This week was one of the tougher weeks in terms of academic workload. I had to prepare for a midterm in my Operations Management class and a presentation in my Contemporary Politics class. I feel confident in how I did in both. I was pretty nervous about giving a presentation, but I think I did great. The presentation was on the history of an Asian dish, and my partner Tomy and I chose to talk about Pho. Pho is a dish that I have been eating back home in Harrisburg since I was a child, and it was really cool getting to learn about what influences brought this dish to be. I didn’t even know about the differences between Southern and Northern Pho until I did my research. I realized that the place I eat at in Harrisburg is Southern or Saigon-style Pho. Tomy and I found a Northern-style Pho restaurant near us called Viet Senses, and I was able to try this for the first time.
After a week of being hard at work in academics, I was able to wind down with our Bucknell group excursion to Hunter Valley. Hunter Valley is one of the major wine regions in Australia, with around 150 wineries. I don’t drink wine too often, so this was fun and very educational for me. I learned a lot about the differences in wines and what can give them their flavor and value. I also learned some of the etiquettes to wine tasting and that if you cover the top of the glass and swirl it it brings out the smell of the ingredients in the wine. I also got some great photos of our wine-tasting experience.
After the wine tasting, we went to our hotel about an hour from the wineries we visited. Here we were able to go out on our own to get dinner and I also went with a couple of friends for a walk on the beach. The beach was beautiful and because this city was smaller than Sydney, we were able to see a lot more stars. I went back the next morning before leaving and it was just as beautiful and there was so many people out enjoying the sun. The beach even had a cool skatepark, and I haven’t seen that yet at any of the beaches in Sydney. Sadly, I didn’t get a good picture of the skate park, but I got a few other great pictures.
