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. :)
