"But when do we get to hold a koala"

It seems that with every country where the opportunity to study abroad exists, there is a stereotypical study abroad picture that goes along with it. If you know someone who's studied abroad before there is a 100 percent chance that the evidence of their travels is preserved in their past Facebook defaults. You just may have to do some creepin' to get there, but you'll find it. Know someone who's currently studying abroad? Guarantee they've got one defaulted right now.

 See if they're in Italy it'll be the classic look-at-me-I'm-so-strong-the-fate-of-Italy-relies-on-me-to-hold-up-the-leaning-tower-of-Pisa-Pic. That or it's a picture in front of the Colosseum or them enjoying a plate of spaghetti and meatballs made by their home-stay mom.

If they're in London it'll be the  iconic phonebooth pic or capturing the time they harassed those guards with the weird hats.

In Ireland it'll be their first Guinness at a pub, and in Thailand they'll be riding an elephant.

And of course Australia is not immune to this stereotypical abroad picture epidemic. I'm guilty of about three of them already. So allow me to introduce them to you:

First there's the holding a koala one. No picture screams "I was in Australia" louder than this one. The posing next to a kangaroo one is a close second  but doesn't make the statement with quite the same intensity. Personally, I haven't been fortunate to secure one of these..yet. But it looks like this:

We all went to the Healesville Sanctuary, a wildlife preserve, a couple weeks go with this vision of us hopping around with kangaroos, running free with the dingos and climbing trees with koalas. Our cameras were charged and ready to secure that we'd capture the standstill moment where we held one of them and could prove to all our friends and family miles away back in the states that we in fact Australia, we were immersed in the culture, and we were hanging out with koalas. Such was not the case. After about fifteen minutes of running straight for the koalas and preparing ourselves for this iconic moment it was destroyed by a fence, a cage, and a couple of over-sized koalas who I'm not even sure I had the strength to hold and could just as easily have been dead. So scratch that off the list for now. Instead,in an attempt to rectify our disappointment this is about as close as we got to a koala that day.

Reenacting the koala mating position as so graciously explained by the sign. Perhaps a new classic?

So since not being able to secure a koala interaction pic, simultaneously means not securing a kangaroo one, we'll go with the next best thing...posing with a kangaroo sign!

                                     
                                     







Lest we forget the crowd-pleasing goon chugging picture:

 which comes in all sorts of variations, so get creative kids!

 But now, moving away from the animals and alcohol and into the realm of serious, deep, self-reflection inducing sterotypical aussie pics is the "gazing off into the horizon and expressing how insignificant and small you are in the world in comparison to the magnitude of the aesthetic life-changing scenery before you  by outstretching your arms into the distance" picture. You wasted your time in Australia if you didn't get one of these:

                                                

And your currently staring at my take on this one as you read my blog.
As for now I can admit, yes I am a shameless tourist and during the remainder of my stay in the land down under I will continue my relentless pursuit of capturing every iconic, and sometimes sterotypically touristy moment that comes along my way. And you will have to physically drag me back to America if I don't get one with a koala.