Tuesday

I got up earlier, but went to school later. Let me explain.
The alarm went off at 6 am, an hour or so earlier than monday. I put on my clothes and got in the car with my hostmom. We had to drive slowly, because there was so much fog! You couldn’t see properly and it was still dark. There were people who didn’t have the patience and passed us fast. When we arrived, we parked the car and got out in the cold. We hurried inside and payed to get in.
Finally, we could get in the pool and go for a morning swim!
I am not a good swimmer. Everybody doubled me a couple of times per lap and when I tried crawl, I almost drowned… Oh well, I hope to get better after a couple of more times in the pool.
After a shower, we went back to the house. The fog was easier to handle now that the sun had risen and we arrived safely back, hungry for breakfast.
I was an hour too late at school, but that was fine, because I had a free.
What a lovely morning!

Wednesday

In the morning, I had two frees. Wich meant I had more than enough time to go and watch the primary school soccer competition on the oval.
Even after that, I still had enough time in the library to work a little bit.

In the evening, my hostmom brought me with her to the theater, for ‘The God of Carnage’. It was a funny conversation between 2 couples about a fight their children had. It was hilarious, even though I didn’t understand everything.

Friday

Career Expo

The school organised a trip to the local stadium, where Griffith had organised the career expo. So in the middle of SLR, I was excused and hopped on the bus. The busses here have 2 rows of 3 seats. The middle seat is way too small to fit anyone, but it still looked cool. The seat belts are also a bit safer, with a strap around the shoulder as well.
The stadium was built last year, so it looks very fancy. Inside, there were a lot of stands where you could get every information you would like about any kind of job or furhter education. They had information on education programs you can follow during year 12, jobs you can do if you do not want to go to school anymore after year 10, information about joining the Police Force or the firefighters… Most kids go for the goodies though. I got a lot of pens, notepads, a pencil case, a little ball, a toy chicken, sunglasses…
I learnt how to play typical Australian handball with the little ball. It is totally different from the handbal we have in Belgium and it is pretty fun!

Saturday

Pioneer Park

We visited the open air museum: Pioneer Park. It is a park with all kinds of old buildings and historical heirlooms from the origin of Griffith. It was beautiful and interesting but also confrontational.

Random things

New skill unlocked

My hostmom thaught me how to knit. I like it and hope to make something usefull.

Kids will be kids

I was walking around the oval with my hostmom, when a kid on a bike passed us for the third time, so my hostmom told him jokingly not to run us over. He goes: ‘You sound European!’ I thought that was so funny. What does ‘European’ even sound like?

Driving

When I was walking to school, I saw some cars on the road and I thought to myself: ‘Why are they riding on the wrong side of the road?’
I’m really still not used to the left thing. It’s actually impressive how many times I can think: ‘How is the car riding with only a passenger in the front?’ The steering wheel is on the other side of course…

No dangers

Everybody was warning me for snakes, spiders, angry koala’s… But I haven’t seen a thing. The dogs are the scariest animals here.
Although I did see a pretty decor snake in a tree.

Spring is in the air

Even though the temperatures are simular to the Belgian winter, this is more bearable because of the intense sun.

Bikes

So far, in the two weeks I’ve been here, I’ve only seen thirteen bikes! More than half of wich we saw very early on Tuesday morning on our way to the pool, because a biking club passed us. They really don’t use their bikes to get somewhere, merely for fun and exercise.