Museums Weekend, a Hot Monday at the Zoo, and Finished University

I'm writing my last blog about my time at Victoria University! The next few will just be about what I’m up to during my final days in Australia — for now.

In the last blog, we talked about an upcoming exam (which was already a week ago now). This exam was exactly what you’d expect from a Law exam. I don’t know if anyone has seen the series Suits — a favorite of mine! — but in the opening episode, we see Mike taking the LSAT/BAR exam for someone else and getting paid for it. Well, my exam had the same layout: a big auditorium, tiny chairs with folding tables, and a grumpy professor at the front picking his nose (I’m exaggerating a bit, but you get the picture).

It was three hours long, and it felt really good when I walked out and went straight to the gym for a run. I had a rough time during this unit — I learned a lot, but it was all so new and completely unfamiliar to me. Finally getting the hang of it after four weeks felt a bit strange. So, I didn’t expect amazing results this time. While I’ve gotten High Distinctions in my other units, this one was different — I just passed. I'm happy with that, though I would’ve loved a higher grade to round things out 😄. That was my Wednesday!

Thursday was more relaxed — planning for Friday and recovering from the exam. I think I did some indoor cycling, as I still can’t ride outside.

Now on to Friday — the first big day out in a while! I went to the National Gallery of Victoria. It’s an art museum with European, Japanese, Chinese, Egyptian, and Australian sections. A typical museum setup with a timeline, mostly paintings and sculptures. I enjoyed walking through it and taking it all in.

But after that, I went to ACMI — and that one stood out more. It had an exhibition about the rise of TV, music, and sound: how it’s made and how we use it today. There was a powerful video featuring different people and how social media has impacted their lives. After that, I headed home and did my first outdoor jog — finally running outside again! LET’S GO!

Saturday started easy. Later in the day, I went to the Melbourne Museum, which had a Star Wars LEGO exhibition I'd been wanting to see since I found out about it — and it did not disappoint. It started with a behind-the-scenes video about the exhibition’s creation. At the end of the video, the ceiling opened, and a giant Star Destroyer was floating above with two moving TIE Fighters.

Then came the robot Hall of Fame — of course, my favorites were R2-D2 and C-3PO. The biggest LEGO build was the Death Star, with one half opened up and fully detailed. It was awesome. And yes — I saw some Ewoks 😜.

After the Star Wars part, I checked out the regular exhibits, but they weren’t that special. After a while, I could feel my energy dropping, so I went home.

Sunday was a stay-at-home day. I did a longer indoor bike ride followed by a short run, then relaxed and made a plan for Monday.

I knew Monday was going to be one of the warmest days so far — usually it’s around 14°C, but this time it was going up to 19°C. A winter day with 19 degrees? Sign me up. I decided to do something fun and went to the Melbourne Zoo. I’d heard great things about it, and it lived up to the hype. I enjoyed walking around and seeing animals I hadn’t seen before.

Highlights: a snow leopard, two types of tigers, a koala, red panda, Tasmanian devil, and the biggest snake I’ve ever seen — it looked at least 5+ meters — and the smallest one, barely 12 cm. Later that afternoon, I headed back home and got some food.

Tuesday and today were both training days indoors — yesterday because of strong winds, and today because it hasn’t stopped raining. I did go out last night to join the local running group. I didn’t do the full program — just the warm-up and cool-down — but during the cooldown, Tom randomly started pushing the pace to around 4:20/km. Surprisingly, that went alright, even after I’d already done over 10km earlier. Starting to really get back into rhythm!

Today I went to the gym and did a hilly ride for over an hour.

I’ve really enjoyed my time at the university here, and I’ll definitely come back to Australia someday. If anyone is thinking about studying abroad, feel free to message me on Instagram @quirijnwaaijnberg — I’d love to share more about my experience.

See you all later —
Q out!