Melbourne, baby!

Oh, what a happy day! We flew with a plane to Melbourne!
We stayed at a hotel called Rendezvous Hotel.

Anna, Lisa and Paulina thought it was really expensive, but I think it was real good service, so it was worth the money.
It was a fantastic country, with lots of yummy food and shopping, shopping, shopping! 
We wanted to see some sports, and therefore we went to see a game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

It was a fantastic game, but we didn't cheer for any team. Well, the experience was worth it!

Later this day, we went to see a movie at the theaters, and then we got back to our hotel. It was free dinner, and the food was delicious! It was all sorts of meat, chicken and fish. There was even a special place for vegetarians!
This was the end of our trip. I have learned so much about this fantastic country, and I hope you have too!

Thanks for reading, 
XO, Erika

VOLLEYBALL

Today we went to a market in a little village. The market has lots of fruits, handmade leather bags and bracelets. I bought a leather bag and a cool t-shirt. We all bought similar bracelets, that we will use as friendship-bracelets!

My new bag and t-shirt

Later we went back to the hotel for a powernap. Suddenly we heard loud music, we walked outside to take a look at the beach and there was a volleyball tournament! We decided to join the competition. Since we were just four players we needed two people on our team. Erika took commitment and asked two boys to join, and they fortunately said yes. Our team, Norwegian Moose, started to fight against Black Sharks! We won the competition. The second fight was against The Hompalompa and we won again! Since we won both competitions we were in the final! We took a break and were ready for the new match. We were ready to face or opponents, Dream team. There were many people looking at us, so we got a little nervous. But we haven’t any reason to be nervous, because we won again!

Famous places from around Australia

Australia is highly known for being one of the most beautiful continents on Earth. In this post I will mention some of the places that people associate with the fantastical landmass of Australia. For example,

The Sydney Opera House is a performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. The Opera House was built buy a danish architect Jørn Utzon.

The Twelve Apostles is an assemblage of 8 limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park, by the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. The apostles were formed by erosion.

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest reef system in the world composed of 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands. The Great Barrier Reef stretches over 2,600 km, and over 344,400 square kilometers.

Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock is a large sandstone rock formation in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. The area around the formation has a lot waterholes, rock caves and ancient paintings. Uluru is also listed as a World Heritage Site. 

There are of course many other places in Australia that are worth mentioning. I decided to write about these 4 because they are what I associate with Australia. These places, snorkeling and surfing. My opinion on Australia is that it is a wonderful place to visit and write about. Round and about fantastic!

See you in a while, crocodile!

-Paulina Dubkov :)

Geography and climate of Australia.

The total area of Australia is 7,686,850 km²

Australia is placed in the region called Oceania. The continent has 25,765 km of coastline and no border. Because it is an island. The highest point is Mount Kosckiusko, it is 2,234 meters high, and the lowest point is Lake Eyre, -15 meters. Lake Eyre is also the largest lake on the landmass, 9,500 km².  The longest river is called Murray River and is 2,375 km long.

The continent is the 6th largest in the world. The geography of Australia is very diverse, ranging from the snow in the mountains of the Australian Alps and Tasmania to large desserts and tropical forests.

This is a climate map of Australia.

As I already have said the geography of Australia is extremely diverse, just like the climate. 40% of the landmass is covered with sand dunes, and a total of 18% of Australia´s mainland is desert.

-Paulina Dubkov :)

Adventure is the champagne of life.

Hello!

I must report in disappointment, that in these 7 days the crew and I have spent in Australia, neither of us were attacked by a kangaroo. This is a fantastically inspiring place and and an entirely unfamiliar continent to me. Everyday that I have been here, I have been waking up with my eyes alive with enthusiasm. I love walking out of the hotel room with the warmth of air wrapping me around like a scarf.

I have already spent a week here in Australia, but I had no chance to blog, I just had no internet connection and no time. I was way to busy exploring Australia. After a week spent on this fantastical continent, I can loudly exclaim that this is the most beautiful and fantastical landmass I have ever set my foot on. I have actually made some friends here, and I love listening them speak. I can´t do anything about it, I admire the way they talk. Their dialect reminds me of the British English, which I think is a very beautiful dialect.

While going for a walk in Sydney, I saw the Sydney Opera House. I could not resist taking a boat there, just to get closer. On board I got this terrific idea, to take photographs while leaning over the edge of the boat. All in all, my expensive camera ended up in the waters of the Tasman Sea, with all the amazing photographs I´ve taken.

This is how the Sydney Opera House looks like, I took this picture from google. You can see the link by clicking on the picture.

Right now I am sitting in a café in a town called Broome.

The coffee is really good in Australia, I don´t think I have ever enjoyed coffee as much as I do here. I actually love everything about Australia, it is warm, it´s adventurous and the people are pleasant to talk to.
On my second day of being in this wonderland I tried surfing, and fell in love with it. I really felt like a surfer-girl, like it was something I was bound to be good at! My body was overfilled with this ecstatic feeling I still can´t forget.


Well this is it, I will just have to continue enjoying my coffee and the rest of my trip!
See you soon, raccoon!

-Paulina Dubkov :)

HISTORY

50 000 years ago some Indonesians people sailed to Australia and settled over the whole country. Later some Spanish and Netherlands seafarers came to Australia and then James Cook came and said that this new country belongs to England. In 1770 Australia became colonized with England, and they sent all the English criminals to the country. But in 1850 gold was discovered in Australia, then many people from the whole world settled. Because England was so far away, they decideed to have their own constitution and partial autonomy. Finally 1, january 1901 Australia becomes a nation!

James Cook

Australian Music - AC/DC

There are many famous singers and bands from Australia; Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton-John (mostly known from the american musical Grease), Keith Urban and Delta Goodrem. But maybe biggest of them all, a band consisting of five men, 4 letters and 38 years behind them as a successful heavy metal/hard rock band: AC/DC.

Their journy begun in 1973 when the brothers Malcolm and Angus Young gathered Dave Evans, Larry Van Kriedt and Colin Burgess to create the band. Since then they have changed band members several times, but the Malcolm brothers have kept it going the whole time. The members of AC/DC today are Brian Johnson, Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd + the Malcolm brothers.

AC/DC have become one of the most successful heavy metal/hard rock bands, and with hits like "Shoot to thrill", "You shook me all night long" and "Thunderstruck" they have ruled the world.

AC/DC had their debute in Australia in 1975 with the album High Voltage, which was recorded in only 10 days! In 1976 they signed an international record deal with the company Atlantic Records and begun a tour around Europe, where they had opening acts for several popular hard rock bands like Black Sabbath and Kiss. In the period from 1974 to 1977 they were one of the most popular and successful bands in Australia. One of reasons why they became so popular, beside the tour in Europe, was because of their appearances on national television. In 1976 they also released the international version of High Voltage, which sold three million copies worldwide.

On the 19th of February 1980 Bon Scott, AC/DC's lead singer, died from alcohol poisoning. He was found in a car after a night of heavy drinking in London, England. The band was considering splitting up after the accident, but kept together in honor to Bon.

Their first single to hit No. 1 on the US Mainstream Rock chart was Big Gun from the movie Last Action Hero (a comedy featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger acting the main character) in 1993. Since their debute they have released around 20 albums, including several live albums. Their last album, Black Ice (their fifteenth studio recorded album), was released in 2008, and they are still working together. AC/DC have won 7 of 20 award nominations, including their Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2010.

Personally, I do not listen to AC/DC so much, but I do know about one of their biggest characteristics of all time; Angus Young's short pants and duck walk! (shown in picture at the top) :-)

By Lisa Bye