Footy, Nibbles, Rainbows, Sunsets & Pubs

Aaron here –

Wednesday was an absolutely incredible day! Where do I start?

We had our final vocational appointments of the trip and Jen and I had a superb visit to the Carlton Football Club. Carlton is one of the AFL footy teams and Visy Advisor Tony DeBolfo and Director of Communications Steve Wilson were incredibly generous with their time. As if the conversation was entertaining enough, Tony hooked the two of us up with a bunch of free gear. Carlton, which has been competing since the late 1800s, has some good-looking merchandise and is one of the most historic clubs in the world.

Christine had her final visit by visiting Victoria University (Vic Uni – as the Aussies call it), while Matt got a final visit to the Victoria Supreme Court Library.

The rain continued to follow us Americans throughout the day and actually required a change in plans for the evening. We were slated to take a cruise down the Maribyrnong River, but got rained out. So we decided to slum it over at Matt’s families house at the 11th floor penthouse for some nibbles (or appetizers in the states). And by slum it, I mean overlook the beach from one balcony and downtown Melbourne from another. And if that wasn’t good enough, we were treated to a magnificent rainbow, which was promptly followed by the most gorgeous sunset you could imagine. The colors on the water in the sky changed every two minutes, so, as you can see, we had some spectacular photos.

A number of our new VERY entertaining friends from the Yarraville Rotary Club wanted to keep us entertained, so we finished off the evening at one of the local pubs.

A Night for Farewells

Christine here –

Tuesday was a crazy busy day! We visited the Eureka Museum in Ballarat in the morning. The Eureka Museum is a diorama museum…but not like those little tiny dioramas you built in the 3rd grade for geography class. Nooooo…these were gigantic, dioramas that were designed to make a statement and boy, did it ever. Over lunch at a local pizza joint, we were handed off to our new club, Yarraville, and sent back to the city.

The Tuesday event to report on, of course, was the Farewell Dinner in Altona. We, along with the outbound GSE team, the US Consul General (Earl Michael Irving) and DG John Davis were announced one-by-one and descended down the curved staircase to greet the awaiting crowd of 200 Rotarians who came to bid us good-bye.

It was an evening of fun and, I admit, a few tears. Up until now, our team presentation is a 15-20 minute Powerpoint that shares a bit about each of us and a bit about Nebraska (sounds a bit boring, but it’s actually quite good, if I do say so myself). Anyhow, for the Farewell Dinner, Aaron, our most favorite, most talented, most dedicated GSE photographer and computer nerd, came through with a 7 minute slide show of Aussie photos set to music (look up Peter Allen’s “I Still Call Australia Home”). Seriously, the first time he showed it to us back in Bendigo, I sobbed like a little girl who had my puppy stolen. I’m proud to report that at the farewell dinner, I managed to hold it together during the photo presentation (unlike some of the Rotarians). We do love that Aaron! (If it were up to Jen and I, we would have passed around paper photos, I’m sure).

Anyhow, it was a great evening. We had the chance to catch up one final time with some of our new Australian friends and share our experiences.

P.S. - if anybody has any good pictures from the night, send them our way. We were busy working the room, so our library is a bit short!

Parades and Rain in Bendigo

Monday was our turn to get some culture in our lives. As we’ve mentioned the city of Bendigo pretty much shut down for a four-day Easter weekend. Bendigo has a strong Chinese heritage, as the Chinese played a key role in the labor force during the gold rush in the 1850s. As a tribute to that heritage, Bendigo hosts a lengthy parade on Easter Monday that includes the longest parade dragon in the world. It was quite the scene to see a dragon winding through the street, manned by no less than 85 people. It’s quite the attraction and people jammed the sidewalks to witness the attraction. Almost equally impressive were the lion dancers - manned by some very athletic acrobats.

To ensure we tasted the full flavor of the day’s festivities, we stopped by Jen’s host family, Phil and Deb, for a lunch barbeque. Their house is the perfect location for a parade party, as a majority of the floats stage in their front yard.

Following the parade, we had an appointment for a viewing at the Bendigo Art Museum, courtesy of Judy’s “host mom” Julie. We actually haven’t spent much time visiting art in Victoria, so it was quite interesting. Despite being a city of just 100,000 people, Bendigo has an amazing collection of historic art. The fact that we had a guided tour really gave us an understanding and appreciation for the gallery’s collection.

We were whisked off to a quick tour of the Chinese Museum and managed to squeeze an entire hour of free time before we headed to Peter and Julie house for some stir fry dinner – evidently there are “red meat free” meals here! Christine couldn’t attend as she was hanging with her host Penny, but the rest of us had quite the entertainment as a serious thunderstorm rocked the area.

Being from Nebraska, we have seen more than our share of thunderstorms, but Bendigo (and the majority of the state of Victoria) has been decimated by a 10-year drought. So the locals were literally dancing in the back yard with the serious rainfall. We of course took credit for it!