Wiete - Day 16 (21.3.)

Today we were at the Melbourne Museum.

My day started – like every other ‘normal’ day here in Australia -  at 6:45 am. I woke up, had a little breakfast, and went to the Keilor Campus with Uliana. Then I took the bus to Canowindra at 8:20 am while Uliana had to go to her class. In the bus, there were some other German students. In Canowindra we met the other German students and teachers, and then we walked to the train station called Watergardens to take our train into the city. When we arrived at the city, we went to the Melbourne Museum. 

In the museum our topic was: First Peoples of Australia (who were also called the Aborigines).

We learned a lot about the Aborigines: how they lived, how they were treated, how the British people came and took the country away, and the many different cultures, clans and languages.

For me the most interesting things were the different instruments, clothes and toys for the Aboriginal children. 

During the tour in the museum, we had some questions that we had to answer. It was really difficult because the questions were difficult and the answers were hard to find.

After we visited the museum, we went to a shopping mall which was close to the train station. We ate our lunch and those who didn’t have lunch bought something to eat. 

We met at the station and then we waited for our train. But there was a problem: Our train didn’t arrive. We took a later train so that we weren’t too late for school. Luckily my host grandmother waited for me, and then we picked up Uliana from the Keilor campus (senior school) and drove home.

At home we had a little lunch and Uliana had a piano class. While she was playing jazz songs like ‘Take Five’, I had time to write this blog post. 

Here are three new words which I have learned in Australia:

Impatient: 

Uliana said to me, “I just want this pasta to boil. I’m so impatient!” I didn’t know                                                                    what she meant, so I asked and she explained it to me. It’s an adjective that describes a person who cannot wait for things to happen.

Rehearsal:

This is also a word I have learned from Uliana. She told me, “We have a rehearsal for House Performance today.” So a rehearsal is like a practise for something. In this case, the ‘rehearsal’ was for Uliana’s House Performance.

Precisely:

I took this word because I didn’t know what other word I could take. I asked Uliana if she could tell me a word in English that I didn’t know and she said ‘precisely’. ‘Precisely’ is a word you can use to sound fancy, since it’s a fancy way of saying ‘exactly’ or basically’. 

All in all, it was a very instructive and interesting day! 

Bruce - Day 8 (13.3.)

My exchange family and I went on a trip to Sydney from the 11th March to 13th March.

We arrived at about half past eleven at the airport in Sydney and spent the rest of the day in the city and our hotel room.
On Saturday we went to Manly beach and had a great time because the weather was hot and sunny.

Today we needed to get up early because we had a big aim, which was Bondi Beach. We first took a ride on the train from our hotel and then we went on a long walk. Because of the hot weather, we already went for a swim at Captain Cove Beach. 

Captain Cove Beach is actually not that far from Bondi Beach but we couldn’t resist the cold water.
We kept on walking up to Bondi Beach and we were just enjoying the time we had there.






The waves weren’t too big but they were alright. Afterwards we went back to our hotel, which is called the Hyde Park Inn, to change our clothes and to have something to eat.

We went to the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge again to see the sights while the sun was setting. It was awesome and we had a great view.

A woman wanted to take a picture of me and said “give me your camera and i’ll take a photo of you” and showed me pictures of her “nephew” and said “do you see the jacket he wears? It’s so cute but so expensive. Come on i’ll take a photo of you now”. I didn’t give her my camera because she was a pick-pocket. She was walking around and was trying to steel cameras and phones.

We had a great time in Sydney and I am so thankful for that :)



The words I learned were:

rip-off = Abzocke                     Bogan = bad, typical Aussie                  vicious = aggressive

Roman - Day 2 (7.3.)

My second day in Australia started very early at probably 4:30 am because I wasn't able to sleep any longer because of the jet lag. So I just started texting my friends home in Germany and listened to some music until I needed to get up at 7:00 o'clock. I went downstairs to my hostmother and just had an orange juice because we were about to leave for the welcome breakfast at school. I was really looking forward to meet all the Australian and German students and to talk to them. To be honest the breakfast was very good and even better than the one we had in Germany in our school. 

Afterwards there was an assembly in school and I was deeply impressed by the speeches they had to hold and how strong they believe in Christianity. Another thing I personally like is that they  are so up-to-date with high end technology  and doing those outstanding presentations. Afterwards we went to the "blue house area", this is what they call the area where their lockers are, to prepare for religion class. A thing I immediately recognised is, that the classrooms are completely different than those we have in Germany and even the way of teaching is not similar because they have way more opportunities for example the MacBooks which are connected to an Apple TV. So the rest of day I kept being in class with my host buddy. 
Through the entire school day I got surprised repeatedly because everyone was so nice to me and the other German students and it was a pleasure to meet all those guys. My personal highlight was the double German we had at the end of he day with Mrs. Taiwo and Mr. Eicker because it was kind of funny to help the Australian students with their exercises they had to do in German class. 
Later on when I came home from school at 3:45 I had some pancakes and I was actually very tired and exhausted from school and all this stuff but I din't go to sleep because I didn't want to make the jet lag even worse, so I wanted to try to get in the Australian sleeping rhythm this night. At round about 6 o'clock pm I went to a friends' house to spend the evening there and to have barbecue with Leon, Jaydin and his family. Furthermore I've learned plenty of new things and I have some words I want to explain to you:

1. boot = When my host father brought me to school he told me to put my bag in the "boot" and I was kind of confused but he explained to me and it's actually pretty simple to memorise.
2. cap = When I was about to leave school I was told to put the cap on my water bottle and for so far I've never heard of this word, but I could get it out of context and I put it on.
3. SAC= "School Assessed Course work" this is what the Australian call their tests at school.

I'm so glad to have the chance to be here and I am really enjoying myself. I hope you like my blog and you that you were able to have a deeper look in what our daily life is like here in Australia, at the other side of the world.