My time abroad in Newcastle, Australia I experienced a cultural experience of a welcome or bark burning ceremony which first welcomed us into the area where we had our orientation in being Cairns, and I thought it was exciting and informative about the culture and generations of storytelling that has carried this knowledge to me. This ceremony was done by burying a piece of Indigenous bark and then letting the smoke drift past you, welcoming you to the area. This experience showed how the culture of Aboriginal People is shared and how influential this culture is in relating to the invasion history of Australia. This deepened my understanding through the introduction to different beliefs, and also, being one of the first things we did, this was an essential part of the experience. My second experience was taking one of the Aboriginal History classes. This was my most valuable experience in Australian culture because it was eye-opening and informative on history I had never known existed and highlighted the injustices that occurred during colonization. I observed a lot because I was trying to soak up a lot of information and detail that my Aboriginal professor spoke about through experience. My professor, born and raised in Newcastle, saw this as his way of teaching younger generations about the history and the events that occurred. This deepened my understanding of the world as a whole because of the connections and similarities this class had to the events in the US.
