Hunter Valley

Today, I went on a wine tour of the Hunter Valley, which is the wine region nearest to Sydney. I went with a group of international students from Macquarie because the office who represents us organized a trip that was $30 cheaper than any others I could find. I had to get up really early, which sucked, but I was able to sleep most of the 2.5 hour drive out to the valley, so that made it slightly more okay. I felt so useless all day though because all I did was sit in a bus, drink wine, and eat cheese and chocolate.

Our first stop of the morning (we were already drinking wine at 10:30!) was McGuigan Winery where we sampled eight different bottles. My favorite was there 2012 Cellar Select Autumn Harvest Semillon because it was really sweet. Semillon is a really popular white wine in this area because the grapes are easier to grow in Sydney’s particular climate (Shiraz in the most prevalent red). I also liked the 2010 Late Picked Gewurtztraminer, which is a desert wine that we tasted. I wouldn’t let myself buy either of them though because they were priced at $20 and $30, respectively, which at the moment, is just too much for me to spend on a bottle that would last two nights at the most.

The Tasting Room :)

Aging Barrels!

Second, we went to First Creek and were taken on a tour of their bottling and aging warehouses. It was kind of cool, but I was a little bored during it because it was very similar to the tour I went on in Italy, just on a slightly larger scale. It was interesting when she talked a little bit about how the wine seasons vary in Australia though due to the opposite seasons. Apparently, the grapes that are going right now will be part of the 2013 batch because they won’t be harvested until January and February. So Australia is in the future even when they harvest the grapes for their wines!

We tried some of the wines at First Creek too, but I wasn’t a huge fan. Their 2010 Semillon has apparently won a multitude of awards in the wine world, but it wasn’t sweet enough for me. I think I would have liked the raspberry desert wine we tried if I could handle the taste of raspberry. It was sweet, but had a little bit of a kick to it because it was a 17%, which is very high for a desert wine. It was pretty too :)

More barrels!

The bottling machine

With my 2011 Raspberry Wine, I think.

Everyone was a little tipsy after the second tasting because, being college students, we were of course drinking all of the sample instead of sipping a little bit and pouring the rest into the spittoon. It might not be classy, but we wanted to get our money’s worth. Luckily, it was time for lunch at Potter’s Brewery, a small restaurant and microbrewery nearby. They already had our pre-selected meals prepared for us when we arrived. I had ordered the steak sandwich, which was really good. I found the fact that it had beets on it a little strange, especially when I took them off and the bread underneath was purple, but I still enjoyed it. Instead of ketchup, they gave us a creamy dipping sauce for our French fries that was really good too. I’m glad Sarah made me try it (at first I thought it was ranch and refused).

Amazing steak sandwich!

We were rushed to finish lunch though because we were running a little bit behind for our visit to a local chocolate shop. I didn’t enjoy this part quite as much as the other girls, but it was still nice to sample some of their Belgian chocolates. Unfortunately, since we were running behind, we didn’t get to do a tasting at the attached champagne room.

En route to our final tasting, Sarah spotted a group of wild kangaroos on the side of the road. They were just hanging out in someone’s front yard. She freaked out enough that our bus driver pulled onto the side of the road and let us get out and act like tourists creeping up on the kangaroos to take pictures. They actually let us get surprisingly close before hopping away.

They were a bit different than I expected though. I knew in theory that they moved using both their hind legs and on all fours, but it was so peculiar to watch. It was also really funny when they started hopping, which I managed to catch on film. It was cute to watch them for a little while, and we all felt better about being such tourists when a family stopped as well and brought their children out to see the kangaroos, but eventually we had to move on to our final tasting at Tempus Two, a slightly more futuristic looking winery.

Kangaroos!

Fields outside Tempus Two

I really liked the futuristic look

At Tempus, we tried an amazingly good 2011 Brioso Rosa, a pink moscato. I’ve had moscato before and liked it, but the pink was even sweeter than I’m used to. I also really liked the desert option here, a 2008 Botrytis Semillon and it was a great locally-valued wine to end on. After this tasting, we went next door to Smelly Cheese’s to try a variety of cheese. I don’t remember all of the ones we tried, but I know I really didn’t like the bleu cheese. There was one that tasted like a creamy version of feta though that was really good. I was tempted to get some gelato from their store, but I was way too full to even think about stomaching it, even though it did look really good.

The amazing-looking strawberry gelato, reminds me of Italy

Pretty much everyone slept on the drive back to campus because we were worn out from all the food. It was a great tasting. My only regret is that I didn’t buy anything, but maybe I’ll find something when I go on the wine tasting in New Zealand that is both sweet and a little closer to my price range that I like enough to ship home. I’m also really excited that I unexpectedly got to see my first wild kangaroo, so many people come to Australia and don’t even get that because they never leave the big cities.

Bush walking

I hung out with a guy named Bagel today that I met on Wednesday night. He’s from “the country” of Australia, but not the outback, about 6 hours Southwest of where I am in Sydney. He’s been at Macquarie for three years though, so he definitely knows the area. We went on a nature walk in a national park nearby. It’s actually only 20-25 minutes walking distance from campus. It wasn’t super eventful, but it was fun to have some one-on-one time with an Australian and make fun of our accents together.

He kept calling our walk a “bush walk,” which makes it sound a lot more outdoorsy than it really was. Although I guess at points we were walking on pretty unlevel terrain and across stepping stones on some streams. At the end I basically had to climb up a wall of dirt to get off the trail right by campus otherwise we would have had to keep walking after it got dark (I probably wasn’t dressed entirely correctly for this outing). I did see a wild turkey though! They also had some very Australian signs in the park:

Apparently they have these signs at all the parks

Some pretty stepping stones at the end of the trail

Kangaroo crossing -- sadly I didn't see any

Technological Wonders

It’s so bizarre to me how efficient this school is. OWU was technologically challenged. They didn’t even have online scheduling until my schedule semester there. Yet Macquarie manages to not only organize their complicated system of lectures, tutorials, and practicals, but they have it all online for students to arrange their schedules as they deem fit at any time.

In addition to having the schedule online, every lecture is recorded and put onto a website along with the course guide (or syllabus) for each class and information regarding the upcoming readings for your tutorials. There are also special sections on this website for online discussions, which are optional but generally have a high participation from what I’ve seen due to the high amount of external (or online) students.

I’m still amazed that if I miss a lecture I don’t have to bother asking to borrow someone’s notes. I can just go online and listen to it whenever I want as early as two minutes after the original in-person lecture ended. It makes me really wish that I had unlimited wireless internet in my room. It would be so useful.

I think I’ve finalized my schedule at this point. I had to do a little bit of moving around because certain classes weren’t what I expected, but here’s what my schedule looks like for the semester:

Sightseeing in Sydney

Yesterday, I had to run around campus and get my room and class situations straightened out. The cold water (not that I need it right now) valve in my shower wouldn’t turn on, so I needed to report that to the residential office as well as have my photo taken for my house keycard. Then I went to the main campus building to get my campus ID printed and turn in my add/drop form for classes, which she straightened out right away. I’m in enrolled in all of the classes I wanted now and I don’t have class on Tuesday and Wednesday. After inputting my schedule into my calendar, I even found some other interesting classes that I might want to sit in on the lectures.

I’ll be taking Children’s Literature; Travel, Tourism, and Cultural Production; Identity and Difference: Introduction to Anthropology; and Societies of Europe this semester. I’m also considering sitting in on Introduction to Sociology as well as Human Evolution and Diversity. I’m still amazed by the sheer amount of classes that I find interesting in Macquarie’s course books. I really should have gone to a big school.

The library here is huge. It has 5 floors

I spent the afternoon on campus before meeting up with Sarah to head into the city. Macquarie put together a evening harbor cruise for the international student orientation, but we wanted to wander around a little bit before it started. We ended up not having to pay for our train ticket for the 40-minute journey there because the computer systems weren’t working and they told us to pay on the other end, but we snuck out instead.

The city is so pretty at night. The sun was setting on our way there, but when we got to the city there were so many lights. We looked in a couple wine and souvenir stores before wandering down one of the more expensive streets in the city. It had the Ralph Lauren and Ugg stores on it, among others. It was so pretty to walk down though. All of the men were walking around in suits, fresh from the offices. The storefronts were painted in various old school village colors. But here’s a picture, instead of me describing it.

The Sydney Bridge at sunset

Expensive shopping street downtown

The harbor cruise left from the Man O War steps, which took us forever to find. When we finally did, we realized that they had just told us to get there at 6:30 and the boat didn’t actually leave until 7, so we sat around shivering with probably 200 other international students. Everyone seemed like they were in groups or already knew people, which makes sense because orientation for them has lasted all week instead of just starting on Wednesday. I was relieved to see the boat had an enclosed dance floor on the first floor when it actually pulled up. There is no way to describe it though other than a party boat.

Our view while waiting to get on the boat

We devoured the free pizza the moment we stepped onto the ship and then everyone raided the bar. It was way too expensive for me though. Beers started at $6 for a bottle and that was the cheapest option. Smirnoff Ice went for $10 a bottle. We spent the three-hour cruise alternating between dancing on the first floor and taking pictures from the top deck when we got too warm inside. The views were really pretty. If the point of the cruise was to meet new people, then it wasn’t really successful. We talked to a few girls that live in the village, but nothing really came of it. I figure I’ll meet more people once classes start.

Makenzie, Sarah, and Miranda on the boat

Going under the bridge

A fair we passed

At the end of the cruise, I did start talking to one of the guys who worked on the boat though. He’s apparently a full-time engineer that works in the Papau New Guinea area and works for his friends that own the boat on the side. He seemed really nice. He was telling me about his travels. I think it would have been fun to meet up with him at some point later on so he could show me around Sydney, but that would have been awkward to bring up. I mean, he was at work.

We did have to pay for the trip home on the train, once we finally found the train stop (the boat let out at a different place than it started). It was only $2.40 for the trip though, so that isn’t too bad. I wasn’t exactly excited to walk all the way across campus in the freezing cold when we got back though. I passed out the second I walked in the door.

It’s good that I got some sleep though because I was up bright and early again this morning at 8. Our Sydney city tour, scheduled especially for our group, left at 10:30 and we stopped at a couple of lookout spots around the city and took classic tourist pictures in front of the bridge and the opera house, as well as the edge of the harbor. We also went to Bondi Beach, which was nothing special. There was barely anyone in the water except for surfers because it’s so cold. I took a few pictures and wandered into the beachfront stores, but everything was really expensive. I was glad that I ate before and didn’t have to buy lunch. One of the guys in our group was impressed he was able to get a full meal for $12, but that still sounds expensive to me. I don’t think I’ll be eating out very much here. Things are so much cheaper in Ohio and Michigan, especially my Qdoba burrito for $3.15.

Bondi Beach

At the end of the tour, we stopped at the Cargo Bar on the waterfront and were given a free glass of wine or beer. I got the chardonnay. It was okay, not the best. It was nice to sit on the patio and people watch though. I also found out that they sell pretty good $10 steaks Monday-Wednesday to attract business. I was impressed by that considering their drink specials on Monday-Wednesday are $10 cocktails.

The night was spent with more grocery shopping, but this time at a large market instead of the ones in the mall and it’s a good thing we went because we found out things are a little bit cheaper there. Then Sarah and I hung out with her roommates, who all seem really nice. One of them has a job on campus and he was instructing me on how to apply. I’m trying to convince one of the two who have a car to go on a road trip to Melbourne during exam period.

Macquarie Orientation

I was wide awake at 6:30 this morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep for the life of me, so I got up and watched the Jane by Design episode that I had downloaded in Fiji. My orientation this morning started at 10am, so I decided to walk around campus and get my bearings until then. I found the campus store, which doesn’t actually have that much of a selection. I also walked through the campus hub, which is like a student center, but mainly consists of food places and the campus bar.

Random stream on campus

Orientation was kind of overwhelming. Our morning session had a variety of speakers come in and talk to us about various elements of the university as well as aspects of safety. I was particularly incensed by the Global Leadership Program, which consists of seminars and a meet and greet with “global citizens.” If you complete 5 of the seminars and go to the meet and greet, you receive a certificate. I think I’m going to sign up to participate because it sounds relatively interesting.

I’m also kind of excited about the clubs offered on this campus. Being at a big university (Macquarie has about 30,000 students) is very new to me. They have a chocolate appreciation club, among other things. I’m hoping to join a few at the club fair – MacFest – next week so that I can meet people. I already feel kind of left out from the AIFS group and it doesn’t help that I’m living alone. I always miss out on the information and invites to go out and this is only day two in Sydney.

They gave us lunch before the afternoon session started. Our afternoon was filled with scheduling and registration. Apparently, the university took it upon themselves to enroll us in classes so I was only scheduled for two of the ones that I wanted out of four. I’m going to try and drop the two and add the two I wanted, but it might be difficult because the class I was most excited about is only offered at one time. The timetable (schedule) they drew up for me also sucks. I end up with class every day of the week and most of them are early days. I really have to do something about it tomorrow when they’re in their office.

The rest of the session instructed us on how to set-up our e-mail address with Macquarie and use their online webpages. I can’t figure out how to set-up my e-mail forwarding though, so I guess I’m just going to have to remember to check both accounts every day.

One exciting thing though is that I found out anyone can attend class lectures, so I might pick a few courses that I’m interested in and just sit in on their weekly lectures. I might as well, if I have time, especially with all the gaps in my schedule as of right now.

After the orientation sessions, Sarah, Christine, and I looked around the school store for a little bit before heading back over to the shopping center to pick up groceries and browse some of the stores. I found a really cheap cookie sheet, so I’m going to make some cookies. I also picked up the fixings for tacos and made them for dinner. As I was cooking in my new apartment, one of my housemates walked by and introduced himself before quickly ducking out the door. It happened so fast that I don’t even remember his name. That’s when it really set in though that I’m going to be here for awhile. I was wondering what it would take.

The tacos were rather different because the grocery store didn’t have any of the normal cheeses I would use. In fact, a lot of the packages didn’t specify what kind of cheese they were. I also had to get a different kind of seasoning because they don’t have Mrs. Dash over here. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t what I’m used to. Another item missing from the grocery store was applesauce, so I’ll have to make plain chocolate chip cookies too. I don’t understand how Australia doesn’t have applesauce. When I asked a staff member, she asked me if it was a juice.

After dinner, I figured out the laundry situation. It’s $4 per load of laundry and $1 for the dryer. You have to pay in $1 coins though and there isn’t a change machine in the laundry room. It’s a good idea I had the foresight to stop into the recreation building on my way to class this morning or I wouldn’t have had anywhere near enough change. I luckily live right by the laundry building though, so it wasn’t difficult to drag my suitcase of dirty clothes over there and stuff them in the washers. I wanted to dry all of my clothes in my room, but drying racks were in the $50 range when I looked at them today, so that isn’t really feasible.

I want to get a job while I’m here now that I’m realizing how expensive things really are. I spent $80 on groceries today and that didn’t even cover the other toiletries and cooking supplies that I bought. I don’t know how I’m going to manage to eat much more than pasta for the next couple of months.

I need to buy some sweatshirts too. It’s absolutely freezing here. I don’t think it helps that we went from a tropical environment to the Australian winter. It’s not as bad as the Midwest by far, but our townhouses don’t have heat, so I’m glad I have the extra blankets to curl up under otherwise I might freeze.

Welcome to Sydney

Today has been really overwhelming. We got to the airport in Nadi at 6am to check-in. I went with the first group on the bus to the airport because I was nervous about my bags. It turns out that I had a definite right to be. Air Pacific decided to charge by the kilogram instead of by the amount of bags, so since I could only check 23kg for free, I ended up having to pay for 12 extra at the rate of $15FJD per bag. That’s $180FJD! I was so ready to get out of Fiji though that I just took it in stride and went off to spend the rest of my Fijian money in the airport. I was able to find a magnet, granted it’s a little chintzy, for the rest of my collection and grab a muffin for breakfast.

When I went back to join the group, I found out that two of the girls in our group – Audrey and Nicole – hadn’t made it on the plane. Apparently, the girls in the front of them got the last tickets on our overbooked plane and they were placed on standby. It was decided that flying to New Zealand and then catching a flight to Sydney would be a better option for them. But still, that had to suck. They spent the whole day in airports only to have to wait around to get picked up in Sydney because no one knew when they were getting in.

Anyways, back to my trip, the muffin didn’t do much for filling me up though, so it’s a good thing that they gave us yogurt, fruit, and another tiny muffin on the plane. I took the complimentary drink too. I needed it after the whole check-in ordeal. The flight was supposed to last 4 hours and 20 minutes, but when we got to Sydney we had to fly around in the air for a little bit because there wasn’t a spot for us to land. When we finally got down on the ground, I realized how truly excited I am to finally be in Australia. It’s sort of surreal. I’ve been wanting to step foot on this continent since I was twelve and now I’m finally here, for four whole months no less.

We hit the ground running and pulled a team effort to get through customs, grab our checked bags and make it out to the arrivals terminal. We actually beat the bus driver. Once all of our bags were finally loaded into the bus, we started the 40 minute journey into town. It was nice to drive through Sydney even though it was kind of rainy and dreary. Everyone got really excited when we drove over the actual Sydney bridge and saw the Sydney Opera House.

At Macquarie, we were welcomed into the recreation building of the Village and provided with Pizza Hut pizzas and the Australian version of a hotdog (we’re still not quite sure what was different – someone thought lamb and someone else sausage, regardless, I liked it). We were starving, so it was much appreciating. After all of the food had vanished into our stomachs, the resident advisors handed out packets with our room keys, house keys, and free internet vouchers. I’m living with four other people. None of which I have met. They’re most likely international students, but they seem to no t be home much. They don’t even have anything in our common rooms, just the provided furniture and some food in the kitchen.

Amanda, our AIFS coordinator on campus, also gave us a little speech about drugs and alcohol before handing over our debit cards from AIFS. It turns out that we’ll be getting a $240 monthly stipend for food and transportation, which doesn’t look like much at all in this country.

After signing all of the papers to check-in, we were guided to the very back of the part of the village furthest from campus, where they had found residence for us. Luckily, a van helped with some of our bags because it’s a fairly large hill that we have to walk up to get to our buildings. It’ll be nice training when I go for a run.

My room has some issues with it, like a leaky faucet and a very dirty desk chair, but I’m so glad to be in the same place for a few months that I was relieved when I walked in. It could definitely be worse anyways. I really only had time to set my bags down and put my sheets (also provided by AIFS, even though they said they wouldn’t be) on my bed before rushing off to the shopping mall across campus. It closed at 5:30, so we had to hurry there. I’m glad we did though because I was able to purchase an Australian mobile for $59 with a $30 monthly plan that gives me unlimited texting, 8 hours of talk, and a limited amount of data. It’s nice to have a phone that works again, even if I can’t call home with it.

While everyone else was picking out phones, I ran around the mall picking up the things I deemed most important and weren’t too heavy to carry all of the way back to the village (it’s about a 30 minute walk, or at least it is the way we went). I was able to find a fresh fruit store for apples and bananas as well as a bakery to pick up some bread. Then I stopped in a grocery store for detergent, pasta, olive oil, and toilet paper before running to Target (which carries quite a bit less here) for hangers and toiletries. I had five bags in total when I was done, but I managed to carry all of them back without breaking. I did have a little assistance though. Halfway back, we found an abandoned grocery cart and commandeered it for the remainder of the walk. It was a little too late though because one of the handles on Sarah’s bags ripped and her olive oil bottle broke and leaked all over her groceries.

I was so happy to unpack when I got home though. A few of the girls had talked about going out earlier, but I have no idea where they manage to get the energy from. I’m excited to pick out my classes tomorrow though. I hope I get what I want.