Surf Camp & Canberra

This past weekend has honestly been the most exhausting so far, but before I get into that, I wanted to update you all on my interview last week. It went really well and I am really excited to say that I will be interning at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the Campus Recruiting department doing HR! My roommate, Emily, also got an internship there so it will be fun to have a familiar face around the INCREDIBLE office they have that overlooks Darling Harbour. Back to this weekend though. I went to Surf Camp for the weekend, got back to Sydney for literally 15 hours just to sleep and eat dinner, and then I left again for Canberra. Enjoy reading about my crazy adventures!

I know I was radio silent Friday through Sunday if anyone was trying to contact me, but thats because I got to spend my weekend at Surf Camp where we had no service or wifi. It was kind of nice to just disconnect from my phone and focus on being present with the people on the trip.

We took a bus on Friday night and I sat next to a boy named Lorenzo who is studying abroad at UNSW for the semester and is originally from Italy. He came to surf camp alone because his friends couldnt make it. It was cool to get to know him better and hear where he has traveled.

After about 2 hours on the bus, we arrived and it was FREEZING cold. I don't know why but all of us came totally unprepared for the cold. I think we just assumed that surfing and the beach equals warm weather when in fact its already chilly in Sydney and then we went even farther south for the camp.

We got into our cabin and the first thing we saw was the biggest spider I have ever seen in person. We got one of the staff to help us catch it and let it go outside but he was so unfazed since he has seen BIRD EATING SPIDERS BEFORE. It was a solid welcome to Australian wildlife.

After we made our beds, we all decided to walk down to the beach and see what it was like. Surf Camp is located on Seven Mile Beach and it was beautiful. Even in the dark, the moon was really bright and the stars were breathtaking to look at.

Back in our cabin, it was still cold so we all layered up and went to bed. We all woke up every hour shivering and when we woke up in the morning (at 6:15am) we discovered we were the only cabin without a space heater during the night. The next night we asked for a heater and I have never appreciated feeling warm so much in my life.

On Saturday we woke up, ate, got into our wetsuits (or wetties here), and headed down to the beach for our first lesson. We learned the basics but surfing is so much harder than you would expect and I couldn't stand up during the first lesson but I was getting close by the end. We went back and ate lunch and then hit the beach for round two. This time I was able to get up on the board and got some GoPro pictures (right).

On Saturday night we all went to the "pub" which honestly looked like a mix of a diner and a bowling alley and there were a bunch of families and old couples there. They all stared at us 90 twenty-somethings walking into their very quiet "pub". The band played only 80s music but we all had a great time anyway, and then we all went down to the beach and took some pretty cool pictures of us with the stars (thanks James).

The next morning (after a long, warm sleep) we woke up and got ready for our last lesson. The waves were really aggressive on Sunday so I didn't do a ton of surfing but I was able to get up on the board again before leaving. Basically, I am a pro surfer now is what I'm telling you (just kidding). What I'm actually saying is that I had a lot of fun wiping out this weekend with my friends and I am now sore and bruised but I am also smiling so its okay.

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As I mentioned a few posts ago, I am taking a class called The Australian Political System. Every class in the program has at least one field trip and ours was to Canberra, the capital city of Australia. We left Sydney around 7am, drove three hours to Canberra, and got back to Sydney around 9:30pm. Needless to say, it was an extremely long day.

We did see a lot of awesome stuff though. We spent our morning at the Old Parliament House (right) learning about the House, the Senate, and the Cabinet and then saw the Aboriginal Embassy which consisted of tents and cars that the Aboriginals set up themselves. Next we stopped at the US Embassy for a quick picture. Of course the US Embassy is the largest of all the embassies in Canberra and in our opinion was the least creative architecturally so we spent our time there making fun of America.

Then on our way to lunch, we got to see a gift that the US gave to Australia - a giant eagle statue which was ridiculously tall. Then we saw the gift from the French which was a bell tower that was strategically placed on the lake so the music echoes throughout Canberra. Take a guess at which one we thought was cooler. Yeah, the bells. We finally got to lunch and ate at a cafe that overlooked the manmade lake that is at the center of Canberra. After lunch we went up Mt. Ainslie and got to see the city from above which was really cool as well (left).

Finally, we made our way to The Australia War Museum (right). This was easily my favorite part of the day. The museum is so unique because it encompasses all the wars that Australia has ever been involved in and it is compulsory for all school children to visit at least once. The United States really has nothing to compare to this. We only had an hour to walk around the museum before the last post ceremony at the end of the day. Mary Grace and I chose to go look at the World War II exhibit that they had and we learned SO MUCH. I would consider myself pretty educated when it comes to World War II just because I have studied it in school, I read a lot of historical fiction set around WWII, and I learned about the Holocaust in Hebrew School and in Israel. However, I never realized how much I was missing out on by getting all of my information from American sources. After talking about Pearl Harbor, I was never once taught anything about what happened in the South Pacific region with Japan, Singapore, Australia, and all the other countries in the area. We exclusively focused on the European side of the war. It was nice to finally learn from another perspective other than the United States'. I wish I had more time to see the other exhibits but I'm glad I had the opportunity to go at all. At 4:30 we were ushered outside for the last post ceremony where we honored the Australians who gave their lives for their country. After attending the last post ceremony, we finally left Canberra and made our way home to Sydney.

Now it's time to recover quickly because I have my first paper due on Friday and then right after I hand that in, I am off to Cairns for a weekend of snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef!