The Australian culture was one of the things that made me love Australia so much. They may be crass or even harsh, and they will probably poke some fun at you, but that’s their humor. They are such friendly people; they are so direct because they have good intentions. I had a lot of fun with Australians, especially when interacting with them at pubs. They are just amazing people.

However, I also learned a lot about the history of their culture and the aborigines. We spent a day in the city of Cairns when they had a cultural festival. This festival celebrated the culture of the aborigines. There was a stage set up out in a park, and there were aborigines performing traditional dances with face- and body paint on. A big crowd of aborigines and white Australians intermingled and enjoyed the show. There were food trucks that served traditional aborigine dishes. There was also a gallery with dozens of different aborigine art products for sale such as paintings, sculptures, boomerangs, jewelry, etc.

Festival at the Cairns Esplanade

The festival celebrated aborigine culture

Men and women from different tribes performed in front of a big crowd

The relationship between the aborigine tribes and the Australian government was very interesting. I learned a lot about this relationship, and the more I learned the more I wanted to know. It was so interesting because there were many similarities with the relationship between the American government and the Native American tribes. For example, the hunting laws for both indigenous peoples are pretty similar. Certain aborigine tribes also take the initiative to conserve their environment like Native American tribes. For example, there was a tribe that got government funding to construct a national park in their forest and they now use proceedings of this park to conserve their forest. Anyway, it was great to see how Australians value the history and culture of aborigines, and it was great to have learned so much about it too.

My trip to Australia was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Living in the rainforest was something I had never done before and I was very excited about it. Being someone who really loves animals and being surrounded by them, I thought living in the rainforest was awesome. Every morning I was woken up by a serenade of cool birds such as whipbirds, and chowchillas (we called them startrooper birds because they sounded like blaster rifles). I saw amazing animals I never thought I’d see before, almost daily. We had a resident bandicoot that hung around the center and he came by every night to steal whatever food scraps he found on the ground. We also had a resident bush turkey called Charles, who was always clucking around when we were having lunch. Even seeing Victoria rifle birds, a bird of paradise, while playing volleyball outside was a common instance. I also saw a python when taking out the trash once, and I saw another one on a hike.  I also had a juvenile emu in the wild walk up really close to me. I even petted a kangaroo and cuddled a koala in Kuranda! But I think one of the most amazing experiences I had while over there, was feeding wild wallabies. These were all unforgettable encounters

Feeding a kangaroo in Kuranda

Petted this lazy little guy

Wallaby and its young

Feeding wallabae

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Living there was great, however I’m not going to sugarcoat it, there were also a lot of annoying things and there was a certain element of danger. I got leeches on my legs almost every day, especially when it rained. And when it rained, it poured. The rain would last days sometimes, it was the first time I ever experienced a day where it literally rained all day. The rain made our cabins extremely humid, and leaving anything in its place for more than a few days would cause mold to start growing on it. A lot of the other students also complained about mosquitoes and other bugs, especially spiders, which were huge of course. There were also numerous plants that we had to be careful for, like wait-a-whiles, which had curved thorns that hooked onto your skin and ripped it open if you continued walking, and stinging trees, which according to some reports can cause reoccurring burning sensations for years. In any case, living in the rainforest was an amazing experience, it wasn’t always great, but it was definitely life-changing.

A big point of frustration for me in Germany was the education system. I assumed that by going to a country so similar to the United States like Germany, I would be having a very similar experience as what I had in the U.S. What I realized while there is that even the smallest differences can feel very frustrating and confusing. I have spent the last 16 years of my life being shaped into the proper student for a very specific kind of education system. Every step of the way, I knew what I was supposed to do, I knew how to cite a paper properly, how to format an academic paper, what voices to use and what not to use, I knew how to study for tests and to be the right kind of student for the system, and I was good at it. Coming to Germany and to not “fit” into the system was indeed a frustrating experience on top of trying to act like having every single class in German was normal. It did become normal, but at first, everything felt wrong. I did not take the system seriously because it did not fit into my idea of what a university “should” be like. I was not used to having a session for each class only once a week, I was not used to finding reading material on my own and not having assignments but just suggestions, I wanted the guidance of a structured American college course. It was a transition that required adjusting and learning, and eventually I did get used to it the way it was. I learned to like the independence and lack of constant supervision and deadlines. The students had more responsibility, and they were not babied. Although this proved a challenge for my concentration and self-motivation, thus causing more frustration, I learned to understand that there are flaws in our system and the way we prepare students for the world, as there are in Germany. There is no one way to educate or to learn, and now I want to know more about how school and education systems can look. I want to know how they teach in Africa, in Bali, in Peru. I want to know that school does not need to have a strict structure and that there are more ways to learn through a school system. After learning so much about other people and their lives and other cultures, I know that the education system we have does not prepare us for the real world. No one on the street asked me to fill in their definite articles with the proper case and gender. All those worksheets did not teach me how to have a conversation with someone, all those quizzes were not in a format that prepared me to answer questions at the doctor’s office. There is no multiple choice section in life. Everything is a learning experience, and we need to take them as they come and learn from the people we meet and from our experiences. The most valuable lessons cannot be found in a textbook.