Aye Currumbin

Hello my Friends!

I’m all settled into my new place and school is only a day away. I’m starting to get used to the way of things here. I’m slowly learning how to get around and familiarizing myself with local shops. Moving to a brand new place, it’s hard not to feel lonely and lost. I guess as I slowly adapt to my new life here and make friends I will feel less like an outsider and more like a local. I think school will definitely help with that. Studying will give me a sense of purpose here.

This past week we’ve had some weird weather in Queensland. When I went to visit my Canadian friend Alanna at the Gold Coast, my train was delayed because of a severe hail storm! The people on the train couldn’t believe the weather. They were taking photos, calling friends and family. Some people were actually freaking out! Honestly, it was a nice respite from the heat (which as returned in full force).

Alanna just completed her exchange at Griffith University on the Gold Coast. Her father and boyfriend are here to visit. The three of them will be traveling all over Australia until the new year. Alanna kindly invited me to partake in some of the excursions near her area.

We first took a drive to the Currumbin Rock Pools. It was an incredibly scenic drive. Large trees with vines and bushes with colourful flowers surround the winding road. It made me happy to see something new, something outside of the city. This is the Australia I’ve been waiting to explore.

The Currumbin Rock Pools are located in the Currumbin Valley just a brief drive from the Gold Coast. The pools are on parkland, with a short trail leading to the rock pools and out further to an old abandoned sawmill. There were lots of lizards and birds along the trails. Its so nice to see wildlife.

PEOPLE SLIDE DOWN THIS!

After the Rock Pools we had lunch and went to visit the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. The Currumbin wildlife zoo hosts a number of native Australian wildlife. The neat thing is that the place is almost entirely interactive. You can hug the koalas, you can hop around with the Kangaroos, feed the lorikeets and avoid the backside of the emu (they have scary projectile poop abilities). 
Prepare yourself for some really cute photos!

Getting ready to pick up Sunny

DREAM COME TRUE

Ready for my close up!

NOM NOM Eucalyptus

petting the kangaroos!

Emu

Joey

POW POW

Kangaroo Boxing

Up close and personal

Holding some sort of common Australian python. They estimate that these are in 1/3 of houses on the Gold Coast

Warm Koalas sleep like this

Cold koalas sleep like this

Timid Tasmanian devil

Echidna

I also got the chance to check out some cool stuff in Brisbane. I didn’t know but there are botanical gardens within walking distance from my house. The Mount Coo-Tha Botanic Gardens is a 52 hectare subtropic botanic garden hosts a number of “themed gardens” including fragrant, fern, bonsai, Japanese and more! The park is beautiful and you can tell that the city puts a lot of work into the park. The best part about it is that it is free! I will definitely be returning to have a picnic some day that I am off!

Taken on my iphone, hence the not so clear quality

This is a fig tree! I did not know figs grew like this!!!

This past weekend I got an opportunity to meet some of the Canadians in the physio and speech program at the OzTREKK orientation. The second year students showed us around campus and answered all out questions about classes and lab. Everyone was so friendly and it was great to meet people in the same situation as me. There are 8 Canadian speechies and every single one of them is a delight! I can’t wait to start class.

UPDATE- So I didn’t get around posting this when I should have because my internet was out after another crazy hail storm. Today was actually my first day of school and it was awesome. I will write more about it when I have a free day to complete some writing. I am trying to study while the people above me have an end of the year party (Aussie summer just started). ITS DRIVING ME NUTSSSSSSSSSSSSS, my bed is vibrating!!!!

Don’t expect an update too soon! I already have a quiz to study for next Monday!

G'day and G'night

G’day

I think its about time to bring this baby back to life! I’m sure you’ve all missed me, but rejoice my people, the hiatus is over!

Before me move forward, I want to go back. I give you: My Fourth Year... The Sparksnotes Edition.

I started dating this guy:

His name is Scott. He's pretty cool.

I graduated:

Honours Bachelor of Health Science with Distinction, Honours Specialization Rehabilitation Science

YAY ME

I went on some cool hiking trips.

Killarney

More Killarney

Lions Head

Fall Hike at Lions Head

I got into Grad School! This year I will begin my two year Master of Speech Pathology Studies degree at The University of Queensland (or UQ).

Which leads me to the my current adventure, my life Down Under.

My voyage begins just how you would expect, with many many many tears. I cried saying my goodbyes (my many and multiple goodbyes). I cried at the airport (twice, once when I was dropped at the wrong terminal, then again at the right one). And lastly at luggage check-in where I said goodbye to my baby sister. As I walked through the security checks it hit me: I’m really doing this.

Frankly, I still can’t believe it.

Nothing really exciting happened on my flight. It was far too long, and incredibly nauseating. The food was poor and I got very little sleep. I suppose the only mildly interesting thing that happened was that the elderly gentleman on my left kept getting mini bottles of alcohol throughout the whole trip free of charge. As the fumes of alcohol wafted of him, I couldn’t help but be a little peeved that this guy had consumed about 15 little bottles of spirits/wine for free, but I didn’t so much as get a bag of crisps on my 5 hour flight from Toronto to Vancouver. I really shouldn’t be complaining... it is Air Canada.

2 layovers and 26 hours later, I arrived in Brisbane (or BrisVegas as the Aussies call it). The sky was clear and boy was it hot. My university had arranged a free pick-up service for me. A nice lady met me up at luggage pick up. After we loaded my luggage into the car, I walked up to the right side of the truck (which I assumed to be the passenger side) and sat myself down in the drivers seat. After apologizing, red faced and embarrassed, I moved over to my proper place. Apparently this happens quite often.

I was the only pick up at this time so I had the driver to myself. I took this opportunity to ask questions about Aussie wildlife. As we got onto the subject of spiders she told me “I haven’t seen a big one in years! You probably won’t your entire stay!” I was so relieved!

We arrived in Toowong, my new home. This district is adjacent to St. Lucia where my Uni is (approximately a 5 minute bus ride). My complex is close to all the amenities- mall, transit, grocery store, restaurants. It’s pretty perfect. My house mate Katie is a 25 year old Aussie who works at a travel company in the IT department. It is just her and I in the house. We share a lot of interests, most notably our taste in books. I think we will get along just fine.

I hit the hay early, exhausted after my trip. I actually only managed to get semi unpacked because I was so tired. I think I slept 13 hours.

AND I AWOKE TO THIS BEAST ON MY WALL. I couldn’t believe it, my driver had assured me that there were very  few large spiders here. And behold! This large hairy thing was perched on my bedroom wall. Immediately my mind went to worst case scenario. What if I don’t kill it and it lays eggs in my room and my room is infested with baby spiders? What if it bites me and I have to go to the hospital? I mean I don’t even know where the hospital is! What if I die before school starts? I attempted to identify the breed, but I tell you, there are A LOT of spiders in Australia and google wasn’t giving me any good answers. I texted a picture to Katie, but she was at work and didn’t reply. The friends I was able to get in touch with told me I had to kill it. It was me or the spider. I slowly approached it, running shoe in hand, visions of the spider leaping at my face raced through my head. I mean, spiders here actually do that. SMACK. Spider bits flew everywhere!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. And if you are wondering, yes one of my walls of my bedroom is brick.

It wasn’t until I had flushed the bits that I received a text from Katie informing me that this breed of spider, the Huntsman, while large is harmless. In fact it eats household pests like roaches and Aussies often relocate them rather than killing them. They can get extremely large, and yes, they can leap, but they don’t actually have any venom. My bad.

The next couple of days I focused on unpacking, buying essentials for my room and picking up text books. I did get a chance to take a look around campus when I purchased my books. UQ is huge! The student population on the St. Lucia campus is 45 thousand! The campus has some very interesting architecture. There are also lots of interesting birds flying about. The two  I noticed, the brush turkey and Ibis are both considered pests. They are pretty gutsy, they will fly onto tables and steal food, sometimes right out of peoples hands! Apparently they aren’t very scared of humans. 

Chicks on Campus- Australian Brush Turkey, (top right) Ibis, (below) and my most fabulous self.

I think this building is made of sandstone?

School starts on the 25th. International student orientation is on the 23rd and faculty orientation is on the 27th. I will update you all about school life a bit later.

Tomorrow I am heading to the Gold Coast!  I’m sure I will have something interesting to tell you all. Look forward to pictures of some koalas and kangaroos!

I hope everyone in Canada is well! Miss you all!

G'night

Ephesus and Pammukale

Merhaba!

All this traveling alone has really made me realize how much I like to travel by myself. Really! I have absolutely no problem going to sites on my own. I love traveling at my own pace. I can take a closer look at the things I’m interested in, no one cares if I want to play with the settings on my camera and most importantly I’m not hindered by anyone’s schedule.

Last week, my second last week in Turkey, I had two off days in a row. On Thursday, Zeynep told me that I could have that day and the following off. I packed my bags and got on the first bus to Izmir. I didn’t really have a plan. In fact, I didn’t even have a hotel booked. All I had was a change of clothes, money and my trusty camera. I got a hold of Rita on the bus and told her that I was going to have the following day off that she and her boyfriend, Mike, should meet me in Pammukale.

The bus took me about three hours to the main terminal in Izmir.

Just let me go on a tangent here as to why the buses in Turkey are so much better than the greyhounds in Canada:

1. There are personalized TVs at every seat- with games, radio, film, and television
2. When you purchase a ticket you get a seat, and a seat number. Women are seated with women, men with men. I can not tell you how many times I have bought a greyhound ticket only to arrive at the station and the bus if full! Or how many times I have been harassed by some skeevy man on the bus.
3. They have service! They bring you water every hour, they serve tea and cofee, they give snacks. The day I travelled was particularly hot and we all got mini tubs of ice cream. 
4. They are cheap.

Greyhound needs to step up their game.

Back to my trip, If you look at a map, I actually overshot where I wanted to travel. But in all fairness, I couldn’t get a direct bus to Ephesus from Bodrum right away. The “plan” I had made on the bus was that I would book a hotel in Izmir, get back on another bus and go to Ephesus, then return to Izmir afterward. That was before I realized how big Izmir was (and how in-the-middle-of-nowhere the bus station was) and honestly I was too cheap to cab. I just prayed I’d find a reasonable hotel in Ephesus. 

I got on a minibus and took a one hour bus to Selçuk, a town just next to Ephesus. Now the minibus was not as luxurious as my previous bus- by minibus I mean “large van” and by not as luxurious I mean crowded, smelly and sans in trip service. Oh well c’est la vie. I got off in Selçuk and decided I'd go straight to the ruins, rather than figure out my sleeping situation. While trying to figure out how to get there, I was lucky enough to meet a guy right at the bus terminal who owned a hostel in town. The little place was well kept and clean. I got a private room with a queen sized bed, AC and a private bathroom for 50TL (dinner and mornings breakfast included!). I even got free transport to and from Ephesus by the assitant, Ramazan. Dad, don’t freak out, but it was on a motorcycle. 

Ephesus was just...phenomenal. I had been looking forward to seeing it my entire trip. To be honest, this late in my trip I had already accepted that I might never see it. 

So when I finally got there (at 5pm) the place was completely abandoned, I was over the moon. How many chances do you get to see a tourist attraction like that basically empty? I wandered between crumbling pillars, busts of forgotten deities and ancient tablets at my own leisure. My only company was a humerous security guard who actually encouraged me to get ON relics to take pictures. There weren’t people crowded at famous spots waiting to take photos (save for at the library... but we will get to that later).

See what I mean?

Ephesus is a first century B.C ancient city in the province of Izmir. Pretty cool story as to how this place was chosen for settlement. The son of the Athenian King (from the Kingdom of Athens), Androklos, wanted to build his own settlement. He visited a wise man who told him that a fish and a boar would show him. Story goes that his men boarded a boat, caught fish and made a fire. A wild boar, in fear of the fire, ran from the campsite. Androklos pursued the boar on horseback, killed it, and voila the new city was found.

Well I’m not going to write too much about the city itself, instead I’m just going to talk a little about each picture I post. Way more interesting I think.

The Odeion/Boulteterion built in 150 A.D by Publius Veduis Antoninus. This structure looks like a theatre, which is exactly what it is! As a odeion it was used for concerts, as a bouleterion is was used for boule meetings (government). It can seat 1500 people.

Side entrance to the Odeion

This structure, the Prytaneion, marks the town hall. Within the town hall there was a holy fireplace. The main duty of the governor was to ensure that the holy fire was never put out. In fact, the fire burned for hundreds of years on behalf of the fireplace god Hestia Bouleia.

A carving of the Greek God Hermes (3rd century A.D), God of Transition and Boundaries.  One of his duties was messenger to the gods, note his little winged sandals.

Just showing off some of the detail that is on the excavated pillar feet

Detail on a pillar

Tablet in the inscription museum

Domitian temple is a temple dedicated to the Emperor Domitian (81-96 A.D). Behind it you will notice that the temple is not completely excavated

Momument of Memmimus (1st century B.C). Memmimus was the grandson of Dictator Sulla. Memimus' father Cauis, and grandfather (who is unfortunately chipped away) Sulla are featured on the monument.

The Hadrian Temple (2nd century A.D)- which, by the way I could not get a proper picture of because some lady decided to park her but here on the front step for half an hour. The nerve... This building has been beautifully restored.

The Traian Fountain (102 A.D) dedicated to Emperor Traian. 

Myself in front of the Celsus Library (early 2nd century). The library was built on the tomb of Roman senator Gaius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus (the govenor of the province of Asia). The library could fit 12000 scrolls. Special niches protected scrolls from heat and humidity.

A closer look at all the people parking their butts and ruining my shot haha. You can see four statues of women in the front representing the four aspects of Celsus. The characters from left to right are Sophia ( sagacity or wisdom), Arete (character or valor), Ennoia (intelligence), and Episteme (knowledge and experience).

Closer look at Sophia

In the Grand Theatre- where all the gladiator fights happened

The theatre from afar

In front of harbor street

If you go definitely take a guide book with you. You will appreciate everything you see a million times more. It’s not just a piece of old stone your looking at, it’s the grave stone of a gladiator. Every little thing has a story. P.S if anyone wants to read a super cool article about the gladiator gravestones, click here.

Selçuk is such a small town and everyone seemed to know the guy who was giving me a ride. He picked me up at the sites (on the bike) and gave me a mini tour of town before dinner. My free kebab dinner was, well free, so nothing to complain about there.

The following morning, I got on another minibus to Pammukale to see my sister. When the driver saw that I was traveling alone, he offered me shot gun. Despite my limited Turkish, and his limited English, we talked the whole way. Official bestie to the driver has its perks, double seat (legroom, not that I need it), free water/snacks at rest stops, and figs! It’s fig season right now and I have been gorging on fresh figs all the time. When I pointed to all the side road stalls, telling the driver ben seviyorum (I love), he picked some up for the whole van at the next rest stop. Can you guess who got extra?

Pammukale, means “cotton castle” in Turkish. This site contains natural hot springs and mineral pools created by flowing water. The ancient Greeco-Roman city of Hieropolis was built on top of the hill. 

Pretty water pools that you couldn't swim in

It was great seeing Rita, but honestly, this site was overrated. It was really hot that day, so it was nice to sit in the pools, but that’s really all we could do. It was super crowded, people absolutely everywhere.  Not to mention we couldn't stop thinking about how nasty the pools were (reinforced when we frequently found band-aids in the clay). Just not my cup of tea.

In other news! I am all packed up and ready to leave tomorrow night. My bag is (if you can believe it) exactly 50 pounds. 

Geography lesson with Can. "Look how far you have to fly!"

This week I learned how to make Turkish manti. Excited to try this out at home.

The finished product!

Lastly, my summer project with Lal is finally finished. All summer she has been writing a story in English (with illustrations). Check it out here. Go to the blog Archives-> Hit May and find chapter 1. Work your way to the front page. Enjoy!

See you soon Canada.