With my host family
Hello all,
Well, I've been at my host family's home now for a couple days and am starting to feel more comfortable around the house. I went to the elementary school for 2 days now and their schools are similar to ours in the states but there are also some differences. For one thing, the majority of all of their schools have the kids wearing uniforms, even at the public schools. There are very few schools that don't have uniforms. The school I'm at isn't in the richest area but the children are very well mannered. They are also so adorable and there is a diverse population of kids. The teachers at the school have teach everything on their own like physical education, art, music and sport. The school is also composed of several different buildings. It's sort of nice though because the weather down here is nice for most of the year. My teacher host, Bronwyn has a 3/4 split class so on Friday I worked with each grade outside at separate occasions for a little, while she went over something else inside. I also helped measure the shot-put and the long jump. On friday after school we went to another teacher's house and had afternoon tea. There was so much food there, all of which was desserts. YUM!
Friday night I went out to eat with Bronwyn and her husband Steve to their local country club. I had the chicken schnitzel and of course a glass of wine. My chicken was so big, it took up half of my plate. After dinner we went inside because we had dinner outside. Inside we listened to music while drinking coffee and having a little dessert. It was a very nice evening and we spent lots of time talking.
Today (Saturday) we drove to Sydney which is about an hour drive from where they live. I climbed the Harbor Bridge with 6 of the other girls on the trip. The whole thing took about 3.5 hours because there was some training that we had to do before we were able to climb it. We were strapped to the bridge with this clip from our harness to the bridge. There were something like 1,400 stairs that we climbed in total. I bought a picture of my and 2 other girls standing on top of the bridge and the Sydney Opera house is in the background. It was such an exciting experience and a great view too! For dinner tonight we went to this very very nice restaurant. We went because Steve's birthday was last week and they were celebrating my being here. You ordered an appetizer, then your main course. After our main course we had dessert and after dessert we had some coffee. We got to the restaurant at 7:00 p.m. and we didn't leave until 9:45 p.m. We went out to dinner with their daughter Rachel and her boyfriend, Ian along with their son Adam.
Tomorrow we are off to Bondi Beach to check out some markets. At night Steve and Bronwyn are going to a concert so I'm going to hang out with Rachel.
Well, I've been at my host family's home now for a couple days and am starting to feel more comfortable around the house. I went to the elementary school for 2 days now and their schools are similar to ours in the states but there are also some differences. For one thing, the majority of all of their schools have the kids wearing uniforms, even at the public schools. There are very few schools that don't have uniforms. The school I'm at isn't in the richest area but the children are very well mannered. They are also so adorable and there is a diverse population of kids. The teachers at the school have teach everything on their own like physical education, art, music and sport. The school is also composed of several different buildings. It's sort of nice though because the weather down here is nice for most of the year. My teacher host, Bronwyn has a 3/4 split class so on Friday I worked with each grade outside at separate occasions for a little, while she went over something else inside. I also helped measure the shot-put and the long jump. On friday after school we went to another teacher's house and had afternoon tea. There was so much food there, all of which was desserts. YUM!
Friday night I went out to eat with Bronwyn and her husband Steve to their local country club. I had the chicken schnitzel and of course a glass of wine. My chicken was so big, it took up half of my plate. After dinner we went inside because we had dinner outside. Inside we listened to music while drinking coffee and having a little dessert. It was a very nice evening and we spent lots of time talking.
Today (Saturday) we drove to Sydney which is about an hour drive from where they live. I climbed the Harbor Bridge with 6 of the other girls on the trip. The whole thing took about 3.5 hours because there was some training that we had to do before we were able to climb it. We were strapped to the bridge with this clip from our harness to the bridge. There were something like 1,400 stairs that we climbed in total. I bought a picture of my and 2 other girls standing on top of the bridge and the Sydney Opera house is in the background. It was such an exciting experience and a great view too! For dinner tonight we went to this very very nice restaurant. We went because Steve's birthday was last week and they were celebrating my being here. You ordered an appetizer, then your main course. After our main course we had dessert and after dessert we had some coffee. We got to the restaurant at 7:00 p.m. and we didn't leave until 9:45 p.m. We went out to dinner with their daughter Rachel and her boyfriend, Ian along with their son Adam.
Tomorrow we are off to Bondi Beach to check out some markets. At night Steve and Bronwyn are going to a concert so I'm going to hang out with Rachel.