Daily Archives: January 31, 2014

Assignment 4

We were recently assigned a new task by Dr. St. Pierre.

All 15 of us together have to create a 30 minute series of skits named “Life in Australia”. We have to make it sort of like Saturday Night Live and make it funny. It is suppose to be us creating scenes like we were showing people back in America how life in Australia is. We have to do this show the last night we are in Australia on a stage in the middle of the city of Sydney. We have to tape it for our professors to watch it back at home too so hopefully I can get a hold of it and post it on here or Facebook!

So far we have come up with some really funny skits to do such as a vegemite commercial, kangaroo scene, and a lot more. More details to come once the skits are prepared!

Home stay: Wagga Wagga

This blog post is all about home: notice they are italicized.

We arrived in Wagga Wagga yesterday for our home stays. I must admit I was excited to leave Dookie. The population was very small and there are a lot of farms, bugs, and annoying birds. I didn’t get to see the town of Wagga Wagga too much, but it looks really nice from driving around a little bit. We met our families at the botanical gardens in scorching 100 degree weather. My family, the King’s, names are Jeff, Jenny, and their daughter Jess who picked me and Sam up at the gardens and took us back to our new “home”. They also have an outdoor dog named Tessa, she is a golden/lab mix and so adorable; she makes me miss my dogs at home so much. My boyfriend bought me a stuffed bulldog and I sleep with her every night so that helps me feel a little closer to my bulldogs at home, minus their snoring at night.

Once we got in the air conditioning, me and Sam swam in their pool to cool off, which also reminds me of home. They made us a home cooked meal with bacon wrapped steak, potatoes, coleslaw, red beets, and salad (they actually used dressing, we thought Australia didn’t use dressings!). Red beets and coleslaw seem to be a popular food here as well because we have had them as an option a few times. The coleslaw here is a lot less “drowned” and more crunchy compared to America, but still really good! For dessert we had the famous Australian Pavlova for the first time and it was really good too. Jenny told us the ingredients consisted of egg whites, sugar, and fruit–simple!

One thing I noticed at the dinner table was that they ate a lot faster than we did, which I found really odd because I thought Americans were the “fast eaters with bigger portions” but I am second guessing it. After dinner, Jeff and Jess took us and Tessa to a dog park to meet up with a friend and his dog Rufus. Tessa and Rufus ran around the whole park, swam in a pond, played with other dogs, and even gotten into some cockatoo feathers. I wish that more dogs in America were like dogs in Australia. They never need a leash, they aren’t aggressive, and they listen to their owners (at least my one dog doesn’t do all of those things, the other one is just too lazy to run away). Maybe I should stop getting bulldogs, but I can’t resist their wrinkles! We walked around the park for a bit and talked and then came back and watched some cricket. They explained to us how to play a little but plan on taking us to a game soon. Did you know a cricket game lasts days? They play for 8 hours in a day and play for about 3-5 days. That amazes me, especially because it is such a huge sport and the fans are so enthusiastic about it, you wouldn’t believe they could possibly stay interested for that many hours. I think I will write a blog about cricket  after I watch a game aka 1/10 of a game.

I am really going to enjoy going to bed early and sleeping in for once this trip! These past few weeks have been draining, but definitely worth it. I am learning so much more over here than I would in an entire semester. I am so happy that I am here it has definitely opened up my eyes to the world even though I have traveled a lot. Living somewhere else or being somewhere for an extended time gives you such a great experience. I can’t wait to go home and plan my next trip!