Christchurch (our final stop) and a recap of events down undah

Ahhh.... finally we have reached our last stop on this business trip/mini-adventure/ tour of two countries in 14 days... It has been quite busy, running from one place to the next and sitting for several meetings with countless student affairs people, faculty and students. I now sit at an internet cafe with a glass of champagne, celebrating the successful completion of site visit number #12 on this 14 day tour of Australia and NZ partner institutions. While my facebook pictures may show a lot of fun, sun, wine, food, and beautiful sites, it was actually quite a lot of work with very little (if any) free time. Just getting away to this internet cafe is a bit of a treat for me, since everything I have done in the past two weeks has involved a group of anywhere from 3-10 people, at a time. Danelle likes her alone time... and there wasn't much of it on this trip. I am not complaining though... I've been quite lucky to have landed this gig, and have really enjoyed being down under for the past two weeks. I'd love to return in the future for an actual holiday... maybe someday. To give my faithful readers back home (mom, auntie carol and auntie barb) a bit of an idea of what I've been doing, I've prepared a little recap.

Day 1: (Saturday, 7/25). This was basically a lost day, as I traveled 14 hours on a flight from LA to Brisbane, and landed on Sunday. Not a bad flight, thanks mostly to Ambien.

Day 2: (Sunday, 7/26). Arrived Brisbane in the morning, picked up one of our advisors a few hours later, and headed to our gorgeous apartments on the Gold Coast. Checked in around 3pm-ish and headed straight to an early dinner of Indian food. Feeling severe jet lag, I turned in early while the other girls went for Hamman scrub down.

Day 3: (Monday, 7/27) Drove to Bond University for visit and campus tour. Treated to a fabulous lunch where I tried the local fish (grilled Barumundi), a white fish that was rather nice, served over a creamy mushroom risotto. From there we dropped off our advisor and headed to University of Queensland for site visit #2. Beautiful campus, not enough time there. Headed to Brisbane to check into hotel, and head for dinner along the waterfront at a place called the Mediterranean Cafe. Nothign too fancy for me, as my tummy was still hurting from Indian food on Sunday........ so I went with a rather basic pasta with olive oil, and a few herbs and spices.

Day 4: (Tuesday, 7/28) Hopped a plane for Sydney (about three hours), and checked into an even more gorgeous apartment with views of the entire city. Met up with the Aussie Resident Directors and the advisors for an orientation overview, lunch, and a walking tour of the beautiful city. Took a ferry through the harbor and dined on Kangaroo for dinner with the whole group (about 12 of us).

Day 5: (Wednesday, 7/29) Visit with staff at University of New South Wales, tour of campus, student housing and lunch at a nice little cafe near Coogie beach. I had the artichoke risotto, which was very good, but probably not so good for the waistline... and a glass or two of white wine. That evening we actually had free, but a bunch of people did go out together. I decided to order some Japanese Ramen for takeaway and dine in alone at my penthouse suite overlooking Sydney. No complaints.... I needed my alone time. :)

Day 6: (Thursday, 7/30) Visit to Uni of Notre Dame in the morning, and University of Technology Sydney in the afternoon. More veggie risotto. More meetings. More talking. More listening. Had dinner that night at the Sydney Opera House. Oh that blue crab was something else. My mouth waters thinking about it. And the seared scallops were alright, too. :)

Day 7: (Friday, 7/31) Visit to University of Sydney... this one is escaping my memory at the moment... it was a really pretty campus, but I cannot remember much else, and can't even recall what we did for lunch that day (it is really all running together at this point - this was site visit #6, in about as many days). Met up again with the crew, plus resident directors and 3 students for a very lovely laotian dinner in sydney, followed by a rather strange visit to a gay bar with an offensive drag queen recanting "her" rather detailed.... um... activities. Decided to get a coffee and head back to penthouse.

Day 8: (Saturday, 8/1) Beautiful day.... we took a walk from Coogie to Bondi beach on an absolutely gorgeous little hike. I took some amazing photos, including the one with the lady swimming laps in a pool that is literally right on the beach. It was the perfect last day in Sydney (though I'd have loved to have stayed there longer... for pleasure, of course). That evening we flew 3 hours to Auckland, NZ and lost two hours along the way, so we arrived after 11pm, NZ time.

Day 9: (Sunday, August 2) No rest for the weary! We awoke bright and early for a visit to the Maori cultual museum (which was quite lovely), followed by a health little lunch (I had the pumpkin soup which was fabulous), followed by a ferry ride to Devonport and a hike to North Head for some gorgeous views and photos. Hiked it back to the hotel, and spared about 15 minutes before then heading off to a Thai dinner with students studying in Auckland. I think this was Asian meal #3 or 4... but there's more to come. After dinner, visited a chocolate boutique, student housing, and fianlly back to the apartment.

Day #10 (Monday, August 3) site visit at Uni of Auckland. I really liked Auckland.... I felt quite at home there. It was nice and quiet, even with a campus of 40,000 students. I really liked the cit yof Auckland as well. It reminded me a bit of Seattle, as it is surrounded by water, and has this thing called the Sky tower, which reminded me a bit of the space needle. But alas, we had very little time there, and had to depart on a flight to Palmerston North that afternoon. I was on a soup kick at this point and the weather was getting cold, so I ordered a carrot soup with corriander which was just perfect. Again, no rest for the weary. We arrived in Palmerston North and had about an hour to rest at the hotel, before heading out to yet another group dinner at a very nice place called Bethenny's. That Orange Ruffe (fish) was one of the top tow meals I had. Tossu p between that and the Opera House crab and scallops. Stayed at a quaint little hotel that eve.

Day #11 (Tuesday, August 4 -- Happy 16th B-day Tylor!!) Site visit #8 (?) with Massey University, Palmerston North. Did we have lunch? I don't even remember....... we then took a bus for two hours to Wellington, where we again checked into hotel and then headed to a group dinner with students - Cambodian place - pretty good.

Day #12 (Wednesday August 5) Early morning meetings with Victoria Uni, lunch at some asian fusion type place (mediocre), and a very short break I decided to take to shop. Wellington is crazy expensive, so not the best choice, but the city was lovely. Afternoon meetings with Massey Wellington's fine arts program, which was really quite spectacular... I am really glad I got to see that. Wellington is the cultural and arts capital of NZ, and it definitely showed in the arts program at that school. Again we had a "free" evening, though I think people got a little annoyed when I decided to blow off the group dinner for a much needed visit to the gym and soak in the hot tub........ ahhh........ that was so nice and so realxing. I really needed that time away. Later I dined solo at a little local pub, and ordered another yummy veggie soup of kumera (sweet potato) and pumpkin, plus other veggies, and then met with my boss Steve for a couple of drinks at a supposedly Spanish-themed bar... the sangria was alright, but they had tequila hanging from the ceiling and also served mojitos (neither of these are Spanish), but nonetheless, it was nice 1:1 time for me and Steve. The rest of the group had opted to go listen to Jazz.

Day #13 (August 6) Again, early morning meetings with another Massey group, followed by a flight to Christchurch. Since I hadn't had my fill of Asian food, I decided to stop for some Malaysian curry chicken at the airport, which was surprisingly quite good.

Flying into Christchurch from Wellington was a very picturesque site. From the window of the plane I could see a full range of snow-capped mountains in the distance, green pastures for miles and miles that eventually reached a beautifully long and pristine coastline that stretched out to turquoise blue waters. That was yesterday... (I think) :) We did have some time to walk around the beautiful little city of Christchurch for awhile. It was noticeably colder her in the "south island". It is afterall, the middle of Winter here. Again, of course, we dined in a large group with about five students. I decided to give Indian food another try and ordered the buttered prawns in red curry, which was quite delicious.

Day #14 (Today, Auguts 7th here in NZ, and Aug. 6th for all of you back in the states). Our last two site visits! Yes we crammed in two more visits today. Uni of Canterbury (lovely), and Uni of Lincoln (also lovely but a bit more rural). I have to say that at this point, I really couldn't take in any more information. I'm tired, I miss my dog, and I really miss my independence. It has been an extremely eventful (and fun) past two weeks, but I am ready to go home. I miss my beach, my friends, and my phone so I can call and text my peeps :)

Well, I have to run to our last group dinner -- yep, we still have one more! I think my body is going to go into shock when it returns to rice-a-roni and sandwiches back at home. I've eaten enough on this trip to write an entire book, nevermind a blog. :)

Thanks for reading if you've come this far.... It was a lot to squeeze into one blog, but can you imagine how much it was to squeeze into 2 weeks??? :)

Flying out tomorrow (Saturday, August 8th here in NZ), and will arrive in LA on Saturday August 8th in CA) actually about three hours before I leave Christchurch. Pretty cool, huh? I am soooo ready to be home. :)

New Zealand!

Wow - this visit down under is going by fast! We are so busy everyday that I haven't had a chance to write at all. I'll give a re-cap of the last few days in a future blog. In Wellington, NZ, now.... very pretty.... fun place... We were here last night and will stay one more night before moving on to Christchurch. Spent Sunday and Monday in Auckland -- loved it -- will post pictures when I have a chance. Tuesday (I think) was in Palmerston North (a very small city, reminded me of where I grew up, very country, very small, nice people, lots of agriculture). We saw lambs out in the pastures on the bus from Palmy to Wellington.... brought back a lot of memories from my childhood when I was in 4-H. I haven't and will NOT be able to eat lamb. Just can't do it. Those cute little wooly guys are just too cute. And besides I feel so guilty from those years in 4-H. I did eat some pork today though. Didn't get as attached to my little piggies back in the 4-H days, and I am half-Spanish afterall, so pork kinda comes with the territory. We have been feasting mostly on Asian food. Laotian in Sydney, Thai in Auckland, and Cambodian last night in Wellington, plus some other Asian fusion today in Wellington, where I finally broke from my veggies/chicken/fish typical fare and had a pork dumpling. It was delicious.... more on food later, as food can definitely take up an entire blog. I'm afraid I have to run now as we have really no time for such things as checking e-mails or writing blogs. :)

TTFN...

D

Last day in Sydney

Today is our last day in Sydney, before heading to Auckland this evening. This week is going to be even busier than this past week. I've already visited seven of our partner schools here in Australia, and we're going to tour several more in the next several days in NZ. I'm going to miss Sydney a bit, but I am ready and looking forward to New Zealand.

It's going by so fast and we are so packed in with activities and college visits that it's difficult to recall everything I've done.

The Sydney Opera House was amazing. We dined at a lovely restaurant there called "Guillaume". I had a delicious blue swimmer crab as a starter. I am still thinking about that crab now... It was soooo good. It was served on a bed of sliced avocados and topped with sliced cucumbers. Yum. For the main course I went with seared scallops (of course). Sometimes I think we are on a culinary tour, as we are definitely eating our way through Australia.

After dinner, we saw a comedian perform at the Opera House theater. She was what I like to refer to as the Kathy Griffin of Australia. Very brash, but very funny.

Yesterday we visited the Uni of Sydney during the day. One of the advisors and I took a nice walk through the botnaical gardens in late afternoon... and last night we had a nice Laotian dinner with a few of our students.

I've been struggling a bit with jet lag, and finally caught up (I think) last night. Perfect timing as we are about to enter a new time zone in New Zealand! sigh...

I certainly can't complain though. Yes, we are incredibly busy with site visits, tours, presentations, etc... but we are being treated quite well, and the scenery is incredible. I can't wait to bring all this information to students in the U.S. I am going to be quite busy over the next several months, learning more about the programs and recruiting students on campuses across the western U.S., but I am sur eit's going to be full of lots of fun and interesting experiences as well...

Off to see the sun come up over Sydney for the last time! Ciao...

More on Sydney....

A few things I forgot to mention:

1) Vegemite is in fact disgusting. Tried it yesterday - not good.
2) Aussie men are in fact quite handsome (many of them anyway... :)
3) Walking on the left hand side of the sidewalk may in fact be just as difficult to adjust to as driving on the left hand side of the street (though probably not quite as dangerous) . It's a very good thing I am not driving.

We visited University of Notre Dame today -- very small Catholic school affiliated of course with UND in South Bend, Indiana (where I'll be in just a few weeks). It was quite old... historic... would be a good fit for the right student (someone seeking that small private catholic experience). The Dean was incredibly nice, and I'd feel quite comfortable sending students to study there knowing he would be their main point of contact, and that they's have a lot of people who genuinely care about them looking after them. Again, it has to be the right type of student.
After that we visited University of Technology Sydney, which was absolutely amazing. They are really cutting edge in the arts (at least as far as I could see). I was quite impressed with their facilities and it felt like stepping inside a huge modern art museum. It's a very urban, modern campus, right in the center of Sydney, and just next to Chinatown. It's also right next to UND, but the campuses (in my opinion) are worlds apart. I could see students from NYC, Chicago, SF, LA really enjoying UTSydney. And the technology definitely appears to be world-class.

I just have a little break now. We have been super busy attending meetings and taking tours of all the campuses. Tonight we are headed to the Opera House for dinner and a show. :) Looking forward....

Sydney!

Arrived in Sydney yesterday (which is today for you in the states :) .... I fell in love immediately! It is unbelievably gorgeous here. We are absolutely being treated like royalty. I would show you pictures of our panoramic view from our 76th floor apartment, but alas I left my power cord for my computer at home and cannot transfer my pictures to the computers at the internet cafe. :( You will have to wait until I return to see the photos, but trust me, they are gorgeous!

I'm still adjusting the the time, but believe me, life could be much worse. I knew I would love Sydney, but had no idea how much. The views of the city are spectacular, the weather is great, and so far, the people I have met have been wonderful too. I would not hesitate one bit to recommend Sydney or Queensland to students or their advisers. I am learning quite a bit about our programs here, but still have so much to learn. I have only one week here in Australia and then one week in New Zealand. I definitely will have to come back in the future, as there is so much more to see!

We had a beautiful long walking tour of the city yesterday, through the downtown area, the financial district, the botanical gardens, where cockatoos climbed on our heads and shoulders, and down to the harbor where we saw the famous opera house. We're actually going to see a performance there on Friday night! The harbor is more beautiful than I had imagined. We boarded a harbor ferry and headed to a funky little bar/restaurant, where they take the students on their first night here.

After hearing Russ, our Resident Director in Sydney, extoll the benefits of eating Kangaroo, I decided to order it. It wasn't half bad! It was not my favourite... but I found it to be tolerable. The wedges served with sour cream and sweet chili sauce were heaven on earth, though, and definitely something I can replicate back home. Kangaroo...... not so much.

Today we visited the campus of University of New South Wales. It was quite nice and comparable to UQ, but I preferred the campus at Queensland. UNSW is just near the beach, and in a great part of Sydney, however, so I can certainly see the draw here. Have I mentioned how great Sydney is? Oh yes, and we dined at a nice little cafe near UNSW (and just steps from the beach), and our hosts at UNSW got a little giddy when four members of the Australian National Rugby team walked in. I personally thought they looked like college soccer or rugby players... but one of the staff told me it was equivalent to seeing Kobe Bryant walk into the restaurant (which wouldn't really excite me very much, but I do suppose I'd take notice - haha).

Once again, the housing facilities for the students were absolutely amazing (photos coming soon, I hope). They also have panormaic views of Sydney from their upscale apartments (one option), or the other include a rooftop deck (again with amazing views) and steps from the beach near campus. It is quite the luxury experience for students here. I simply don't know how they manage to get any of their studying done.

Well, the jet lag is getting to me a bit and we've been walking around quite a bit for the past few days, so I think I will head to the hot tub now... life is rough, I know. :)

I'm having a hard time without my cell phone, wanting to text my friends and family to say hello, and/or I miss you, wish you were here, etc! So, I hope this blog finds each of you well, and know that I am thinking of you :)

Brisbane to Sydney

Ahhh…. So after a 14-hour flight on Friday night, I arrived in Brisbane, Australia on Sunday morning, at about 6:00am. That’s 1pm Saturday, California time. It takes a few minutes to wrap your head around the fact that I am now 17 hours ahead of Pacific Time. I like saying to my new friends here that it’s 12:00pm here, and it’s 7pm yesterday in CA. I don’t know why; it’s just fun. So, the flight was great. Ambien gave me a good nine hours of uninterrupted sleep, which was probably just as good for the guy sitting next to me as it was for me. Just before the flight took off, he looked at me and said in a thick Australian accent, “Don’t drink too much on this flight”. I gave him a questioning glance and he said, “I don’t want you to be climbing over me to run to the toilet every half hour”. Thanks, mate, I thought, and swallowed an Ambien. Seconds later, I was lights out, and awoke nearly nine hours later to see that we’d already flown over Hawaii and had just fiver hours left (not bad, a bit like flying from NYC to LA). Of course, I promptly climbed over Aussie guy next to me, and the guy next to him, trying carefully not to disturb them, but I do think I hit the middle guy in the face with my bum. Haha! I wasn’t about to dehydrate myself further on this 14 hour flight, so I downed a bottle of water, and climbed over him again about an hour or so later. After that I noticed that he took to leaning forward withhis face pressed against the tv screen, making it a little more difficult for me to get by, should I need to use the loo again. Denita (my new South African friend and colleague) and I now call the WC, or the bathroom, or the toilet, the “loo”. I’ve become British all of a sudden. Oooh, it was really fun today when someone at the airport asked me where my accent was from. I proudly said I’m an American. From California. It’s really fun to be the one with the foreign accent around here.
We arrived in Brisbane Sunday morning, and picked up one of the advisors who would be visited the campuses here along with us. Since Denita is South African and in her words has experience “driving on the proper side of the street”, she took to the wheel of our rental car. Everytime I saw a car round a turn on the left-hand side, I nearly had to suppress a scream, as I thought they were driving like wild men on the “wrong” side of the road. Whew…. Thank God for Denita.
We stayed that evening in a gorgeous apartment on the Gold Coast, with an ocean view from our balcony. It was pure heaven. I found out later that this is the premeire hosing that we arrange for our students. Not only did I not live that well in college, I don’t live that well, now! It was pure luxury. If only we’d had more than one evening there. By now it was about 3pm Gold coast time, and we were starving. We found a nice little Indian place, called Taj, and scarfed down some red chicken curry, garlic naan, and samosas (Asha and Rhonda I thought of you). It was delicious. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to take my pepto, so I was a bit miserable later…. But oh, the perild of traveling. And India food for that matter. :)
Denita and our guest Clare decided to proceed with our plan to get an authentic Morrocan massage. I stayed back in the luxury hotel, and took a nice little nap…. Too bad because I missed out on a full-on head to toe scrub down, complete with disposable g-string (that’s all they wore). Oh, how red their faces were when they returned! It was even funnier because I was the one who had suggested that we go for the full hammam treatment, and then I had to back out due to the cursed Indian food, and an unhappy tummy.
We turned in early that night, given that at 8pm our time, it was 3am Saturday California time, and 6am East Coast (where Clare and Denita are from).
Monday was our first full day of work, touring two of our partner campuses. We started at Bond University on the Goal Coast, which was absolutely pristine. The campus is relatively new and quite spectacular. It is a smaller campus, a private school, which is quite expensive. I could see some of our more affluent, private school students in the U.S. feeling quite a t home there. It is July and technically the middle of Winter for Australia, but it was about 72 degrees and absolutely gorgeous. The Gold Coast is known for having great surf, and we saw students heading to the beach with their boards.
Later on we headed back to Brisbane to have a look at University of Queensland. It was quite the opposite of Bond University, and I immediately felt at home there. UQ is a large publicly funded university, with about 38,000 students (exactly the same size as CSU, Long Beach, where I most recently worked). I noticed immediately how much more diverse the student body was and how large and sprawling the campus was. There is a large, beautiful grassy courtyard that they call the Great Court. The campus is nearly 100 years old, and you can feel the history there. I thought of my former students at UCLA and CSULB, and felt immediately that they would fit in and enjoy it there. I was quite impressed with the UQ campus and the abundance of courses and programs they offer. Brisbane is a lovely city as well, with a great river running through, and beautiful buildings, shops, cafes along the banks. I would have liked to have spent more time there.