Well, I said I would finish my blog update some other time and it turns out that “other time” is roughly 4 hours later. Just one of those days at work where I ask anyone around me if they need help with anything and they answer in a chorus of “no, but I’ll let you know!” Meh, it happens. When I’m not UPDATING MY BLOG (which has only been today), these days usually result in me browsing the New York Times and AdWeek sites because I figure if I’m not doing anything helpful, I might as well be doing something mildly educational. Right?
So I left off at Cairns. For the most part, the past few weeks since Cairns has been kind of uneventful, more or less, with a few highlights. One of these highlights would be last weekend when a few of us took a Saturday to visit Hunter Valley, a renowned vineyard about three hours away from Sydney. It was easily one of my favourite trips in Australia so far.
The day started off rough. And understandably so, since we had to leave the lobby of Unilodge by 5:30 am to catch our train. Which meant I woke up at 4:50 am. And, quite predictably, we made it out late. Like, 5:45-5:50 late. For a 6:05 am train. After anxiously waiting for the last person to make it down, we bolted out of the lobby and caught a cab to get to Central station which would normally take 10-15 minutes to walk. Not ideal.
We started running as soon as we got out of the cab. Keep in mind I was wearing flats that are too big for me so this run was a horrendous effort. We jammed our money into the ticket machines and sprinted to the train, the whole time thinking “shit, we’re not gonna make it...we’re going to miss the trip.”
With the guidance of other passengers around us (“I think the train to Newcastle is over there! Go!”) We found the right train. Right as they were closing the door. If we had arrived a few seconds later we would not have made the train. It was quite a victory as we found seats, panting and very awake for 6:06 in the morning.
Three hours (and one nap) later, we arrived in Newcastle, where our lovely tour guide met us at the train station. She was so nice! Once she picked up all the other vineyard- goers (we were the first of her stops) she asked everyone, “so I assume you have all had nice, hearty breakfasts to prepare yourself for the day, right?”
Keep in mind this is at 9:30 in the morning. We’ve been awake since 4:50 and I had yet to eat anything amidst all the rushing and lack of places to stop for some food. So I thought to myself, crap...this wine tasting is going to be interesting.
We arrived to Hunter Valley around 10 am and it was absolutely breathtaking. The weather was perfect, mild with the sky completely blue. There were hills upon hills with grapevines, and mountains surrounding the place as far as you could see. I’ve never seen anything like it, really. Our first wine tasting began promptly after we arrived at an organic winery. I felt so classy as the wine connoisseur explained to us which wines were oaky, which were dry, and which had just a “hint of passion fruit.”
“Oh, I can TASTE the passion!” Brittany said. Hopefully he had a sense of humour about it.
After trying 15 or so wines, we were all feeling it because of the severe lack of food in our stomachs. So we feasted on bread and oil samples as much as we could before making our way to the next winery called Tempus Two, which was very modern and had a younger feel to it (techno music playing in the background? It somehow seemed to work).
Luckily the next part of the tour was a cheese tasting so that gave us the chance to try stuffing our faces a little more so that we didn’t feel too warm and fuzzy.
After one final winery in a very homey-type place (the log cabin setup actually reminded me of New Hampshire and made me briefly homesick), we finally had lunch at around 2, followed by a chocolate tasting (if you could call it that; we had four tiny slivers of chocolate! I would complain, but the rest of the tour was so amazing it hardly mattered) and a final trip to a liqueur site. Here we tried butterscotch schnapps, coffee schnapps, and a few other liqueurs, including the strangest alcohol I’ve ever heard of or tried: chilli butterscotch schnapps. Yeah...it was weird. There was even a chilli in the bottle. We downed it last, after instructed to take it fast like a shot. It burned my throat and as everyone reached for the water, I got instant hiccups! I have no idea why. But they lasted about 15 minutes before going away. So strange.
After a very satisfying, albeit exhausting day (wine + sun = nap) we took the train back and arrived back in Sydney at around 8 pm. Unfortunately I have no pictures from this trip because my camera has temporarily broken until I can get it fixed under warranty in the US, probably because of something miniscule like a grain of sand. But it was absolutely incredible and, like I said, definitely one of my favourite trips this semester.
Another thing worth mentioning: I was on TV last Monday night! Well, me and my entire Mass Media class. Our professor has ridiculous connections to every aspect of the media industry in Australia, and he pulled some strings to get our entire class to be in the audience for Q&A, a show on the ABC (think the Australian version of PBS) that has a panel of significant political figures and an audience that can ask them anything they want. The whole thing is aired live so there is zero editing, which is a very bold media move on the station’s part. This week was focused on American/Australian politics, with the American ambassador on the panel. It was fascinating and, while I would never feel comfortable/knowledgeable enough to ask a question myself, I loved sitting in the audience and watching other members go at it with very insightful, often controversial questions and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Well that’s pretty much it; I will try to be better about updating my blog before I leave in two weeks! Two weeks left....I still can’t wrap my head around that one.
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