On The Rocks

August 2nd

Today was much more exciting than the previous day. Later this week, the student’s parents are going to have the opportunity to come in during school in order to see what their kids have been working on. Some of the students participate in extra-curricular activities such as band, guitar, violin, choir, and dance. These students will be performing during Education day and in order to practice their performance, we had an assembly to come and watch them! First up was the junior band, and I must admit it you could definitely tell that these student had barely picked up their instruments, however as the various performances went on, they definitely got better. The dancers ended the assembly and they were by far my favorite. I was impressed to see how many options these students had when it came to these extra clubs and activities, we didn’t have any of these options till middle or even high school.

Later, we had plans to save Stephanie from her host family and meet one of Jill’s friends for dinner. Before picking up Stephanie we had heard a little bit of her host situation, however once we had her in the car she really started to let loose and tell us what all of the things that had happened. Apparently, her host mom/teacher told her that she wished she could have picked how she would have hosted because she would have chosen someone else, she bashed the way she taught and wrote her letters in front of the students and told her that she was going to mess them up, and told her that she couldn’t wait to cash the check she got for having her so that she could pay her mortgage. On top of all of this her host didn’t take Stephanie to do anything the previous weekend, and one of the first nights being there she woke up with a bug in her ear and had to take a trip to the doctors! In other words, things were getting to be quite ridiculous, and Jill felt so bad that she asked for Laura’s number (our professor) to call and let her know that she would be more than willing to take on another student to host if it could be arranged.

Eventually, we ended up making our way down to the Rocks to a pub called the “Observer” get some more cider, and of course wedges! We waited their till Jill’s friend Amanda met us there, and then it was time to try out this place called “Pancakes on the Rocks”. I must admit I am not much of a pancake fan; however, these were by far the best pancakes that I have ever eaten! I ordered “Blueberry Heaven” and it consisted of 2 pancakes with blueberry topping, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.! On top of all that, before we had eaten the pancakes Jill and I had split some chicken and mushroom crepes that were also quite delectable. I don’t know if I have ever been so full in my life!!...Ihop has some serious catching up to do!

On the way home we had to take Stephanie back to the dragon women that she was staying with, and I felt really bad having to leave her there, but at least we had plans to pick her up the following night as well. During the car ride, Jill introduced us to “Love Song Dedications” with David Mercer haha. The host has the deepest voice ever and is definitely a perfect fit for the saps that call in to dedicate songs to their “lovers”! Some of the stories that people call in with are ridiculously entertaining. Jill and I ended up rockin’ out to some Usher and Bet Midler “Wind Beneath My Wings” haha it was great.

Monday, Monday, Mondayyy

August 1st

Not a whole lot happened today, though after a long weekend I must admit I could tell it was Monday. I spent a lot of time helping the students finish up their fish projects by putting glitter glue on the lips, fins, and tail; the finished product turned out so cute! After school we had another professional development meeting which was once again quite boring. there was a group of the “American’s” seated at the back of the meeting and they did decide to pick on us a bit and ask us a question about our discipline procedures that are in place in the States, but none of us really knew the answer to that one, oops.

When we got back to the house Katie and I decided that we really needed to work on the homework we had due for that week since we had plans for the rest of the week. Our homework place lately seems to be down in the basement next to the fireplace, it’s so much warmer down there!! Even though we spent a lot of time down there I really didn’t get anything done, I was really struggling to focus on what I needed to.

Tugboats and Harbors

July 31st
Got to sleep in a little more today which is always nice! At around 1 o'clock we were meeting up with the rest of the students and their hosts that are at Rouse Hill Public School. One of the teacher's boyfriend has a tugboat and he offered to take us all out for a ride through the harbor. Though I have been able to see the harbor, Opera House and bridge from land, I must say it is just as breathtaking from a boat, and it couldn't have been nicer weather! The sun was shining and all in good company. Once we anchored the boat at a little beach area, we had a little buffet of various foods known in Australia. We were in charge of the candy (Jaffers, Fantails, Minties) or "Lollies" as they would call them, and others brought Lamingtons, TimTams, homemade desserts and other finger foods. So we all grazed about the food and read the trivia that was on the wrappers of the Fantails. Eventually, it was time to pull in the anchor and head back to the dock, but overall I am glad that Neil was generous enough to offer to take all of us on his boat/home.

Katie, Jillian (host teacher) and I :)

While we were on the boat we had been talking about what we did over the weekend and about our hosts, and I'm pretty sure that there are some that could be jealous of how lucky Katie and I got :)






Not much happened once we got home. We ate some pasta with mushrooms, spinach, and tomatos in it and then Katie and I headed down to the basement to do some hw by the fire. I really didn't get anything done but the fire was nice! haha Plus once Katie went to bed Wilson decided he wanted to join me on the couch :)

Blue Mountains!

July 30th
I finally got to sleep in a little today, even though I still got up a couple hrs before my alarm, which happens almost every morning for some reason. Anyways, today is the day we headed off to the Blue Mountains! We first stopped in this cute little town called Leura that had cute little shops that reminded me a lot of Lexington. We wandered around for a little bit and one of our stops included a little candy shop, which happened to sell some A&W root beer (unfortunately no Vernors). The previous day at the Fiddler we were talking about root beer and Vernors and whether or not they had anything like it here that would compare to it. So, Jillian decided to buy herself a can to see what exactly root beer was. Needless to say, you could tell by the look on her face that she had never had anything like it before, and was not a fan. I remember Helena and Vivian trying it for the first time in the states, and though Vivian loved it, Helena for some reason thought that it tasted like toothpaste haha. Jillian just thought that it tasted like medicine; neither of their comparisons I can relate to. After Jill took a few sips hoping to acquire a taste, she decided to give up and hand off the rest to Katie and I.

After eating lunch in Leura, it was time to make our way to the Three Sisters. The three sisters are three rock formations that stand on the Blue mountains and are part of an Aboriginal legend. The legend says that they caused a battle after trying to marry into a different tribe, they were turned to stone for protection but the elder that did this was killed in battle so they remained this way. Once we saw them from a distance it was time for an up close and personal visit to the three ladies to get some more pictures. As we were waiting to make our way down the side of the mountain (via built in stairs) there were people climbing up them that sounded like they had just run a marathon, and I quickly realized why. I'm not sure how far down they had climbed up from but the stairs were quite steep and uneven!


We finally made it to more of a path that went along the side of the mountains, and this part of the hike took about 1.5hrs or so. Though a lot of it was wooded area, there were lots of points that allowed you to peek through the trees and see more of the mountains. This whole thing was peaceful and very enjoyable to walk through. At one point we heard russling in some leaves and turned to look and find a fat mouse making its way up the hill. I took this opportunity to grab Katie's shoulders and she jumped and screamed so loud I don't think we had to worry about coming across anymore wild life haha. I'm not sure what scared her more though, me or the scenic railway that had to take us back up the mountain. This railway is apparently the steepest in the world and Katie was all sorts of freaking out; Jillian and I found this quite humorous! When we finally got off, the guy that was there to greet us told Katie that they sold drinks upstairs, and that she should celebrate her survival haha.


Once we got back outside, there to meet us were some um, very interesting aboriginal statues there to greet us. We took it upon ourselves to have a photo shoot with them !

The plan from here was to take the last path back across the mountains back to where we started. However, these plans were a bit dampered after we ran across some yellow caution tape and a sign that said that there had been some dibre that had fallen and blocked our path. Therefore we opted to take the road back rather than paying for a bus. We were all quite exhausted when we got back home and I managed to sneak in a bit of a nap before dinner. They call this a "Nana Nap" rather than a "Cat Nap"; I think that I will be using this terminology from this point forward haha. For dinner, we grilled up some of the steaks that Jillian won in her meat tray, and had some amazing cheesy potatos and a salad.

The day wasn't over yet tho! Now it was time to meet up with some of Jillian's friends (Marc, Adam, and Mitch) in Parramatta at a place named PJ's Irish Pub. When we were on our way in they bouncer noticed our ID's were clearly not Australian and said that the "special visitors" could go through a different door and get in free, rather that paying the $10 cover!! Gotta love being the foreign one!lol. Jillian's friends were I believe all from her Uni. and were teachers themselves. They were talking to us about how much they were in debt and were surprised to find that we paid like five times as much for college than we did and decided that they need not complain haha. They then tried to convince that we should just move here and make more money, esp since our dollar is really not helping me out at all here.

Eventually it was time to hit the dance floor, which is always a good time. At least until someone gets kicked out haha. While we were on the dance floor, there was a guy that decided that it was a good idea to turn the speaker into a corner because it was in his ear. Wellll...this made the sound even worse so I reached behind Marc to turn it back around and he helped me a little bit. After we got it turned around a bouncer came over and told Marc not to touch anything, and after denying that he had and that it wasnt his fault the bouncer decided to kick him out. Apparently it was time to go lol. We then decided to make our way back to Marc's house for a little while rather than heading home.

Before we left to go out for the night Jillian had told us that she thought Marc was getting the wrong idea and that he was trying to make moves on her. Well, Katie and I got to wittness this first hand and it was sooo clear that Jill was not interested but he was clearly not getting the hint. Man I hate when guy do that!! lol but I must admit it was a bit entertaining to watch when its not you! Eventually Jill had had enough and it was time to go home and passss outttt!!