It was great for the overall team bonding. Working together was one of the biggest benefits of the trip. Another big plus about the trip was that everybody got a chance to play. Nothing is a better substitute than playing. We competed against schools and club teams from around the east coast of Australia.
Field hockey is a very big sport down there.
It was a great learning experience. And the learning will continue for Maureen O'Brien. She spent her first summer away from home, living in Cambridge and working on an independent study in a lab at Harvard Medical School, in addition to the Australia trip. Originally, I was working on a preliminary thesis, but I have since decided that it is not going to work out. Scientific research can be really frustrating.