Maren in Australia

Life is good for Maren in Australia - here's her report:

I just got back from spring break…in September…. And I can honestly say I had the best week of my life. This is mostly due to my newest obsession: SCUBA diving. After getting certified back in August, I have become absolutely addicted. The first three days of my spring break, I lived on a boat on the Great Barrier Reef with about 30 other people that are just as obsessed with diving as I am. Each day consisted of a wake up dive at 5:30am, delicious eatery, sun bathing on the bow, Harry Potter (another obsession I’ve picked up), and lots more diving. I spent a good part of each day swimming next to white tipped reef sharks, turtles (they like having their shells scratched), a barracuda named Barry who likes to hang out under the boat’s hull, hundreds of fish including Nemo, and heaps upon heaps of coral. A single coral polyp can be as small as 3mm in size, yet the GBR is 2,000k long and can be seen from space. That’s a lot of old, old coral. It’s mind boggling, and I’ve been living on it. Whoa.

It gets better. After dinner, we would do a night dive, which is possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever done. It’s a weird feeling, being suspended in the middle of the pitch-black Pacific Ocean with only a torch, but I felt oddly safe, since there’s nothing on the reef that attacks without provocation, unlike things on land—like serial killers or hormonal teenagers—and I don’t consider myself much of a wildlife provoker. Each night dive, our resident divemaster said we were allowed two fish kills. Basically, some of the predatory fish, namely the Red Bass, are wicked smart and have learned to hunt by torchlight. So if we found a particularly ugly little fish and were in a killing mood, we could just shine our torch on them, and a Red Bass would gobble them up. Don’t fret vegetarians/vegans, I was never in much of a killing mood nor did I find any exceptionally ugly fish, so my record’s clear. The best part of night dives was when we turned our torches off, leaving us in pitch black. Any movement in the water was followed by bursts of bioluminescence, like hundreds of tiny fireflies were underwater with us. We looked like fairies with pixie dust shooting out of our flippers. I'm not a 5-year old, I swear. Needless to say, the Great Barrier Reef is incredible.
Despite all the wonderful things about this country, like its reefs, it has its risks and its major downfalls. It’s true what they say about Australia: it’s trying to kill you. On campus, I’ve been up close and personal with slatey grey snakes, which turns out, are not venomous, and pythons. I’ve been stung by jellyfish, attacked and bitten by a triggerfish guarding its nest, sliced up by oysters, and dive-bombed by fruit bats. There is also a hole in the ozone layer right above Australia, and I’ve wracked up a good number of sunburns. Now I have a pathetic excuse for a tan, about 500 new freckles, and a dermatology appointment scheduled upon my return home.

The people who live here could also be considered life threatening. First of all, they’re terrible TERRIBLE drivers. I experience a near miss pretty much every day. Then, after they almost run me over, they force me to jump off dangerous things into more dangerous things. Like a thread swing—not a rope swing—attached to a really high tree over a croc-infested river. “No worries mate,” the Aussies say, “they’re only baby crocs in this river” (because that makes sense…). Baby crocs could still take off a hefty portion of a leg, if I had to gander a guess. Tip of the day: When defending yourself against a croc, go for the eyes; it’s their weakness. There are also plenty of cliffs and rocks and pirate ships and top sails that I’ve been forced to jump off of. All the while, copious amounts of non-alcoholic beverages have been forced down my throat. I daresay I’ll be lucky to return home in one piece with fully functioning organs. We must forgive them though, for 20% of Aussies descend from British convicts.

My Australian experience has also made me appreciate some of the simpler things in life, aside from my general sense of security, most of which are food related.

1) Free ketchup. Most restaurants make you pay for ketchup, and most of the time it’s around $1. Absurd? I know Nathan will say YES. Also, it’s not ketchup; it’s tomato sauce.

2) Raspberry/Strawberry Jam. When you’re eating at least one PB&J a day, you start to appreciate normal jam flavors. Not orange marmalade that tastes like toothpaste or plum jam that tastes like prune juice, two staple jam flavors of Uni Hall Dining Services.

3) Single sex bathrooms. Alas, I’ll be sharing a bathroom with Chris and Spencer next semester, but even the latter will be cleaner than a 17yr old Aussie boy.

4) Now, I don’t eat pop tarts on a regular basis—in fact I think my last one was from my high school’s vending machine, but pop tarts cost $14 here. That is ridiculous.

5) Cereal at every meal. They have some delicious cereal here, and I would much rather eat delicious cereal than mystery meat slop. Unfortunately, cereal is around $8 a box, so they can’t afford to let me eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hence the PB&J situation.

6) Dunkin Donuts. The first thing I’m buying when I return is an ice coffee and a chocolate glaze donut. ‘nough said.

Unfortunately, the list goes on and on, but I don’t want to bore you with complaints. Let’s just say, I’ll be happy to be back in the US of A in 6 weeks, where ketchup and jam flow freely, and where I’ll be greeted by the open arms of my two families: my parental unit and my Nordic ski team.

Also, ancient coral knows what’s up. Just like the ancient Egyptians.