Travis Hellstrom

Over Spring Break this year I was fortunate enough to get a free trip to New York City. Michael, my roommate from last year and good friend, won a free trip with our school through a raffle in a charity basketball tournament we were playing in. He was already planning to go to Florida with his family over Spring Break and asked if I was interested in going. I definitely was and am very glad now that I have gone.

I was able to see the Empire State Building and Times Square in the first night. The next day I saw the World Trade Center Ground Zero, Central Park, China Town, Wall Street and then the Broadway play that night, “Mamma Mia.” We woke up early the next morning to get a spot on Good Morning America and then spend the rest of the day on the Statue of Liberty island and Ellis Island. Then I went to see the United Nations Headquarters on my own, taking the tour and getting plenty of gifts from the gift shop. I really am lucky to have gone and really enjoyed getting to see so many historic sites, not to mention buildings like the United Nations which I have dreamt of seeing for a long time. Thank you Campbell Student Life for organizing a great trip, and thank you especially to Michael Sellers who gave his very own trip to me.

In the summer before my junior year in high school, I had the opportunity to travel to Australia for three weeks as a People to People Student Ambassador. I trekked through Sydney, jogged and played basketball through 2000 Olympic Stadium, road camels, flew in a hot air balloon and slept overnight in the famous Outback, snorkled in the Great Barrier Reef, stayed with a host family near Surfer´s Paradise and watched a sunrise at Ayer´s Rock, not to mention all kinds of the little places all in between. One of my fondest memories, Uluru, received a journal entry here that I would like to share.

“One the most moving sights I have enjoyed was made on my visit to Ayer’s Rock. Uluru, as it was named by the Australian indigenous Aboriginese people, is the world famous rock which stands in Australia’s Outback desert. It is featured in every Australian film from Crocodile Dundee to Rescuer’s Down Under. From far away it looks very small, smooth and round but as you walk around its base it is anything but small, standing hundreds of feet high, anything but smooth with ridges dozens of feet high running along its top and sides and more an oval than a circle. Thousands of years of wind have worn the rock with desert-sand like ridges that are even more beautiful than a smooth rock would be. Like a Mt. Everest on an island nation like Australia, it makes perfect sense that Uluru won the reputation and respect of its native people for thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years. In ancient tales of the Aboriginese people, the great mountain of rock symbolized the beginning of all life. It was the center of many spiritual stories and a foundation to the cultures of almost every native tribe. As I watched the sun rise on the rock, changing the colors from purple to red to orange to yellow and later as I walked around the entire monolith, I began to understand some of what that must have been like. The Aboriginese people own the rights to the land, allowing them income, autonomy and desired respect in a country that has made leaps forward out of past prejudice toward native people. Today the native worshippers of Uluru still may have their ceremonies atop it, completing their story of life while allowing it to become part of mine. For that I am very grateful still today.”

Five years later, I still agree wholeheartedly. I am very lucky to have visited the wonderful country of Australia. Until we meet again, “G´day Aussies!”