Homesickness can hit pretty hard..

Today was the first really hard day since I've came here. And I realized that in the moments that I'm really sad and upset and can't call my mommy, that it makes it that much worse. Who'd have thunk that at 23 years of age, I'd still depend on my mom to cheer me up when things go bad? Well.. yeah.. I guess I would.. and I always will. Sometimes the time difference is tough! And then watching this week's Glee, which was all about the concept of home, I just wanted to be in my own bed, even for just a little bit!!

So, to make a long story short, we had a sub in the class today that kind of made me feel like crap about myself as a teacher by budding in when I was working with groups, making everything I just did with the group invalid. It was too bad.... and kind of hurt. But we talked about it and cleared the air and we've moved on, which is reassuring.

On the brighter side of things, I've been hanging out with the girls volleyball team a lot during their practices and I've been working with a few girls during morning recess to improve their skills. It's a blast! I love that I can share my love for the sport (even if I may not be especially good at it myself). I'm hoping that the coach will give me more of a role and I can run drills and things. And I know that next week, I'm going to be running the drills.

Today at school we had a staff meeting all about fitness. Since the school teachers here teach all subjects (including art, music, and PE), we have to learn how to incorporate all of it. It was really interesting listening to the teacher's thoughts on things and the way they run their classrooms. My teacher is having two of the kids in our class plan fitness from now on, which is so great to see. They planned the first session today and set up four stations. One of them was called the ring road (it's the circle of pavement that goes around the buildings in the school) and it takes the average person maybe like, 1:45/2 minutes to run in. I ran it twice in a row at one of the stations. The way they set it up is that one of the kids that planned it gave us a 20 second head start and then tried to catch as many of us as possible. HOW CUTE! Definitely didn't catch me. In fact, I came in first one of the times! Finally getting my ass in gear!

Hahaha... funny thing.. the little 10 year olds say "hell" and "dammit" all the time and it's acceptable. Nice.

So the past week has been an incredible whirlwind of activity. Last Friday night was really fun for me... we went to the only bar in my town and actually ran into a bunch of the teachers at my school, which was so fun! Then I went to bed, as I was getting up super duper early to go running and talk to my PDS cohort via Skype. I got to talk to them, which was sooooo special and meant a lot to me, and then I went and ran 6 miles down where I'm going to actually be running it in June. That's what I've decided to run every Saturday (that I'm here) now, so that I can see exactly what they real course will be like. It'll be nice!

After running and coming home to take a nap, Laura, Chelsea, and I went to the Lower Hutt (a town that has a really bad rap, for reasons we can't really understand) to go shopping. We spent the whole day there in the mall and I finally got some more clothes (I left way too much behind...) Then we went into town and caught a movie with some friends of Laura and Chelsea's. I slept through some of it (cinemanarcolepcy, whatcha gunna do?)

The girls ended up coming back to my place and we had a sleepover in my room and then got up BEFORE the buttcrack of dawn to go to the ANZAC day memorial service. It's pretty much the equivalent of our Memorial Day, but theirs especially commemorates the day that the ANZACs landed at Gallipoli in 1915 (I learned a lot!)

Then I came back home and slept until 1:30.. NNIIICCEEE! The rest of the day was pretty chill.. I just hung around the house and got ready for school!

This week has been incredible. I've learned so much and when I look around the room at all of the programming that my teacher has going out, and find out that SHE designed it, I honestly feel like I'm working with someone who could make millions if she published her material. I've observed a few other teachers in the school as well, which has been incredibly interesting. Some of the teachers have befriended me and taken me under their wing to teach me what they're doing, which I love.

Tuesday we had a team meeting and I learned a lot about different models of literacy programs, what works for the kids, what skills they're working towards and everything.... and they were all so friendly! And they even let me throw some thoughts out there.

Tuesday I also got to teach for the first time. I taught morning meeting and then took a maths (yeah... math is plural here, haha) group. I LOVED it! The kids are so incredibly respectful. Some of them were kind of talking under me about some different things, but I've just learned to adjust to that and I honestly really don't mind it since I feel like in my experience, that's kind of been the least of my problems. My teacher told me afterwards that that kind of behavior (or behaviour, if you will) is not acceptable at their school. She then showed me their "bad behavior" book. "Mucking around on the carpet" was the most popular entry. It just made me giggle. I then proceeded to have a nightmare about saying to kids, "I wouldn't expect that type of behavior from you. You know better. Excuse me. You're being rude. Run the ring road." The kids all hated me by the end of my dream, haha. BUT, I tried some of the strategies out today and they really do respond to it. Especially the ring road run... mwahahaha.

Yesterday was Enrichment Day, so I went to Production Dance and Chorus. They were both super adorable. In the afternoon, the kids had winter sport, so I decided to go to rugby so I could learn how and play. However, when I got out there I discovered that it was almost ALL kids that are planning on teams... and it was all guys. So I decided to observe instead. After 10 minutes of the wind whipping in my ear (I think I went deaf for a few moments) I decided that table tennis (they don't call it ping pong) was more to my liking. The kids that thought they were the worst still kicked my butt. That was a shame!!! I did morning meeting with them before we went to our morning assembly (which was absolutely adorable because they sang their school song which was in Maori, the native language, and it was BEAUTIFUL... I think I might have cried a little bit) and we were playing a game where we had to toss small balls around. A lot of people were dropping them, so I walked myself right into one by saying, "Careful! Balls are slippery!" ALL the boys started giggling. Give me a break! haha. They're super cute, though!

This weekend I think we're considering a wine country tour, which should be fun and relaxing. We're trying to break up the traveling so we don't get too exhausted, but we've been here almost 3 weeks now, so it's about time we did another mini adventure. I've been slacking on my long runs here because 1. I can't run every day (which is what my training wants me to do) and 2. There are too many dang hills. It kills me... every time. It's like running up Observatory by College Library for 10 minutes straight.... or Congress St. hill in Ripon for 10 minutes. It's gross! Down by the harbour, it's nice and flat and I swear that after my 25 min. run the other day, I felt more exhausted (because of the hills) than I did in my 60 min. run last weekend!!

Alright... I'm going to try to be better at this :) No whole week updates anymore.. it takes too long! If you're reading this, I miss you :) And the wonderful Wisconsin spring...

Week One is already over!

I can't believe it's already Friday. This week has simply flown by. Tonight I'm staying in to rest my heel, which I injured on Tuesday while running and has been killing me ever since, but Laura and Chelsea are coming in to Khandallah in a little bit just for a beer and "chips" or something at the local pub before they go out.

I am SO excited about the classroom I am in. I'm having such a blast with the kids. My CT already pointed out to me that the second you become buddy buddy with your kids, that's the same moment you lose credibility. I'm glad she told me that up front because I find that that's my biggest struggle. I think part of it is because, especially here, I don't know a lot of people, so I hand around the kids, haha.

I DID in fact go to the teacher's lounge for lunch on Wednesday and had a good time and met some nice people. Yesterday I went to a "team meeting" before school and learned more in those 50 minutes about accountability and how we can keep each other on track with our learning goals and all that than I have in a long time. Well, I guess I've learned about it but never seen it in action as well as it is here. So that's awesome!

This morning before school, I was searching for a gym that I could work out in on the days that it's gross out. I filled out one of those "inquiry" things on their website, giving them my home phone, telling them to call me between 5 and 9, and stating in the comments section where I work, that I'm a student, and that I only will be staying for a few months. Before I knew it, I had a message from the office that this stupid place had called me at work. Who does that?! When I got home, Maggie told me that they had actually called me at home right away as well, and she told them to email me or call back after 4. Still no email... no other call. What crazy people!

I love laughing at all of the differences between here and there. The kids laughed at me forever the other day when I called "morning tea" RECESS. Let's take a vote... "morning tea" to them is going outside, having a little snack (which never consists of tea). Yeah... RECESS, people! I followed some of my kids to one of their enrichments called "Fun, funky fitness" or something of the sort. The leaders of it do A LOT of the sports activities at the school. One of the teachers (cough cute cough) was doing an example of the flamingo balance stance or whatever you call it, and he was telling the kids to focus on something and then said "Like I'm going to focus on Ms. Cram". Then I said, "Yeah, kids, you can ALL focus on me if you want."....... You could have heard grasshoppers chirping. "Sorry, kids, that was a little bit of American humor. Tough crowd." Yeah, the teachers were the only ones that laughed. haha.

I'm finding it incredibly difficult to get around here. The train is the obvious mode of transportation, but I have been attempting (with no avail) to find a flippin' nice water bottle. WHERE IS ONE??? My kids told me about a place I could go to find one, but I couldn't find the shop they told me about.

I LOVE how the kids dress here. Most of them just wear workout clothes to school. Canterbury of New Zealand is a really popular brand.

Ha, just remembered some other words that make me laugh. "Rubber" means eraser. "Footstop" means period. They always say "I reckon" instead of "I think". It's so adorable. Love it!

Well, I'm waking up at 5:40 so I can be there to say hi to my PDS cohort (HOLLA!!!!) I can't believe they're almost done with the semester! It seems unreal. My sister is about to graduate, too! AHH! Alright, anyway, goodnight!!!

Opposite ends of the world... in more than one way.

So I walked to school my first day, thinking it would take about 10 minutes. 25 minutes later, in my heels, I finally arrived, sweating something fierce, and the deputy principal came and found me. He gave me a little tour of the school and all that and then said, "So.. you play trombone in the band, huh?" and I responded "Yup!" thinking that I must have said something about it when I introduced myself to the school. He then said, "Yeah... I definitely googled you. And I found your picture on the band website." HA! At least he's honest about it...

I met up with my teacher, who does a lot of work with inquiry, and she took me to her room. I saw MAYBE ten chairs and asked how many students she had and she told me THIRTY. Where did they all sit? On the floor, on the couches, in the padded bathtub, pretty much anywhere they wanted! I was absolutely flabbergasted by their respect for their teacher as well as their good behavior. She did not have to scold ONE student all day long. Whoa... it blew me away! Some of my favorite questions from my kids so far:

• So, you're from America? Because you sound a lot like some people on an American show I watch. (hahaha)
• Do you know Miley Cyrus?
• Can you please tell me some jokes?? I don't think Kiwis are funny AT ALL.

A few minutes before school was over on Monday, the principal pulled me out again just to have a chat about what I want to get out of my experiences here and all that.. it was incredible. He made me feel so important and that my opinions and learning are so valued. THANK YOU!

Then I came home and began my training with a whopping 20 minute run. It was a pretty nice run and I'm going to be doing the same one again today. Then I did some grocery shopping, had some dinner, watched Pacific with my family, and by then I was so beat, that I went to bed!

Yesterday was a lot of the same. The kids are so cute and are willing to talk to me and include me. Today I'm going to be brave and bold and march right into the teacher's lounge during lunch and introduce myself to some people. It should be a good time! I'm also just about ready to start teaching some. However, today is a little different. There's an assembly in the morning, and then the students spend the rest of the morning doing "enrichment" (They get to choose whatever topic is offered that they want and then go and do it!) I can't remember if it lasts all day or just the morning.... but there's a Spanish enrichment, which I pretty much am obligated to go to, haha.

My favorite quote of this week so far came from my principal when he was chatting with me:

"We teach to IMPROVE, we don't teach to PROVE." That pretty much explains everything in my classroom. Teachers, you know how we have 6+1 Traits? My teacher didn't know that that existed, so by simply doing TONS of research, she came up with her OWN assessment tool for writing. BINOCulars. I was blown away... She does SO much for those kids, it's simply incredible. I can't wait to see more and learn exactly how she does it all!

Although this new classroom is new and different and exciting, I am feeling a little bit out of my element, which is good to acknowledge, but is also kind of hard! We'll see how it all goes :) Over and out!

A week in the life of a Kiwi!

I can't believe that I'm going to start teaching in the morning... it seems unreal! This week has just flown by and I'm WAY too OK with just hanging out all day and sleeping. But I guess that that's not allowed, haha.

We filled this week pretty well with lots of activities. I can't get over how awesome the Te Papa museum was here in Wellington... and it was free! We went walking on Wednesday, and although the weather was gorgeous, we just stumbled upon the museum and decided to take advantage of it. They had a whole exhibition on immigrants to New Zealand, most of them young adults and many of them refugees. It was really touching.

The next day, Chelsea's host sister Annabel (23) took us down to Cuba Street, the "hippie" street here in Wellington. We walked up and down there for a while, she showed us some of the bars, we got some essentials (straightener... hello!) and then headed back home. Earlier that day we saw a movie called "Boy" about a Maori (natives of New Zealand) boy in the 1980s. I learned that calling someone "an egg" is a putdown... huh. Go figure.

Friday, the highlight was that we went out with Annabel and some of her friends for our first night out on the town. She organized a dinner with a bunch of her friends as well as some clubbing out on Courteney Place (where are the college kids go out... well, and some high schoolers). I met SO many nice people, including one girl who taught last year at the school I'll be working at here, so she filled me in on ALL of the stuff I need to know about the school. Alright! We went dancing for a while, but since we met up with Annabel at 530, by 130 we were ready to come home. It was a fun night!

Yesterday, I spent the day with my host family, which was soooo great. We drove around, went to the mall (which I could spend a day in, it's so sweet), and then went grocery shopping. My host mom gave my host dad and me a list that was 3 1/2 pages long (she had to stay in the car since her foot is broken), and we went during Saturday rush hour, so it ended up taking us an hour and a half!! We got home and I made my host family TACOS!! It was the first time my host dad had eaten a TACO! Oh my gosh! They all seemed to like it, but I think the whole eating with your fingers and getting all full of your food thing was kinda gross, haha.

After dinner, I quick got ready and my host dad took me over to Laura's house. I got to meet her family, and then we walked to Chelsea's and I met her family! Her mom then drove us all into town to go to a little house party. We met some more fabulous people there and then it was time to head into town! Annabel, in her state, thought it would be about a 20 minute walk downtown. An hour and a half later! (with a detour to Parliament, a gas station, and a huge slide down by the water) we got downtown, just in time for me to catch Wellington's version of the "drunk bus". Annabel made sure the driver knew exactly where I needed to get off and made sure that he told me when we arrived close to my home. It was so cute. And inspired me to make a list of everything I love about Kiwis (coming soon).

Today, we woke up early (haha, 830) to go hike Mount KauKau. My host dad took Laura, the other guy that lives with me, and I. The views from up there of all of Wellington and beyond were INCREDIBLE. We also got to see a Tui bird (native to NZ, also a beer named after it). It was a great walk. Laura and I came back to my house and had some coffee. Then we went into town to go to the Visitor's Center to find information about how to get to the shopping mall (I'm a little obsessive over it... I guess I probably COULD be spending my weekends enjoying the scenery, but I've never felt like I had so little clothes-wise as I do right now... and my mom isn't around to help me be rational). We got some delish lunch and then headed back home on the train, both exhausted (she stayed out a lot later than I did last night and was still up and raring to go for a 9 AM hike!) I got home and tried to stay awake, but ended up taking a two hour nap. I just introduced my family to the masterful television show Modern Family (I'm not sure if they enjoyed it as much as I did, haha. And I've seen that episode twice already). Pretty soon it'll be time for bed and get ready for my first day at Raroa Intermediate School!!!

No better way to get to know your host family than....

Hanging up their clothes on the clothesline!!! Since my poor host mom has a hard time walking, I hung up her personals on the line yesterday, hehe. I'm glad I can be of help and I'm glad she isn't too shy to ask me to help her out... it feels like I'm really at home! They are sooooo wonderful!

Yesterday I walked to Johnsonville to meet up with Laura and Chelsea to do a little shopping for some essentials. It took about 25 minutes and on the way I passed (and took pictures through the fence of) the school I'll be teaching at. I also had to grab onto the railing on one occasion so that the wind wouldn't blow me over. You know how Chicago is dubbed the "Windy City" but it's really not so bad? Well, Windy Wellington gets its name for good reason. Even now the wind is gusting through my windows!!

That's about all I did yesterday... it was nothing too exciting. The weather got creepy... like, scary movie creepy last night so I just stayed in the house. Which was ok with me. We're playing around with the idea of going to the South Island for a long weekend, so we'll have to see if that actually pans out.

Right now, Chelsea and Laura are on their way into Khandallah to meet my host family and see my house and then we're going to head into Wellington for the day, maybe go to some museums, see some sights, all that jazz. It should be good!

Hello, Windy Wellington!

Here I am, in my amazingly comfortable bed (you don't really realize how much you miss having a comfy bed until you sleep in one...), writing from Wellington, New Zealand, this place that I've been waiting to arrive in for TWO years now. It still doesn't seem real!

On Saturday night, Chelsea, Laura, and I went to an AFL Sydney Swans game. It's a sport that I have NEVER heard of before, but it's football, but with Australian rules. It was INTENSE. 8-10 miles of running per game. The field is round and it took us forever to understand even how the game was scored. We had such a great time and after the game was over, we actually SAW the guy from the jersey shop that told us about it. What a small world. I got a beautiful red and white sweatshirt, so now it can be multipurpose.

Sunday, nothing too eventful happened... just the fact that we couldn't get internet anywhere. Grrr. We went to a huge park in Sydney where I got to use one of those bathrooms that you pay for that has the sliding door... whoa. It was pretty sweet. And I found 20 cents in there, so that was pretty nice. We saw a flock of pigeons attack an unsuspecting family, listened to an old man play scales on his trombone for money, and I failed miserably at solving a few Sudoku puzzles. Then we had the famous Australian pie (pretty much beef stew in a pot pie) so we could be more Australian. It left us feeling pretty blah.

Then we caught the bus back to the airport... kept all of our luggage for the shortest amount of time possible, then just chilled in the airport. Included in "chilling": buying a book, a smoothie, and a camera. Yeah... that's pretty much how I roll. It's a cool camera, even if I didn't really need it. I can drop it without it breaking.. AND take pictures underwater.

We finally landed in Wellington around 11 PM, but had to go through customs and all that jazz. Carolyn, the coordinator from the university was waiting for us there and we all hugged her, haha. We were SO happy to finally be here. I got to my homestay close to 1 in the morning. I was the last to get dropped off. The host families met us in their robes, which was interesting and fun and I knew I'd love it here!

As far as host families go, mine is pretty top notch. I have a couple that are not married, but are both in their second relationship, and are in their upper 60s. They're incredibly wonderful and sweet to one another and me and the Chinese student that is here studying English. They have a 22 year old cat (TWENTY TWO).

I got up around 9 and got ready for the day, as a taxi was coming to pick us up to take us to the university for our little intro meeting thing. We got a tour of the school and learned what teachers we will be with and got to ask some questions. Then we went downtown by bus (that's run on cables) to get phones. We walked back and forth between stores a zillion times and finally invested in some prepaid phones. We then took the train home. By now, I had a migraine and was struggling to keep my head up. When I got back, I chatted with my host mom for a bit, but then went to bed and ended up sleeping for 2 1/2 hours. It got rid of my headache, so that's good! We had a delicious dinner and then I watched Pacific with them, we chatted, I gave my host mom the Wisconsin Snuggie I got for them (it looks FABULOUS on her) as well as the Rippin Good Cookies!!

Today we're planning on another relaxed day. I couldn't sleep early this morning, so I mapped out a few runs since I'm going to start training for a half marathon soon!

It's almost time to leave!?

So I'm actually surprised at the impossibility of finding internet around here. I pretty much pass out as soon as my head hits the pillow every night, which doesn't do me so well when I wake up in the morning at 6 and can't fall back asleep...

Thursday we went to wine country with good ol' Smoky. He's the same guy that took us through the Blue Mountains. We had no real mishaps in the morning... we ran to the train station again. The mishaps happened more the night before. We were going to be changing rooms on Thursday, but since we were going to be gone before reception was open and we weren't going to get back until like, 9 at night, we needed to put all of our stuff in storage and get a locker for all of our overnight stuff... it was such a pain in the butt, but ended up working ok. Thursday morning, we even had time to order breakfast at Wakeup (my new favorite breakfast is toasted muesli (granola) with fruit, yogurt, and honey on top).

I read Water for Elephants, which Miriam gave me, most of the way and finished it up. Such a good book.. you should all check it out. Especially Grandma and Grandpa! I just found out it's going to be a movie in 2011... I am freaking out right now. Thanks, Miriam! :-)

Before we went to wine tasting, we went to a few national parks, which was fun. We walked around and I got some good pictures. When we stopped to listen to Smoky inspire us all with his amazing wisdom of anything and everything, I felt something on my leg. I looked down. THREE BLOOD SUCKING PARASITES ON MY LEG. OMG. I freaked out. Smoky had a hay-day and turned it into a teaching moment. Big surprise there, haha.

We went to the first wine tasting place and I tried all of the wines, but I really didn't enjoy any of them too much. I started to feel really exhausted (I guess the last few days caught up with me). The next two places we went to, I decided not to drink, which was good because I got to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather and take some great pictures of wine country (even though I don't enjoy wine too much, I LOVED the scenery). The third (and last place) we went to, I was laying out in the grass, when I hurt Smoky inside saying, "Typical American, passed out in the grass. First one down!" Way to fulfill a stereotype there, Smoky. I do, however, believe that Laura, Chelsea, and I are breaking through a LOT of American stereotypes. We may have a very obese country, but in the Blue Mountains, we were at the front of the pack. I almost feel like it's required to do so just to show others that we really aren't what everyone says we are... I haven't decided yet if that's good or bad.

Anyway... we got back, hopped off the bus, and asked Smoky if he knew of any good places to eat. He took us to, you've guessed it, Wakeup! He got us a 6 dollar meal, though, so who can argue with that? A free drink, too! (I miss free refills).

So yesterday, when we woke up in the morning, had to haul all of our stuff to ANOTHER hostel. I however, woke up again at like, 630 and since I'd run out of internet on my phone, didn't have anything to do, so I made the ever so wise decision to go running (not!) Since I was so sore, it was the worst run of my life.. and it's so hot out. Ick. I probably could have walked faster than I was running, haha. Anyway... I'm a big obsessive with travel itineraries (right, Katy?) so it was only two trains to get there, which was nice. It's not as nice as our last place, but it's only 20 bucks a night, and as of right now, we're not sharing with anyone. We got settled and then went walking to meet up with Mijke. We shopped for a while on Oxford Street, but when we realized that we were too poor for that business, we hopped a bus to George Street (Main St. here in Sydney) and ate at a sushi bar and then shopped for some time more. While we were in a jersey store, trying to find something for Chelsea's uncle, our favorite orange shirt guy made his second appearance (totally creepy). He walked through with his CD player and we all couldn't help but laugh.

In other news, I gave in and finally bought my first pair of leggings. I was so excited about my new outfit that I changed into it right after I bought it. Smoky (darn that Smoky) gave us tickets the day before to a place called Gaff here in Sydney where his good friend owns the joint or something. It was a free food voucher. Thank GOD it was free, cause that food was NAST. We were all pretty ticked off. So I ate two heaping plate fulls of pineapple chunks instead. Yum yum.

We got back to the hostel to get ready to go out, but of course, because of my narcoleptic nature, I dropped to sleep right on the spot. Ugh. I need to work on that. The other girls ended up just hanging out and chatting since Mijke had to get up early. And now she's gone :-(. Making new friends is hard sometimes since you have to say goodbye....

Today we're just going to chill. We're hoping to go to a beach/park, but it looks like rain, so maybe we'll go to the aquarium instead. Whoohoo.

If you're reading this right now, email me at sarbabe05@gmail.com or cram@wisc.edu or write me a message on facebook to tell me what you've been up to, please :-)

My feet are BURNING

The past two days have been great and exhausting!!

Yesterday, we met up with our new Dutch friend Mijke (Micah) who stayed in the bed next to us in our first hostel. We took a ferry to a city called Manly. As we drove up on the ferry, we began to wonder why everyone told us that it was such an amazing place. Here are some pics from the trip there....

And here is why we did NOT understand what the big hype about Manly was...

However, when we got off the ferry, we figured out that we actually had to walk (what's up with that?) to the REAL Manly beach, which looks more like this...

We spent the day in the clouds, swam for a bit, and then headed back (after getting some gelato, of course). On the way home, we saw a seal sitting on a buoy!

When we landed back in Sydney, we walked for a bit through the Botanic Gardens. If you want to experience something similar to the scene in Wizard of Oz when all of the monkeys go flying from the castle, just hang out in the Botanic Gardens around dusk. This is a picture that I took about an hour before dusk....

My mom would have FLIPPED out. I was pretty creeped out, too, but how COOL in a creepy way is that?! Bats galore, mmmmm.

Then we went to the IMAX. The biggest one in the world. This was after walking about three miles. In flip flops and swimsuits... towels in tow. Check out this building!!!

We fell into bed after that... getting home at 10 felt SO late!

Today was a TRIP. We woke up at 6, ran to the train station, missed our 6:54 train, freaked out because it takes 5 min to get into town and then another 5 to walk to the place we were leaving from, and we had to be there by 720. We just sat there, freaking out inside, when we realized we didn't have the vouchers for our trip. We just had to pray that it would be ok. A train came along and we just hopped on it, hoping for the best. We got to the next stop, but the dang train refused to tell us what the next stop was until AFTER the doors were closed, so we had to just trust that it would go to the central station.... and it did! We RAN (it was now 705 and we told our friend we'd meet her at her hostel a few doors down from our departure at 700) to get there in time, luckily they accepted everything without an issue, and then we got to sit for almost half an hour while they were working through some kinks with the booking. Go figure.

Well, anyway, it all made up for it when we met Smoky, our tour guide. What a character. This guy has wrestled crocodiles, lived in a tree (with a lesbian couple on the floor below him and a guy who used parts of volkswagens to make his room on the floor above him), driven bus when they hit a kangaroo that landed in the back of the bus where a German wrestler had to fight it, worked with lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!) in Africa, this man has done it ALL! He gave us a great tour through the mountains... I sweat a LOT, we laughed a LOT, and I broke in my new tennies by hiking through the rain and mud. YES!!!

The end of our hike included a train ride at a 52 degree angle up the mountain. It looked incredibly frightening, but actually turned out to be a ton of fun!

I'm so tired that I can't think of anything particularly funny that happened... tomorrow we're heading to wine country and we're hopefully going to see some more kangaroos (that's right, we saw some today in the wild!), koalas, all kinds of good stuff! :) I'm stoked!

The ULTIMATE tourists...

Just in case you want to go to Sydney and do the ULTIMATE tourist activity, take a trip on the hop-on, hop-off bus. It took us all through the city and through some of the eastern suburbs. The recording that informed us about all the pleasantries and fun tidbits about the city are a sure thrill....except...

So we did the whole city loop, including "hopping off" by the Sydney bridge and walking around for a while. We heard the whole recording once. Then we hopped off where we started, at Central Station, to find out that the next bus to Bondi didn't leave for another 45 min. We decided to walk down one of the streets we saw on our first bus tour to find a bite to eat. Two miles and a mall walk later, we FINALLY found food. We ended up walking around for a bit, walked to Sydney Opera House, and thought we would catch it there in time to catch the other bus to Bondi. After wandering around the opera house for a while, we looked at our watches and realized that we were going to miss ANOTHER tour. So we had to wait until 4 to get on our way to Bondi.

There were some pretty awesome hippies singing at Bondi, and some nice waves, but the highlight was definitely driving through the richy-rich 'burbs where our double decker bus granted us the pleasure to peep into millionaires' bedrooms. They weren't so happy about it. We also were privileged enough to get whipped by a few low-laying branches.

Since we repeated parts of the loop a few times, I can now tell you that Hyde Park remains in the shape of an oval because of its racetrack past. It also is home to an Anzac memorial service to "honor the war dead" daily at 11 AM... "lest we forget."

What an adventure...

Don't ever start the night at 730...

So last night we decided we wanted to go out. But we had to go out early because we were so exhausted that if we decided to go to sleep, we would never get up. It was pouring outside, but to our great fortune, this crazy hostel we're staying in has it's own club in the basement. So we went gallavanting down there.

I learned some really awesome things. We sat by these three guys from Ireland and they taught us some words. Gob shite and bullocks both are equivalent to d-bag. It took a good five minutes for Laura to understand that one of them was trying to say "Miller". Pretty sure that even though we all spoke English, we could have used a translator. My comprehension skills were lacking, especially when the DJ started up and the music started blasting right next to us. Pleasant. Idiot moment of the evening: When I stupidly asked the Irishmen if they all go around wearing kilts and playing the bagpipes. And this was five minutes after meeting them. They, however, eased the tension by telling us that even though they don't do that, they ARE all leprechauns (and then all started dancing as such). Thank God for funny people :-) I escaped at 1130 or so and so I was blessed with the fortune of listening to people come in and out for the next five/six hours (we had daylight savings last night and turned our clocks an hour back... it's so messed up).

I got to wake up to the sound of church bells cause it's EASTER! :-) Today we're moving to another hotel/hostel (which I'm pretty happy about), so we'll see how things go there. We have to go in about an hour and a half and aren't quite sure how we're going to get there. It's going to be a little bit more off the beaten path, but I suppose I don't mind if it means a little more peace and quiet. I've realized that I'm a bit of a rare breed her (early to bed, early to rise). The Irishmen told me how much they HATED one of their roommates when they stayed here because she woke up at flippin EIGHT in the morning (what time I woke up today) and banged EVERYTHING. Didn't she know that we just went to bed at FOUR? How disrespectful of her. Yeah.. that would definitely be me. Ah, well....

Time for more adventures :)

Travel Saga.

So much has happened in the past few days… a few highlights:

• · When I left from Madison, my mom went from being perfectly happy to crying hysterically in .2 seconds… it was a bit hilarious. She didn’t think so.
• · The guy next to me on the bus was doing some kind of meditation in his muscle shirt. He had to be in his 50s, with a bit of a beer belly, which made me really happy. All of a sudden, after sitting perfectly still for about half an hour, it looked like he was physically removing all of the stress from his body…which is healthy and good… but he moved so quickly that it scared the crap out of me.
• · Miriam took me for lunch and we had sweet potato fries and she gave me a good book to read. We hung out at a jewelry store. Her dad gave me some Australian coins.
• · Once Chelsea and I got to Laura’s house, there DEFINITELY needed to be some reorganizing. Laura got rid of two WHOLE rolls of clothes (yeah, most people fold, Laura and her mom thought it was ingenious to roll because it was TOO efficient)… however, her suitcase still weighed 70 lbs when we got to the airport (this is just one of her two checked bags, by the way…).
• · I have a bag of crap sitting in Laura’s brother’s closet.
• · Since Laura’s luggage was so heavy, she had to add a carry-on (an amazingly stylish see-through plastic bag that United let us have), as well as putting some of her stuff in my “New Zealand” suitcase (we all packed two suitcases.. one that we would just leave at the Sydney airport so we wouldn’t have so much luggage).
• · When we hopped off the plane at LAX (with a dream and a cardigan), Chelsea called her great aunt (whom Laura and I were convinced had to be like, Betty White or something since all of the famous people live in California), she forgot to ask what kind of car her great aunt was driving. Luckily, she found us. Laura and I looked real cute in the back seat with two backpacker backpacks and a huge suitcase.
• · It was a whopping 63 degrees in LA, while back home, they were enjoying 80 degree weather. America… However, we made the most of the situation by driving up and down the coast and then laying out in Aunt Mo’s backyard (Laura’s a redneck now… I knew some of you had your suspicions. I’ve heard her saying ‘hey y’all and yee haw’ in her sleep).
• · Aunt Mo’s grandson did NOT want to crescendo to open the gates of the castle during Little Einsteins (which is something I wanted him to do, proving the point that little children hate me, and in return, I hate them back… but only a little bit. He’s only 3, so I guess I have to give him a little credit. He also had some kind of giggle issue every time he looked at Chelsea, so I think he has a fear of brunettes.)
• · Aunt Mo knows EVERYTHING. She should go on Jeopardy. She made us a delicious dinner and then drove us to the airport. Laura got halfway through saying “Departures” before Aunt Mo missed the turnoff and we ended up in the same spot that we witnessed a garbage fire earlier that day. We then had to run to our gate where we found out that we needed a visa to get into Australia, which was a downer until we met some woman who has a very complicated job which I did not fully understand, but she gave us homemade cookies and we ate them… later thinking that we could have possibly died from eating them, but she was just TOO nice to not eat them.
• · I was oober exhausted when I got onto the flight until I realized that the in-flight entertainment included about 5 movies I wanted to watch, which perked me right up.
• · Once we finally landed in Sydney (by way of Auckland, NZ), we knew we had to find the luggage storage area, which Laura knew was next to the McDonalds. So instead of asking where the luggage storage area, since we represent the obese nation, we instead asked the volunteer helper where the McDonald’s was. I’m pretty sure she judged us since I was holding my huge ass bulksize Goldfish box while asking.
• · Once we got to our hostel and were all settled, we showered up and in the process, got to listen to a couple bicker about how awful they are to the other person, and I admittingly felt like I should join in on the argument since they were a mere five feet from me and we share a lot since we share this 10-bed dorm room. I held my tongue, though… don’t worry. We did, however, see that girl and her friend multiple times while walking through the city later. How does that happen?
• · After we found food, we followed a big crowd to a pair of brothers who were “CIRCUS FIREMEN” (aka street performers that can do a few things really well and can make really bad jokes for an incredibly long time). The look of shock on our faces when the entertainers (who seemed to be aimed at younger children) made comments such as “Tim (a man who was helping them), do you have troubles keeping it up? Don’t worry, folks, just a penis joke” and “Piss off, kid. YOU are annoying me. Who’s child is this? Can you get him to back off because he’s really annoying,” was not the same look that many of the other audience members had on their face. They were funny, but when you call kids “smart ass” and say “Dammit” when you couldn’t find the right child to volunteer for your stunt… I dunno, seems kind of uncomfortable, haha. Poor guys, right when they asked for money, it started downpouring and everyone went running for shelter.
• Alright… I think I have you all up to speed. I’m going to add pics in here ASAP (it might not be until I get to NZ since I think my image downloader cord is in my NZ suitcase).

Tonight we’re going to an Easter Party (that’s right.. people getting’ drunk for Jesus). I don’t know how long we’ll last… Chels is already asleep on my arm and it’s a mere 645 in the evening. However considering I’ve technically been up since 12:30 this morning (Sydney time), it might just fit the bill to have a night to sleep… and then we won’t be hungover for Easter service tomorrow.