Three Weeks Later...

(Pictures aren't working now, but hopefully I'll get them eventually)

Well, three weeks later I am finally getting around to my final post, like I promised. I apologize for the lateness, although I also don't think my blog is that in demand, but hopefully you can still enjoy it!

My last week in Australia was great, but the weekend that followed was really even more magnificent. I can't say that it was the best weekend, because honestly Sydney is a hard act to follow, but I really made the most of my last week and weekend in Australia.

I realized, althought the tempurature didn't help, that Christmas was getting closer and closer, and really it was the buzz on everyone's mind...especially the kids, and as you can guess because of this it was really quite difficult for them all to focus, but then again what else is new :) That Wednesday night I went to their Carols concert which is all the kids performing various Christmas songs and poems, and really just enjoyed the evening. And because of it we had late arrival (at 10!) the next day...except for the teachers.

The next morning was to be the thank you tea for which meant the teachers had to be there early (at 8!) to make sandwhiches and snacks for all the parents that were to come to be thanked for all the work they had put in that school year...then we were off to the pool with the 5/6's to go swimming (which for me meant get sunburned and sprayed with a hose by the kids...ha!) Friday was in the Kris Kringle party for the kids, and I got a book, "Twas the night before Christmas Aussie style!" It was so great I had to buy more to share with friends and family back home...which I did. That night my family took me out for Indian food, which I had never had. (It was good, but definitly not one of the favs)

Saturday was so busy! We started in the city at the Vic Market...wow...lots of shopping! And inexpensive...I wish I still had money left at the end of my trip because I would have really bought the whole place :) They even had White Sox stuff! Too cool! Amanda and I spent the rest of the day around the city, getting some last minute souveniors and opals and then made our way to the casino for the Christmas show...the pictures not that great

After that we grab some Mackers (aka micky d's) and split so I could head to the Cathedral in the city that I've been waiting for nearly the whole trip, and she headed to the Green Day concert a little early. I got to go to mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne...it's an absolute gorgeous Cathedral.

After that I met up with Amanda, and Cara and her friend at the Green Day concert performing with Jimmy Eat World and My Chemical Romance. It was pretty good (especially sitting fourth row with free tickets :) )...I enjoyed the music and all...but lets just say I'm not as America hating and liberal as Green Day is... I don't know if they just play it up for the international audience, but yikes!

Sunday I headed with my family to Puffing Billy, a steam train that goes through some "mountains" in Victoria. After that I finally got to experience an Aussie BBQ (or Barbi) and then got to take my two host families out for some exquisite Greek dining that evening. A good time was had by all! That night I packed and got psyched for the long trip home...20 hours on a plane is just way too long...ugh But alas...I survived!

Monday morning I went to the school one last time to say my goodbyes and thank yous (and made my host families cry...awww). Then it was to the airport. And well...the rest is history...

On my way!

I'm coming home!

(no worries, I will get updates and picture from my last week here soon!...can't wait to see everyone!) and of course celbrate the White Sox :)

Sydney Pictures...finally!

Well...sorry it has taken so long to get more pictures up...problems with downloading at the school...but here they are! I had to start with this one first. This was the first sight we were greeted with as we exited the plane in Sydney...those who know me know the irony here :) I guess you just can't get away from Krispy Kreme no matter how far you travel!
Here is the view from our ferry boat of the Sydney harbour bridge and opera houseMore opera house, from land

This is a view of part of Sydney atop the Sydney Observation Deck
This is the Queen Victoria Building which was turned into a 4 floor shopping center...mostly boutiques and unaffordable

Here comes Santa Claus...into the Hard Rock Cafe!

A smiling Sting Ray that greeted us into the tunnels at the Sydney Aquarium.
A view of the Chinese Gardens
Merry Christmas in Sydney!
And, I thought I'd end with this one...In case you can't read it, it is three moneys, shivering in the cold, and it says "think of your family back home" :) Don't worry I am thinking about all of you!

Be home in a few days!

Sydney...pictures yet to come

I think I may have fallen in love with another city, besides Chicago :) Although we only had a weekend in Sydney, we managed to fill our time and see so much and I loved every minute of it. I have to admit the hotel wasn't as great as it looked on the internet, but it worked, and really we were only there to sleep.

Saturday morning we took an early start and headed into the city to catch a sightseeing bus, and then hopped off in a few stops to catch a ferry around the harbour. Eventually we got off at the Sydeny Opera House...Amazing. We toured that and learned so much about its history, and the politics and money involved in its building. Just as an example, it was supposed to take 4 years to build and took 14, and was supposed to cost 4 million dollars and cost 102 million....ooops. :) But I think it was well worth the time and money. We then caught a bus to Centre point, the Sydney observation tower, to go on a virtual tour of Australia and then check the view of Sydney from the second highest point in the Southern hemisphere. We then walked around a while, somehow finding ourselves running into the Prime Minister of Turkey...random...but I got a picture. We then bused around the city to sightsee a little more, and then found ourselves for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe Sydney. After dinner we walked around some shops and caught the monorail to the aquarium...fishies! The aquarium here is really top notch. You get to walk on glass floors with fish below you and even walk under tunnels with fish above you. By that time is was nearly 10pm, so we caught a cab and headed back to the hotel...exhausted.

Sunday we slept in an extra half hour...weee! We then decided to start at the Opera House to catch a few more photos, and then slowly make our way back along the harbour. We headed into a market called The Rocks, ate lunch at Hungry Jack's (aka Burger King), shopped at the Queen Victoria Building (but more window shopped..because yikes it was expensive), visited the Chinese gardens which was very peaceful, walked around Darling Harbour a bit, enjoyed a street performer, and eventually made our way back to the hotel to grab our luggage and catch our flight back to Melbourne.

Now its Monday, and I am back at school for my last week in Australia. I am pretty much home free at this point because the kids have activity week all week, so not really much teaching to do, but I got my three full weeks in already anyway. Tuesday we are going roller skating, Wednesday swimming, Thursday movie theater, and Friday Christmas partying!

Pictures should be up tomorrow...

Crazy Week

Well, in the classroom, this week has been absolutely crazy. As the end of the school year nears, and the grade 6's prepare for graduation, there seems to be more times than not that they are pulled out of the classroom practicing something or getting something ready for graduation. Most of the time I am just with the grade 5's, who seem to realize, just as well, that Summer is right around the corner. This week portfolios had to be finished for each student, which meant that many planned lessons needed to be set aside in order to complete them. Today, finally I was able to do some maths activities, only for about 15 minutes with the grade sixes, but then a little longer with the fives.

The grade sixes were out all day Tuesday with Orientation at their high schools (high school here starts at grade 7). That day I thought I would have the grade fives all day and had lessons ready to go, but then the other grade five teachers decided they should have a fun day since the grade sixes aren't there, so really I only had grade fives in the morning and then they watched a movie and played games all afternoon. Lucky kids.

Monday night my family took me to China town. It was pretty cool, and the food was delicious. After dinner we walked to Myer, which is a department store like Marshall Field's and we looked at the Christmas Windows. They were pretty cool and I will soon have pictures up for them.

Really everyday this week I just had to be ready for anything. I might need to teach, I might not depending on what the other teachers wanted to do, but it all worked out alright. This weekend, or really this evening, I am off to Sydney. We only have two days there so we are going to squeeze in as much as we can. But then, after that, only one week to go! Look for pictures from Chinatown and Sydeny next week!

The Great Ocean Road

I cannot believe that it is the second week of Advent already! I got to go to church Sunday morning with Peter, the dad here.

After mass we went to the Eltham Market. It was pretty small this morning so it was fast and i didn't buy anything. That afternoon they have a Christening and an engagement party to go to, but I decided to stay here and catch up on lesson plans, so hopefully I won't have any work to do the rest of the weeks here :)

Friday night we left for the Great Ocean road, but really only drove two hours and stayed at Peter's sisters house. Wow...nice house. The next day we left about 9:30 and headed to the Great Ocean Road. I learned that the Great Ocean Road was built during the Great Depression when people were looking for work. It gave many people jobs. Now it makes many people carsick :) but also allows them to view the amazing ocean coast of Victoria, Australia. We stopped at a lighthouse along the way at Otway Bay. We also stopped in another port city just to have a walk around since we would be in the car most of the day. Next stop was the twelve apostles. I got some nice pictures. I also have a picture of the one that fell over. We drove a little further and stopped at "the blowhole". We didn't go see the London Bridge (another ocean rock formation) because it collapsed in 1990 so it wouldnt be much to see. Then we drove the rest of the day until arriving back home at 8pm (a long day in the car!) We stopped for some fish and chips (its really the thing to eat here) but instead I got souvlaki and chips.

Here is a picture from the car of us driving the Great Ocean Road.

Here is the Light House we visited. It was very windy at the top.

These next few are just some select pictures of the Twelve Apostles

These two are the blow hole, one from either side.


Last week was sort of my second week of teaching full time. Really all has been going well. The kids seem to respond to me and still like the activities I have chosen. Really I think this is the perfect position to be in for a student teacher. I get to try all sorts of activities that I may not have had a chance to do in America just because of the stucture of the classes here. This week in literacy we had discussion about tv ads and their affect on children of varying age. I was surprised by some of the points the students had brought up and that debate that came out of it. I also had them read and do a crossword about volcaoes so that this week we can make some in a science experiment. Lucky them! Another group created advertisements to sell a book that they had read so that we can have a contest to see which book would be mostly to be bought based on the ads. In maths they continued with their store projects and still look forward to having time to work on them.

Because it is the end of the year, I also have to continue and finish many projects that were started with the other teacher and need to be put in their portfolios. Now they are working on a project about the Gold Rush in Australia. I only have the kids in class for another week or so, and then they start what is called Activity Week, whereas all the 5/6 graders go on a field trip every day until the end of the school year...how fun!

With the family this week we went to see Harry Potter on opening day (which here was Dec 1). Wednesday night I went into the city with Cara (the girl here) to see the Night Market and have some dinner. They are really keeping me busy here! This week I think we are taking a night and going to China town...yum!

Summer has officially started here...hard to believe. The weather is really all over the place...hot, hotter, sometimes rain, sometimes a little chilly, sometimes all of this in one day. But their seasons go with the months, so Summer started December 1st.

Well I think that is pretty much last week in a nut shell...next weekend its off to Sydney!

Cairns, Kuranda and the Great Barrier Reef!

Before I tell tales of the fantastic weekend, I thought I'd share a picture from the World Gymnastics Championships. This is Monette Russo on beam, the Australian who placed third in the all-around.

Friday night we flew out to Cairns. The flight was quite rough, but we eventually arrived after midnight and checked into the hotel. The next morning we wokr early to ensure a spot on a snorkeling boat. We found one that had snorkeling and also a semi-submerged boat so we could enjoy the reef from inside the reef as well. Here is me on the cruise boat we took out.

These are the fish we were able to see from inside the boat...and I also got to swim with them.

This shot is from me being in the water with the fish.

All in all the experience was a dream come true. I loved swimming with all the fishies, minus the jelly fish stinging. But it was also cool to swim amongst sharks and turtles. Unfortunatly the stabilizer on the boat was broken so I got a little seasick...but it was well worth it! That night we stayed around town and walked for some Chinese food...yum!

The next morning, again an early one, we caught a scenic railtrain up the mountains to a little aboriginal village called Kuranda. The ride was spectacular, passing through tunnels, over bridges and past waterfalls.

When we arrived at the village we headed staright to the koalas, and since we were in a new state, Queensland, we could hold koalas! I got myself some pictures of me holding a koala...how cute! At this animal park we also were able to feed and pet wallabies, and for the first time saw some crocodiles.

We shopped around the village for a while, but had to head back pretty quickly, and this time caught the skyrail back. This was the view from the skyrail, near the bottom.

That night we went to Tjapukai, an aboriginal culture park, for a sort if dinner theatre. We enjoyed dinner and performances by the aboriginals. Here is a picture of the aboriginals making fire.

Here is a picture of a piece of aboriginal artwork...its sideways, I apologize. (I also bought some) :)

Last but not least, in my dorkiness, I had to take a picture of the floor at the dinner because it just goes to show that math is really everywhere :) Look...tesselations! Too cool!

The flight home went smoothly, and now I am in for another week of teaching, all week, full time