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.