Over spring break in late March, I trekked across the East Coast of the United States. It was my first visit across that side of the country, and I covered a substantial amount of ground. This will be a series of posts on my travels and the things I saw along the way. Stop one on my trip was the Midwest heartland and the city of Detroit, Michigan, which I spent a day visiting my old friends Patrick and Elizabeth ...

Sitting in the middle of San Francisco Bay, just a couple of kilometres from the shore, is one of the most notorious islands in US history: Alcatraz. The very name invokes dread imagery, a reputation forged on the backs of notorious criminals, impregnable walls, and Hollywood drama. Yet behind the hype, "The Rock" has a storied history beyond its time as a prison. I visited in early February, taking a night tour of the island.

Alcatraz Cruises is the company ...

Just three hours northwest of the Bay Area, in the Sierra Nevada, lies Lake Tahoe. Nestled on the border between California and Nevada, Tahoe is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. It is highly renowned in California for its skiing in winter and pleasant vacationing in summer. It is the ski destination of choice for many in the Bay Area.

Soon after my return to Berkeley from the ...

This is part V of a series on my trip home to Australia for the US winter break (see part I, part II, part III, and part IV).

December 7th, 1941. A day that will live in infamy. Up until that date, the US had been content to sit on the sidelines of World War II, and clandestinely supply the Allied Forces. Peace negotiations with Japan had stalled; Japan refused to give up the territories it had amassed or the ...

This is part IV of a series on my trip home to Australia for the US winter break (see part I, part II, and part III).

Hawaii is one of the two non-contiguous US states (the other being Alaska), and consists of a series of islands floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. O'ahu is the major island, though it not the largest; that honour belongs to the aptly titled Big Island. O'ahu houses the state capital ...

This is part III of a series on my trip home to Australia for the US winter break (see part I and part II).

Los Angeles is a monstrously large place. The metro area is home to nearly 13 million people, and the city itself is second only to New York in population. Not only this, but LA has bulged out over a truly enormous area; until arriving there, I had not fully appreciated why it might be so difficult ...

This is part II of a series on my trip home to Australia for the US winter break (see part I here).

Santa Barbara is a city of close to 90,000 people just a couple of hours north of Los Angeles. The area is known as the "American Riviera", partially thanks to its pleasant climate. The city draws heavy influence from Spain, with its original inhabitants being Spanish missionaries and soldiers, and even today much of the architecture is ...

My trip back to Australia for the semester break was a long one. Prior to Christmas, I packed into a car with four other international students at Berkeley, and we drove down California Highway 1 from San Francisco to Los Angeles. From LA I flew to Hawaii and visited Honolulu for a couple days, and finally jetted back into Sydney two days before Christmas Day. This is the first installment of a series of blog posts about this great trip ...

One of the greatest things about living in Sydney is that Christmas and New Year fall in summer. This makes all manner of outdoor activities possible over the festive season, and one particular tradition is waiting out to catch the New Year's fireworks in Sydney Harbour. Using the famous Harbour Bridge as one of several launching bases, the fireworks are a spectacular way to bring in the new year. There's a 9pm show prior to the midnight fiesta ...

Like many other kids, my favourite page of the newspaper growing up was the comics page. Though it was later supplanted by the crossword page (though that's another story), my introduction to traditional media come in the form of those inked scribbles, filled with pithy wisdom, fantastic events, and witty observations.

One of my most beloved comics was Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. I still vividly remember cleaning my local library out of Peanuts cartoon books on a regular ...