by Maya Girimaji, section editor
The Roar interviewed junior Tobias Doerr-Garcia, who traveled, explored and took on the land down under.
How long were you in Australia?
I was in Australia for 3 weeks.
What is Australia like?
We were mostly in Sydney and Sydney felt a lot like Los Angeles because it was on the coast and there were a lot of beaches. There’s a lot of people who act like westerners, but there’s also a lot of Asian people in the surrounding islands.
What did you do in Australia?
We were like normal tourists. We stayed in my aunt’s apartment which is in the inner city [of Sydney]. We saw the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the Sydney Opera House. We went to aquariums and zoos. The zoo we went to was on a small island where the whole island was just the zoo. They have just about every animal there that you could imagine. They had kangaroos, koalas, every native snake to Australia (80 or 90 snakes), platypuses, little penguins, Tasmanian Devils and lots of African animals. We went to the big rock, Ayers Rock, that’s in the middle of Australia. It’s pretty weird because the Outback is really flat and off in the distance is a huge rock and there’s nothing else around it. We walked all the way around it which took about 6 hours. My sister and I got to ride camels near the rock. And in the resort we were staying at for four days, a lot of indigenous people worked there so it was nice to see them because they looked and acted very different from the city people. We also hiked/climbed up the Blue Mountains. The view was amazing at the top.
What are the locals like?
They’re not that different from Americans. A lot of them don’t have accents. Most of the natives have accents but a lot of the younger generations don’t. Also there are a lot of immigrants. At least in Sydney.
What is the food like?
It’s really diverse, in Sydney at least, because there are a lot of different ethnic groups. There’s a Chinatown, a Korea Town, a big Middle Eastern neighborhood and Italian neighborhood. So if you go into each of those neighborhoods or areas you can find really authentic cuisines. The food was really good in each of those but in the inner city the food was like hamburgers and McDonalds. I tried kangaroo. Kangaroo was pretty strange just because I never thought I would eat it. It’s like beef but tougher. I also had raw oysters. They’re good but they’re an acquired taste because it was slimy.
Did you have any scary moments?
Getting lost was scary. We got lost a lot because my sister and I stayed with my aunt and uncle but they had work so my sister and I went around the city alone. They have a pretty simple train system but we couldn’t figure out the bus system. One day we accidentally ended up two hours away from where we were supposed to be in a bunch of little neighborhoods way out. And we had to call to get help to get back. And Brexit happened while we were there. But it wasn’t scary for us because we’re Americans and we’re not apart of the European Union. But the Australians had a freak-out moment because their stock market was crashing and then it went back up and they realized that it wasn’t the end of the world. But everybody was terrified.
What are some interesting things about Australia that the average person might not know?
They go to school year round. Instead of having a summer and then nine months of school, they have two extra weeks for Spring Break and two extra weeks for Winter Break. And they have a couple weeks off during summer and a couple weeks off during fall so they have four total breaks that equal to about the same amount of time as summer break in the United States. It’s also illegal to own a gun in Australia. And the indigenous people view the Ayers Rock as a sacred rock and you’re not allowed to climb it because it’s disrespectful.
Do you ever want to go back to Australia?
Not really. Just because I don’t like going to the same place twice because there’s so many other places in the world. It was great but there’s more to see in the world.
