really good, and we looked like a different team. Bunker (a teammate) had a really bad ankle injury in our second game, and Mon got hit in the head, so while we were playing more aggressively, it was also much scarier - Bunker went to the hospital.

Honey Bee on the line in our game against Wildcard.
L-R: Annie, Me, Emma, and Jude (captain).

I was fresher than my teammates, since it was only my second day, and so I played a lot, particularly in the third game, when our rotations got messy, since we were down two players. I was really proud of myself on Saturday - I played really hard and really smart, which I don't always do. My throwing got a lot better, and I only threw five discs away all day (all time low). My defense was also some of the best I've played in a long time. I had several d's in zone defense, and didn't get broken once my mark was set, and kept up with the cutters. It was some of the best ultimate I've played, which was pretty awesome.

Me cutting in the game against Wildcard. Jude is in the corner.

On Sunday, Honey Bee didn't have any games, since we lost all eight of our games. We watched Honey Bee play Sugar Magnolias for 3-4, and they lost by one in hard cap, which was heart-breaking, particularly, since Honey had been ahead for most of the game, and had a turnover in the endzone in the last point. The women's final was between Team Box and Wildcard, and it was really, really close. The victorian teams were rooting for team box, the underdogs. Wildcard is composed of a lot of World's players - mixed, juniors, and womens. Team Box took the game to half, and then traded points with Wildcard, until Wildcard won in hard cap. It was really sad - Team Box played beautifully.

It was really amazing to watch ultimate of that caliber. With that many worlds players on the field, the game looks completely different from what I've come to expect. (For any frisbee players out there, both teams are of the caliber of Bella Donna). The mens championship was won by Chilly, the victorian men's team. It was a good game, but not as close as the women's game, and so not as interesting. Honey A won the spirit championship, and one of the Honey A women won MVP for the women's tournament, which was really cool. They also announced the worlds training team, and there is a Honey A woman on that as well.

Nationals was really, really fun. I finished the tournament wanting nothing more than to play more. I can't wait to get back to Stickies - I've said it before, but playing with another team makes me appreciate Stickies much, much more. I also have lots of new ideas for plays, as well as a new enthusiasm for Ultimate. The great thing about playing in Australia is that Nationals is smaller than regionals in the states, but it is still high quality Ultimate. To play at Nats was an experience I probably won't get again, and it was really amazing.

Tassie!

Wow. Its been a while since I posted anything. Not much other than school was going on until last week, which was my Easter holiday. I got a week and a day (Good Friday) off, and went on an IES sponsored trip to the Australian state of Tasmania, which they call Tassie here. We flew out midday on Tuesday. Our flight was delayed by several hours, so instead of having a nice sit-down meal, we ate at mackers (MacDonalds). We spent the night at the first of several hostels. That day we woke up to rain and decided we wouldn't let that deter us. We hiked to Wineglass Bay, which despite appearances is actually in the shape of a Wineglass.

It was a fantastic hike up and over the saddle of a mountain, and then down onto the beach. On the beach we saw a wallaby that was quite tame. It hopped up to us and sat around calmly while we took pictures and petted it. I was amazed at how calm it was, though I think it had been fed by tourists before.
We then drove to Tarana, where we checked in to the Fish Lips hostel, and had a fantastic dinner. We all then went on a ghost tour of Port Arthur, which was silly and fun. Port Arthur is the former prisoners colony for repeat offenders. Criminals who were transported to Autralia and then re-offended while in Australia were sent to Port Arthur. On the ghost tour we saw the church, the mortuary, a few of the houses, and the asylum.

The next morning we went to the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park, which also had other Tassie animals. We saw a bird show and a devil feeding, which was intense. When people talk about the weird noises devils make, they aren't kidding! They're smaller than I expected, but apparently have almost the same force in their bite as a saltwater crocodile. They are scavengers and eat everything from what they scavange. They are also being wiped out by a cancer of the face which results in tumors that grow on their face, and they eventually starve to death. The conservation park has a completely healthy population, and the University of Tasmanina is hoping to come up with a test for the cancer soon.
From the devil park, we went back to Port Arthur for a "cruise" around the bay there. We got a tour of the Isle of the Dead, which was the burial grounds for all baptized members of the community, free or not. However, the island (which is really small) is split into two burial sites, separated on the north and south ends, for free and imprisioned, and then further split by class. Most of the prisioners who were buried there don't have headstones, and there isn't a full count of how many are buried on the island. They think its about 1,100 people. Our tour guide was a hoot, and gave all of us exchange students a hard time about not calling home often enough. I was glad I'd called home right before I left!

From Port Arthur we drove to Hobart, which is the capitol of Tassie. We stayed at a hostel called the Pickeled Frog right near the central buisness district (cbd). Hobart is a port city, and I had fish and chips several times, at Mako, which is (apparently) a famous floating fish and chips place in constitution dock.
The next day, we went on a tour of Cadbury, which has a huge factory just outside of Hobart. We watched a funny little movie all about how chocolate is made, and why Cadbury's is special. It was pretty fun and resulted in a lot of free chocolate, and cheap chocolate. From Cadbury we drove to an apple orchard, and picked apples and strawberries and had a picnic lunch, which was a fun, quiet few hours. From the orchard we went to a winery, and did a wine tasting, which pretty much reinforced the idea that I don't really like wine. But it was fun to do all the silly swirling and sniffing and checking the color. We then hung out at the winery for a while, and played a bunch of group games on the lawn, providing entertainment for the people at the restaurant. The winery was in one of Tassies wine regions, and was really beautiful.

After the wine tasting, we went back to Hobart and had free time. I went and got fish and chips and ice cream, which was the meal I had most often (3 times!) while in tassie. Olivia and I wandered around the cbd and other areas, and then pretty much went to bed early.

The next day we all got up and went to the Salamanca Market, which is sort of both on the docks and in the cbd. There were tons of booths with really cool, cute stuff - shirts, bags, scarves, hats, jewelry, art, and food booths, both fresh produce and hot food. I bought lunch there, as well as two pairs of earrings, a scarf, a hat, and some postcards. It was good shopping! Olivia and I wandered around the market together, and spent about three hours there. We then went looking for the Royal Botanical Gardens, but after walking probably 3 or 4 k, we didn't find them, so we wandered back to the hostel and rested until dinner. The whole group went out for Indian together, and it was a fantastic meal, and really fun to hang out with everyone.

The next day was our last in Tasmania, and we got up really early to go rafting. It was a level 2 rapids, which basically means nothing was very difficult and we got more wet from water fights with the other rafts than anything. It was really fun, though the water was really cold. After rafting we all piled into the bus to head back to the airport. Our flight was delayed several hours (seemed to be a theme!), so we arrived in Melbourne at 10:50, and got home just before midnight. It was a really great trip - I loved tassie, and Hobart especially. I do have a lot of work to catch up on, though!

Pictures:
The first is a group photo at the lookout to Wineglass Bay. The front row, left to right, is Philip, Cari, Sam, myself, Kayla, and Olivia. The next is Natalya, girl whos name I have never been able to remember (Stacey), and Chris. Next is Heather, Austin, Rachel, Arielle, and Mark. The back row is Ray, Laura, Kate, Cari, Emma, Suzanne, Nathan, and Alisha.
The second photo is of Wineglass Bay from the lookout.
The third is Kate, wallaby, and Ray.
The fourth is a Tassie devil.
The fifth is the Port Arthur penitentiary.
The sixth is the Isle of the Dead.
The seventh is my favorite fish and chips place, mako.
The eight is a view of the wine region from the winery.
The last is a view up the river from the landing point.