Well I really have not been keeping up with this at all.
So let's see, what's happened since Melbourne? St. Patrick's Day was two weeks ago. I've never really cared that much about it, but let's just say it's one of my new favorite holidays. Hung out with a lot of people during the day and then went downtown at night. It ended up being a really great day. Let's just leave it at that.
Last weekend I went to the famous Sydney Opera House and saw the Magic Flute by Mozart. It's hard to get into Opera's that are in English but it was an awesome experience and pretty fun to go see. I also never get sick of the harbor so it's always fun to go down there. The next day was our surf lesson that the program I can here with set up, so we took a ferry over the Manly Beach to learn how to surf. Worth mentioning that as we were taking the ferry over, a plane wrote "Marry me Jane?" in the sky, then wrote "she said yes!" haha which was cool.
When we got over to Manly the waves were pretty small so we weren't sure how good it would be but it turns out that it was perfect for learning. I was obviously a natural, just kidding I stood up a few times but it was definitely harder than I thought it was going to be. I had a lot of fun though.
Classes are going pretty well. Actually had work due last week and this week. Then on Saturday mid-semester break starts and I'm going to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef for five days. It's going to be pretty awesome.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
An appropriate recount of my road trip to Melbourne: Part 3
Well things are better in trilogies I suppose, even if they are three weeks late.
So I woke up the second morning of our trip on my own while it was still dark out. I had one of those "where the heck am I" waking up moments, only to have all the memories of the past two days flood back. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Unfortunately, Adam's alarm clock went off not two minutes later from the roof (forgot to mention that the inside of the car is so much more spacious and comfortable to sleep in than the roof) and we decided to get on our way. Driving down the Great Ocean Road with the sun rising was pretty amazing. Incidentally I slept a lot on the ride back, about four hours I was told which deemed me the nickname "sleeping beauty" for the rest of the trip.
Once we reached the end of the Great Ocean Road on our way back towards Melbourne, we stopped at a beach to look for a shower, which we all desperately needed. Luckily almost all the busy beaches I've seen have showers and we found one. Nothing wakes you up like a freezing cold shower. Now that we had gotten off the main road, we decided to use the GPS to get us to and through Melbourne and also the rest of the way home. The only problem being that when we went to turn on the GPS, it showed a computer error. Luckily we had an atlas and two Eagle Scouts (always fun to run into another) in our van so we made it back with only a few wrong turns.
The reason that we ended up going to Melbourne this chosen weekend was because a large group of girls that we knew from Coogee (suburb of Sydney I live in, not sure if I mentioned it) were going to Melbourne this weekend for the free music festival that was taking place downtown. This incidentally lead to a large amount of traffic downtown. After driving around Melbourne for about twenty minutes and realizing that our van was too tall to fit into any parking garage, we drove around looking for a parking spot. The only thing I can compare this to is trying to park in downtown Rochester without a parking garage while Jazz Fest, East End Fest, and Party in the Park are all going on simultaneously. After driving around unsuccessfully for about half an hour more, we were all about at wit's end. Then, almost miraculously, we came to the end of a line of cars and found the most perfect spot I have ever seen. It was only about a half mile away from where the festival was happening, and was right at the end of a row so we didn't have to parallel park that giant purple van.
After walking to the festival, which was pretty cool actually we decided to look for the girls. They were staying in a hostile downtown and had been there for a few days, but were coming to hang out at the festival too. The location couldn't have been cooler. It was right on a river that ran right through the heart of the city and took up a pretty decent amount of space. It ended up being more of a giant carnival with a few music acts every couple hours, lots of rides and food with some professional water-ski jumping on the river (see album). After meeting up with the girls, we decided to walk around the city for a bit and get some dinner. If anyone is ever in Australia, I would absolutely advise going to Melbourne, it's an amazing city. We actually decided to check out the hostile the girls were staying in since they kept relaying horror stories from the past two days they had spent there (i.e. stuck in elevator for half an hour with irish guys) and I won't go into detail but I'm basically scared to stay in any hostile ever now.
After dinner we walked back to our van and decided that we were too tired to actually go out, but wanted to check out the Crown Casino downtown. The best part about walking to the casino was that it was right along the water, and there were tons of street performers and musicians that lined the walk since it was a Sunday night and the festival was going on (Sunday nights are always big party nights in Australia, still not sure why). The casino was cool enough, I lost $20 playing blackjack and that will probably be my casino limit for a while, but the experience was cool. The lobby for the hotel was incredible though, never been in a hotel that nice before. Not to mention the yellow lamborghini or silver miata out front. Around 10:30pm we decided to get back on the road since we needed to find a place to sleep and get a start back to Sydney. It fell on me to do this part of the drive, which didn't bother me, but let's just saying that trying to get out of Melbourne in the dark without a GPS was... stressful. Oh and I was driving on the left side of the road. But we made it out alive, and I drove until about 1:30 in the morning when I found a car park in the middle of the forrest, which creeped everyone else out (seeing as how AJ is still convinced there's dinosaurs in Australia. I am a little too), but I was so tired I hardly cared. Didn't hit any wallabies on the drive either!
Woke up pretty early the next day and got to ride shotgun since I had the role of navigator. Did make a few wrong turns, but Australian roads have about as little signage as possible, which makes navigating slightly more confusing that I would have liked. We stopped about two hours outside of Sydney to eat lunch and toast to our epic road trip, one which I will remember for a long time.
So I woke up the second morning of our trip on my own while it was still dark out. I had one of those "where the heck am I" waking up moments, only to have all the memories of the past two days flood back. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Unfortunately, Adam's alarm clock went off not two minutes later from the roof (forgot to mention that the inside of the car is so much more spacious and comfortable to sleep in than the roof) and we decided to get on our way. Driving down the Great Ocean Road with the sun rising was pretty amazing. Incidentally I slept a lot on the ride back, about four hours I was told which deemed me the nickname "sleeping beauty" for the rest of the trip.
Once we reached the end of the Great Ocean Road on our way back towards Melbourne, we stopped at a beach to look for a shower, which we all desperately needed. Luckily almost all the busy beaches I've seen have showers and we found one. Nothing wakes you up like a freezing cold shower. Now that we had gotten off the main road, we decided to use the GPS to get us to and through Melbourne and also the rest of the way home. The only problem being that when we went to turn on the GPS, it showed a computer error. Luckily we had an atlas and two Eagle Scouts (always fun to run into another) in our van so we made it back with only a few wrong turns.
The reason that we ended up going to Melbourne this chosen weekend was because a large group of girls that we knew from Coogee (suburb of Sydney I live in, not sure if I mentioned it) were going to Melbourne this weekend for the free music festival that was taking place downtown. This incidentally lead to a large amount of traffic downtown. After driving around Melbourne for about twenty minutes and realizing that our van was too tall to fit into any parking garage, we drove around looking for a parking spot. The only thing I can compare this to is trying to park in downtown Rochester without a parking garage while Jazz Fest, East End Fest, and Party in the Park are all going on simultaneously. After driving around unsuccessfully for about half an hour more, we were all about at wit's end. Then, almost miraculously, we came to the end of a line of cars and found the most perfect spot I have ever seen. It was only about a half mile away from where the festival was happening, and was right at the end of a row so we didn't have to parallel park that giant purple van.
After walking to the festival, which was pretty cool actually we decided to look for the girls. They were staying in a hostile downtown and had been there for a few days, but were coming to hang out at the festival too. The location couldn't have been cooler. It was right on a river that ran right through the heart of the city and took up a pretty decent amount of space. It ended up being more of a giant carnival with a few music acts every couple hours, lots of rides and food with some professional water-ski jumping on the river (see album). After meeting up with the girls, we decided to walk around the city for a bit and get some dinner. If anyone is ever in Australia, I would absolutely advise going to Melbourne, it's an amazing city. We actually decided to check out the hostile the girls were staying in since they kept relaying horror stories from the past two days they had spent there (i.e. stuck in elevator for half an hour with irish guys) and I won't go into detail but I'm basically scared to stay in any hostile ever now.
After dinner we walked back to our van and decided that we were too tired to actually go out, but wanted to check out the Crown Casino downtown. The best part about walking to the casino was that it was right along the water, and there were tons of street performers and musicians that lined the walk since it was a Sunday night and the festival was going on (Sunday nights are always big party nights in Australia, still not sure why). The casino was cool enough, I lost $20 playing blackjack and that will probably be my casino limit for a while, but the experience was cool. The lobby for the hotel was incredible though, never been in a hotel that nice before. Not to mention the yellow lamborghini or silver miata out front. Around 10:30pm we decided to get back on the road since we needed to find a place to sleep and get a start back to Sydney. It fell on me to do this part of the drive, which didn't bother me, but let's just saying that trying to get out of Melbourne in the dark without a GPS was... stressful. Oh and I was driving on the left side of the road. But we made it out alive, and I drove until about 1:30 in the morning when I found a car park in the middle of the forrest, which creeped everyone else out (seeing as how AJ is still convinced there's dinosaurs in Australia. I am a little too), but I was so tired I hardly cared. Didn't hit any wallabies on the drive either!
Woke up pretty early the next day and got to ride shotgun since I had the role of navigator. Did make a few wrong turns, but Australian roads have about as little signage as possible, which makes navigating slightly more confusing that I would have liked. We stopped about two hours outside of Sydney to eat lunch and toast to our epic road trip, one which I will remember for a long time.
Friday, March 16, 2012
An appropriate recount of my road trip to Melbourne: Part 2
Oh right, the Great Ocean Road.
Feel free to look through my Photos! on facebook. Most of the pictures are from the Great Ocean road but I did take a few in Melbourne. They don't really do the trip justice.
So I had the job of driving through Melbourne, and after we got out of the city we drove for another hour until we got to this town called Geelong and from there we got on the Great Ocean Road. If you look at it on a map, you can see that for the most part the road runs right along the coast for almost the entire way, with about 10 miles of road running inland (everything is in kilometers and liters here, but I still haven't gotten used to using them yet). It's a pretty unbelievable drive, and if anyone is everyone in Australia I would absolutely recommend it. Since it's such a touristy spot there's actually signs along the way that say "Drive on the left side of the road in Australia". I was actually in the backseat for the entire length of the Great Ocean Road, mostly because the roads were so curvy and basically run right next to cliffs the whole way and that makes me super anxious. Yeah laugh it up.
So the forecast for the weekend said the weather in Melbourne was supposed to be sunny every single day, but when we got through Melbourne all we had were cloudy skies, and while the drive was still awesome, it wasn't as nice as we were all hoping it was going to be. The road passes through some pretty cool towns along the way, but for the most part its just scenic coast and beaches, with a lot of scenic lookouts to stop at along the way. One of my favorite parts of the drive was that even when we weren't directly on the coast, the land around us was absolutely amazing. Mostly farms to be honest but nothing like the flat expanses we have back home.
Our goal was to make it as far down the road as London Bridge, which is this really cool rock structure that looks like a bridge and used to be connected to the mainland, but according to Adam (one of the guys I traveled with) it fell a few years ago and actually stranded a few people out on it, so now it's not connected. Around 4pm we stopped to get gas at the information area for the Twelve Apostles, which are these really amazing rock structures that used to be connected to the mainland millions of years ago, but now just stand straight out of the water. The clouds had been moving all day and miraculously with our five minute drive down to the actual site of the Apostles, the clouds parted completely and we were able to take the view in as the sun was setting. I wish it was easier to describe emotions and feelings in blog form, and the pictures don't do the area we were in justice, but it was absolutely amazing.
Since we wanted to see London Bridge before the sun fully set, we got back in the car and drove about half an hour down the road to stop at the London Bridge site. All the rock structures are pretty similar, but each one is as cool as the last. Most of the viewing areas are a couple hundred feet off the ground, but another area that we went to called Loch and Gorge was the site of a shipwreck in the 1800s I think. We couldn't see the wreck from above the water, but the coolest part was that there were actually stairs that led down to the beach, hence the pictures in my album that are mostly dark ones of us on the beach. We actually think we found an aboriginal carving in one of the rocks but we're not completely sure (aboriginal are native Australians, basically native Americans but prosecuted worse than they were in the U.S.). Since we didn't want to attempt to drive the van down the road at night, we decided to camp out in the parking lot and get up early to drive the road as the sun rose. So we cooked some dinner (we basically survived on sausages, chips and beer the entire weekend) and hung out for a bit, then decided to take a walk down one of the trails that led to a different lookout we hadn't seen yet. One of the best ideas of the entire trip. Since we basically weren't near any major population it was so dark out that for the first part of the night the stars were amazing, and as the moon rose we were able to see everything without flashlights. I can't begin to describe how cool it was to just stand there and take everything in. We were at this rock structure called razorback, and we all kind of just had really great "I can't believe we're actually in Australia" moments, which seem to happen pretty often here. Then we headed back to the van for a few hours of sleep all looking forward to the drive, albeit the few hours of sleep we were about to get.
Feel free to look through my Photos! on facebook. Most of the pictures are from the Great Ocean road but I did take a few in Melbourne. They don't really do the trip justice.
So I had the job of driving through Melbourne, and after we got out of the city we drove for another hour until we got to this town called Geelong and from there we got on the Great Ocean Road. If you look at it on a map, you can see that for the most part the road runs right along the coast for almost the entire way, with about 10 miles of road running inland (everything is in kilometers and liters here, but I still haven't gotten used to using them yet). It's a pretty unbelievable drive, and if anyone is everyone in Australia I would absolutely recommend it. Since it's such a touristy spot there's actually signs along the way that say "Drive on the left side of the road in Australia". I was actually in the backseat for the entire length of the Great Ocean Road, mostly because the roads were so curvy and basically run right next to cliffs the whole way and that makes me super anxious. Yeah laugh it up.
So the forecast for the weekend said the weather in Melbourne was supposed to be sunny every single day, but when we got through Melbourne all we had were cloudy skies, and while the drive was still awesome, it wasn't as nice as we were all hoping it was going to be. The road passes through some pretty cool towns along the way, but for the most part its just scenic coast and beaches, with a lot of scenic lookouts to stop at along the way. One of my favorite parts of the drive was that even when we weren't directly on the coast, the land around us was absolutely amazing. Mostly farms to be honest but nothing like the flat expanses we have back home.
Our goal was to make it as far down the road as London Bridge, which is this really cool rock structure that looks like a bridge and used to be connected to the mainland, but according to Adam (one of the guys I traveled with) it fell a few years ago and actually stranded a few people out on it, so now it's not connected. Around 4pm we stopped to get gas at the information area for the Twelve Apostles, which are these really amazing rock structures that used to be connected to the mainland millions of years ago, but now just stand straight out of the water. The clouds had been moving all day and miraculously with our five minute drive down to the actual site of the Apostles, the clouds parted completely and we were able to take the view in as the sun was setting. I wish it was easier to describe emotions and feelings in blog form, and the pictures don't do the area we were in justice, but it was absolutely amazing.
Since we wanted to see London Bridge before the sun fully set, we got back in the car and drove about half an hour down the road to stop at the London Bridge site. All the rock structures are pretty similar, but each one is as cool as the last. Most of the viewing areas are a couple hundred feet off the ground, but another area that we went to called Loch and Gorge was the site of a shipwreck in the 1800s I think. We couldn't see the wreck from above the water, but the coolest part was that there were actually stairs that led down to the beach, hence the pictures in my album that are mostly dark ones of us on the beach. We actually think we found an aboriginal carving in one of the rocks but we're not completely sure (aboriginal are native Australians, basically native Americans but prosecuted worse than they were in the U.S.). Since we didn't want to attempt to drive the van down the road at night, we decided to camp out in the parking lot and get up early to drive the road as the sun rose. So we cooked some dinner (we basically survived on sausages, chips and beer the entire weekend) and hung out for a bit, then decided to take a walk down one of the trails that led to a different lookout we hadn't seen yet. One of the best ideas of the entire trip. Since we basically weren't near any major population it was so dark out that for the first part of the night the stars were amazing, and as the moon rose we were able to see everything without flashlights. I can't begin to describe how cool it was to just stand there and take everything in. We were at this rock structure called razorback, and we all kind of just had really great "I can't believe we're actually in Australia" moments, which seem to happen pretty often here. Then we headed back to the van for a few hours of sleep all looking forward to the drive, albeit the few hours of sleep we were about to get.
Monday, March 12, 2012
An appropriate recount of my road trip to Melbourne: Part 1
Well that really was one unbelievable weekend. My first all-bro road trip, I got to see Melbourne (which is an amazing city, I wish we could have spent more time there) and there aren't really words to describe how incredible the Great Ocean Road is. I put pictures up on facebook but they don't really capture just how incredible everything was.
First off, I'm so glad we drove. We were initially debating whether or not to just fly, but decided to rent a campervan, which turned out to be the giant purple and green van that is too tall to make it into parking garages. But regardless we started driving out of Sydney around 1pm on Friday. And yes, when it was my turn to drive I did start on the right side of the road. Took some getting used to, but it was weirder that the wheel is on the right side of the car than anything else.
Friday night we drove about two miles back into the woods in this national park and found a random spot to sleep for the night, which actually worked out pretty well. We had our first wild wombat sighting, along with a decent number of wallabies and kangaroos. The van has a fridge and gas grill inside it, so we basically survived the weekend on sausages, chips and tim tam's. Which I will be attempting to bring home in excess. Found out that the "penthouse" on top of the van, while supposedly is meant to house two people, does not have enough room for two dudes.
Saturday morning we woke up around eight and got on our way. After driving for about eight hours on Friday we were about an hour and a half outside of Melbourne, but our destination for the day was the Great Ocean Road and that runs along the south eastern coast of Australia, about an hour outside of Melbourne. We rented a GPS from the car rental company, and when it was my turn to drive through the city we still only took one wrong turn, so it was definitely nice to have. Just driving through Melbourne displays how nice of a city it is.
More to come...
First off, I'm so glad we drove. We were initially debating whether or not to just fly, but decided to rent a campervan, which turned out to be the giant purple and green van that is too tall to make it into parking garages. But regardless we started driving out of Sydney around 1pm on Friday. And yes, when it was my turn to drive I did start on the right side of the road. Took some getting used to, but it was weirder that the wheel is on the right side of the car than anything else.
Friday night we drove about two miles back into the woods in this national park and found a random spot to sleep for the night, which actually worked out pretty well. We had our first wild wombat sighting, along with a decent number of wallabies and kangaroos. The van has a fridge and gas grill inside it, so we basically survived the weekend on sausages, chips and tim tam's. Which I will be attempting to bring home in excess. Found out that the "penthouse" on top of the van, while supposedly is meant to house two people, does not have enough room for two dudes.
Saturday morning we woke up around eight and got on our way. After driving for about eight hours on Friday we were about an hour and a half outside of Melbourne, but our destination for the day was the Great Ocean Road and that runs along the south eastern coast of Australia, about an hour outside of Melbourne. We rented a GPS from the car rental company, and when it was my turn to drive through the city we still only took one wrong turn, so it was definitely nice to have. Just driving through Melbourne displays how nice of a city it is.
More to come...
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Well I guess I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up with this have I? Things have been pretty crazy here, and when I haven't been on campus (which is a half hour walk away), I've been down in the city or on the beach. For the most part.
Last weekend was pretty fun. I honestly don't remember what happened on Friday, but Saturday was Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras down in Sydney so we went down to see the parade. The weather wasn't great but the parade was pretty interesting. And gay. But fun for the most part. The night ended up being a pretty decent adventure anyways so I was happy with it.
Sunday was an amazing day at the beach, but the waves were absolutely huge, and I made the mistake of venturing out onto some rocks to try and get splashed by waves, and long story short saw a giant wave coming, was sitting down and attempted to hang on to the rocks and ended up getting dragged about ten meters across the rocks. Not so fun. Got pretty cut up but I'll survive. Near death experience in a foreign country, check.
On Monday I signed up for skydiving! No word on the details yet but the plan is to go at the end of March with some friends from the states. Still haven't met too many Aussies but I'm working on it. I joined Bio club and they had a cookout and I was the least nerdy person there. Might have just caught the science crowd on a bad day but I definitely miss my Ithaca friends.
This weekend I'm going to Melbourne with some buddies. We rented a campervan and are driving down for the weekend and road tripping up the Great Ocean Road. Finally getting to do an all-bro road trip. I'm pretty pumped. Though we are gonna look like such tourists. Check out the video tour of the van if you don't believe me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmPDG7nX4rE&feature=player_embedded
If anyone is interested in sending me mail or anything my address is
Brian Hayes
1/32 Arcadia St.
Coogee, NSW 2034
Australia
I feel like I'm actually getting settled in now, which is nice. Though it feels impossible to try and do any work since I live in such an awesome area. Already talking to professors and looking into research opportunities here for grad school. The wildlife here is amazing. Too early to say I don't want to come home, but I'm really getting used to this.
Last weekend was pretty fun. I honestly don't remember what happened on Friday, but Saturday was Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras down in Sydney so we went down to see the parade. The weather wasn't great but the parade was pretty interesting. And gay. But fun for the most part. The night ended up being a pretty decent adventure anyways so I was happy with it.
Sunday was an amazing day at the beach, but the waves were absolutely huge, and I made the mistake of venturing out onto some rocks to try and get splashed by waves, and long story short saw a giant wave coming, was sitting down and attempted to hang on to the rocks and ended up getting dragged about ten meters across the rocks. Not so fun. Got pretty cut up but I'll survive. Near death experience in a foreign country, check.
On Monday I signed up for skydiving! No word on the details yet but the plan is to go at the end of March with some friends from the states. Still haven't met too many Aussies but I'm working on it. I joined Bio club and they had a cookout and I was the least nerdy person there. Might have just caught the science crowd on a bad day but I definitely miss my Ithaca friends.
This weekend I'm going to Melbourne with some buddies. We rented a campervan and are driving down for the weekend and road tripping up the Great Ocean Road. Finally getting to do an all-bro road trip. I'm pretty pumped. Though we are gonna look like such tourists. Check out the video tour of the van if you don't believe me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmPDG7nX4rE&feature=player_embedded
If anyone is interested in sending me mail or anything my address is
Brian Hayes
1/32 Arcadia St.
Coogee, NSW 2034
Australia
I feel like I'm actually getting settled in now, which is nice. Though it feels impossible to try and do any work since I live in such an awesome area. Already talking to professors and looking into research opportunities here for grad school. The wildlife here is amazing. Too early to say I don't want to come home, but I'm really getting used to this.
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