Reflections on an Airplane

Hey Everyone!

I’m sitting on the plane home to the US as I write this, which will sadly be one of my last blog posts about studying abroad! :(

I can’t believe the semester is over. I honestly don’t know where this time has gone. I feel like I was planning to go abroad for ages, and now I can’t grasp the concept that it’s all over!

Saying goodbye to everyone at Tommy was honestly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I am excited to get home to see my family and friends, but honestly, leaving Perth and my new family there has left my heart completely broken, and I’m so sad about having to leave everyone. But more on that later, because if I think about it too much now I’ll start crying and I’ve done enough of that in the last week to last me a lifetime. I also have another 11 hours to go on this flight, so I want my plane-neighbors to still like me by the end of this trip hahaha :) 

So, I’m going to save the sentimental blog post for last, after I’ve been home for a bit so I can be sure to say everything I want. You guys have that last sappy post to look forward to :) 

In the meantime, I want to mention all the Australian nuances I’ve picked up on over the past few months, especially because I want to be sure not to forget them.

Observations:

1)   The Australian pronunciation of the letter “h”. In America, ‘H’ is a relatively silent letter, it’s more of a space filler, if you will. Well, the Aussies use the letter ‘h’ of course, but it is not silent. No no no. The ‘H’ sound has so much oomph behind it that you wonder how strong the Australian diaphragm must be in order to get such a strong sound out of a silent letter. …For example, if you say the letter “H’ in America, it sounds like “aych”. In Australia, its “HHHHHAAAAAAYCH”, with a very sharp exhale. So, if we want to go to eat at Hungry Jacks (same thing as Burger King), which all the Aussies call “HJ’s” for short, it sounds like “HHHAYCH jays”. Its confusing, I know. This probably doesn’t even make sense, especially because I know I’m deliriously rambling to you all on this plane. But nevertheless, it makes sense in my head and I feel like I did a somewhat adequate job of explaining? Hahahaha so that’ll just have to suffice for now…ok moving on—

2)   Types of coffee in Australia.

Ever heard of a Flat White? A Long Black? No? Yeah me neither, until I came to Oz. These are just two of the types of coffee that the Aussies drink on a daily basis. They still have the standard stuff, like lattes, cappuccinos, etc. But they’re all slightly different from what we have in the states. Since I’m somewhat of a coffee connoisseur, I took It upon my self to try every coffee offered. Most of them are awesome—I definitely prefer the Aussie style of coffee-making to American. Almost every coffee includes steamed milk, which is my favorite part :) None of that drip-coffee nonsense that everyone does in the States. There’s no such thing as a coffee machine in an Aussie house. Instead, there’s definitely an espresso machine thing, and something to steam milk with. Its wonderful.

Ok so back to the coffeeeeees

A flat white coffee is a shot of espresso with steamed milk and a sliver of foam on the top (similar to our version of the latte). A long black is disgusting—it’s a shot of espresso mixed with boiling water, and that’s it. Grody. I learned all of this at my lovely job at Mother’s Foods, which is down the street from Tommy. I had to take a barista training course for my job, so the good news is I can make really good coffees now. The bad news is all the Aussie coffees are different from ours so I’ll need to relearn everything. Ohhh welllll.

3)   While we’re on the topic of Mother’s Foods, my beautiful (nightmarish) place of employment, I’ll just mention that while I hated having the job, I learned a TON there. I definitely wouldn’t have learned so much about the outback/down under Aussie culture if it weren’t for that place, because all of our clientele were miners who were home-grown, true blooded, authentic, bogan aussies. So you could imagine how overwhelmed I was my first week at work when 15 guys would come in to the restaurant on their lunch break, covered in coal dust, and would order: “A flat white, dim sim, lasagna topper, roll with snags, beetroot and capsicum on a roll, pepper pie, brekky with salad hold the beans, a chiko roll, and a sausage roll.” My first few days I was on the verge of tears constantly because I had no idea what they were talking about. But luckily I learned and soon enough I had that restaurant down to a T, prices memorized and everything. Go me. I even trained my replacement…that was odd.

My hole-in-the-wall place of employment :) 

Oh, Mothers. So many memories. That I will likely soon forget. 

4)   Australians saying “throw another shrimp on the Barbie” is a lie. No one says that. They don’t even put shrimps on a barbeque, like, ever. They might throw a few snags (sausages) on the Barbie, but that’s called a sausage sizzle. So yeah, no shrimps on the Barbie ever….

5)   Australian birds are annoying and super weird. They’re massive things that squawk and swoop at your head and attack you. I’m not even kidding, I saw more kids at uni get attacked by swooping birds than I could count. All the birds are super tropical/different looking and they are very very very loud. The only singing bird I ever noticed is the kookaburra, which I didn’t know was a real bird until I saw it! You know the song? “Kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree…” haha :)

6)   Aussies say “keen” and “reckon” constantly. CONSTANTLY. For example, “Ay mate, are ya keen for pies at supper?” which is “Hey dude would you like to go get pies at dinner?”. Reckon is another popular one. Aussies ask “What do you reckon?”, which sounds more like “Whadayareckon?”—it’s pretty much said as one word—but anyways it’s the same as saying ‘what do you think?’ :) 

7)   FLIES ARE EVERYWHERE. If you go outside and have food in your hands, you can count on a minimum of 15 flies swarming around you within seconds of the food’s appearance. Those flies will also stay there until the food is alllll gone. It doesn’t matter how much you swat at them, they are unfazed, and they are soooo annoying. Even if you’re outside, sans-food, flies will buzz around your face and it’s disgusting. They just don’t quit! Apparently they get even worse in the summer too, so I only had to deal with the beginnings of the upcoming summer fly infestation. The flies are the only thing that I won’t miss from Australia haha

8)   Lots of people don’t wear shoes, at all. Australia is plenty warm, and being in the outback, looking nice for appearance’s sake isn’t really a priority for some. Its also super trendy to be a hippie/hipster/indie person and not wear shoes, because its 'making a statement'. So loads of people just don’t ever wear shoes. I first noticed this at uni when I saw two girls walking around barefoot. I automatically and naively assumed that maybe they lost their shoes, maybe they couldn’t afford shoes, maybe their shoes were stolen, etc. But over the next few days I started noticing a rising trend in no-shoe-wearers. It’s the hip, bohemian thing to do. Just go without. In reality, I would love to be able to go barefoot everywhere. I hate wearing shoes all the time! That’s why I live in my flip flops…but the germophobe in me wouldn’t be able to walk all over Perth without shoes hahaha :) 

9)   The phrase “legging it” is just a way to emphasize how fast you had to move to get somewhere…i.e. “I was late so I legged it to class”

10)          “Hi-Lo” Milk = Skim Milk

11)          Ending sentences with “as” and “but”-- Aussies often will be talking, and will end their sentence with “as”, leaving the statement completely open-ended. But that’s the idea…for example, someone will say “The person driving in front of me was going slow as.” So I guess you could say they don’t complete the thought because that puts a limit on the emphasis? Like that person was going sooo slow that there’s no word to describe how slow and painful it was that would do the situation justice. The same goes for ending sentences with “but”.

12)          Ending sentences in “hey”. It’s just added for emphasis: “The bar last night was so fun hey.”

13)          “Ta” = “thank you”. That was a weird one, no idea where it came from... 

14)     "Que" = a line that you wait in, not a spanish word that means 'who'....

Those are all the observations that come to my mind at the moment… I know I’m going to think of a million more once I post this haha but I’ll try to add on later :) In the meantime, I should probably try to sleep a bit maybe? My sense of time is just going to be completely out of whack when I get home.. Erica and I left Sydney (we spent a few days there after leaving Perth and before coming home) on Wednesday the 28^th at 3:40pm, and we will be landing in Dallas on Wednesday the 28^th at 1:40….SO WE’RE TIME TRAVELLING! Haha we’ll be landing in Dallas 2 hours before we ever left Sydney. WEIRD.

By the way, here are some photos of UWA and Tommy... I realized I never showed you all where I went to school and lived, so now you can check it out :)

Here are some of my favorite spots at UWA

the ULTIMATE climbing tree

The walkway to my favorite cafe that I got my coffee from every morning :) 

Winthrop Hall

Panorama of the front of campus. So beautiful! 

And here's a quick tour of Tommy

Front Wing walkway

The Chapel

Middle Wing and the chess board that we never used :) 

Middle Wing

Front Entrance! My room is the window next to the streetlamp on the left of the picture!

Its tradition that the resident of each room writes their name and school on the closet door at the end of every year :) Here's mine! 

my bathroom, Not too shabby!

Back Wing

Dining Hall on the left :) 

Anywho, I’ll be writing one last blog post over the next few weeks or so about my entire experience. It’ll be a sobfest when I write it, so you have lots of sappy life lessons and confessions to look forward to! :)

I love you all! Now that I’ve left Perth and the hardest of the goodbyes are over, I’m ready to just get home!

See you all soon

Cheers,

Becca

 

West Coast Road Trip

Hey everyone! 

Last week, I went on a 4 day road trip up the west coast of Australia, all the way to Exmouth! It was such a fun week, and I feel like I was really able to see the country I've been living in these past four months. This place is so beautiful, it's going to be so hard to leave (in nine more days! Where has the time gone?!) 

I made a movie about our road trip, which you can CLICK HERE to watch. Here's the link as well if you want to share it! 

https://vimeo.com/53657241

The Road Trip Rundown: 

Day 1, Saturday, November 3rd
After (barely any) planning on our part, we rented a station-wagen-type car from a local place in Perth, and hit the road! My car consisted of me, Max, Erica, Alanna, and Ben (one of our friends from Tommy who goes to UVM). We were also traveling with 2 more cars full of other kids from Tommy. 

Our very full car

Just before leaving Tommy! 

Our goal for the day was to get to the Shire of Carnarvon, a small town that is about 10 hours from Perth (and yes, I made a million Lord of the Rings jokes about it because its THE SHIRE, incase you were wondering). Ideally, we wanted to drive all the way up to Exmouth (15 hours from Perth), stay there, and then hit more places to visit on the way back down over the course of a few days. 

Enjoying the view

Our car! Affectionately named "Squirt" & "Centipede"....It's a long story

After about 4 hours of driving, just as we were entering Geraldton (the last some-what populated area that we would be seeing for the next few days), Erica got pulled over in a speed trap. Lucky for her, she has those irresistible puppy-dog eyes that no one can say no to, not even this grumpy old cop who I'm sure has issued a number of tickets in his day. After asking if we "have speed limits in America"..........um, duh. He let us off and didn't give us the $300 fine. HORRAY! It turns out that the two other cars we were traveling with also got pulled over by the same cop at the same speed trap, and both of those cars got speeding tickets. HAHA bummer, thank goodness Erica is just so precious and innocent and can cry on cue. :) 

After grabbing a quick dinner in Geraldton, we jumped back into the car to get to Carnarvon because it was getting late and the sun was setting. Now, usually this wouldn't phase me, but I always forget that I'm in Australia and things are different here.. Driving at sunset or sunrise is always a really bad idea, because kangaroos are EVERYWHERE. They line the side of the road and jump in front of cars at the very last second, because they apparently are attracted to headlights. I was terrified to try and drive at dusk, so Max, our native Aussie, drove us safely through those deadly hours. 
I'll just say now that, THANK GOD, we didn't hit any kangaroos during our whole trip, which is apparently a miracle and pretty unheard of. I'm not kidding, there are THAT MANY kangaroos--its a pest problem in Australia, which blows my mind. I was also really paranoid because we didn't have one of those roo bars on the front of our rental car (a roo bar is used to protect you and the car from kangaroos that you hit....which is really depressing, but also really necessary). So in the event that we did hit a kangaroo, our wind shield would have be shattered, the car dented, a kangaroo dead, and I would've been traumatized. So really, thank you God for not letting us hit a kangaroo hahahaha. 

Anyways, after the sun set I volunteered myself to drive. This was the first time I had driven in Australia, so I was a bit nervous, seeing as how I would be driving on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car...They have everything backwards over here. For example, the location of the wind shield wipers and blinkers are switched. So there were a number of times where I'd go to turn on my blinker, but I'd turn the wipers on instead... haha oops! 

After about an hour or so of driving, I was beginning to feel somewhat comfortable until I started noticing kangaroo roadkill literally every 50 feet, if that. It was soooo sad to see all the little "sleeping" (as we liked to say) kangaroos in and on the side of the road. They were everywhere. Then I realized that they were killed because they were hit by cars, which meant it was only a matter of time until one jumped in front of me since I was driving the car that would be doing the killing... So then I started panicking. We had learned from the car rental people that if a kangaroo jumps in front of you, you are supposed to hit it head on instead of swerving to avoid it, because you can lose control of the car, which is very top-heavy and are prone to flipping over. With this in mind, I started focusing on the bush lining the sides of the road more so than on the actual road, which was a dead straight line extending to nowhere. The "highway" that we were driving on was 2 lanes, one lane going north and one going south. There are no street lamps to light the way, just your headlights and the stars. So anytime a car approached you from the opposite direction, you would be completely blinded by their headlights, and you could maybe see 10-15 feet in front of you when that was the case. Scary stuff. 
So, while I was driving, I was freaking out, and gripping the steering wheel so hard that my hands were turning white. Next, I saw a giant Mac truck off in the distance that completely blinded me. Then it started raining, and I hadn't figured out how to turn on the wind shield wipers yet. AND THEN I looked to my left, and see FIVE KANGAROOS just sitting, looking at me from their spots right next to the road. Then I really started freaking out. The thoughts in my head were something like: this is it, I'm about to hit a kangaroo it's going to die it's going to be all my fault this stupid truck is blinding me I can't see anything oh my god its raining oh my god where are the wind shield wipers oh my god oh my god go away kangaroos please get out of the road I don't want to hit you oh no this is the end its going to happen OH NO OH NO OH NO PLEASE NO

It was rough. 
But, the truck passed me so I could see again, the rain miraculously stopped as quickly as it had started, and the kangaroos stayed where they were. WE SURVIVED :)
About 5 minutes after that little rendezvous I pulled over and had Ben drive the rest of the way to Carnavon. I think I aged about 10 years from that one hour of driving. 

When we reached Carnarvon, a completely deserted, totally eerie ghost of a town, we were driving in circles looking for a place to set up camp when we notice those familiar red and blue flashing lights behind us, again. This is a joke right? We got pulled over, not because we were speeding, but for a random breathalyzer test. Pulled over two times in one day! That has to be a record. Ben passed the test with flying colors, of course, and this friendly cop let us know where we could go to camp for free--he gave us directions to a great spot on the beach and lets us go on our way. 

Ben and his new friend, Mr. Policeman

ITS THE FUZZ

Carnarvon is in a very remote part of Australia, so there is no cell service out there. Because of this, we had no idea where the 2 other cars were, or if they had even made it to the town. Then, like magic, they appeared at our exact same camping spot....They all had also gotten pulled over by the cop, who noticed their American accents, and gave them directions to camp along with us! Haha so it worked out pretty perfectly, even though it means that every car was pulled over twice on our first day of the trip....hilarious. 

Camping in Carnarvon!

My group had a very spacious tent which we borrowed from a Tommy friend, so we were living in the lap of camping-luxury and slept very well the first night...Until I had an extremely vivid nightmare about a kangaroo that jumped on my back and tried to kill me while simultaneously telling me that "everything was going to be ok". Obviously not, Mr. Kangaroo, since you're trying to kill me. Clearly, my subconscious mind was super stressed about something.. I woke up crying, thinking I had just been clawed to death by a kangaroo, but lucky enough for me I was still alive and was awake to see the sunrise haha :)

Day 2, Sunday, November 4th
We continued our trek bright and early, leaving Carnarvon at about 5:30 am. By midday, we had reached Exmouth, we found our campground in Cape Range National Park, we set up camp, and then went straight to the beach. We had rented snorkel gear, so we spent the rest of the day snorkeling at Oyster Stacks beach--the water was crystal clear, and a color blue that I had never seen before. The snorkeling was incredible, with so much wildlife that was stunningly beautiful--tropical fish, coral reefs; the colors were honestly astounding and I loved it! 

Oyster Stacks

You're supposed to wear the flippers in the water, honey

I found Patrick!

I think the snorkel gear suits me, don't you??

We left the beach just before sunset to head back to camp to make dinner before losing daylight. After over an hour of experimentation, we were finally able to boil water for the pasta we would be making. Safe to say we might have starved if we hadn't had our little gas cooker... Haha but we made pasta and took it down to the beach we were camping on to go for a walk and watch the sunset, which concluded another great day. After the sun had set, we were all so exhausted that we went straight to sleep....at 7:30 pm. :) 

Cape Range National Park Campground

The most ghetto kitchen you will ever see

Footprints in the sand.. So artsy :) 

New friends!

om nom nom starving

Day 3, Monday, November 5th
After waking up around 6:00, we made ourselves scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast and then went to Turquoise Bay. Turquoise Bay ranks in the top 5 most beautiful places I have ever seen. The sand was so soft, the water a clear turquoise color that honestly looked fake--it was a perfect beach and I would have been happy to never leave. We went snorkeling in the bay where we saw more fish, sea turtles, sharks, and different coral and plants. Next we went to another beach in the area, where we snorkeled some more until we had to load the car back up to continue on our journey. 

Making breakfast! We didn't accidentally burn a hole in the table at this point...Oh wait, no, we definitely did. 

Breakfast struggles. mmmm. 

Cape Range

Turquoise Bay

Anna and Erica!

Turquoise Bay

We left Cape Range National Park in the late afternoon to go to Coral Bay, which is about 4 hours south of Exmouth. At this point, we split up with the other 2 cars we were with, who decided to go to another national park that was a whopping 10 hours away instead of to Coral Bay. 

We passed hundreds of these on our drive--its a TERMITE HILL that's as tall as me. ewwww. 

When we reached the extremely nice camp ground at coral bay, we knew we had made the right decision to go there over the park because they had SHOWERS. Now, usually I would be fine going camping and not having a shower for a couple of days. But the thing is, we had been constantly in salt water, dirt, or sand for the last few days. And when you're rolling around in that for so long without showering, your hair starts to get matted and you can't find your skin underneath all of the red dirt that you slept in.... So, I definitely wanted showers unless I wanted to sport the dread-lock look for the rest of my time in Australia. 
After setting up our tent, we went to the glorious showers where Erica actually broke a nail on her hair (it got that real) and we each shampooed maybe 8 times each. It was so funny all things considered. The second I stepped under the water, the water ran straight off my hair--it couldn't even break through the top layer of the pretty dread locks that had started forming hahahahaa. I know I sound so incapable of roughing it at the moment, but it was just one of those days where you want to be comfy, cozy, and clean :) 

So happy because we showered YAY

After making dinner in the campground's kitchen (fancy shmancy) we laid out on the roof of the car to watch the stars, a.k.a. nature's television. The entire sky was covered in stars--I'm telling you, there are just more visible stars in the southern hemisphere. We were also in the middle of nowhere, so there was no light to distract from the night sky. It was beautiful. We saw heaps of shooting stars and we were completely mesmerized for the rest of the night. 

Day 4, Tuesday, November 6th
The next morning, we rented more snorkel gear from the MOST bogan (i.e. redneck/hick), most authentic Australian I have ever spoken to. This guy was so tan he was black, he had bleached blonde surfer-dread-lock-hair, he had a beer that never left his hand, and he had the thickest aussie accent that I could barely understand--somewhat like the Crocodile Hunter, but even more "full on" (intense). He sent us to his favorite spot for snorkeling, which completely blew Exmouth's snorkeling out of the water, pun intended. Coral Bay was nothing like Exmouth, in that we had to swim pretty far out from the coast to reach the Ningaloo Reef, where we could dive and swim with the fishies. It was SO COOL--slightly scary, but still awesome. This was without a doubt my favorite day of the trip. We spent hours snorkeling and just hanging out on the beach. Life is rough :) 

The crew!

Coral Bay, my new favorite place in the world

Love him

What a babe. 

Just keep swimming :) 

Later that afternoon, we packed up our camp, loaded up the car, and drove back to Perth. We got back to Tommy around 1:30 in the morning, and we were all so exhausted that we went straight to sleep in our comfy, cozy beds. 

This trip was the perfect way to spend one of my last weeks here. I really feel like I got to see so much more of this beautiful country. I also realized that Perth really is the ONLY city on the west coast. There is just nothing else out there other than the occasional town. We would drive for hours without seeing any sign of civilization other than the road we were on--pretty crazy stuff. I loved seeing the authentic outback, and let me tell you, Outback Steakhouse has it ALL WRONG :) 

Now I get to enjoy my last week and a half here. I'm in the middle of finals, which is a real pain, because its the summer here and all I want to do is spend my time with friends outside and on the beach, not in the library studying.. I can't believe the semester is almost over! I'm in total denial. I still feel like I got here maybe a month ago. I love it and I'm not ready to leave! Its hitting me that even if I'm able to come back to visit sometime soon, this will never be the same as it is right now in this moment. So I'm cherishing every single day I have with the friends that I love :) 
I'm so lucky and thankful! 
YAY AUSTRALIA

Cheers, 
Becca :)