Saturday morning, at 7:30 a.m., Erik and Ryan returned the rental car at the airport and were there to greet the LC students. They didn't have any troubles with their flight or customs and were to Arundel house by about 10 a.m. They all were pretty tired, but doing well. (Kendall was the only one not here yet, she arrived here about 10 p.m.) Faye drove the rest of us and all our stuff here-thanks for everything Jeff and Faye. After a short orientation meeting with our fearless leader, Nat, the students were given $, their first look at the cool plastic Australian bills and the gold $1 and $2 coins. Breakfast is provided here, but we cook our own lunch and supper. Or we can easily get take away too. There are lots of options around here for good food, so many international choices. Several students ventured downtown to see the harbour, etc. We didn't have bus passes yet, so they walked a long way! Erik and the 3 older kids went out in the evening to brave the crowds for the first day of the Sydney festival. They went to 5 different parks and heard lots of different bands. Their favorite was one that included amazing pyrotechnics. Erik said he was the oldest attendee by far! Ryan and I enjoyed a quiet evening playing scrabble and watching "My Fair Lady".
Sunday we had an interesting bus tour, ending up on Bondi Beach. We couldn't swim, it was a hard temptation for the kids, so instead we ate lunch. We had amazing fish and chips and calamari at the beach restaurant. I like how they cook it all up for you after you order it, and you can choose how you want the fish cooked. Yum. Sunday evening, Erik cooked steaks and kangaroo kebabs on the kitchen's huge broiler oven. The steaks were great and several liked the roo. It was a little strange for me. I might try it again, since this had a weird maranade on it. Seth tried some too and said his tasted like a combination of duck, tuna and beef!
Erik's had a bad cold, but it hasn't slowed him down much. Kari and I saw "Australia" on Monday. We'd heard the Australian version had a different ending, but it was the same as in the states. Enjoyable. Ryan and Erik saw "A tale of Desperaux". Ryan and Bryn bought a cricket set and they played a rousing game of that in the park across the street.
Monday was the first day of lectures and I heard they were good. I was doing laundry, writing postcards, and helping Ryan with his math. Tuesday we had an Aboriginal woman, Goori, named Margret teach us. She was very interesting and we all appreciated hearing her beliefs. We will see her again the week we are with the aunties and uncles at the Aboriginal fields studies camp.
Yesterday, we ate a lunch of leftovers and then headed down to the Sydney tower. It's impressive, held steady by 56 cables. It is 305 M tall, twice as tall as the Harbour bridge and the 25th tallest inhabitable structure in the world. It's as tall as 60 giraffes and the same height as the Eiffel Tower. It's 1506 steps would take an average person about 50 minutes to climb, but the record is just under 7 minutes in a race they hold! We took the double decker elevator! We saw great views and even found Arundel house and could see, thru the binoculars, laundry on the roof! We also went on OZ trek, which was ok, but not the greatest entertainment.
However, then we walked down to the Opera house and saw Le Grand Cirque-Aerial dreams. Wow, what a great show. They had the most amazing talent from several countries. They had a very funny ringmaster who at one point blew up this huge balloon. It was about 6 feet in diameter and he put it on his head and then got in it. They had a guy on a bike and 9 women got on it and him and were riding around the stage! One guy put chairs on top of chairs and was balancing on the top of about 12 chairs. It was such a great show, we hadn't seen one like it before and were so glad to get to see one in the famous Opera house.
Today is a free day, so our plan is to take all the students to the ocean-Coogee beach. Should be fun. I'll try to write more often, so each entry isn't so long, but it's tricky to find time to do everything.
Hope all's well back in the states. It's supposed to hit 37 degrees on Thursday, interestingly enough that translates into 98.6!
Love,
Carla
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