Submitted by Mackenzie Steele on the 2019 winter session program in Australia sponsored by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering…
On Wednesday after class this week, we took the train to the Australian Open (AO). We were able to watch Roger Federer (seeded 2nd in men’s singles) and Caroline Wozniacki (seeded 3rd in women’s singles) practice. After that, we grabbed some lunch and we watched some matches. One of the most notable matches we watched was men’s doubles. The partners were the 4th seeded Bryan Brothers from the U.S. versus two young Australians. The Bryan Brothers are 40 years old. When they were younger, they were the world’s best doubles team and won the Australian Open doubles championship six times. The stadium seating for this was completely full and we had to wait forever to find seats, but it was a great match. Both sets went to a tiebreaker and the Byron Brothers ended up winning the match 7-6, 7-6.
There were no plastic bags and there were biodegradable food products at the Open. This has been a common thing in Australia in grocery stores and in other retail stores. They also had one garbage bin, and we noted that on the bin it said “All Waste to Maximize Recycling.” This will lead to a huge reduction of waste, which is really important because major events can create an amount of waste that is unnecessary.
This weekend, we are flying to Tasmania on Friday. In Tasmania, we are visiting museums, national parks, and participating in other activities like “Devils (Tasmanian) in the Dark” and a penguin tour. It will definitely be an exciting long weekend (we return to Melbourne on Tuesday).