Submitted by Carly Battistoni on the 2017 winter session program in Australia sponsored by the Department of Chemical Engineering…
To start off the second week of trip, we went to a cricket match! We saw the Melbourne Stars take on the Adelaide Strikers at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds – the largest stadium in Australia, with a seating capacity of 100,000. While there were only a little over 40,000 seats, the noise and excitement from the crowd felt like the stadium was full. It was everyone’s first cricket game, and none of us tried to learn the rules prior to going to the match. Luckily, there was a very sweet family sitting behind us that taught us the basic rules of the game. They had explained it to other American friends before, so they knew what kind of analogies they could make to baseball that we would understand. I must say, cricket is a far more exciting game than baseball, the 20/20 version of cricket at least. They informed us that we picked a good night to go since it was a 20/20; a 50/50 can last the entire day and there is no talking during plays and everyone dresses up nice – it is much more of an ordeal. For this 20/20, there were fireworks and flames after every good play by the Melbourne Stars – for a 6 (similar to a home run in baseball) and for getting a wicket (an out). Overall, the atmosphere was incredibly lively. There really never was a dull moment.
Our weekend excursion was to the Dandenong Ranges and Phillip Island. At the Dandenong Ranges we stopped first to feed cockatoos. We then made our way to a wildlife park where we were given small bags of food to feed wallabies, kangaroos and emus. We also had the opportunity to see koalas, Tasmanian devils, wombats and a variety of birds. My favorite animal was probably the wallaby. Somehow, wallabies seemed to find their way into every exhibit of the park – they were with the grey kangaroos, the Tasmanian devil, the echidna, the wombats, the emu and in the koala area. I also enjoyed the red kangaroos; they were very willing to be pet and they were incredibly soft!
