How to Australia: Travel, Learn and Discover Down Under
That’s me in the middle. Back in 1981, before reconciliation began in earnest, you were allowed to climb Ayers Rock, a very sacred place to the Aboriginal people. Today things have changed somewhat for the better but always room for improvement.
It was 1981. After a 20-hour flight, including an unscheduled stop in Fiji, we landed in Adelaide, South Australia. I was 21 and continuing my college experience at Flinders University of South Australia.
This trip continued my love affair with travel and added Australia as a second home.
I was able to attend college at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland because they gave me the best financial aid package including work study, Pell grants and student loans. I had two additional jobs to make ends meet. When I found out about the Junior Year Abroad program, Mom said,
If you can figure it out financially, go.
See my post about the family cross-country trip with Mom eight years previous. She was fearless and her confidence in me was strong.
Only two students had gone to Australia before me. Their advice,
Don’t be an idiot, kangaroos don’t hop down the streets of Australian cities. And don’t go to school in Canberra, the national capital.
Unlike Washington, DC, Australia’s capitol did not have the allure of the US capitol.
I figured if my financial aid package would work, let me go as far as possible, get college credit and come back with stories to tell. For some reason, I knew when I was older, I would get to Europe on my own. I didn’t need my college financial aid to get me across that pond to the United Kingdom where most exchange students attended. Traveling across the Pacific and down under had a bigger pull for a college student from Cleveland Ohio.
It turned out my aid packaged covered everything except the round-trip flight. I don’t remember how much that economy class ticket in the back of the plane cost.
I spent 18 months attending university and traveling around Australia. As a student, I was allowed to work and needed to support my travel needs. I found a job in women’s apparel at John Martin’s department store taking the bus from campus to downtown Adelaide. About three months in my new job, the CEO wanted to know why I was telling everyone to “Have a nice day.” when I finished a sale. It’s what we did in the US. That skill earned me a bonus for my “friendly manner and high sales.” I don’t think my US accent hurt my sales and all those years in US retail during high school and college were paying off!
Like our family trip across country, my first travel overseas was life changing. At Flinders University, learning history and political science from a different perspective were eye opening. Their view on war, the challenge of their geography in geo-political decisions, parliamentary form of government and being part of the Commonwealth were so different than that of the United States. My university classes were three days a week allowing lots of time for work and travel.
I visited every major city along the coasts and the red middle Earth of Ayer’s Rock. It is now called Uluru out of respect for the indigenous people who predated everyone on the planet by 50,000 years. I took planes and trains. I slept in hostels and sleeping bags. Discovered my US accent got me everywhere.
Dianna Spencer married then Prince Charles when I was there for college. The country came to a stop to watch the wedding and souvenirs were everywhere. Australians sometimes refer to the English as POHMs (Prisoners of Her Majesty). They pitied the English for their life up there. But Aussies love being a subject of the Queen and all things Royal as well as the family gossip.
The Australian people remain friendly to visitors and have a fondness for all things American, especially LA and NYC. I kindly share they are missing out not visiting Chicago. Perhaps there is a selective friendliness as the Australian government is firmly committed to keeping refugees or illegals from entering the country. In 2018, my last work visa would not be renewed as the government was embracing make Australia great again policy.
Australia has an economy that is coming back after the pandemic but had been economically ahead of many countries until then. It is a country of immigrants, like the United States. However, they don’t have any hyphens – they are Italians, French, Germans who live in Australia. Not Italian-Australian like we do in the US. Many generations of immigrants still speak their native language today. Australians are conscious of living on an island far from the rest of the world, down under. Travel is in their genes. Having to fly 10+ hours to take a vacation or visit family in Asia, the UAE or Europe is what it is. They are well traveled and curious.
I have visited Australia many times since that first college trip. I have been invited to speak at professional conferences. I was recruited and worked there in philanthropy. Australia is usually at the top of my go to whenever I can. I started traveling as a full-time nomad in August 2021. Australia was on the list of places to revisit and stay for a while.
Summer down under from December 2022 to April of 2023 was my most recent but certainly not my last visit. Next post will share how I traveled and lived there for less housesitting and leveraging the US v. Australian dollar.
