G’day mates! So here begins my blog…it will not be the next
best seller or anything, but it will help me to remember what I’ve done while
here and it will give me a chance to keep you all updated with my new Aussie
life. I just got internet in my apartment today so this is very delayed but I'll start from the beginning (don't worry...I won't give you a play-by-play of my life for the last month...just the big stuff). I’ve had an amazing time here so far! It was a very smooth process to get everything set up. AIESEC (the
organization that helped to send me on this internship) has been really
helpful. They found a place for me to stay before I got here and have been
great ever since. Someone from AIESEC picked me up at the airport
when I arrived, then he brought me to the bank to set up my account and went to
the realtor’s office for us to pick up our keys for our apartment. So I moved in the day I got here which was great! I’m living
with the other intern at Earthwatch. His name is Kevin and he's from Wisconsin. We get along well (which is good since we live AND work together) and he’s also new
to Melbourne so it’s been nice to have someone to explore the city with. We're trying to find a third roommate...just had a few interviews this past weekend and will hopefully have someone move in this week.
The apartment we're staying in has to be the most luxurious
place I’ve ever lived (sorry mom and dad). It feels like I’m staying in a fancy
hotel, so it seems very unreal that this is where I’ll be living for the next
year. It has 3 bedrooms upstairs and an open-concept arrangement with the
kitchen, living room and dining room downstairs. There are big French doors
along the entire wall that open to our patio on the first floor so we get tons
of sunlight in the apartment during the day. There is a beautiful courtyard
outside our apartment with tons of trees and a huge fountain in the centre! We
have access to 2 outdoor in-ground pools and a pretty big gym! We’re in a great
location too….only a few minutes from the Melbourne Cricket grounds, right
beside a beautiful park (with the oldest building in Australia in it-James
Cook’s cottage) and only a 10 minute walk from the main train station (Flinders
Station) and the centre of town. I've bought a bike and can bike almost anywhere since we're living so central. It's really convenient!
This is the deck outside the apartment-gets tons of sun so it's nice to eat out here. Still need to buy a BBQ tho!! (can't live in Australia for long without one)
The courtyard right outside my apartment-this is the only entrance to the apartment so I get to walk through here each day. They do lots of work on the gardens!
One of the pools...good for doing laps and sun-tanning on a nice day :)
The city is so beautiful! I’ve done lots of exploring but
still have tons more to do. There is a river that flows through the city (the
Yarra) with beautiful gardens all along it (amazing running, biking and walking
trails) and tons of high rise business buildings. It’s a really cool mix of
natural areas (as natural as man-made gardens can get) and a busy metropolitan
hub. The architecture of the buildings is fascinating as well. Melbourne became
a city back when there was lots of gold being mined here in the 1850s. The city was
extremely rich because of this and many of the buildings were very expensive
beautiful buildings. Many of these are still in the CBD (Central Business
District), but there are also some really interesting modern buildings. I’m sure
I’ve been an obvious tourist since I can’t help but look up while I’m walking
around the city.
Flinders Street Station-basically the centre of the city-you can get almost anywhere in the city from here by tram. I live about a 10-min. walk away from it.
Southbank along the Yarra river-people sitting out and relaxing by the river. There are tons of nice places to sit and eat or drink a coffee along Southbank.
I’ve met some really nice people too. Everyone is so
welcoming and friendly. There are a lot of cool places to see outside of Melbourne
but they’re hard to get to without a car so I’ve had lots of people offer to
take me on adventures so I can explore J
My first weekend here a few new friends took Kevin and I bush walking (their version of
hiking) about 2 hours from Melbourne. We walked along the river
and swam at the bottom of a waterfall. It was so beautiful and such a different
terrain than I’m used to hiking in. And the highlight was that we saw 3 wild
kangaroos! From pretty close up too! The Australians didn’t think it was quite
as exciting as I did haha. I was also fortunate enough to be here for Australia
day (January 26th) which was a lot of fun. I watched a big parade in
the morning then in the afternoon I met some friends in a park and we sat there
and hung out for the day. It was a great way to meet new people.
The gang "bush-walking along the river"
There's a kangaroo in this one..to the right of the tree that looks like a "V" although I doubt you can really see it in the photo. Just trust me, it's there!
Now for the real reason I came here...my internship. It's amazing! Earthwatch is such an incredible company….they
organize research and conservation expeditions and people from all over the
World volunteer to go on them. They’re doing some pretty important research so
it feels cool to be a part of that. My job is to help organize and plan these
trips so I get to talk to the scientists to help plan it. They’re all experts
in their fields so it’s really neat that I’m communicating with them. It's mostly just office work, and I find it hard to work in an office all day since I've never done that. But I feel really passionate about the work that I do which makes it much easier. The people in the office are so great too! There are only about 16 of us and I already feel really comfortable there. Everyone is so nice! They buy cakes anytime it's someone's birthday or whenever anyone new starts and there have been several of us new people and several birthdays since I've been here so I've had my fair share of cake haha (and there's another woman who's intolerant to gluten so they buy gluten-free cakes which is so nice!). We've been out for drinks and dinner after work a few times too so it's been really easy to get to know people. And the best part about the office is that we live close to a grocery store and the receptionist often walks there on her lunch break to grab chocolate then in the afternoon she walks around yelling "It's chocolate o'clock!" and gives us all a piece of chocolate (definitely my kind of place!) It's a good thing we have a gym in our apartment complex so I can have chocolate and cake at work :)
Here's the website for Earthwatch if anyone wants to read about the company or any of the Australian expeditions I'm organizing: http://au.earthwatch.org/expeditions (click "by region" then Australia on the left hand side to look at our expeditions).
There are a lot of really cool expeditions and I think I'll get to go on some because I'm in the Programs Department and we're the staff they send out as Earthwatch Representatives (there are only a few of us so I have a good chance of getting picked to go). Some examples of expeditions are looking at koala behaviour in the Otways for 10 days and going up to Northern Queensland (the North of Australia) to study the effects of climate change on mangrove forests. My fingers are crossed that I can go on those! I went on a one-day project last week where we went to two wetland sites close to Melbourne and were catching turtles. It was a lot of fun and I saw some wild wallabies which was amazing!!
I have lots more to tell but I realize this is really long so I'll stop here. I'll post more regularly now that I have internet so they won't be so long...sorry about that but I'm just excited about everything and want you guys to know what I'm up to. Australia is amazing...so you should all try to come visit!
Miss everyone tons! Hope you're all doing well. xoxo
Kate
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