June 1 – 7, 2009: Week two (+cultural update):

I came into my second week alone, well-rested and motivated.  I would begin my work on the mentoring program, and I would find a new place to live, and people to hang out with.  I had been working out every day at the Fitness First gym, but Tuesday night I left the gym with more than just a sore body.  I had met my first two friends in Melbourne, Jorji and Tyson.  They were two girls inspired to reform their unhealthy ways, by going to yoga class at the gym once a week.  One may have considered this effort void considering they smoked two cigarettes each on the way there, and then picked up a milk shake and two or three more cigarettes directly after, but I wasn’t trying to make judgments.  They were both fun, and let me pick up some of the Australian culture.  Through my two new friends and time spent immersed in the city, I began to understand some of the Australian lingo.  Here is a little “Aussie” dictionary of random and/or common words:

• Bogan = Australian version of a redneck
• Good-on-ya = good job
• Fair dinkum = that’s true
• Mate = friend
• Prawn = shrimp
• Cheers = thanks

Despite somewhat integrating myself into the culture, the Claremont Guest house was still lacking what I needed socially, so after some research I found a backpackers hostel I would move into the following week.  I would take breaks when working at the Lighthouse Foundation to use the internet to discover thing such as the hostel and communicate with friends, among other things.  Free internet was something hard to come by so I had to maximize it while I had it.  But this is not to say I did not have plenty of work as I began research on the mentoring program and putting together fundraising information.  As the week closed, I had put together a basic outline for the mentoring program, made some friends, and found a new place to live.  So, pleased with my weeks efforts, and excited for the prospects of that which followed, I concluded my third week in Australia, and my second alone in Melbourne.

May 26 – 31, 2009: On my own:

The first few days on my own were pretty rough, and the first day was particularly terrible.  I woke at 6:30am to the fire alarm blasting in my ears.  Dad was leaving early that morning and was still in the hotel with me.  We had to wait outside in the brisk Melbourne winter air for thirty minutes before the alarm was shut off, and we were allowed back into the building.  I said my goodbye to Dad and tried to salvage a few more hours of sleep.  In Sydney I had begun to feel a little sick and it had carried through till then—nothing particularly bad, just that kind of mopey, congested feel that puts you in a shadow when you have a cold.  But when I woke up for the second time that morning I felt absolutely terrible.  I had a fever, was lightheaded, couldn’t breathe through my nose, a headache—the works.  But I dragged all my bags through the hotel, rode the tram to my new home, the Claremont Guest House, lugged my bags up four flights of stairs, and crashed in misery for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, the following days were better.  I slowly recovered from the sickness and got a bearing on my surroundings.  I went around searching for places such as the best and cheapest restaurants to eat at, and locations where I could get free internet, as I traveled alone.  But, despite settling in and figuring out what my life would be like for the next 7 weeks, I was becoming a little depressed about my choice of the Claremont Guest House.  I can’t blame the place itself, my room was nice enough, and it was clean.  There was just absolutely nobody to meet or talk to.  I didn’t realize how much I was counting on my living arrangements to be my social catalyst as well.  A week into my stay I had met 3 people.  But, being busy as I was settling in, and starting work at the Lighthouse Foundation, I put that problem in the back seat.

The Lighthouse Foundation turned out to be great.  My initial wariness and perhaps disappointment disappeared once I arrived on my first day.  Everyone was nice and welcoming.  There are no offices in the building just two floors of large spaces with desks and workplaces.  At first I found this strange, but I came to like the open social atmosphere it created.  My work was very limited the first week as I eased into the organization.  Cameron, my boss, allowed me to get a feel for things, and decide what I would most like to work on.  So I played with some options and decided I could most put my skills to use in helping develop a mentoring program, and fundraising.

So, with the prospect of this work to begin the next week I came into my first weekend alone—and it was a lonely one.  But, with a couple books, free internet at the library, and my body still struggling to stay awake till 11:00pm with the time difference, I made it through without feeling too homesick or friendless.  I knew I would find a solution to my social life soon, so I just enjoyed my time to myself.

Here are some pics of the Lighthouse Foundation, a tram (my primary mode of transport), and some fine australian dining :) :

May 19-25, 2009: Sydney & Cairns:

After three days in Melbourne, we said our farewells and set off to Sydney.  The two days spent there, and the three following in Cairns were much more relaxing than those spent in Melbourne.  I still had much to worry about, but the bulk of the anxiety inducing problems that were to face me had been solved—I knew where I was going to live, how I would get around, a feel for the area, etc.

For whatever reason, neither my father nor I was very excited about the trip the Sydney.  We really only went there out of a feeling of necessity to see some of the major Australian landmarks.  It was mostly just an intermediary stop between Melbourne and Cairns.  But despite our lackluster initial emotions, it was relaxing and fun.  We saw the Opera house, the Sydney harbor bridge, and took a twilight ferry ride to Manly, one of the most famous beaches.  We rode an elevator to the top of the Sydney tower and even decked ourselves out in the standard issue jump suits to climb on top of the building, till a storm came through and canceled the adventure.

So after some relaxed touring of the city, resting up, and a six hour afternoon flight, we were in Cairns.  As opposed to Sydney we were both extremely excited about Cairns.  We had heard about the possibility of scuba diving on the reef and I was ecstatic about it.  The weather was phenomenal.  We were there in the beginning of winter and the temperature stayed around the eighties.  We did end up scuba diving, and snorkeling on the reef, and it was all it lived up to be.  Dad almost got out of scuba after an uncomfortable experience snorkeling, but I wouldn’t let him pass it up.  We saw tons of coral, clown fish (Nemo), sea turtles, a sea snake, and a bunch more.  The 6 hours we spent on the reef was my favorite part of our whole trip.  But the following day was by no means put in a shadow by its predecessor.  We spent it on the Skyrail, which was sort of a ski lift through the rainforest, and made a stop in a small town named, Kuranda.  After visiting the Haelsville sanctuary in Melbourne I figured we had met the peak of exposure to the Australian wildlife, so I was reluctant when my Dad pulled me into a tiny zoo in Kuranda that boasted its Koala cuddling.  But it may have been my second favorite spot other than the reef.  I did in fact get to cuddle with a Koala, along with feeding baby kangaroos, and seeing crocodiles and snakes from feet away.

Here are some pics from our time in Sydney and Cairns:

May 16, 2009: Arrival:

After an extremely long flight which took over 16 hours total from LA to Melbourne, Au, my DukeEngage has begun. I’m going to start off with my initial reactions. I found that the first thing I was doing after arriving at the Melbourne airport was comparing the Australian world to my own. Here are some random things I have noticed:

Differences:

• 7/11 stores are on every corner
• A 14 hour time difference!
• Everything that is normally on the left side is on the right and vice-versa (most noticeably traffic) -Many words are spelled slightly differently (ex. “Tire” is spelled “tyre”)
• Hamburgers and baked beans are common breakfast items
• Public transportation is everywhere
• “American” pizza includes salami and ham, and most pizza places don’t even have pepperonis

Similarities:

• Language
• Large middle class
• Similar feel to an American city

——

Noticing these observations along with many others, my father and I toured around Melbourne. We visited a Yarra Valley winery, watched Star Trek for the second time on the third largest IMAX in the world and came face to face with kangaroos, emus, and Koalas in the Healsville sanctuary. But, the majority of the time in Melbourne we spent working out the logistics of my stay. We found a place for me to stay, got a general idea for the Richmond area (the suburb in which I would be living), and made some, but few, discoveries about the Lighthouse Foundation. This all came as an enormous relief—I was becoming more and more worried as the time in which I would be alone quickly approached, while uncertainty about where I would be living and what I would be doing remained a constant.

The comfort of knowledge did not come all at once though. Coming in I knew very little of the Lighthouse Foundation, and my first encounter with it was all but positive. We came to the building unannounced and it happened to be closed; this is what we saw:

Fortunately after some further inspection two days later, and contact with my partner in the organization, Cameron, things began to look a lot more positive.

May 12, 2009: Pre-departure:

I have been much delayed in getting this blog up and running. I have been in Australia for 17 days as of today. I am going to blog the days past till I catch up to what I am living and going through in the present. But to begin, I have to go beyond these 17 days. The trip began for me far before the plane to off from the RDU airport.

Though my next few posts will be “catch-up” posts, the following I quickly wrote when I was first thinking of starting a blog. It was written and set three days before my trip. It is short, but sums up how I was feeling at the time:

I am extremely excited to leave, but now just a few days before my departure, I am also beginning to feel a little nervous. The magnitude of what I am doing has started to kick in. Relative to my own experiences, this trip will be a huge step. I am going to the opposite side of the Earth to stay on my own in Melbourne, AU for two months. I am leaving and I still don’t know where I will be living, and I don’t really even know what I am doing. But I am trying to stick to my general life belief that things will work themselves out. It will help a ton that my Dad is accompanying me for the first week. Surely the two of us can make it to Australia alive.