Sydney!

Sydney is amazing.
Yesterday we ate lunch between the harbour bridge and the Opera House, it was all surreal because it's somewhere we have always dreamed of going but I guess none of us thought we'd actually get there, especially on our own. It was a good feeling of accomplishment and we all felt so blessed. Today we are going to the aquarium and if it gets sunny this afternoon we will go up in the eye tower 250 meters over Sydney harbour for a spectacular view.

Tomorrow we are planning to see the koalas and take the "Sunset Cocktail Cruise" out of the harbour and I'm not sure what else we have planned. Terrence and I take the overnight train back to Melbourne Saturday night, so before we leave Mae here in Sydney we are all going to get dressed up nice and have dinner at the Opera House one more time.

So thankful for this experience. Thanks everyone for keeping in touch, and for all the people who gave me money for my birthday so I could have enough money to do all the things that I wanted to do, it has been amazing.

<3

On the Road

My program ended a few days ago, and since then I have been staying in a smaller part of Melbourne called St. Kilda. It was beautiful, we got to explore the town and go to the beach--beautiful but cold. We had an adventure trying to take the tram into the city to meet our friend Dom for dinner. We ended up getting on the right tram but the wrong direction, we had a little two hour detour but we eventually made it, and thus understand how the trams work now.

We say goodbye to our friend Kate who we were staying with in Melbourne and me and two others took the 12 hour overnight train to Sydney last night and pulled into Sydney this morning. So far we have checked into our hostel and took a little look around town. It is really beautiful and much warmer than the southern coast. We went to a park this morning and the St. Mary's Cathedral.

This afternoon we are going to go down to the harbour and have a look at the Opera House, and everything else down there. We were all amazed when we got to Sydney this morning, we all got a little emotional just because of how blessed we are to be here, and how beautiful everything is.

Loving every minute :-) Hope all is well in the US!

Until Next Time...

My prints are finished and cut. Tomorrow afternoon we all go to Stefano's to hang our work. Besides the hanging process, and the exhibition itself we don't really have much else to do here and will have a lot of free time but we will not be at the school so I will not be on the internet as much.

Friday is a free day and Saturday we leave early in the morning to go back to Melbourne and go to an AFL game that night and say good-bye to all those leaving Sunday morning--then I start traveling. So this may be the last blog post for a little bit!

Down to the Wire

Today I worked on my visual blog for LaTrobe's webpage, and have a free afternoon. Tomorrow we I am going to be printing and cutting my photos and the following day, Wednesday, we will be hanging up our work in the gallery!

We will be hanging our work at Gallery 25 inside Stefano's. We ate our welcome dinner at Stefano's and have befriended his son Dominco who is the main reason we have made lots of local friends here, so it will be nice to go back there and have everyone from the whole program, Stefano's family, and our local friends.

This is the link to their website, if you click on "Gallery 25" you can see the area where things will be hanging.

http://www.stefano.com.au/

My Portfolio

These are my photos for my portfolio. I started off thinking that I was going to be photographing "things I have found on the ground" but then it turned more into an age theme, and how things have weathered. Visually I focused on things that have rusted and they all share a similar color scheme. 

I am not sure what I will do for my exhibition piece yet. My professor says the photo of the round buildings at the old mine, and the layered rock that I found at Mutawinji are the strongest. I am not sure yet, but I am definitely using this six. 

Back in Mildura

Hello all,
We returned to Mildura a couple days ago and it is good to be back--even just having lived here for a week or so before leaving it has that kind of "home" feeling for all of us as opposed to being in the middle of nowhere for a week, although it was very fun.

Our last in Broken Hill was very special. We all gathered in the lounge of the Palace Hotel with one of our mentors who is a native, Peter. He had us all go around and talk about what we had enjoyed most, or something that made us laugh, or just sharing memories.

At the end he taught us some of his traditional native dances, and told us the story of the "spirit bird", it's a story that I cannot re-tell because it could never be the same as when he told it, it was the perfect way to end the field trip.

Today I finished selecting my photos for my portfolio and the next few days we will be preparing.

I am enjoying being back in Mildura--we know our way around town and have had a good time walking around. Yesterday morning my friend Shelby and I went and got a coffee and sat outside, we ended up staying there for over two hours talking to a couple of local kids our age talking about lots of differences between here and America, and all of our favorite music.

Last night we got a deal at one of our favorite bars called Sets. The first 50 people to go in and buy a pint of one of the beers on tap and we got a free steak and a plate of chips (chips=french fries). So everyone in our hostel and our professors met up at Sets and we all enjoyed dinner together after we went to another gallery opening.

This afternoon I've got plans to go in town with some friends and get ice cream at the famous "48 Flavours" Ice Cream Parlor.

All is well in Mildura! Loving it, and missing you all! :-)

Mutawinji and Broken Hill

I'm getting all my days confused so I am not exactly sure when I left Mildura, but four or five days ago I left Mildura and headed to Mutawinji with the rest of my group. When we got there we had a barbecue with the elders and some locals and went to bed pretty early.

The following day we had a guided tour around Mutawinji's visitor center and through the caves and the landscape. It was really interesting--Mutawinji is the first land that was given back to the Aboriginal people after it had all been taken away. 

The caves had been marked with handprints and other carvings from a very long time ago, and we got to get a good look at those. That same afternoon we went to the Mutawinji Gorge which was the most beautiful place we have been thus far.

This is a picture of me and my friend Jenna sitting at the gorge. You can't see the rock pools below, but it was really pretty--I'll get some pictures with the water up eventually. 

We were going to stay 3 nights at Mutawinji, but we got a warning on the satellite phone that a storm was coming, and we had to get out of there as soon as possible because when the rains come the road gets destroyed. We took the "Silver City Highway" to get there, which would seem like a paved road, but it's actually a compact red dirt road.

So, we tried to book it out of Mutawinji but we ended up getting stuck on the red dirt road, which had then turned to mud and we all had to get out of the bus and push the back of the bus and the trailer over a half mile to the end of the dirt road and on to the pavement in the rain. It took us a few hours and we were all absolutely exhausted after.

But... who gets to say the pushed a bus through the outback? We do.

Now we are at Broken Hill and have been here for a few days. We went to Silverton yesterday which is a really old town that used to be very wealthy and popular and is now abandoned. Today we went to an abandoned mine and took pictures.

This afternoon we are having some free time and will be leaving in the morning to go back to Mildura to upload pictures. Our exhibit is going to be on Thursday, we have a free day Friday, and on Saturday morning we return to Melbourne where we're going to go to an AFL game that Saturday night and me and two other friends will begin our independent travels.

All is well here, and I hope everyone is well at home!