Home again, home again jiggety jig!

We are home!  Amazingly we had no delays on any of our flights yesterday.  We left Sydney at 12:35 p.m. Saturday Jan. 22 and got to Los Angeles at 7:00 a.m. Saturday Jan. 22.  We had two Saturday mornings!  The flight to LA was about an hour and a half shorter than flying out due to tailwinds.  I was grateful for that!

Both Thursday and Friday were free days for the group.  We really had nothing planned.  Thursday was our last day in Melbourne and everyone wanted to go back to the Victoria Market to do more shopping.  One of our girls bought 6 pairs of Uggs to bring home and she managed to get them all packed away.  Later in the day, a couple of the students went back to the Australian Open and the rest of us went to Cook's Cottage.  It was the cottage of James Cook who was the father of Captain James Cook, the explorer.  Someone bought the cottage and had it shipped from England to Australia to celebrate the centennial of Melbourne in 1934.  Captain Cook died in his forties, but his wife, Elizabeth, lived to be 91.  She outlived her husband and all six of their children.  It was very interesting.

We packed up and took an overnight train back to Sydney.  I was on the lookout for kangaroos since we were traveling at dusk, but I didn't see any.  We had seen lots of wallabies on our bus tour earlier in the week, but no kangaroos.  It was another night of little sleep.

On our last day in Sydney everyone wanted to go back to Bondi Beach, so we all slathered ourselves with sunscreen and caught the bus to the beach.  It was a beautiful sunny day with hundreds of people enjoying the sand and surf.  The lifeguards had a busy day.  I was only there for about 2 hours and saw 3 rescues!  There was an area that had a strong undercurrent that people kept getting caught in.  Some of us left the beach early so we wouldn't get sunburnt.  The others stayed, but only a couple were burnt.

Friday night we went to see the show "Soap" at the Sydney Opera House.  We were all excited about seeing a show in this famous landmark.  The SOH is a happening place on a Friday night.  I think there were 3 or 4 shows in different theaters at the opera house.  We really enjoyed Soap.  It was full of music, juggling and acrobatics.  It was the perfect way to end our visit to Australia!

There are still 2 days that I haven't written about.  One was the trip to see the little penguins on Phillip Island and the other day was our bus trip on the Great Ocean Road.  Both of these days were incredible.  We saw so many awe inspiring sights that we were almost on overload!  My fifth grade students will hear about these days in great detail.  I may post one more time to share some of these sights.

If you ever have the opportunity to travel to Australia, I would highly recommend it. You know it almost doesn't matter where you go you meet wonderful people, see amazing things, and learn so much about other cultures and yourself.  Travel certainly enriches life!

Waterfalls, Bondi Beach, Olympic Park and Trains

Wow, we have done so much since my last post, I don't know where to begin.  I apologize for not posting more often. We have to pay for internet at the hotel, so we don't do get online that often. It is Wednesday night Jan. 19 and we are in Melbourne which is in the state of Victoria.  I can't believe our time here is almost over-it has flown by.

Before we left Sydney we did some pretty cool stuff.  Thursday we took a train to the Blue Mountains which are about 60 miles from the city. When we got there it was quite cloudy and drizzly again, but we were able to hike down into a rainforest.  We also found a trail to this beautiful waterfall called the Leura Cascade.  I took some great pictures, but I don't have access to them right now.

On Friday, most of the students took surfing lessons at Bondi Beach.  This is a very popular beach in Sydney.  It was fun to sit in the sun and watch the students.  The water was very cold, so they had to wear wetsuits. They all said they had a wonderful time and it was one of the best things they had done so far.  Even though we wore sunscreen, everyone got a little sunburnt that afternoon.  The sun is very intense here.

Saturday, we toured Olympic Park in Sydney which is where the 2000 Summer Olympics were held.  The main stadium was opened in 1999 and cost $650 million to build!  It now hosts lots of different events like concerts, cricket, soccer, Australian football, and rugby.  Cricket is a very popular sport here and this is the season.  The Aussies are a bit upset because they were just beat by England for the first time in many years.

We left Sydney Saturday night. What a trip that was!  We were to take an overnight train to Melbourne, but they were doing some work on the tracks, so we had to ride in a bus for 2 hours then get on a train for the next 10 hours.  The seats were roomy enough, but still hard to sleep when you are sitting up! 

We got to Melbourne around 8:00 a.m. Sunday, but our hotel rooms were not ready so we stored our luggage and went off to find breakfast.  We found that and more when we came across Victoria Market.  It is an open air market with lots of fresh produce and rows and rows of vendors selling everything from Uggs to Aboriginal art.  I think we all bought souvenirs and are planning to go back tomorrow (Thursday). We toured the Art Center, went up in the Melbourne Skywalk, took a river boat tour and visited the aquarium all with little sleep and no showers!!  Needless to say we were all extremely happy to get back to the hotel that night.

The last three days have been absolutely amazing, but I will tell you about that later.  There continues to be flooding, now in Victoria but to the north of us.  Brisbane in Queensland is cleaning up after a massive flood.  Australia has had a drought for the last fifteen years, but this summer they have been hit hard with heavy rainfall.  As you can imagine it is all you hear about on the news.  We met a man from Brisbane the other day who had been on vacation when the floods hit.  He said his house was okay, but his nephew's home was full of water up to one foot from the ceiling.  They lost everything.  It's all very sad.

On a lighter note, so far I have seen no snakes in the wild. There have been signs warning us about them.  Oh, and I must make a correction to one of my earlier posts.  Koalas are just koalas not koala bears.  Many of you know that they are marsupials like a kangaroo, possum, wallaby, etc.  We have seen lots of them both at a sanctuary and in the wild.  More on that later!  I will leave you with another Australian analogy.  Read it and complete it.       kangaroo : jump :: koala :                                                    

Day 3 Continued

                It is Friday night here and we are packing up because we will travel to Melbourne tomorrow night.  I am hoping that you will not have a delay Friday so you can finally go on your field trip.  I am sure you will have a great day!

                I think I left off writing about our incredibly busy Wednesday.  After the Sydney Opera House, we walked to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.  On exhibit were items from the burial city of the First Emperor of China who was born in 259 BC.  You may have heard about the underground city that was found 36 years ago.  They have found thousands and thousands of terracotta (clay) soldiers. Seven of those soldiers and two horses were on display.  These figures all had such intricate details it was hard to imagine the hours of work each one would have taken to make.  We were lucky to get to view these amazing artifacts.

                We then went to Sydney Wildlife World which is a small zoo in Darling Harbor, Sydney.  As we walked in, there was a zookeeper holding a huge stick insect.  He even let some of the students touch it.  We saw so many animals: snakes, reptiles, insects, mammals, birds.  Some of you know that many of the world’s most dangerous snakes live in Australia.  I took a photo of the most poisonous snake, the inland taipan.  It was not very big or scarey looking, but looks can be deceiving.  On the rooftop of this building were about 6 koala bears sitting in trees.  They were so cute!  You could pay extra to get your picture taken with one and touch one.  None of us did that, but I still got some really great pictures.  We also saw lots of kangaroos.  We even saw a couple of kangaroos “boxing”.

                But wait there’s more!  From the animal park, we got on a boat to tour Sydney Harbor.  It was really neat to see Sydney from the water.  We drove under the Harbor Bridge and on around the opera house.  We ended this busy busy day with a trip up the Sydney Tower.  For any of you who have been to the top of the John Hancock building in Chicago, this was very similar, but not quite as high.  It was a clear day so we had beautiful views from every direction.  It was a great way to end this crazy day of sightseeing.

Day 2 and 3

Wow!  So much has happened since my last post and I hear you have had a snow day.  It is hard to imagine snow when it is so warm here, but I am sorry to miss it because I do love snow days! 


HMS Vampire at Maritime Museum



Interior Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House



Pizza at The Australian

 Let me begin by telling you a bit about our second day down under which was Tuesday.  Day two began with drizzle and continues on and off all day.  We started the day by visiting a public relations firm in north Sydney.  This was really good for the students since most of them are studying business.  It was interesting for me as well.  I learned that there are 4 main political parties here in Australia.  Mining is a huge industry here and natural resources include coal, iron, gold, petroleum, and natural gas.  Australia has a population of about 22.5 million people and over 7 million are on Facebook!

After our business meeting we headed to a restaurant that had been recommended to us for its great pizza.  Guess what kind we all tried?  Kangaroo pizza—check out the photo below.  It was quite delicious!  I’m glad we ate it before we saw them at the wildlife park on Wednesday.  After lunch, we visited the Maritime Museum and actually got to tour a submarine and a battleship.  I had to think of some of you boys and how you would have loved that.  The submarine was extremely cramped inside. When it was in service, it would have held 68 crewmen!  I got a bit claustrophobic and we were not even underwater.

Day 3, Wednesday, was jam packed.  Each day a different student is the leader.  They are responsible for the day’s activities and getting us to and from everything.  It is a big responsibility, but they are all doing a terrific job.  Chelsea was our leader today and she had us on a tight schedule!  Remember, I told you earlier that we were going to tour the opera house, well this was the day.  We had a guided tour which was really cool because we each wore head phones.  The guide spoke into a microphone that transmitted only to our headphones.  It made it really easy to hear everything she had to say.  The Sydney Opera House was designed by a Danish architect named Jorn Utson.  When they began construction they estimated it taking 3 years and $7 million to build.  In reality it took 16 years and $102 million to complete the project!  Quite a difference don’t you think?  The sad thing is that Utson never personally saw the building completed.  He left the project before it was finished.  On a positive note, he was consulted later on additions to the building and now has a room named after him.  The building is absolutely beautiful.  Up close you can see that the tile on the outside is not just one color but several different colors of off white.  Some of the tiles are glossy and some of them have a matte finish.  All of the tile was made in Sweden and I think the guide said there are 17 different shapes.

On the inside many different types of wood were used in the concert halls and theaters.  We were able to sit inside the main concert hall.  It was specifically designed for instrumental music.  Microphones are really not needed because the acoustics are so good.  I had to think that Mr. Varner would love it, so would you band students.  The opera hall is designed for voice.  We were not able to see it because something was in rehearsal.  After the tour, the students decided they would like to see a show there, so we will see a musical next Friday on our last night here.  I am really looking forward to that!

Well, the students are waiting on me, so I had better go.  I will tell you more about Day 3 later.  Oh, before I go here is an Australian analogy for you.  Read it and complete it.              opera : voice :: orchestra : _______________________

We Made It!

After 20 or so hours of flying, we arrived in Sydney Monday morning around 8:00 which would have been 4:00 pm in Indiana.  I slept as much as I could on the plane, but still managed to watch 3 movies on the flight from Los Angeles!  It is warm, about 75-78 degrees and humid.  You have probably heard on the news about the massive flooding in the state of Queensland here in Australia.  We are in New South Wales which is quite a distance south of the flooding, but the forecast here calls for rain all week.  So far we have experienced only short showers. 

Our group, which consists of 6 boys, 6 girls, my husband and me, traveled by train into the city from the airport on our first morning.  We had a short walk from the train station to our hotel.  After we cleaned up a bit, we headed out to our first scheduled activity which was a two hour walking tour of Sydney.  We had a wonderful tour guide named Collin.  The tour was just what we needed after sitting in planes for so long!  We walked through an area of town known as The Rocks.  This is an area where the early settlers lived.  Most of these people were convicted criminals that had been sent here from England to serve out their sentence by working to colonize the area.  So, just as you are learning about the colonization of America, I am learning about the colonization of Australia! 

We ended our tour at the Sydney Opera House.  I am guessing most of you have seen pictures of it before.  We didn’t spend much time there because we are going to tour it later in the week.  We did check on seeing a show, but the students don’t seem too interested in it.  From there we took a bus to Darling Harbor where we visited the Sydney Aquarium.  We were able to walk through glass tunnels and see stingrays, sharks, turtles, and lots of different fish swim right over us!  It was really cool!

After supper at an open air restaurant (remember the photos of Copenhagen with the outdoor eating areas?), we headed back to our hotel for an early night.  I know I was exhausted, but we had a terrific first day down under! 

Preparations!

Furiously trying to get ready for the upcoming trip.  If only there wasn't so much to do beforehand!  The frenetic preparations almost make the 20 hour plane ride sound good!