Jason - Day 17 (22.3.)

Today the mainly and most interesting thing happened in the evening.

After waking up at 7:30 in the morning some German exchange students (me included) and Mr. Eicker caught the train at the train station “Watergardens”, which is located next to the shopping mall “Watergardens”, at 8:53 for being at the arranged meeting point (state library) at ten o’clock. 

We had to take out sheets for the scavenger hunt with us for answering the remaining questions. One of our exercises was finding the two guards of the clock. In the first moment we didn’t know what that means but what we found then was a big clock in a shopping mall surrounded by giants GOG and MAGOG. 

GOG and MAGOG

A British legend says that the giants GOG and MAGOG are the guards of London.

That is actually what I did the whole morning until 12:20pm. That was the point when the working time changed into free time. Some boys of our group and I went shopping and we had to catch the train at central station at two o’clock. 

Some of us stayed in the city until the house performances. In this time I stayed together with Bjarne and Nikita and we had lots of fun.

House Performances 

In the evening the house performances took place in a big building at Southbank.

The students of the Overnewton Anglican Community Collage are assigned to one of the four houses. The four houses are:

- Curie (red)

- Newton (blue)

- Edison (yellow)

- Pasteur (green)

The House Performances are a competition, in which the the students have to present what they developed the weeks before (dancing, singing, acting, …). After the students of the houses present their work, judges evaluate the performances. 

This year the red house (Curie) won the house performances which was good for me because my exchange student Ethan is part of Curie.

This night was very interesting because I haven’t ever experienced something like that before. I was very impressive because what I saw this evening is comparable to performances in German theatres.

I think this evening is one of the things of the time in Australia I won’t forget.

In Australia I learned many new words. Three of them are:

Insomnia: describes the feature not being able to sleep. I learned the word in one of the German lessons in school. In that lesson we talked about what the student want to be or to do in the future.

Billabong: “Billabong” is a typical Australian Word. It describes something like a waters and has its origin in the aboriginal culture. I heard this word first time in the song “Waltzing Matilda” and wanted to find out what it means.

Arachnophobia: is the technical word for fear of spiders. When we went to Sydney zoo,  Ethan used this word because I told him that I don’t like spiders.

Irina - Day 3 (8.3.)

Today we were in the city but without the Australian students. It was very hot. I think up to 41 degrees. Our host dad took us to school at 7:30 am today because he had to work early. Enrico and I took the bus at 8:20 am because we had to be at the other campus at 8:45 am. Many other people from the exchange were on the bus, too.

When we were all there (Canowindra Campus), we went to the train station called Watergardens to take to the train into the city. 

On the way to Watergardens we saw a dangerous crossroad. Every morning there are lollipop people who have to take care of the people who cross the crossroad. That crossroad is one of the 50 most dangerous crossings in Victoria.

Before we went to our first destination for the day, we met on Federation Square which is just opposite the train station we got off at - Flinders Street Station.

Federation Square and Flinders Street Station are very popular meeting points. Some people make arrangements to "meet under the clocks" at the station because everyone knows where to meet then. 

The first real thing we did was going to Eureka Tower. It is a skyscraper in the city of Melbourne. It has 92 levels and when you are on level 88,  you can see Melbourne from above. That's pretty nice. 

The last 10 stories of the building are covered with gold plated metal. Can you imagine the costs?

Here is a picture from above: 

After that we got a quiz and we had to answer questions about some important places and squares in Melbourne.

The quiz has four parts (A, B, C and D). Today we were able to do part A to C but we did not have enough time and almost nobody has finished all three parts. Tomorrow we have to do part D.

This is our group! (Elena, me, Leon H, Nick and Nil)

After a very hot and long day in the city our host mother picked us up from school and we went to a swimming pool. It was very funny because Insa and Rebecca were there too with their exchange students.

It was a very long but very fun day!