And the winner is...

Becca Hedges, with her lightning-fast skillz of a lion! Send me your address, B.

Here were some other noteworthy responses:

Jake

Cossie is your swimwear costume. trunks.

bottle-o is your liquor store or bottle shop commonly attached to a pub.

arvo is a lazy australian way of saying afternoon.

pissed I guess is drunk.

I'll be stuffed! Sheila's been waggin' the Clinton and hitting the turps like a bogan. She knows every boozer and bottle-o this side of Bourke Street. Yesterday arvo she was sprung pissed, running down to the beach waving her cossie over her head like a dill.

Translation: I can't believe that after traveling half-way round the world that woman would drop out of her prestigious internship and become a regular drunk. Only a week in and she's already well acquainted with every liquor shop and bar in town. And yesterday afternoon she got so blasted, they caught her running down to the ocean buck-naked waving her bathing suit over head like an idiot.

Shenan

1. swimwear
2. liquor shop
3. afternoon
4. drunk (or to take the piss - to make fun of/joke)

used in a sentence: this arvo we should grab our cossies stop by the bottle-o and head to the beach to get pissed. make sure to grab the eski and throw it in the boot and if you forget you will be a heapin' wank.

Geoff

1) Togs
2) Bottle-shop
3) After dinner and before tea (at least on a Sunday)
4) Blotto

Hannah

1) cossie: a fur shawl worn tightly wrapped around the neck

2) bottle-o: a fully stocked liquor cabinet (much like the one we have here at home, currently)

3) arvo: turn of phrase much akin to "my bad", commonly used en los estados unidos

4) pissed: DRUNK of yo ass

Sydney --> Brisbane

How many of you have read Dinotopia? I think it was partly based off of Australia. And not just in the strikingly similar shape of the continents. I feel a bit like I've been washed up in a new place like intrepid Arthur and young Will, a place that is generally familiar in that it is modern-day human civilization, but with an epic foreignness that is so enthralling. People, there are trees larger than buildings! Giant ferns dwarf even the tallest men. The blindingly clean, white light creates beautiful plays of shadows everywhere. Sydney is full of lush and lively squares, parks, and other European-type common areas surrounded by elaborate old buildings, but with the interesting juxtaposition of new glass monstrosities as a backdrop. And the beautiful blue-green sea with its yachts and sailboats and great sandstone cliffs surrounds it all. Not unlike this:

Haha! Dinotopia lives! The different environment is somewhat overwhelming and unsettling, but in a very mind-broadening and gratifying way. My sense of awe is being stretched to wonderful new depths.

While in Sydney I spent some time with Nate, who seems to be getting along nicely. He took me out for kangaroo pizza-- thanks, Nate! Check out his blog here: http://nclooney-thewizardofoz.blogspot.com

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Brisbane is no less amazing. It has a different feel than Sydney-- even more laid back, if that's possible. Slightly cleaner, if that's possible either. Better public transportation. I'm staying with a group of university students and travelers in a house near Gabba cricket stadium on the south side of the river. We come from the US, France, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Brisbane is clearly a major cultural center of Queensland and is filled with festivals year-round, music, art, performances of all kinds, writers conferences, and other attractions.

My favorite spot so far is the South Bank park/community space. Greg, you would love this. You enter the park through a huge trellis of the 21st century-- an arching, beautifully dipping and curving steel structure with cables running from ground to the sky literally dripping in vine-y plant life covered in starry purple flowers. This tunneled walkway (shared by bikers and pedestrians) snakes all throughout the park and drops you off at the neatest spots and detours. One area is a small lake with a series of islands covered in twisting fig trees with their roots magically hanging everywhere. The islands have little pavilions for grilling and picnicking, but these grills are fancy-- like at a hibachi restaurant. All of the pavilions were full of people cooking steaks and kabobs. Probably every Asian and Pacific Island nation was represented there. After the picnic area you come to a beautiful stream that opens up into a series of swimming pools that are more like lagoons and lakes and beaches. There are tons of cool fountains you can run through and other awesome water park features. All of this is free and open to the public, with lifeguards and everything. After that is a deep, dark forest with boardwalks through the trees. You finally arrive at the Qld Performing Arts complex and a bridge over the river to the vibrant downtown area. During all of this you have the picturesque river with the Kangaroo Cliffs and the Brisbane skyline in the background. Insane.

Alright, off to the pub with my international crew to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's "birthday."

Will be settling in Toowoomba, the Garden City, tomorrow!

Putting it out to the universe

It's not uncommon for things Mama has said over the years to stick with me and ring true again and again, but she has been telling us most of them since we were little and so they are ingrained in our most basic understanding of the world. However, there's one that she voiced relatively recently-- maybe last year-- that has become a theme for both me and her. It's the concept of putting things out to the universe: if you say or write or otherwise express something that you want, there will be an answer (on second thought, this is not too far from prayer, so maybe it is more ingrained in me than I think, but I'll save that idea for further pontificating).

Having had favorable past experiences with the universe, I put out my interest in learning about Aboriginal culture and struggles. Here's what I got back so far:

1. A floor full of aboriginal art and the tour that I eavesdropped on at the Art Gallery of New South Wales;
2. Enlightening exhibit on indigenous peoples at the Australian Museum;
3. Found a helpful booklet about Aboriginal art and culture at a secondhand shop for $2;
4. A girl on the train to Brisbane who gave her unbridled (and horrifying) opinion about the Aborigines and the government's way of dealing with them. I channeled my inner Singhal and used questions to help her consider why she thought that way;
5. Learned about the Bangarra Dance Theatre, which features indigenous choreographers and dancers who create contemporary works "fueled by the spirit, energy and inspiration derived from the culture, values, and traditions of Indigenous Australians." They'll be in Brisbane in early July-- definitely going;
6. Couchsurfed with Ayack, a French dude who has already done a lot of reading on the subject because of personal interest and his plans to hitchhike the outback. He is letting me borrow "The Songlines," Bruce Chatwin's story about traveling Australia in the 1980s in order to understand Aboriginal spirituality and culture. It has garnered quite a bit of criticism over the years, so I'm trying to keep this in mind as I read. I've had some interesting conversations with Ayack about all of this, and I hope that other interested folks will wander into my life this summer so that I'll be able to discuss my informal research.

Once I get my bearings in Toowoomba, I plan to write y'all a lengthy essay about my findings so far. Don't feel obligated to read it unless you're really interested, but I'd particularly recommend it for those environmentalists among you because I think a lot of things will make sense and give you food for thought.

Get Yer Racing Suit On

In honor of the Queen's birthday weekend, the first intrepid person to correctly define the following Aussie slang words wins stuff!

You have until Monday, June 16th at midnight Sydney time to submit your answers to me at acadia.roher@gmail.com. Please put "Contest 1" in the subject line. Good luck, mates!

1. cossie

2. bottle-o

3. arvo

4. pissed

Impressions

Making sushi while couchsurfing!

Sydney skyline

Now that I have been in Australia a full 24 hours, it is time for some initial impressions so that I can look back on them later and laugh.

I have started surfing... couches! It's much too cold for surfing in the ocean, and besides I have terrible balance. Couchsurfing is what I would call a movement-- awesome people building essentially a global community through shared experiences-- facilitated by the website www.couchsurfing.org. It's not an outlet for free places to stay, it's about meeting people and sharing their home and hometown, doing the same for others in your hometown, or even just meeting for coffee or a drink with a passing traveler. I'm staying with a really neat girl in Marrackville, a quiet Vietnamese and Greek neighborhood in southwest Sydney. Last night we had a lot of fun chatting while making sushi and sharing a bottle of wine at her house. She has a sweet kitten named Pixie, worm composting in the backyard, and awesome stories from her travels in Thailand and Morocco and Norway. I now have a set of keys, full access to the vegemite in the fridge, and leftover sushi for lunch. Loving this!

Yesterday I spent the day wandering around the harbor area looking for all the world like a silly tourist. I became obsessed with photographing awesome-looking but common birds in the park, which Im sure is the equivalent of fawning over squirrels and pigeons in the US. Cockatoos (cockatoos!) are everywhere here. They seem to enjoy making the most blood-curdling screeches as they swoop past your head for sport. Haha! They clearly scorned my fresh-off-the-boat ways. I spent about an hour in the Royal Botanic Gardens (once the government farm back when Sydney was a penal colony) trying to find two trees that would be good to hang my hammock from, but it seems they anticipated this sort of renegade behavior and spaced the trees accordingly. Probably for the best, since it was a little too chilly to comfortably hang out in a hammock for long.

Just when I was feeling the serious fatigue also known as jet lag start to set in, the Art Gallery of New South Wales appeared and beckoned to me with its warmth, free exhibits, and clean bathrooms. The basement, where they keep the Aboriginal art, was my favorite. I learned a lot by eavesdropping on a guided tour, but there are so many concepts that I need to learn more about: "dreaming," the significance of using dots (one painting was a series of lines depicting a spear straightening ceremony, but if you looked closely the lines were all made up of dots), the meanings behind decorated logs where the ashes of ancestors are kept, etc. Hopefully I'll learn some of this at the Australian Museum today.

Sydney isn't what I expected from looking at maps and pictures. From my one day of experience thus far, it is much more compact and friendly than all the talk about the city as a busy metropolis leads you to believe. After two hours I fully expected to run into Nate Looney while wandering around downtown at lunchtime. That's how cozy it feels. I made friends in crosswalks, on footpaths in the park, and at restaurants. Really. One retired gentleman I met in a crosswalk even let me come along with him to a free lunchtime concert at the Conservatorium of Music. On the train, people notice your existence (all in a friendly way of course). The one place I did not find folks to be so warm was, ironically, the Visitor Information Center.

Off for another intrepid adventure! Today: Australian Museum, ferry to Manly beach, perhaps a film at the Sydney Film Festival, dinner and hanging out with Nate, and drinks at the pub with my couchsurfing host and her friends!

Last Things First

Finally on my way! I'm one of the last students to leave the states, but it has been well worth the wait. May in Arkansas is NOT to be missed!

I can't think of a better way to spend my last full day stateside: Woke up blissfully cocooned in a hammock deep in the Ozarks, went on an adventure to a magical waterfall with my sister, successfully dealt with my first flat tire (on a dirt road in the middle of a national forest, nonetheless!), drove back to Little Rock bathed in my last gorgeous Arkansas sunset with the windows down singing 90s music at the top of my lungs with the aforementioned lovely sister, and topped it all off with parting drinks at Pizza D's amongst a gaggle of my favorite people!

While hanging around in my hammock this week I finished Bill Bryson's "In A Sunburned Country," which was a rather successful attempt at capitalizing on the travel-literature-devouring flocks that descended upon Sydney for the 2000 Olympic games. As expected, it became a NY Times Bestseller.

Though it is 10 years out of date, I imagine that most of the content still rings true. Here's a bit of an introduction to Australia from Bryson with updated statistics from me in brackets:

We pay shamefully scant attention to our dear cousins Down Under-- not entirely without reason, of course. Its population-- just over 18 million [over 22 million in 2011]-- is small by world standards, and as an economic entity it ranks about level with Illinois [now higher, but still ranks below Turkey and Indonesia on the GDP chart]. Its sports are of little interest to us. From time to time it sends us useful things-- opals, merino wool, Errol Flynn, the boomerang-- but nothing we can't actually do without. Above all, Australia doesn't misbehave. It is stable and peaceful and good. It doesn't have coups, recklessly overfish, arm disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocative quantities, or throw its weight around in a brash and unseemly manner.

WHY, you might be asking yourself, knowing this did Acadia choose to go there? Why not Honduras or Vietnam or Botswana?

For one, Bryson is of course giving only a very simplified, one-sided view. In many ways-- environmentally especially-- Australia is on the edge of crisis. For example, a climate science professor who lived in Australia for many years suggested that I visit the Great Barrier Reef before it's too late. Another good example is the reason that I'm here: serious water issues.

Twelve years of drought have plagued industry and communities in south-eastern Australia. Some view the drought as the first in a series of extreme weather events that will occur on the continent as climate change worsens. The Murray-Darling river system, which provides water for the country’s most intensive agricultural land, now fails to reach the sea 40 percent of the time. In addition to the human systems under stress, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization has identified Australian ecosystems as “potentially the most fragile” on earth in the face of the threat.

I will be working with two government agencies-- one at the national level and one at the state level in Queensland-- to review their past efforts to engage communities and industries in comprehensive water planning, research best practices from other places around the world, and assist in developing new, more inclusive strategies. Though it is easy to think that such desperately-needed water planning should be "efficiently" laid out by scientists and officials, in reality the sustainability of the system will lie in how effectively all voices are brought to the table to develop consensus and make difficult decisions.

I know it's easy to pay lip service to topics like community engagement and consensus-building, but I hope you will bear with me as I explore them more this summer (winter?) and hopefully provide some interesting insights from my process.

Cheers!

(the absolutely most favorite Australian farewell/closing statement ever)

Students to Complete Projects in 19 Countries

Take a look at the projects my classmates and I will be completing this summer:

http://clintonschoolblog.com/cblog/?p=4022