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Justin I am writing from the very hot desert of Alice Springs. I feel a bit out of the loop as this is my first entry to the travelogue when the majority of students are done and have already reported twice, but as they say, better late then never. I have had a wonderful adventure so far, starting off in Sydney, moving on to a more laid-back Adelaide and staying with a wonderful host family and now on to the middle of Australia, Alice Springs. This is our second full day here, and as expected it is very, very hot and dry. Today was upwards of 104 degrees, which took a lot out of all of us. Like the other two days we have been here, I was pestered by flies in my face all day long, which has become very annoying. As Don (host family) told Kyle and me in Adelaide, the unofficial "Australian salute" is swiping flies out of your face. If that is the case, I have surely mastered the salute since I have been here. Today was a very laid-back day, as we were given the assignment of spending some time in groups of two or three downtown to talk to the managers of a few Aboriginal art galleries about their businesses. It was very nice finally to get a day to sleep in a bit as Brandan, Garrett and I rolled out of bed at about 10 a.m. We then headed downtown in the hot afternoon sun and went to four art galleries. We visited Papunya Tula Artists, Gallery Gondwana, Centralian Indigenous Art and Aboriginal Desert Art Gallery, which were all very interesting galleries to visit. For those of you that don't know, Alice Springs has a high demand for Aborignal art because of the large number of Aboriginal people living there. These art galleries ranged from large venues to small, but they all consisted of art from a combination of many artists, 100 or more in some cases. They also all have other outlets in other areas in Australia and also export their art to other countries. We learned a lot and look forward to presenting what we learned and hearing about other students' experiences tomorrow. As I mentioned earlier, the hot sun has taken a lot out of all of us as we have been on the go since we arrived in Australia, so we spent the rest of the day either in the pool, or in our rooms taking naps. It was a relaxing day and a quiet night as we played games in our room before hitting the sack. We plan to be rejuvenated for Cairns as we head out tomorrow.
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