Ponderings....

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever get Australia out of my blood. I got home and felt so discontent and even transferred schools and yet, Aussie Aussie Aussie!! Its a good thing though, I'm not floating around with my head stuck on another continent but I really do miss it. So now I'm here in Nashville, Tennessee studying communications and worship arts but I'm still working on adjusting. One way that Australia has really affected me is that when I left for Australia I wanted to study music and communications so that I could work at a music magazine but now I'm being led a different direction. I'm excited because I have been thinking that I want to work for a non-profit organization like Fair Trade or Global Sister Goods. I want to do something with my life that will benefit someone other than myself whether that be leading worship full time at a church or working for a non-profit organization making sure that little children in Africa have water or that people harvesting the coffee beans that I enjoy so much are getting paid fair wages. It's exhilarating! I've been searching for an internship these past couple months and am going to start e-mailing some connections to see if God brings anything my way. An internship at a church leading worship and event planning or working for a non-profit organization are the two places I am really looking at so I'm just having faith that God will lead me as he has been doing the past nine months so faithfully. He laid this verse upon my heart a few months ago and it is still something I cling to:

"The Lord says, I will guide you along the best path for your life. I will advise you and watch over you."
Psalm 32:8

Adventure take two....

So it has been about two months since I got home from the "best semester" of my life, and already so much has changed from when I left. In my head I told myself that I knew when I got home things wouldn't be the same because I had been gone for four months and life moves on! Buuuut I think I still slightly expected things to be how I left. I came home feeling unwilling to go back to Olivet, my best friend moved 20 hours away to start her new life as a "big girl" in the "real world", Bo was moving to North Carolina to become a firefighter, and I felt like I got thrown back into the high spin cycle on the washing machine and I was getting really dizzy. I tried to just plow through and continue as if things were the same as when I left but I knew they weren't. God was poking and prodding me in a new direction and I wasn't having it. I was still in denial that things were going to change radically at the end of the summer and I was going to pretend that we were all going to happily contiune our lives as if nothing had changed. I finally stopped trying to avoid the inevitable and when I shut up long enough to listen to what God was trying to tell me the washing machine feeling finally stopped and I found clarity.
God has always communicated to me through music. It has always been our language to each other and so I wasn't surprised when that was how he started preparing me for changes ahead. I'd be playing guitar and words would come to me about trust, I was in church and we sang a song that said, "You make all things work together for my good", and over and over again he was showing me that he knew the best path for me and that he would lead me. I began wondering if I should consider checking out Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville again because it had been my other serious option other than Olivet my freshman year. The next day my mom asked if I thought I should go visit Trevecca so I was like okay God I get it and I grabbed my dad and that weekend we drove the seven hours down south to visit this school. I got there and I loved Nashville of course but I was still kind of oh, I'll just go back to Olivet for at least a semester and see how it goes. But I just felt more and more drawn to Trevecca and everything began falling into place and before I knew it I was transferring to Trevecca and was going to be in their worship arts program!
It's funny how when I left for Australia six months ago, I thought I would come home and life would just pick up where it left off. That everyone would be in the same place they were when I left even though my life had changed drastically. I think it was good though because God didn't let me come home from Australia the same girl who left. He taught me a lot about listening and trusting when I was there and even more when I got back. I thought he took away my support system so that I would trust in him overseas, but now he's taking it one step further and doing it again even when I'm back in America which I think will be harder! It was easy to be in Australia and just tell myself that in four months when I got home I would see everyone I usually rely on for support. I'm excited to see what God has to show me in Nashville and to see the purpose in him bringing me here. I don't doubt that there is a purpose.
So here I am. At the next phase of my life. Standing on the brink yet again, my fourth time in a new environment not knowing any friends just waiting for him to show me what he wants from me now that I'm being vulnerable.Maybe I'm crazy but I always thought God used the crazy people :)
Adventure, take two!

New Zealand, the land of Kiwis: the birds, the fruit, and the people

My last week in Sydney was absolutely wonderful and filled with all of my favorite aspects of Sydney life. I rode the ferry one last time, went to all my favorite markets, waved goobye to my beloved Gladesville bridge, blew farewell kisses to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and took pictures of all my favorite places. I realized the night before I left while I was packing how not okay I was with leaving Australia. The only thing that made it a little better was the anticipation that the next morning I would get to experience a whole new country, New Zealand!

I had always heard New Zealand described by Australians as a "wannabe Australia" but I quickly learned that that was so far from the truth. New Zealand is it's own unique and beautiful country. When arrived in Auckland, New Zealand the time difference from Australia made it that we just had time to go to dinner and then either wander around Auckland or play games at the YHA hostel. Auckland itself isn't that exciting, but we did manage to find a random karaoke place to spice up the evening!

Our first full day we went to the Auckland museum and then headed to Whackatane (the wh= f sound, then everything else is just sounded out) where we visited our first Maori Marae called Tangataua. The Maori people are the longest known culture in New Zealand which makes them the indigenous owners even though they migrated there by boat from Thailand hundreds of years ago. A Marae is their sacred meeting place and it's members are all members of the family. A Maori person might belong to four or five Marae's because of both their parents, and both sets of grandparents. They are all related. We had to be welcomed onto the Marae with a ceremony that included the eldest woman singing us on and then a ceremony where we faced opposite the Maori people and did a series of speeches and songs. As visitors we had to go first and since the Maori culture is patriarichal only males were allowed to speak. After our speaker addressed our hosts we all had to stand and sing them a song showing our support for what our speaker said. It was very interesting. Two men from our group spoke and then our hosts did the same. Then we all lined up and did the hangi with each of the Marae family members. The hangi is their greeting which is literally "sharing breath." You press your nose and forehead together with one hand shaking theirs, and the other on their arm. We were all pretty apprehensive about the hangi, especially those of us with personal space bubbles, but it was a really sweet greeing once we did it with them. Once that was over they told us that we were officially part of the Marae and were welcome anytime. We had to arrive before dark because they still held to the old custom that those who come at night are enemies.

We had dinner with them in a house that felt to me like a camp mess-hall. Everyone pitched in and helped serve the food and then we all ate together on these long cafeteria like tables. The kai (food) was so delicious! They made us two different soups, fried bread, roast, two different pastas, salads, and crumble for dessert. After we were all certain that we were going to bust from the amazing kai we cleaned up (as part of the new family we were expected to pitch in and help) and the we all piled into the sacred house to hear stories of their culture. We all slept in there together along with some of the visiting members of the Marae and in Maori tradition slept female-male, then eldest- youngest, with our heads facing the walls. We all piled on our mattresses and settled in to hear stories of their culture. We heard about their supreme deity, stories about their totem, and different customs they adhere to. I slept better that night than I had in a long time. There was something peaceful about all sleeping together sharing mattresses and hearing their stories. Nothing unclean was allowed to enter where we were sleeping so shoes had to be left outside and no food or drink was allowed to enter. They also had their weddings and funerals there. When Patrick (one of the elders) woke us up the next morning (an hour earlier then we had to!!) he woke us up with gentle singing and turning the lights on slowing while we all adjusted to the morning. It was the best way I've ever waken up!

We had breakfast and then Donna (one of the sisters) taught us a Maori song and dance to perform at the farewell ceremony. They were all pleased that we learned one of their songs and it was really special. We did the hangi on last time and then we waved goodbye from our bus and headed to Rotorua home of natural hot springs and the lovely smell of sulfar. In Rotorua we had another Marae experience that was quite different from the first. We went to Mitere Tours with a Maori man and his nephew who do a tour of their Marae, the hot springs surrounded it, and the churches that were founded by missionaries long ago. The Marae is right in the city and tourists kept wandering in not realizing that it was a sacred space and since Mitere Tours gifted the land to the city, they decided to do these tours to maintain their privacy and satisfy curiousity. It was nice to have the customs we had already done at the first marae explained in a tour setting. Once again there was more delicious kai and our corn was cooked right in the hot springs outside. That night we had another tour called Tamaki tour which was actually more of a dinner show showcasing the Maori culture. It started with the traditional haka performed by the warriors and then we were invited in to wander around a recreated ancient Maori village until the show and dinner. The haka is a Maori war dance designed to evoke fear and intimidation into the enemy but also to center the warrior and help them focus. It is actually really neat and the All Blacks New Zealand rugby team still does this before matches. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4LNjNXt1yM&feature=fvst) The show was a performance of some Maori song and dances and then we headed to the dinner where they did on final song with us before we left.

Another part of our visit to New Zealand was to Te Puia to see "Old Faithful's cousin", the largest geiser in the Southern Hemisphere also home to natural hot springs, and natural hot mud baths. We also got a chance to hike an old volcanic mountain, Mangere Mountain. It used to be the home of indigenous Maori tribes and there were still some signs of their presence there where their food would have been stores, shells they laid on paths to prevent the enemy to be able to sneak up during the night, and an old fortress. The view was absolutely breathtaking and it looks right over Sydney. On our way back to Auckland we got to stop in Hobbiton, Matamata, the home of Lord of the Rings!! We all hopped off the bus and took lots of pictures with the "Welcome to Hobbiton" sign with a Gollum statue beside it and in the seat that makes it look like you were wearing Gandolf's hat. It was a fun pit stop.

On our free day a group of girls and I took the ferry across the Auckland harbour to Devonport to explore another volcanic mountain, the oldest in New Zealand at North Head. The mountain had WWII caves and tunnels in it from when New Zealand used it in WWII. The caves were pretty creepy and dark inside but some of the artillery and guns were still on disply and the caves and tunnels were pretty neat. That night we had our farewell dinner and last session together and it hit everyone that we were going home the next morning. We had a 6am flight and had to leave the YHA at 4am and since we didn't finish our final session until midnight most of us took advantage of the opportunity to spend final time together crowded into our rooms or playing games in the lobby. It was a really good last night.The 40 hours travel to get home, not so great, our last night all together was wonderful.

New Zealand is definitely not a miniature Australia. It is beautiful in its own way!

The Final Countdown..

My time in Sydney is drawing to a close and because of that a myriad of people have been bombarding me with questions like, “Has it changed your life?”, “What was the best part?”, “What was the worst part?”, “What have you learned?”, “Have you grown?”. I’m realizing now that I better have an answer for all of these questions when I get home so that I am not completely overwhelmed and give some lame answer like, “Australia was good.” We had a debrief class session just going over everything and processing what we’ve learned and Kimberly said one girl summed it up well by saying how our experience here in Australia wasn’t about all the touristy places we’ve been and seen, it was in the day to day experiences that we had and that is so true. My experience was the beautiful view on the Gladesville Bridge on my way to school every morning of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was “running amuk” in Sydney with my American and new Australian friends. It was figuring out the public transportation system until I can easily say, “Take the 506 to Drummoyne then the 490, 492, or 504 to the school” and knowing that if I want to stay out late to take the 501 to Gladesville because it runs later on weekends than the 506. My experience was LIVING in Sydney, not vacationing in Sydney. I did plenty of touristy things like the museums, art galleries, Bondi Beach, Palm Beach, Paddy’s Market to buy souvenirs, and going to the Gold Coast for project week but the majority of my stay here is summed up in my life in Gladesville. A massive part of my experience was getting close to my three roommates and spending a lot of time with them.


Has it changed my life? Definitely. I am now going home and changing my communications major to journalism possibly because from this I know that I want to have the freedom to travel all over the world. Being in Australia has made traveling a reality for me! I’ve always had a list of places that I wanted to go in the world and now that I’ve been to one of them it makes the other destinations seem so much more possible than I ever would have thought. I’m not ready to go home and stay there; I have so many places to see!! It’s also changed my life because it has shown me how much stronger I am than I had realized. Being in Australia has definitely been lonely at times but it has taught me how independent I am and how much I have to rely on God. Kimberly gave us back a question from our applications that asked how we wanted to be challenged this semester and I said I wanted to be challenged to get outside of my box and learn to rely not on myself, friends, and family back home but totally and completely on God. That totally happened here. I have read my Bible more these four months than I have in a long time. I have been journaling about so many experiences and changes that I see in myself that have come about by my total reliance in God. I found a church that I attended not because I knew anybody there but because I loved the atmosphere and because it challenged me every single Sunday. I have been stretched, pulled, and pushed so many uncomfortable directions these past four months and I think it will be interesting to see how those things will affect me when I go back home.

Going home hasn’t really hit me yet. I don’t feel like I am going to be leaving Australia in 6 days. I have taken in so much information that I’m not quite sure how is going to be used when I get back home. Social justice, land and environment issues, and little things like using reusable shopping bags and water bottles instead of plastic are all things that were really stressed here and I don’t want to forget them when I get back home. Doing volunteer work all semester has shown me the importance of not just volunteering at a church but volunteering for people who don’t know God yet and are in a tough place in their life. I’ve always just volunteered at either my church back home or did worship at the church I attend at Olivet, but I have never really done consistent volunteer work outside the church. I want to find a program that works with kids or youth and really dig in and get involved. I think of how much time I waste sitting in my apartment at school on facebook or watching pointless television shows and think how much better it could be spent for an hour or so a couple nights a week tutoring kids or working at a soup kitchen. I’ve realized what a comfortable and selfish life I’ve gotten used to living. I know a lot of people are probably thinking, “She went to Australia! It’s basically a vacation!” but it really wasn’t. Of course it was wonderful, but I did learn a lot and issues of consumerism and materialism were really pushed this semester until I thought I was going to SCREAM, but it has stuck. I need to make a life change when I get home. I need to find practical ways to implement the things I’ve learned so that my semester here has a lasting impact.

It’s going to be crazy hard to not go back to shopping whenever I want, spending all my money on myself on things I don’t need, not volunteering, using plastic bags, and so on and so forth but I am determined! It’s going to take a lot of accountability from the people I’ve spent my semester with and from my friends back home but I think I’ve gotten a lot stronger this semester and gained a lot of self-control and perspective. While I’m sad to go home I’m really excited about the changes I want to make in my life so it makes it easier.

Here’s what I’m committing to:

• Finding a program to volunteer at that I’m passionate about when I’m at school instead of just being a couch potato!

• Using only reusable shopping bags EVEN if it means not buying something because I forgot my bag

• Using a reusable water bottle instead of buying packs of plastic ones

• Recycle, recycle, recycle!

• Not shopping needlessly... I want to be more generous! If I have extra money it doesn’t mean I have to spend it on myself!!

I am totally aware that this will take effort when I get home and it will be easy to slip back into my habits so feel free to hold me accountable when I get home :)

A weekend of Sydney-ing around

One of my favorite parts of studying abroad in Australia is being able to wander around Sydney. It’s a bit surreal to be able to hop on a bus essentially whenever I want and roam all over Sydney. I always have some fun little adventures around Sydney and this weekend was no exception.


I spent my Saturday running all over Sydney with my roommates Courtney and Natalie. We spent the first half of the day going to a couple different markets in Sydney. The first one is called the Rozelle Markets in Balmain which is right up the road from our school in Drummoyne. We walked around there for a while and then headed onto Paddy’s Market. We never have any trouble spending our money at Paddy’s which is right by China Town near Darling Harbour and has EVERYTHING imaginable. Souvenirs, clothes, and knick-knacks galore!! Courtney and Natalie found some great deals in souvenirs for their families. Paddy’s Market has everything that all the expensive city stores have for a fraction of the price. I love Paddy’s! It’s a tourist’s dream considering the insane Sydney prices.

After we shopped til we dropped we walked back through Darling Harbour where the Blues and Jazz Festival was going on. There was a stage set up literally in the middle of the harbor with live music as we walked by. There were a few stages set up all throughout Darling Harbour with free live music. We took a ferry over to Luna Park when it was dark and the park looked incredible all lit up. There was a wedding going on when we were there and the newlyweds were riding the Ferris wheel. Courtney, Natalie, and I couldn’t resist riding it and it was so worth it. Once we reached the top of the Ferris wheel the night view of the city was gorgeous. The Opera House looked like it was right under the Harbour Bridge, two of my favorite Sydney views.

We eventually wandered over the Harbour Bridge to the Australian Hotel where they serve gourmet kangaroo, crocodile, and emu pizzas. Some other American students met us there and some of the girls and I split a kangaroo pizza. I was a bit hesitant to eat kangaroo especially after being in the outback and seeing them hopping across the bush, but it was really good! It tasted like a chewier version of a beef steak. The sauce was made of native Australian berries so it was a sweet tangy flavor. A couple of the boys got crocodile pizza which is a white meat and they said it was good too.

Sunday morning my four roommates and I had a little mini-road trip with our host dad, Wayne. He took us about an hour up to the north side of Sydney where our favorite Australian television show, Home and Away, is filmed at Palm Beach. Home and Away is a pretty cheesy Australian soap opera but we can’t help ourselves, we love it! Home and Away has been going on for around forty years and almost every famous Australian actor or actress got their start on the show.

Palm Beach is a quiet isolated part of Sydney that had rocks on one side and a cliff with a stunning light house on the other. It was chilly but there were still some die hard surfers out catching some waves including a fifty-year old lady! There was a little café across the street and a little bit down the road the Palm Beach Markets were going on. We stopped and looked around for a bit and the markets were really interesting. There were a lot of homemade clothes, scarves, hats, bags, soaps, and house wares. They had a little playground area set up and vendors selling coffee and food. The vendors were all local and it was a really chill atmosphere. I think if I lived in Australia I would want to live in a more isolated part of the city. Sydney is such a huge sprawling city and every part of it is different.

We walked around Palm Beach pretending to be Martha, Hugo, Romeo, Nicole, and all the Home and Away characters and then after went walked around the market we headed back down the coast. We stopped at a couple other beaches to look around and had our lunch, “banana sangers”, or sandwiches at a beach that Wayne used to surf at when he was younger. On his he put bananas, butter, and sugar. We snuck some peanut butter on ours! We drove down a bit further and stopped at the Hubbard Diggers club and got potato wedges for a snack. The restaurant was right on the water and we watched the AFL game for a bit.

We headed back home after we ate at the club and we were home in time for us girls to go to St. Andrew’s Anglican Church where we’ve been going to the 5:30pm service called Fix Church. I really like Fix because the age group is upper high school, college students, and a couple young married couples. Everyone is very welcome and opening and I really really like the messages every week. They have been both interesting and challenging. It’s been interesting because of the cultural differences and the different teaching style. Challenging because each message makes me leave thinking about a change I need to make it my life.

After the service there is always “supper” for everyone to talk and hang out. Supper is sometimes actual supper like soup and bread or sometimes it’s just doughnuts and cookies with coffee. Last week it was Fix Church’s 9th “birthday” so there was a birthday cake and a little party. There is a strong sense of community and we’re never standing by ourselves for very long before someone from the congregation comes and strikes up a conversation with us. The pastor, Josh, always has some American trivia questions for us which can be pretty humorous. He e-mailed me wanting to talk about the differences between American and Australian churches which could be a really fun conversation!

In case it wasn’t obvious enough, Australia is still completely wonderful and my three weeks left here are going to go by way too quickly.

"Mrs. Boss! Mrs. Boss! I gotta go walkabout!"

Walkabout. Going walkabout was something that Australian Aboriginals did as part of their initiation ceremonies as they grew up in order to be able to marry or be considered “men” and “women” and no longer children. Part of my Indigenous Cultures class here was that we got to go on a walkabout in the Blue Mountains for the day. We had a trail guide named Evan who was an Aboriginal Australian himself so we were very privileged to get this very unique learning experience that put everything we had been learning in a classroom setting out into its original setting. Taking forty people on a hike in areas where there were not trails may have been a daunting task but Evan didn’t seem to mind.

When we first began our hike the area was the typical dry Australian bush but as we went further into the mountain we got to experience the beautiful rainforest atmosphere of the Blue Mountains. Our first stop was at a sacred site where the initiation ceremonies began. Evan told us dreaming stories, which are stories about how the people live, their customs, and their creation story. There was a small pond in the rock where we stopped that they called the Rainbow Serpent and there were carvings in the rock that would help tell the dreaming stories to the young men. By pouring water on them from the pond, the Rainbow Serpent was said to have helped them be able to focus for hours while they were being told the dreaming stories. The point was to focus on the feeling of water running down their outside physical bodies until they felt the same sensation inside and were able to center themselves. One of the dreaming stories Evan told us was illustrated by carvings in the rock. There was a wallaby mother on one side of the rock and a baby wallaby with a snake on the other side. The story was that the mother was not focusing and her mind had wandered until she was not paying attention to her baby who was in grave danger from the snake. The point of the story was to not let your thoughts wander but to remain connected with your senses from help from the Rainbow Serpent.

We hiked some more to a large sandstone cave where we stopped for lunch and Evan taught us how to paint with ocher as the Aboriginals would have. Ocher is natural paint made from charcoal and other natural mineral stones that you grind and mix with water until it makes a paint. He showed us some symbols for water, kangaroos, the rainbow serpent, emu, meeting places, men, women, and how the Aboriginals use these symbols to paint their dreaming stories. We painted our own dreaming stories on rocks, bark, and leaves and at the end we all painted our faces. It was a lot of fun to get to learn in a creative way in the middle of the beautiful Blue Mountains.

Our last stop was at another cave where Evan told us some more about the Aboriginal people’s ceremonies and initiation. He told us about the final stages the men would have to go through in order to be allowed to marry and that men usually didn’t complete their ritual until they were at least 25. Women would finish as early as 14 and would be allowed to marry a lot younger. Throughout the hike Evan had us try different leaves and smell different barks which he explained to us were Bush medicines. Some of the leaves tasted minty and one even tasted a bit like licorice. We also tested out a natural nasal decongestant...

Hiking through the Blue Mountains on a “walkabout” made me notice thing that I would probably not have noticed on my own. I would certainly have not realized that the first sacred site we went to was a site important to the oldest living culture in the world! It was an intense hike but it was really invigorating and I really enjoyed being out in the middle of nowhere without cell phones or iPods and people worrying about schedules. It’s no surprise to me that the Aboriginal peoples of Australia used the Blue Mountains as part of their ceremonies.

Ultimate Tourist Day!!

I have been blessed to make a really nice Aussie friend named Sarah who was gracious enough to take me on what she calls the, “Ultimate Tourist Day.” She said that she and her friends love going on tourist days around Sydney and finding fun new spots to hang out at. She picked me, one of my roommates, Natalie, and one of our friends Greg up at 8am on a Saturday morning and then the adventure began!

The four of us hopped into Sarah’s car and had no idea what was in store for us for the day. Our first stop was Bradley’s Head where we had a picnic breakfast that Sarah packed for us which was delicious. Bradley’s Head looks out across the water at the Sydney skyline and the Harbour Bridge. There is a wharf where a few men were fishing and a footpath that went through a really pretty bush area by the water. We all put on wicked Aussie flag tattoos, because what tourist day is complete without one, and then walked a bit along the path.

After we ate breakfast, we went across the Harbour Bridge into the city and parked and then walked to the Luna Park, which is a bit like Chicago’s Navy Pier. Luna Park is an old fashion retro theme park/carnival that closed for a while but reopened for the public and looks exactly like it did when it first opened. The entrance is a really creepy clown head thing but it’s really fun inside because it all still looks vintage and retro. It’s right on the water and a ferry goes right to it. After we took a bunch of fun and silly pictures we headed to get a pick-me-up at a small café.

After being caffeinated we felt prepared to walk across the Harbour Bridge. I was a bit surprised because the bridge wasn’t quite what I expected. It has a fence that goes up so I felt a bit caged in on the bridge, which I realize is for safety purposes but it did ruin the effect a bit! We went up one of the pylons of the bridge which had an amazing view though. For $9 you can climb a bunch of stairs to walk through up to the top of the pylon where there is a display of information about the bridge and you walk outside and can see all around the bridge. You can literally see almost all of Sydney from atop of the pylon. I could see the Opera House, the Rocks, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, and even the Gladesville Bridge, the bridge I cross every morning to get to school. It was beautiful!

After the bridge we went through Circular Quay to go to the Royal Botanical gardens where Greg climbed some random trees, I made friends with a duck I named Quizie, and we saw an anti-democracy socialist protest march. We grabbed lunch from a vendor by the garden and had lunch in one of the garden’s pavilions and had to defend our food from some very nosey birds. The Botanical gardens is of course very pretty and overlooks the water right beside the Opera House. When we finished lunch we went to the Sydney YHA because one of Sarah’s friends works there and he let us up to the rooftop where there is yet another amazing view of Sydney. Everywhere you go Sydney is gorgeous!

One of my favorite parts of the day was taking a ferry across to Watson’s Bay. Watson’s Bay is a really chill and relaxed part of Sydney and there is a small beach and a park right across from the wharf. There were two weddings going on so we saw part of a ceremony ending and another newlywed couple taking pictures on the beach. We were getting tired at this point so we relaxed at the park for a while and watched the sunset across the water and it was stunning. It was a nice way to end a super busy day because it was just completely relaxing. We grabbed fish n’ chips at a place called Doyles that was right on the wharf and ate and talked while we waited for our ferry to take us back across to Sydney. It was a long twelve hour day but we got to go to a lot of parts of Sydney that we hadn’t been to yet which is always good!

 

ANZAC Day and Opera House fun :)

As crazy busy as it has been with projects, papers, and homework out the Australian wazoo, there has of course been some time for fun!! This past weekend, April 25th, is a national holiday celebrated here in Australia called ANZAC Day which stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corp which celebrates the soldiers of Australia and New Zealand who served their country. The most celebrated army endeavour was the battle of Gallipoli which is pretty ironic because it was a huge failure for the ANZAC soldiers and they fought hard and gained nothing. It shows how Australia tends to celebrate the underdogs. Either way, on ANZAC day in downtown Sydney there is a huge parade and memorial and dawn services in almost every community. I got to see some of the parade in the city and then me and my roommates headed to Red Fern to be part of the Aboriginal Memorial Service. The Aboriginal Memorial service also commenced with a parade which was a lot different from the city's parade. It was simple and yet just as moving. The Service had a really good turn out with speakers that included the NSW Premier, Tony Barry (Sergeant Callahan from the movie Australia, and several influential leaders in the Aboriginal community including Ray Minnecon. It was a really unique and neat service full of traditional welcomes, dances, songs, and concluded with an Australia staple, Harry De Cafe meat pies. I feel like I got a really good grasp of ANZAC day in Australia by witnesses two very different celebrations that were both meaningful to the citizens here.

Regina. Spektor. Opera House!!! Regina Spektor at the Opera House was an amazing concert. The atmosphere of the Opera House just amplified our excitement by about a million! The concert was sold out and it was packed! I was so excited because we (the eight of us who went) had the BEST seats in the house literally. We were on the side of the stage and the grand piano faced us so we got to look directly at her the whole performance. We were in the first rows of our section too so the view was incredible. Regina Spektor is definitely one of the quirkiest artist ever. She said she painted her nails for us and kept laughing/giggling in her little girl voice that she wasn't used to being surrounded on stage. She did all of the beloved classic songs and a couple quirky ones I had never heard before which was also awesome. She played the piano, keys, and the guitar which made me really excited. My favorite song she did was Samson because it was the first song of her encore and the lights were all down except for a spot on her and a light on the disco/mirror ball which made it look like we were floating in the middle of the sky. I think we were all totally mesmerized. After the concert we went and goofed around taking fun pictures in front of the Harbour Bridge and the whole night was a definite success!

You can run, You can hide, But you can't escape my love! Chasing Kangaroos in the Outback

My Outback adventure, was literally an adventure. It started out with a day and a half drive towards our initial destination, Trilby Station a massive station where we were supposed to have our Australian "Outback-y" experience. It rained for most of the second day but it did not register in my mind that that would affect our trip in anyway. It wasn't until Ian, our bus driver who I refer to as "The Drover", started making phone calls that I wondered what was going on. The rest of the way to Trilby Station consisted of all red dirt roads that were at the moment getting flooded and turning into ginormous mud pits that would love to trap a charter bus like ours. This is how we got trapped in the little town of Cobar.

Cobar is a tiny Outback town that has it's claim to fame by being a mining town with a small museum. Our estimated time to stop here and look at the mine was fifteen minutes. That would be literally all the time needed to get a good feel of Cobar. Thanks to the rain, our fifteen minutes turned into a day and a half. We had already spent the allocated fifteen minutes looking at the mine from a lookout point and taking all of the cutesy Amerian pictures underneath the big sign that said, "COBAR" so all that was left to do was the musuem. The museum was quaint and had a variety of things that showed life in Cobar from the past (like most museums do). It did, however, have a little mine shaft that we could walk down and take pictures in which was neat. After about thirty minutes or so there we went to our hotel that our wonderful bus driver/ drover found for us. We spent the night there and then the magical Ian pulled through for us and found us a place to go.

Now, before I go on I need to elaborate a little bit on Ian. Ian knows EVERYTHING one could possibly know about Australia. Anything he said went totally undisputed. He told us that rain like we experienced had not happened in about 70 years where we were and probably wouldn't happen again for another hundred. Trilby Station turned into an island because the flood waters totally surround it and they use helicopters to rescue the sheep. Therefore, we obviously could not get to Trilby so he arranged another trip. He called a previous ASC Outback trip location called Mount Boorithumble and within thirty minutes we were on our way.

Mount Boorithumble is still in New South Wales and is about a 40,000 acre sheep and cattle station. They also grow wheat and barley. The owners said that they call it a "farm" because around there a station implied land owners who hired workers to do all of the work on their station and did not have that relationship with the land. The Townsend brothers own Mount Boorithumble and their sister is one of the host mom's for us American students. When you look at them they look like they belong to Mount Boorithumble and it is evident that they do have the working relationship with the land.

During our stay at Mount Boorithumble we indeed roughed it, but it was good. We stayed in the Shearing shed where the workers would stay when they're shearing all of the sheep and there was a thick layer of red dust covering everything. They had to pump in water for us to use so we all took a "No Shower Challenge" and the results of which I will leave to your imagination. The second day we were there we got to go on a property tour in "uts" or four-wheel drive utility vehicles. We all kept laughing that this would never be allowed in America because we were standing in the back of these giant pick up trucks and our drivers floored it over the dirt "paths" and by the end of our adventure we were all covered with dust and mud. It was the most fun I have had in a while!! We got to see wild emus, the beautiful Australian landscape which was breathtaking and....kangaroos!!!!!

Please think back to the scene in the recent movie "Australia" when Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman are driving along arguing when she sees a cute kangaroo bounding by and she starts "ooh'ing" and "ahh'ing". She is so excited saying how she's never seen a kangaroo when BAM!!! The men on top of their truck shoot the kangaroo and she screams. I had a similar experience. We were riding along when a kangaroo and it's joey bounded out of the bush onto our path and takes off in front of our truck. Our driver, Murray (one of the farm owners) accelerates and starts chasing down this kangaroo! We are all squeeling in excitement and taking pictures when we're getting so close that we could touch it if we wanted. Murray cornered the kangaroo between our truck and the fence so the kangaroo tried to jump over this wire fence but since we were still going incredibly fast it kept missing and bounced off the fence into the truck! All of us silly Americans start SCREAMING when we realize we literally just ran over a kangaroo. Thankfully the kangaroo got up and bounced away or else I would have been legitimately traumatized! My first real roo sighting ending with the roo's death!!!! Not okay!

After our kangaroo near-death experience a couple of us took a walk and got to see the men herding all the sheep in to be tagged the next day. Instead of horses and dogs like in all the movies, they now use motorcyles and dogs! A couple new born lambs couldn't keep up so Ian had picked them up in one of the trucks but stopped when he saw us and let us carry them in! They were so precious and surprisingly very snuggly! They were completely content to let us carry them and some of them snuggled up against us and fell asleep. Ironically for dinner that night we had...lamb. Needless to say, I stuck with the sausages (hot dogs).

On our way home from the Outback we stopped at the Blue Mountains for about thirty minutes and got to see the Three Sisters which was neat. The Blue Mountains was also gorgeous which has just made me decide that Australia is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Australia is officially always going to have my heart.

Everybody's surfin, Surfin AUS!

Here in Australia during Easter time the “uni students” (university students) get two weeks off in a row. The first week is called Project Week and it is supposed to be a time for the students to catch up on homework and complete semester projects. The second week is their break week after Easter which is like the American Spring Break. Since the American students go on a group trip during break week, a lot of us planned fun trips to explore Australia during project week (maybe not the best idea but I’m only here once!). So a lot of people from the ASC program ended up taking off and going somewhere else in Australia for the week. Several people flew up to Cairns where the Great Barrier Reef is, but I decided not to because it was really expensive and I’ve snorkeled before so I decided to be adventurous and find somewhere else to go. After some intense online searching for a location and a plane ticket my roommate Emily and I decided to fly to the Gold Coast and stay at Coolangatta for the week. We got round trip plane tickets for $90 and stayed at the YHA Coolangatta hostel for $25 a night so I was pretty excited for this trip.

Our flight was at 7:10am on Sunday morning but the buses don’t start running until 6am. Since we wouldn’t be able to get to their airport early enough to check in if we took the 6am bus, we had the brilliant idea to take the last bus into Sydney at midnight Saturday night and literally just pull an all nighter at Circular Quay. It was definitely a long night and we were exhausted by the time we got to the airport. We slept on the plane (which was only about an hour and a half flight) and when we got to the hostel we found breakfast at a little dive diner called the Eat N’ Run and then went across the street and fell asleep at the beach for five hours straight. I’m going to blame my poor sunscreen application on my lack of sleep because I definitely got a little (or a lot) fried the first day. I woke up and I had twisted on my side like a pretzel so only one half of my body got all the sun but at least I was rested!

Our hostel was right across the street from a beach and if we took the free shuttle from the YHA to the actual city of Coolangatta we could go to the bigger beaches, shops, and restaurants. Our favorite beach quickly became Snapper’s Rocks where there was a beach area called Rainbow Bay. In the morning water came all the way up to the beach but by midday the tide at gone back out and it created a lagoon area and there was a sandbar between the bay and the rest of the ocean. It was pretty neat. Rainbow Bay is where we took our surfing lesson too. We got a great deal and two hours of surfing instructions with a retired professional surfer who coaches for the Quicksilver competitions. I was amazingly not awful and stood up and rode the waves all the way into the beach several times! I feel like surfing is like sledding though. You work so hard to get to the top of the hill (or out to the waves) and then the ride down (or in) is quick and then you have to do the work all over again. My arms the next day were killer sore and I couldn’t lift them very far over my head! It was definitely a work out!

Emily and I were beach bums the majority of the week but some of our friends from Wesley and some of the other American students drove up to Coolangatta to hang out with us and we drove about twenty minutes to Surfer’s Paradise which is another section of the Gold Coast. Surfer’s Paradise is mainly like the party zone with tons of clubs at night and tons of surfers and people on holiday during the day. We just walked around Surfer’s Paradise so we could see what all was there but it was just like a Miami Beach back home in the states. I didn’t like the beaches at Surfer’s Paradise nearly as much as the ones in Coolangatta. The Coolangatta beaches reminded me of Hawaii. They were quiet and there were neat rocks and cliffs all around.

Throughout the week we met several people from all over the World at our hostel and some of the days we all went to the beach together and hung out. I met Cedric and Quentin from France, Sabrina and Shanen from Austria, Pedro from Portugal, Kaji from Japan, Christopher from Denmark, Luke from Poland, and Ryan and Mark from the UK. The hostel was such an interesting place to be! There was a hostel BBQ one night and several other nights everyone just hung outside at the hostel. It made me want to travel so much more and see all those parts of the World that they were from or that they had seen on their journeys. There were a couple other Americans at the hostel but not many and some of the people said that when they met Americans who were travelling they had a much better impression of them. They said if we were travelling it must mean that we had an open mind about other countries and cultures and weren’t the stereotypical ethnocentric American. Some students had experiences that the second someone found out they were American and not Canadian they stopped talking to them and left. It’s quite interesting and sometimes a bit rough being an American here but fortunately I have not had any experiences like some of the other Americans have had.

Overall my trip to the Gold Coast was fantastic and I want to go back already! The people at the hostel were so incredible and when I was leaving they kept trying to get me to sign up to work and live there and just stay! It was so tempting but unfortunately classes were demanding that I return to Sydney! Coolangatta, or “Cooly” as they all call it, was a really laid back place where people surfed all day long and worked just enough to be able to stay and keep surfing. It was gorgeous there and there were families everywhere taking walks together or playing cricket on the beach. It was really different from the crazy go-go-go attitude of Sydney. It was a nice break from the hectic public buses and people constantly in a hurry to get somewhere. The nice slow pace made for the perfect break week but now I must go get all my homework done that I didn’t do ;)

Ozzie Rules Football

We American students got the opportunity to go see a Sydney Swans game at the Olympic Stadium against the St. Kilda Saints and I thought it was pretty interesting. I’ve decided that to my American eyes, AFL (Australian Football League) looks like a combination of football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and either wrestling or hockey. Now keep in mind, this is the perspective of a girl who is still working on figuring out all the little (silly) rules of American football so don’t read too much into this sports people!


It makes me think of American football because it is a form of football (obviously) and there are two sets of posts at the end of the field that remind me of field goals and if you get the ball (that looks like an oversized football) in the center set of poles its 6 points. If the ball goes through the outer posts or hits the pole its 1 point. It’s also like football because they do tend to jump on each other in a huddle on the ground… Very manly man “I am man hear me roar” football-ish. It reminds me of soccer because there is a lot more kicking in AFL games than there is in American football or “gridiron”. You don’t run with the ball you pass it or kick it so it remind me of soccer a bit in that way and also because you don’t score touchdowns, you get goals. It also reminds me of volleyball because the players do this weird sort of fist bump thing with the ball where it almost looks like they’re doing a volleyball serve. It’s like basketball because you don’t catch the ball and run. The players bounce the ball on the ground every couple paces as they go. It took me a while before I could keep all the rules of the game straight and I am beyond aware that I probably didn’t get half of them! The score board had three numbers, for example it would say 2-4-16 which would be 2 six pointers and 4 one pointers which would be a total of 16 points.

Finally, I say it reminded me of hockey because they would all be playing and all of a sudden they would be on the ground ripping each other’s shirts in a crazy pile and the referees never stopped it. It was amusing. The fans were pretty amusing too. There was a man in a skin tight red power ranger’s suit with a leotard skirt and a wig on and everyone had giant pom poms and flags. Whenever we walked by one group of fans they would yell “USA! USA! USA!” They apparently really liked Americans. No sporting event is ever complete without a trip to the concession stand of course so I was all jazzed and ready for a corndog or a chilidog forgetting that they probably serve different foods. Instead of good ole’ American hotdogs they served meat pies…sad day. So I settled for some delicious chips (aka French fries) and a diet coke so all was well.

It was also spiffy to be walking around the Olympic stadium and see the signs pointing out where the pools were and such. I’d like to go back sometime and walk around and see more. The place was absolutely massive. The field that the AFL game was on was beyond ginormous. The seats just kept going up and up and up. Luckily we had good seats so I didn’t have to get an unexpected cardio workout.

Unfortunately, the Swans lost to the Saints so it was a sad night in Sydney but I liked getting to see both an AFL game and the Olympic stadium in one go! According to the Australian students a rugby league game is the way to go, but AFL is uniquely Australian and it was a fun game to watch.

Canberra, The Capital

Wow, what a busy busy past couple of weeks! Time is absolutely FLYING by. I cannot believe that I have been here in Australia for over six weeks! It seems so unreal to me that time is going by so fast. There are so many more places I want to go and so many things that I want to see. It would definitely take more than one semester to really explore everything that this gorgeous country has to offer. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged so here’s what I’ve been up to…..


A few weekends ago we were all piled onto a bus at 6am and we headed off four hours to Canberra the capital of Australia. Most of the Wesley students either visibly shuddered when we told them where we were going or straight up laughed and told us to have fun. So I was a little apprehensive about this trip especially when the program directors said multiple times, “Remember guys, Canberra is as fun as YOU make it”. Yes, this combination made me a bit unsure of how “fun” this weekend was going to be BUT I’ve never been to Canberra obviously and so was excited to add it to the list of things/places I’ve been to and seen here in Australia!

Kimberly and Melanie (directors) jam packed our two days in Canberra with more museums, galleries, and embassies than I would have thought possible to visit in only forty-eight hours. It was so busy in fact that on the bottom of our schedules they put the number of three taxi services because if we weren’t on the bus when we were told to be we got left! They meant business. On Friday we stopped at Parliament House and looked around outside then we went to the Indonesian Embassy, New Zealand High Commission, and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. I never realized how interesting and neat New Zealand was! We had the best speaker meet with us and they had afternoon tea set up for us. From that visit I realized that New Zealand may be small but what they lack in strength of size they make up for in brain power. I really enjoyed that visit. On Saturday we visited the Nation Portrait Gallery, the National Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Australian War Memorial. The Australian War Memorial was amazing too. There was a tomb of an unknown soldier there as well and a wall similar to the United States Vietnam War memorial with the names of those who gave their lives for Australia. The one I really want to focus on however, is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is not really an embassy, but rather it is an ongoing protest that started back in the 1970’s. The Aboriginal peoples of Australia have had a pretty brutal history especially the Stolen Generation (if you don’t know what I’m talking about watch the movie Australia or even better rent Rabbit Proof Fence). The Stolen Generation is literally when the government went in and took Aboriginal children away from their families and put them in missions and group homes because it was “better for them”. Rabbit Proof Fence left me with my mouth hanging open in disbelief. Children were taken and the excuse was given that the Aboriginal parents couldn’t care for them and that their lives would be better with white families. Some of the children did have good lives, but most of them didn’t. It’s a really sad reality that Australia is still dealing with because this didn’t stop happening until the 1970s!! We heard from one Aboriginal lady named Bettina that her mother was drugged in the hospital and when she woke up her baby was gone and they told her she had signed adoption papers and that her daughter was gone. The Tent Embassy is protesting the mistreatment of Aboriginals and there are people camped there in tents with signs everywhere saying things like, “Sorry is okay, Sovereignty is better”. We were welcomed so warmly by a lady named Aunt Jodie and she told us her story about being stolen from her family and being placed with a white family and her journey back to her Aboriginal family and her roots. I felt so blessed because she was willing to be so open with her story. After she told us her story she allowed us to take part in putting eucalyptus leaves onto the fire that they keep burning at all times. The Tent Embassy was really humbling. When we left she asked us to please tell people about the embassy and their fight for rights and for us to please tell our embassies and ask our president to come. Right across the street from the embassy is the Parliament house and not once have they come over to the embassy. The grass at the Parliament house is mowed once a week, the embassies once every six weeks. Aunt Jodie said that all she wants is some money so that she can have a piece of land to grow her food on and to live in peace and as she wants to live.

Even after watching the movie Australia I didn’t realize that effects of the Stolen Generation were still being felt. This didn’t just happen a long time ago in World War II and a heroic drover like Hugh Jackman didn’t come and get all the children and take care of them. We had a panel of Aboriginal Australians come talk to our class and the older gentlemen who came in was so hurt and so bitter that it broke my heart. His father fought in the both of the World Wars and when he came back his children were gone. All his children had been taken and split up into different homes and even when he went to get them after fighting for his country he couldn’t have them. Listening to Cecil talk, the pain in his voice and on his face was still so strong even after so many years. Bettina was more hopeful, and she now is a lawyer who works with Aboriginal foster children and helps make laws in order to make sure their adoptions are legal and necessary. Australia is a beautiful and amazing country and yet like every country they are still dealing with issues of injustice. When I left all I could think of was, “What can I do?!” It’s a bit overwhelming to be honest. In all of our group discussions of foreign policy, land and environment, social-justice, and learning about the Aboriginal culture here and comparing it to the Native Americans back in the states it makes my head spin because I feel like I should be doing something. I have to remind myself that God puts passions in our hearts for causes and that prayer cannot be underestimated. If I open myself up to the possibility God will give me opportunities to do something. I just have to be quiet enough and pay attention so that I can see and hear them.

Canberra was not anywhere close to be boring for me. It was an eye opening experience. It was indeed a lot of education packed into a short time span, but for the most part it was incredible and opened my mind a little more.

Lost in the Bush...no really.

At the time it seemed like a simple and fun plan... A “no worries” overnighter at the beach complete with a bonfire and teaching the “Ozzies” how to make a delicious s’mores, right? Wrong. After piling into three cars, nine Americans and three local Australian students head off to the beach for a night of good fun and snags (sausages/hotdogs). I started to realize I had no idea what I was getting myself into about two hours into the car ride when it was getting dark and I had yet to see any signs of a beach. We pull off on the side of the freeway (literally) and there is nothing around us except for the road and the bush on both sides of us. I thought for sure we must be lost so I was just waiting in the car to find out what was going on until I realize that we’re getting out of the car apparently at our destination. We grab our bags and the groceries and start walking towards a sign that apparently at one point in time was where a trail to this mystery beach was. We all dive in ready for adventure thinking that the beach is about a fifteen minute walk on the other side of the bush.

Once again, wrong. We start walking and we quickly realize that not a single one of us is well equipped for this little journey we’re now on. It was pitch dark and there was one flashlight among us. The rest of us had to use our cell phones for some sort of light source. Flip flops were the most popular foot attire, a couple skirts, shorts, and mostly tank tops were worn. I luckily was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt so was for the most part protected during our impromptu hike. As we walked, or more accurately plowed, through the bush we definitely found no trail but plenty of spiders bigger than quarters and giant biting ants that you had to literally pull out of your skin. Pleasant visual image yet? Using the great tool of hindsight, I can see now that we probably should have realized that our plan had lots of holes in it and maybe we should make new plans for that night, but of course we didn’t. We were ready for an adventure and we definitely got one. After wandering through the bush for about two hours and after we were thoroughly creeped out, exhausted, and ripped to shreds by the trees and thorns the strategy turned into “Everyone be quiet and listen for waves!” Thankfully, the tactic eventually worked and we plowed in the direction that we heard the ocean. I’m pretty sure right before that moment I was praying “Dear God please let us find at least a clearing for the tent and don’t let a killer spider get me!!” But alas, we victoriously emerged on a beach and we all quite literally cheered then quickly collapsed after our two and a half hour hike through the Australian bush!

We quickly set up a little camp and in no time the guys had a bonfire going and we all busted out the food that survived our little evening stroll and chowed down on hamburgers, snags, chips, Tim Tams, and Pub Squash. As I said earlier, snags are just sausages that are comparable to our hot dogs back in the states and Pub Squash is similar to lemonade. Tim Tams, however, are my new Australian weakness. There are chocolate Tim Tams, vanilla Tim Tams, honeycomb Tim Tams, and most importantly caramel Tim Tams. Oh the deliciousness of caramel Tim Tams! They are a bit like a cookie sandwich. There are two wafer cookies, or as they call them, “bikkies” that are each dipped in chocolate with caramel in between them and then the whole thing is dipped in chocolate again. Words cannot describe how delicious caramel Tim Tams are. I’m pretty sure I ate almost a whole package of them by myself (but no Shayne and Dwayne I’m not going to gain thirty pounds here!)

A group of us went for a walk/jog/skip/cartwheel down the beach at about 2am and we discovered the best jellyfish ever! There were “heaps” (more Aussie lingo!) of jellyfish that washed up on shore but we didn’t realize they were there until we accidentally stepped on them and they glowed in the dark! Everyone compared them to Avatar and they were absolutely awesome looking in the dark. We were also within reach of the local light house’s beam which was really pretty. The night was beautiful and one of our Australian friends (Alex) pointed out the constellations to us, one of them being the Southern Cross, and we saw at least four shooting stars. At this point the crazy hike was already well worth it.

When we went back to our little camp some people crashed in the tent and then others of us huddled around the fire because for being in Australia I was surprised how chilly it was! I woke up right around dawn and when the sun came up I could barely remember that I had to hike two and a half hours to get here. Looking around we could see Birdie’s Island in front of us and a few freighters way out in the ocean and then the sun started peeking out from behind the clouds and it was absolutely gorgeous. I took so many pictures it was beyond stunning. We hung around the beach for a few hours some people playing rugby and just hanging out and talking and then headed out around noon. Thankfully, we found a path further down the beach because we noticed people down the beach. My favorite quote from the night might just have to be one of the guys in our group going up to a couple walking along the beach and asking, “Uh, excuse me but how did you get here?!” We were determined to not walk through the bush again!

The trip back to the cars was a lot easier and took a lot less time for which I was extremely grateful. It was quite an adventure that the scrapes and cuts all over my feet, face, and neck will attest too but the view the next morning was beyond worth it. I can now say from the safety of my bedroom that I am so glad I went because I had such a great time and definitely got to know some people a lot better after having to help each other get through the bush and snuggling for warmth around the fire. The Australians were not worried at all during the whole hike which is a tribute to their genuine “no worries” attitude that they approach life with. Was it crazy? Yes. Scary at times? Yes. Worth it? Completely.

Tall Poppy Syndrome and One Who's Made It

One of my assignments for my class "The View From Australia" was to write a blog and my catergory was music so here's my blog:

Most Americans assume that since Australia has great cities like Sydney and Melbourne that living in Australia must be the same as living in America. I have found that to be untrue in more ways than one including the music scene. On the weekends I have noticed that ninety-nine percent of the music played at pubs are Australian musicians playing American songs. I find that interesting because I assumed that Australia would have their own set of popular artists and hits. I say that this is different from America because they are American songs because of something I learned that is called the “tall poppy syndrome” which is an Australian slang term.
In Australia tall poppy syndrome is a term used to describe people who have distinguished themselves from the rest because of their talents or achievements. According to Urban Dictionary.com tall poppy syndrome is defined as, “Australian slang for the tendency to criticize highly successful people (ie, tall poppies), and 'cut them down'.” Here in Australia, people do not want to distinguish themselves from the rest because of the resentment that others feel towards them and the instinct for others to cut them back down to their level. Because of this, there is not an abundance of Australian musicians living here in Australia. I have found that most go to the UK or the US in order to become famous and make themselves known. Even musicians coming here to Australia have a harder time pleasing the crowd because audiences can generally be harsher in their judgment of a performance.

A recent example of this was Whitney Houston’s concert in Sydney which got ripped to shreds by Australian fans on television and in the newspapers. The Daily Telegraph also thinks this may have to do with the tall poppy syndrome. In an article on the concert journalist Jamie Campbell says that it was a mixture of wanting to tear someone down who has had huge global success (tall poppy syndrome) and that reviewers deciding that because of her widely known drug problem that she would not be up to it. This is just one example of how Australians can be critical and hard to please but there are of course musicians who become big in this country. For example, AC/DC got their start in Melbourne Australia when the Young Brothers migrated from Australia from Scotland.

Another musician who is one of the most famous singer-song writers of Australia and is less known to Americans is a man named Paul Kelly. Rolling Stones magazine said in a review of his CD “Under the Sun” that “Nobody who writes as many topdrawer songs as Paul Kelly does should be as unknown as he is” and gave the CD four out of five stars. Paul Kelly didn’t always start out big of course. Born in Adelaide, South Australia Paul Kelly traveled to Melbourne where he settled in 1976 and began playing gigs in pubs becoming involved in the pub rock and drug culture. Paul Kelly was part of music groups including Paul Kelly and the Dots and Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls (which later got changed to the Messengers). From 1992 on Paul Kelly did mostly solo work with collaborations with other musicians. He has even currently worked as a composer for film and television scores. Paul Kelly has also done a lot of song writing for other musicians including Marilyn Manson. He was quoted in 2008 saying, “Quite often, I'm trying to write a certain kind of song and it's more ambitious than what my voice will get to. That's how I started writing songs with other people in mind.”

Paul Kelly has been writing songs for the Australian people for thirty years. His songs are a mixture of rock, folk, bluegrass, and country and he is a talented musician who sings, plays guitar, and the harmonica. He has captured the hearts of the Australian people with his lyrics about his countries landscape and culture and his life has been told throughout his songs. Paul Kelly has been nominated for fifty one awards and has taken home twenty four of them. The most recent win was in 2009 for Vocal Collaboration of the Year at the Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) Awards for the nominated work “Still Here”.

While there is definitely an underlying sense of the tall poppy syndrome pulling Australian musicians down, there are still musicians who make it. AC/DC is an example of a band that went internationally pulling fans from all over the world while Paul Kelly is an example of a musician who charmed the hearts of his own people and beat the tall poppy syndrome.