Honestly, when I signed up for an Australia study abroad, I did not know what to expect. When I thought of Australia, the first thing that always came to mind was the Sydney Opera House; however, even a virtual trip opened my eyes to such much more to what Australia has to offer. My highlights of the virtual trip were getting to Zoom a family, the Taskers, as part of research for Australia culture; the cooking class, where we learned how to barbeque prawns; and the city tours around Cairns and Sydney. Something that stuck out to me was the preconceived notion that a lot of people read about Australians having a more laid back or lazy attitude, but I think the Taskers articulated it just right. Living near the beach, people will tend to be more relaxed; however, even on the city tours we were able to see people up bright and early going to work, and everyone we met with during the trip was putting in a lot of hard work to host their first virtual cooking class, tour, etc.
Despite COVIDs’ effect across the world and while tourism may have been greatly affected, the government in Australia has done wonders to make sure their economy continues to grow. Even our yoga instructor talked about how in this age of technology, so many people are willing to video conference to enjoy yoga taught by anyone around the world. Even though we weren?t able to take the trip in person the way we had all wanted to, I am grateful for the experience and the takeaways it gave me to prepare myself for when I do take my own trip to Australia in the future. I learned not only how to use the barbeques on the beaches to make shrimp, but also how to clean them. I learned the cost of living and prices in general are much more than here in the United States. I learned about the aboriginals of Australia and gained a lot of knowledge about the culture of Australia that I do not think I would have received on my own.
