The journey to Australia proved to be quite a challenge, but fortunately, everything went smoothly. I must confess that I underestimated the sheer magnitude of the trip, but I suppose it's hard not to. The reality of a 16-hour flight only sinks in once you experience it firsthand. However, what truly amazed me was the city's remarkable ethnic diversity. Prior to my visit, I did not realize that Melbourne was such a multicultural hub. While I had anticipated interacting mainly

Blog Post Assignment 1: travel experience, first impressions of Melbourne/Australia, and how the trip is going so far. 3 Days in! "Once we arrived in Melbourne there was quite a bit of relief from myself and others that the flying was done and that we could mostly relax for the rest of the day. Another surprise was that the jetlag hasn’t been a huge factor. With the exception of waking up earlier and easier than normal which has been quite nice, the main thing has been stayin

Well, here we are in the middle of a global pandemic and we find ourselves in Australia - after being in Thailand! I know... many people are thinking "Are you crazy?". Well, the short answer is, the test result isn't back yet on that... However, I can tell you, especially concerned parents with students on the trip, we are being extremely cautious, have altered our itinerary, and we as well as Clarkson are monitoring the news and government websites for breaking changes an

Day 7 wow a week flew by! This was the busiest day of the trip so far. Day started off very early at the US Consulate where we were able to talk with a political and financial officer mostly. We learned there’s five different departments within the consulate and the roles of each one. We also were informed that the younger generations don’t care as much about the alliance between the United States and Australia which could potentially be harmful in the future. We continued

Wow! We hit the ground running here in Sydney.. Sorry for the delay in posts - we have been on the run! Here is the quick review - we will post student posts as we get time... Thursday - we departed Melbourne in the morning and arrived here in Sydney around 12:30 p.m. Our van was waiting for us and took us right to the hotel... The hotel is located in an awesome location - right in the heart of the CBD (Central Business District)... minutes from the train station, Darl

Our experience here in Melbourne has been great. We had a few more professional visits, going to the U.S. Consulate, IBM, DeBella Coffee and touring the Carleton Brewery. The visit to the consulate was pretty interesting, because I wasn’t exactly sure what made a consulate different than an embassy or really what they did there. The political and economic officer that spoke with us said that the only real difference between the embassy in Canberra and the consulate in Melbou

The day that locals believed was one of the coldest days of the year provided us with some of the most beautiful weather that we have seen since last summer. The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous and the experiences have paralleled that. Our first tour in Cairns was to the Great Barrier Reef. While the boat ride out to the reef was a bit of an issue for me, any amount of sea sickness would have been worth the awe-inspiring sights at the reef. I chose to upgrade f

We had finally arrived in Adelaide, and I was anxious to get the trip rolling. Unfortunately, I was also dead tired and wanted nothing more than to sleep for 15 hours straight. We went to the grocery store to get dinner, and I didn’t make it much further than that. I woke up the next morning exhausted, but excited to explore what Adelaide had to offer! Our first stop was to the Aboriginal site. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from this part of our trip, but I can h