The Spirit of the Outback (aka Aussie Idol field trip)

After two days at home, I found myself doing laundry and packing all over again to leave for Broken Hill.  Broken Hill is a mining town in the outback in New South Wales.  I am going to be blunt, the town was quite boring and pretty small.  Loyola College as well as all of the DePaul students attended this field trip for a class requirement.  Five days of excused class absence...count me in! The bus ride was very long.  We left at around 8am and did not get to Broken Hill until about 9pm. We made a few stops along the way at gas stations in even smaller towns and cafes and bakery's for lunch and dinner. When we arrived, we were shown to our hotel, which was called The West Darling Hotel, and home to the oldest pub in Broken Hill. It was very quaint, a little creepy, and there were 3 working showers for 55 people. The next morning, we awoke bright and early to go see the Daydream Silver Mine. We were able to go inside the mine. After about 20 minutes of being hunched over under the ground, my back started to ache. I could only imagine the pain that the miners had to suffer through.  After our tour, we headed over to ride some camels.  Although I am already a camel riding pro from my experience in Israel, I still had a great time. I was lucky enough to ride Barley the camel.  Camels, although smelly and quite ugly, still find a place in my heart.  Since this was a university sponsored event, we did have to sit though the most boring lecture on the art of Broken Hill.  I can't tell you what it was about, I think everyone was dosing off at this point.  We then headed over to an Outback sculpture park to watch the sunset and drink some goon.  There were two rainbows in the sky! The weather was terrible and it was raining pretty hard, it was one of their biggest storms in ages, but at least I got to see some rainbows. That night we went to a karaoke bar.  Yes, I did participate in karaoke with the help of some liquid courage and peer pressure.  I sang "Paradise City" by Guns and Roses and made a complete fool of myself.  I even rocked some air guitar.
The next day we went to a memorial for the miners who have died on the job, went to see the Flying Doctors of NSW and took a tour of Broken Hill.  Not much happened.  The third day we were suppose to go to Mungo and go to the national park for hiking.  All of the roads were close because of the storm, so we took a steam boat ride instead.  It was a three hour boat ride to relax on the Murray River.  That river divided NSW from Victoria.  That night we went to the Mildura Brewery and tried some home brews and ate a lovely pizza and pasta dinner.
As the last day was approaching, our tutor informed us that there would be a mystery activity the following morning.  That mystery activity was wine tasting at 10am.  We got a tour of the winery and unlimited tastes of wine.  I purchased a Psyche 2005 Vintage Shiraz and a 2005 Sweet Nicola.  Both wines were made in the winery by Kim, Joan, and Janel with their 50+ years or experience at Chateau Mildura. It was a nice way to end the trip.
All in all, the trip was decent.  It was a little too long and kind of uneventful, but I blame it on the rain.  I also forgot to pack a lot because I waited until the last minute and forgot a pile of clothes on my bed, but I made it work.  I also feel like I have a super strong back after this trip from giving my friend Devin multiple piggy back rides. I did see a lot of wildlife. Wild horses, emus, and kangaroos.  They are very hard to photograph though! I finally have my own pictures to share thanks to my mom sending me my camera, which came waterlogged by Febreez. It still works though, so that's all that matters. I was happy to get some pretty cool pictures from this trip (see below).
Only two more weeks until spring break.  In the meantime, I have an overwhelming amount of work to do. All my work seemed to hit at once. I can't believe I am already half done with my study abroad experience! It is going by too quickly, but I am excited to come home.  I miss everyone!

Rob, my Australian Idol tutor.

Darwin

Sorry it has been so long since my last post, but I've been so busy traveling!

Last week I went to Darwin.  Darwin is the capital and largest city in the Northern Territory of Australia. The Northern Territory is known for its sparsely populated towns and high percentage of Indigenous people. A group of us went to explore what this city had to offer, and of course, to soak up some sun and heat.  The weather in Darwin is very hot and humid, it reminded me of Florida in the summertime.
After our four and a half hour flight, we arrived in Darwin at 1am. Three of our friends were already there, and had been there for three days already, so we met up with them at the hostel (Melaleuca). Since we are still young and viable, we all decided to go out for some drinks and discuss what we should do for the next four days.  Our friends had already explored the city and had some input on where we should spend most of our time, which was quite useful.
Our first day included crocodiles.  We read these advertisements and watched YouTube videos on "The Cage of Death," which involved being placed in a cage and lowered into crocodile infested water.  This sounded awesome to me and a few of my friends, and I was ready for the adrenaline rush of being attacked by a 15 ft, 2000 lb beast.  Fail.  We arrived at the crocodile exhibit and apparently the crocs weren't in the mood to entertain a bunch of college kids.  We stared in disappointment at the sleeping crocodiles hoping that at least one would make some sort of diminutive movement.  Didn't happen. After wasting $25 to go watch crocodiles sleep, we decided to relax by the pool that was provided at the hostel.  We were all so tired from the lack of sleep from the night before and were interested to check out the pool and deck area where everyone at the hostel seemed to congregate.  We met some fellow travelers from Europe and Australia while absorbing the deathly sun rays.  I'm still peeling. That night we went out for an amazing Tapas dinner to send off our friends who had been there for a few days. 
The following day, we decided to check out the beaches and walk around the town.  Darwin is very much a beach/touristy town with small souvenir shops and travel agents at every corner.  We were mostly just passing the time until the evening beach market.  The market included local artists and vendors, food ranging from Chinese to roadkill (we tried kangaroo!), live music and Indigenous performances.  We watched the sunset on the beach and enjoyed the sand between our toes and the variety of people to watch. We finished the night off watching a man play the didgeridoo while Aboriginal girls danced to his beats.  I have never seen someone shake their entire body like these girls did. It looked like their entire bodies were actually vibrating.
The next day was when the real fun started. Instead of taking a guided tour to Litchfield Park, a national park just outside of Darwin, we decided to rent two cars.  There were eight of us, and out of the eight only me and my friend, Dan could legally rent a car and drive.  I was so excited to finally get behind a wheel of a car and drive on the wrong side of the road! Luckily I had no accidents and everyone ended up alive and well. Even ask them, they said I was a good driver!   The park was known for its beautiful waterfalls and termite mounds.  The bad news was that we got separated from the other car.  Before we left for our small road trip, we stopped at a grocery store to stock up on some snacks (mainly my favorite fruit snack, Chompies) and some PB&J for lunch. Our car had the chips (crisps) and bread loaf, and the other car hand the fruit and PB&J. Our picnic idea was put away, but we had fun anyway. We eventually found each other at the end. Oh, and did I mention, there was absolutely no mobile service anywhere, which was quite inconvenient.  Before June, I had never swam, as much as seen a waterfall, but this trip and Israel has made me a professional waterfall swimmer, and I hope to swim in and explore more with my travels.

After our park adventure, it was time to go home.  We had some time to kill before our flight so we hung out at a grocery store, ate some Domino's, and stopped to see the peer and fishing wharf in Darwin, We then made our way to the airport to find out or flight was about 45 minutes delayed. I have to say, flying around Australia is quite easy.  You are allowed to bring any size liquid on board, they don't even check your ID to verify identity, and you usually end up getting a row to yourself (like I did!) or a row with no one in the middle. We decided to spend our time waiting in the airport with bloody marries and left over PB&J. We made it home by 6am on Tuesday morning, just in time to take a quick nap before class started! All in all, Darwin was a blast.  I came back with a suntan and a clear head.

Termite Mound

Thank you Mary Hannon for the photos.