I ate Australia's Coat of Arms

Today I ate kangaroo and emu!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it? I barely eat chicken, and I ate such exotic foods today. Pictures will be posted soon- too bad they didn't get a photo of me choking down the emu. I had to close my eyes. The kangaroo was delicious though- tasted like steak. The emu kind of tasted like bacon? I think because it was smoked. Anyway, the last two days have been a worldwind trying to see as much of Melbourne as possible. Tomorrow we are 'hiring' a car (=renting in Aussie English) and driving the Great Ocean Road. I'm really nervous about driving off a cliff but hopefully it'll be okay. I absolutely love Melbourne- sorry Sydney! I can't believe how awesome this place is, even in the rain. I am going to have a hard time leaving this continent... :)

I love Melbourne!

Everyone says that you can't love Sydney and Melbourne- goes against the laws of the universe or something. I already see why! There is just something about it that I really like here... Just got here a few hours ago after a 10 hour trip on the bus and train. It actually wasn't bad at all- I really enjoyed the Australian countryside. We went through some pretty small towns on the bus- barely even paved roads in a couple of places. We just got dinner and it started raining so it will probably be an early night. I'm excited about getting up early tomorrow to explore the city :)

Day 3 Canberrian Adventure

My internship work is wrapped up for the week and I'm getting ready to go to Melbourne tomorrow! Last night was *very* entertaining here in the hostel. I was suprised that most people went to sleep pretty early. But there was a guy somewhere on the other side of the room that kept making all these grunting and moaning noises, kind of like when someone breaks their leg. It was so bizarre. Some people got up really early this morning around 5:45 am. I'm not really sure why since I thought everyone here was on holiday but apparently not.

I met with another guy at Australia's Stratetic Policy Insitute this morning. The guys in the office took me out to lunch and told me all about their protesting when they were in university during the Vietnam War. I am starting to get the impression that Australian students are much more into protesting than Americans are but I could be misinformed.

Tonight I am going to do some more work before getting on the train tomorrow! I wanted to upload photos but it looks like this computer in the internet cafe has a virus so I will wait on putting my memory stick into a computer I know is safe!

Canberra & Holiday Fun

I am on semester break for the next week so I am back in Canberra for the first half of this week for internship stuff. Last day of classes before semester break was Thursday, but I have massive amounts of work which I frantically tried to do all day Friday and Saturday. Apparently there was work I was supposed to be doing the last few months! I actually did a really good job of keeping up on all of my reading; now I just have major assignments like papers that take up a lot of time.



I took the bus to Canberra on Sunday and spent the day exploring Floriade (national flower show, similar to Cherry Blossom Festival in DC) and the Australian War Memorial. Both were really interesting. The war memorial was really moving. I wish I wasn't so tired by the time I got there- it was huge and I didn't get to spend as much time there as I wanted to.



Work yesterday was okay- a little stressful because of fuzzy expectations, but it was alright. Apparently my hostel reservation didn't go through last week so I didn't have a place to stay on Monday night. I had to pay heaps to stay in a hotel, but I think it was worth it not to wear shower shoes and to stay in the most comfortable bed ever!!



Today things at work went exponentially better. I am wrapping up my research on the Australia-US FTA so I briefed everyone on that. I don't think I have unearthed anything too meaningful but I think it's been good to pull all this info together for the group. It is election year here in Australia so now I am writing about the opposition party's defence policy. It has been incredibly interesting learning about Australia's foreign and defence policy. It's also really interesting learning about their political system- it's so different from ours! So I interviewed a guy from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the assistant for the Shadow Minister of Defence. It'll take too long to completely explain a shadow minister but basically it would be like having a Democratic counterpart for every Republican cabinet member. Andrew (my internship supervisor) told me this afternoon that I need to get my head examined for thinking all of this is interesting- I'm sure most of you agree ;)



Tonight I am staying in a dorm room with 9 other people because there are no other rooms left in the hostel. I am just happy to have a place to stay! It should be very interesting getting up in the morning at 7 when everyone else is fast asleep. Luckily there is no nightlife whatsoever in Canberra so I don't have to worry about any drunks coming in late :) On Sunday night all the girls in my room went to bed at 10 pm- I can only cross my fingers tonight is as peaceful!! I am using this week as a trial to see if I will survive living in a hostel my last 3 weeks in Australia in December. It is iffy at this point... we will see :)



I have a massive amount of work to get done so I should get back to studying. Thursday I am headed to Melbourne!! Not really sure who I'm travelling with as people's plans keep changing, but I will see when I get there! I am just excited to see more parts of the country, especially now that it's warming up! I love being on permanent holiday.

Half American?

Today we started discussing the US studies centre at lunch and got on a very interesting topic. One of my Australian classmate's told me that she's half American. Meaning her mom is American and her dad is Australian. She actually has dual citizenship and passports for both countries. This launched a big discussion about whether American is a nationality (versus an ethnicity). Now, most of the time in the US if someone asks "What are you?", obviously I am a European mutt. But hypothetically we asked what if you moved to Australia and had a kid here. Doesn't it sound weird to say that your child is half American, half Australian? Both are immigrant countries! Then this got us on the topic if a Canadian married an American, would that kid say it was half Canadian? Doesn't it just sound weird? Anyway, just some musings as I'm up in the middle of the night doing homework :) Have a great day!

Harbour Bridge at Sunset

I absolutely love this photo taken by one of my classmates this weekend

Sydney Uni US Studies Centre

Over the next few weeks the university is launching a new US Studies Centre (partially funded by Rupert Murdoch). I initially learned about it because they invited all of the American exchange students to a barbeque to meet eat other (like I haven’t run across one of the other 1000 American students here yet?) and to learn about the new centre.

According to the Aussies I met at the Spanish chat on Friday (sidenote: I was getting frustrated with my spanish because several people have been commenting on how horrible my accent is. Not really great for someone who is already terrified of speaking! But I realized I can’t give up just yet since I have to pass a proficiency exam in March so I'm trying really hard to keep talking... The chat was ‘heaps’ of fun. Since the drinking age here is 18, we met at the bar on campus and got free beer. They kept asking me all sorts of questions about the US and my impressions of Aussies. We started talking about the Australian political system and gave up on Spanish since we didn’t know any of these words!)... Anyway, back to my point- apparently the centre was initiated to combat the anti-American sentiment in Australia. Well, this method doesn’t seem to be working and based on the fliers I have read around campus, it just might be doing the opposite. They are having student council elections this week, and I’m starting to get the impression that student activists on campus are a bit militant. Some of the other items on the voting agenda are: Free education (it used to be free here until about 10-20 years ago), Money for education not war (the US Studies Centre and protesting at APEC fall under this category), No nuclear research on campus (a rally will be held on Monday for this), Fighting for Women’s Rights (this includes maintaining “autonomous women’s spaces” to make creative and political publications and –surprise- organise protests), Fight Homophobia (there was no explanation for this, but I think it’s self-explanatory).

My feelings on the US Studies Centre are mixed, but overall I think it’s a little strange. Can you believe they are offering a master’s in US Studies? You can take classes on US diplomacy, economics, culture, business, etc. I was trying to think about it from another perspective- why do people study Asian or Middle Eastern cultures? Well, they have a lot of history and I think a lot of times people study the areas because they want to pursue careers in those regions. The US really only has about 350 years of history, and I’m getting the impression that the US has run over Australian culture. Some people here know more about the US than Americans do so I don’t really see why they feel the need to study it more. I think well over 50% of the tv shows here are from the US. The only really cool thing the centre is offering is internships with companies in the US. I think that would be a really great experience for students here. The barbeque to learn more about the centre should be very interesting....

English > Spanish > Persian

I decided that I'm horrible at Spanish and am just going to move on to Persian :) Today I learned how to have a whole conversation with myself:

"Salam. Esmam Sarah e. Chetori? Khoobi? Man khoobam. Chetori? Merci."

Translation? "Hi. My name is Sarah. How are you? Are you well? I am fine. How are you?Thanks."

I really hope that all of the random knowledge I am learning here will be useful one day. I imagine myself negotiating with Iran and impressing everyone in the room with my ability to speak to myself :) With a simple sentence maybe I can make our two countries friends. I can dream right?

As you can tell, I'm avoiding my studies. I think I was having too much fun for the last few weeks and now I'm paying for it! This weekend is a bunch of birthday parties but probably not much else. I have a bunch of term papers I have to work on. Hopefully the weather will be nice so maybe I can study up in the roof garden.

Two Months

I didn't even realize I'd been here for two months until Mom mentioned it on the phone. Wow, time is really flying by! I was reflecting the other day how much I've learned even in such a short time here. I knew that my mind would be opened by this experience, but I don't think I realized quite how much. Part of it is from my classes, another part from the people I've met, and I think the most is just by being on my own in a new place. I feel so fortunate that I've been able to have such a wonderful experience so far. It takes my breath away every time I see the Sydney Harbour. I'm so excited thinking about the adventures that are yet to come...

Me and the Opera House

Me on the ferry over to Balmain
I love this picture

Police State

Here are some photos that I took around the CBD (central business district) and Hyde Park for the APEC protests...

They created a wall of police and fences around the CBD

I think there were probably 5 police for every protestor. We asked these guys for directions- they were pretty nice. And when I say we, I mean we made our Norwegian friend ask for directions so no one would hear our American accents. We talked to some Aussies later and learned that we really had nothing to be worried about because it was anit-Bush, not an anti-US protest, but you never know sometimes...

I counted at least 10-15 of these useful and multi-function buses that could transport for police and protestors.

They were rapping about democracy and then through on a dance song about uranium. Very bizzare...

Trying to stay out of the way as someone got arrested. Kerry thought it was a great idea to get right in the middle of this crowd though (she is a budding journalist). I think there were more people from the media than actually protesting

People running to the wall of police to see another person get arrested. Apparently a streaker also was arrested earlier Saturday morning.

You can't see in this photo too well but they brought out the dogs

Riot police. There is a massive outbreak of equine flu in Australia, otherwise some of these guys would have been on horseback

I think every single police officer in the state of New South Wales was working on Saturday

They covered all the rubbish bins in case of bombs

We saw a group of delegates walking through the fences

This must have cost a good portion of the $170M spent on security on these fences-- they put a fence around all of Circular Quay

You can't see in this photo but there were snipers on the top peak of the Opera House and that is a police boat in front

Three helicopters flying over and around the Harbour Bridge. We think someone important must have been driving across

My impressions? I am so glad that I got to see all of this! What a unique experience. Overall I think all the security was worth it because nothing happened. Better to be overprepared than under. But I can see why Sydneysiders are very upset at the image of their city portrayed that was to the world this past weekend.

Public Holiday, APEC Protests, Birthday Parties

I am so happy that my mid-semester exams are over with! Last week was so hectic, but it was made up for with a really fun weekend.


Friday was declared a public holiday because of the APEC Leaders Meetings that were held here in Sydney. About a million people left the city (25% of the population) and half of the CBD (central business district) was surrounded either by police vans or fences. I think they were really worried about violent protests so they turned it into a police state.

I attended my first protest/rally on Saturday! I actually had a really hard time not laughing because I'm not sure what the point of it was, and I've decided that they are actually a complete and total waste of time. I guess the protestors felt like they were doing good, but I think I would rather work for change in other ways. I'm really glad I went though. I was there when they arrested the 2 organizers, which is talked about in the middle of this article.


Then we took a ferry across the harbour and went to Balmain and Leichardt. Actually, on the way we went past the Opera House- there were snipers at the top of the building and police boats all around! Pretty crazy... Anyway, we didn't realize that we made a big circle and ended up just on the other side of campus. We literally traveled 45 minutes to end up 15 minutes away from where we started! This is what you get for being a tourist. But we ended up eating at a really nice Italian restaurant. Overall it was a really fun day.

On Sunday, it was our friend's 23rd birthday so we went to a great Lebanese dinner. I actually tried lamb for the second time. I was nervous but I ended up really liking it! Very surprising since I don't like very much meat. Maybe I will try kangaroo after all!

Now it's the beginning of another school week. I don't have as much homework due this week but I have several group projects that we need to get started on. I cannot believe how quickly the semester is flying by!

Margaritaville

Having an awesome pear margarita

Fuzzy photos of the Harbour Bridge Fuzzy photos of the Sydney skyline (camera not really designed for night photos)

Lekumba, Bourne Ultimatum, and Aussie culture

It has been a jam packed couple of days. On Friday, we went to this place called Lekumba, which is a predominantly Lebanese suburb. It was really fun to get some food and walk around the middle eastern shops. Then we saw Bourne Ultimatum which was amazing! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you go. Then my friends had heard how much I love MARGARITAS and we were able to find some at Opera Bar. Yup, that's right-- at the Opera House! It was so swanky. They actually had pear margaritas, which weren't as good as the lime, but it was still fun. A bunch of my friends here never had a margarita so I think my new goal is to find the best margarita in Sydney. I know they are out there, I just have to find them.

Then yesterday, a guy in my Spanish class, in his words, "emersed me in Australian culture". It was really fun. We got snacks, went bush walking, and he showed me his high school. He kept asking me the most bizarre questions- like "have you seen barbeque chicken before or is that an Australian thing?" Haha. Can you believe he had his first peanut butter and jelly sandwich a month ago? And he kept saying "I can talk American you know- traaaaaash", which apparently is a strictly American word. Then last night we had iNight which is a talent show here in the International House. It was really fun.

This week is going to be crazy because of APEC. There are 21 world leaders coming, and they are basically shutting down the whole city. I really wanted to go to the beach next weekend after my exams but I think it's going to be pretty difficult to get around because they are shutting down a bunch of train stations. I guess this is the biggest event they have had in Sydney since the Olympics. There are going to be thousands of protestors everywhere. I'm actually really excited- I think it's going to be quite an experience!