Marina's Magellan Projects

The unpredictability of wifi during this trip made it very hard for me to post every day, in order for the dates on my posts to actually be correct. I am very sorry about that, I hope they still make sense and appear in some kind of order!

Today has absolutely nothing to do with my Magellan, and I am fine with that because I leave Australia tomorrow! I went scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns and it was incredibly exciting. I honestly don't even have words for how special the experience was, everything looks so different 20 feet underwater, it is so much more colorful!

Today, I had the chance to meet with two aboriginal/indigenous Australians who work on the Aboriginal Health Council. Whereas the national smoking rate for all Australians is around 12%, that rate is very different for smaller groups, including the aboriginal Australians. Their rate is 35% , and 49% for pregnant aboriginal women. That means half of pregnant aboriginal women smoke. What I learned in this interview is that the main reason for the high rates is mostly due to the culture of indigenous peoples. Tobacco was used as a form of payment in the 1900's, so that has resonated with the elders, and they don't see their lives without it. They also have their own forms of tobacco, which are purely herbal, meaning there are no added chemicals that we see in mass-produced cigarette brands. These herbal tobacco cigarettes were used to heal the body, so they believe that this outweighs any long term detrimental affects. As for the rate for pregnant women; they smoke because it le...

On Friday night/Saturday I basically had a day of travel once again. My flight out of Perth was delayed 2 hours, so at 2am I flew from Perth back to Sydney, and then had a 7 hour layover before my flight to Cairns. So it was a long day to say the least. But, when I made it to my hostel Saturday night, the room I was given made all the travel worth it. This hostel was a great way to end the trip, as my room was gigantic, clean, and was the only room that had French doors which opened onto a porch. I spent Sunday doing very touristy things like cuddling with a Koala, because it is only legal in the state of Queensland, which is where Cairns is located. I walked along the coast line, and saw the Cairns Lagoon. You would think because this is the city where the boat trips to the Great Barrier Reef depart from that it would be a beautiful resort town with white sandy beaches and beautiful scenery. It is the opposite, actually. There is not one real beach in Cairns City, because that is wher...

Today is my last day in Perth! This week at the Heart Foundation flew by. It was so packed with meetings and information, it almost felt like I had a job here! Today, Noni, the woman who I met with on Monday, is taking me to Curtin University, which is one of the biggest Universities in Western Australia and is completely smoke-free. This campus turned out to be W&J's polar opposite. Obviously it is about 10x the size, so that was very different to experience, and most students don't even live on campus. This is actually what most Australian Universities look like, actually, most students commute from an apartment or home, and most campuses are smoke free. I had the chance to speak with a faculty member who told me that the campus went completely smoke-free around 5 years ago, and it wasn't a huge chance for them. It was pretty much unacceptable to be non-smoke-free, so when they officially made the change, it was just accepted across the student population as common pr...

Wednesday was spent mostly reading through all of the packets of resources that they have given me here, nothing too newsworthy to write an entire post about. It has been really nice having a desk and large computer to work with to spread out all of the papers in front of me as well as having word documents open in front of me for my notes and ideas. As for today, Thursday, I had two really great meetings. The first was with a woman named Fiona Phillips from Cancer Council of Western Australia's " Make Smoking History " campaign. They are a non-governmental organization (NGO) who employ a range of strategies to combat tobacco use. They focus on four main areas; mass media advertisements (3-4 per year to target adults 18+), policy advocating, education & research, and community service programs (cessation support). The original campaign was called "Quit WA" and was run by the Western Australian Government until 2000, when it was handed over to the Cancer Cou...

Today I spoke with a Project Officer from the Australian Council on Smoking & Health (ACOSH) named Dora Oliva. ACOSH works closely with the Heart Foundation, as Maurice Swanson, the CEO of the Heart Foundation, is also the President of ACOSH. Dora spent about an hour and a half with me explaining what ACOSH does, as well as showing me a good bit of resources that they have developed and advertised. Their goal is to "Significantly reduce the impact of the health consequences of smoking." They just developed 7 actions for the government to follow to ensure that tobacco control remains a priority for the WA state government in order to achieve a Tobacco free Western Australia by 2025. As my Magellan is based on tobacco control, a main focus of mine is second-hand smoke and smoke-free environments and campuses, Dora gave me multiple resources on how University smoke-free policies are developed. They make it very easy for the average person to understand, which i...

Well, after my 4 hour plane trip turned into a 6 hour plane trip from Sydney to Perth last night, I have made it to the other side of the country. I will be spending this week at the Heart Foundation of Australia at the Perth branch, and today was my first day. Originally, I made an enquiry to the Australian Ministry for Health about who I could talk to about tobacco control in Australia. They put me in contact with Dr. Freeman as well as Mr. Maurice Swanson who is the Chief Executive here at the Heart Foundation. He has bent over backwards to make sure my stay in Perth is the most beneficial it possibly can be. My only request from him was an hour of his time for an interview, but instead, he set me up with an entire desk and computer to work from for the whole week, as well as having each one of his staff members who deal with tobacco control talk to me about what they do for multiple hours each day. He even greeted me at the front desk with a Flat White and escorted me to my desk! T...

On my last day in Sydney, before I head to Perth & Cairns, there is a marathon which starts in Sydney CBD and ends at Bondi beach, which closed a lot of main roads. What I thought was funny is that at the same time, there is a Chocolate festival occurring in Circular Quay and the Rocks, which are located very close to the CBD of Sydney and all of the marathon runners. I, clearly, did not participate in the marathon, but I did take part in the Chocolate festival as a willing participant. There must have been well over 100 booths, all with a different dessert or food option. I have never seen anything like it. It was an amazing way to end my stay in Sydney, sitting across the Quay from the Opera House drinking a "Freakshake" and eating chocolate dipped mangoes. One thing I have noticed about Sydney & its suburbs, is that if there is any kind of a large public event going on, nobody smokes anywhere near it, even if it is outside. This is just really great to see mainly b...

The other beach area in the Sydney area is called Manly Beach, and it can be easily accessed by a 30 min ferry ride across the Harbour. I decided to go here to see the similarities between Bondi Beach and Manly, as Bondi is a smoke-free suburb. I was really pleased to not see one smoker all day here in Manly, which could really just be lucky for me, but I am choosing to believe it is because of the environment of the town. "The Corso" which was the main street from Manly Wharf down to the beach, was packed with all of the popular surf shops, souvenir shops, and cafes. Not one tobacconist or convenience store in sight. It is definitely a healthier area, the beaches and ocean are perfect for swimming and surfing, there are many hikes in the area, and I also saw a lot of people riding their biked along the beach as well. So usually, if it is a healthier area, there is less smoking occurring because those two just don't exist together. Unfortunately, I did find a few empty pa...

Today, August 8th, I had my meeting with one of New South Wales' leading tobacco control researchers. Her name is Dr. Becky Freeman, and I am extremely grateful that I had the chance to speak with her about her research, as it is very prevalent in this day and age. Her PhD focused on how Facebook and YouTube affect tobacco control, as it was stated when social media was just starting to take off. She is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney at the School of Public Health, which is where I met her. The building she is located in was called the "Charles Perkins Centre for Eating and Dieting Disorders," which is fairly new, and the research labs located here were state of the art. There is a picture of the building under the "Photos" tab. I am also going to attach the Interview Q&A under the "Interviews" page, because the responses she had for my questions are far too long and important to be summed up in a blog post. What she really...

My laptop hasn't been able to connect to wifi since Wednesday, which is why I posted 5 days of blogs all together at once. I have it all figured out now, and posts should be daily from here!

Saturday and Sunday I spent venturing outside of Central Sydney to Glebe, Mosman, and Olympic Park, which was recognized as a suburb of Sydney after the Games were over in 2000. It was nice to get out of the highly concentrated tourist areas, because you really don't get the chance to speak to many Australians. Glebe, to me, was a typical "hippie-type" town. They had an outdoor market, and they call the main road "eat street" because it is packed with really trendy and cool small bars, cafes and restaurants. It is right in the middle of two universities, meaning the area caters to a much younger crowd. Maybe this is why I saw less smoking, or maybe I just came on a good day, but I am hoping it is because University-aged students are smarter about what they put into their bodies. Sydney Olympic Park, honestly, has nothing to do with my Magellan, but I could not pass up the opportunity to see it. The Sydney 2000 Games, 17 years ago, were called by many people ...

Bondi Beach is honestly one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to. Like many other beach towns, a lot of the shops and restaurants/cafes are pretty healthy places with the occasional fish & chips, and gelato stands. Along with that, the people are generally more healthy; people are constantly running and working out on the beach, surfing, swimming at the Bondi Icebergs club (pool photo attached on "Photos" page), etc. When I walked along the cliffs of the coastal walk, there was a small access point down to the lower rock formations, which you could climb down to and look over the entire area. It was such a beautiful day that the climb down these rocks was pretty easy, and the view was absolutely amazing, not a cloud in sight. On one rock formation, there was a woman with her dog, who was walking around, once again, picking up any and all cigarette butts she saw laying in the crevasses of the rocks. I stopped to ask her why she does that, and asked her if she ...

So turns out where I'm staying in Potts Point, is part of the Kings Cross district which is actually a "Red Light District." Meaning that it is where a large concentration of Sydneys prostitution, strip clubs and adult theaters are located. Needless to say, it's not the best place to be at night, but at the same time, gives some me some hope. On my first day, I was worried about how many tobacco and cigarette shops I saw and thought all of Sydney might be like that. I think that the number of these shops really just correlates to the kind of "places of business" that are also found here. Once I went into the Central Business District of Sydney, there were way less of these types of shops. What I did see more of, however, were business men and women, smoking in groups outside of their offices, but not a lot of people alone smoking in this area. Which leads me to believe, in this district at least, that smoking is more of a social act rather than an addictive ...

I spent the day exploring Sydney; the Harbour Bridge, Circular Quay, Botanical Gardens, Opera House and the Business District in the heart of the city.  I went on a free tour of The Botanical Gardens which was amazing because the Gardens just celebrated 200 years of being open & growing! The gardens used to house the Garden Palace, but only for 3 years. It was built in 1879, but burnt down only three years later in 1882 for "unknown causes." They never rebuilt it because of the sheer cost, but the garden still has the Government House, which is where the Governor of NSW resides. The gardens have been a "Non-Smoking" venue since they opened because they are considered the "Lungs of the city," and they need to be protected. In comparison to the large parks that we have in the US similar to the Botanical Gardens here in Sydney, Central Park has only been smoke free for 5 years.  In the afternoon I went on a the "Welcome Walking Tour" which ...

After a whopping 30 hours of travel from Pittsburgh to Sydney, I have finally reached Australia. I left PIT at  3:30pm   Sunday the 30th , and landed in Sydney at  7:10am  on August 1st. I'll just start off by saying that the "Signs" in the Kingsford Smith Sydney Airport are terrible, which meant I spent 10 minutes wandering around trying to find customs, and then the train station. However, when I made it to customs (called "Baggage Service" ??), it was unlike anything I've ever experienced when traveling into another country. Rather than wait in the long lines, I was directed to the front of the line because I only had one piece of luggage (most others had 3-4 suitcases for some reason). I handed the Australian Border Control agent the Customs questionnaire that I had filled out on the plane prior to landing, and without even looking at it he dropped it into a bin and told me I was good to go. No eye contact was made, no questions were asked, no X-rays wer...