3 weeks. That's how long I have left in this beautiful land called Australia! There aren't many words I can think of to describe how I feel about this event in my life, other than saying I have very mixed emotions. It all just seems very unreal that my year is coming to an end, and I have very little time left in my second home. That said, I'm not wasting any bit of it, with my weekends basically all booked up until I depart and almost no 'down time' since my Safari!
I got back to Moruya, after Safari, on a Tuesday afternoon, only to move into my last host family that evening. My counsellor, Carol, and her daughter moved my stuff for me while I was touring Australia, so I just had to get picked up by my new family, Chris and Jude. The next two days were spent unpacking and moving in while my host parents were at work. The third day, however, was a car trip out West to Deniliquin, NSW, in the middle of nowhere! This was Easter Weekend, in the middle of the 2 week school holidays, so my family thought to go out there! Now, this wasn't just a trip out west, Deniliquin was hosting the Deni Blues and Roots Festival! This was a 2 day music festival featuring artists such as the Doobie Brothers, Elvis Costello, and John Mayer! The drive is a whole 8 hrs one way, so, the long drive there and back, combined with the 2 days there provided a great opportunity to get to know my family and have some great fun with them in the process. Of the 26 acts who played over the weekend, I only missed 3 due to going to Church on Easter morning. The church was a bit sad, I found, as it was only half full on Easter weekend, with the majority of people being visitors for the festival. Other than that, it was a great service, and very enjoyable, I just hope the parish can be revived. Overall, I loved the festival, and even saw some artists I didn't recognize until I heard some songs I listen to quite often on my phone!
The following week was highlighted with yet another music festival, and ANZAC Day! Anzac Day is very similar to Memorial Day in the United States, and is on 25 April every year. ANZAC, standing for Australia New Zealand Army Corps, is the greatest military tradition in Australia, getting its start during WWI. With the local Australian Army Cadets, I got the honour of marching in 2 local Anzac Day Parades, carrying the Australian Flag in the first and the Australian Navy's flag in the second. This was a great opportunity that I was given and it was really cool. During the first ceremony, they even mentioned my name as a visitor from the Marine Cadets of America! This was an awesome experience to have and through it I found a new respect for the Australian military and for the US military.
Continuing the fun, a few friends and I drove up to Canberra for the weekend. The main event was Groovin The Moo, which is a regional music festival, but we also made an educational stop to a mosque in the city. This excursion was connected to our Society and Culture class in school, but our 2 hour stop was very interesting. We even got to see what one of their daily 5 prayers looks like and what they do during it. The next morning, we caught the bus to the music festival which went from 11am - 11pm and was a very fun twelve hours. I went with friends from Moruya, but met up with exchange students from my district and some who I met on Safari! It was fantastic to hang out with these great people again and dance away to some great music as well! :D
The very next weekend we went up to Sydney! The Saturday was spent with just Chris and I taking a walk through the Botanical Gardens up to the Opera House and Circular Quay, from which we got a ferry to Manly Beach! Here, even though it was only 18 Celcius out, I decided it was ripe enough for a swim which was beautiful because the water was around 22. At least it was enjoyable until I had to get out into the cold wind... We had fish and chips for lunch on the boardwalk before getting the ferry back. That night I met the family at a small gathering and had a decent time. It was nice to meet my host family's family. :) The next day we left for Moruya midday but didn't get home until very late at night thanks to an accident which closed the highway completely for 2 hours! It was a good bonding experience though.
The next Saturday was the only time post-safari that I have not been doing much of anything, so Saturday was very relaxed, and Sunday I went for a surf out in Broulee in the morning, letting my host mum sleep in on Mother's Day. :) After surprising my parents in the US with a call to wish my mom Happy Mother's Day and my father a Happy Birthday, I went to bed late. :)
17 years I've been alive now, and it was fantastic to celebrate this birthday here in Australia! My birthday this year was very prolonged thanks to a lot of love from a lot of people. :D The night before my birthday, my family took me out to the movies and dinner, and also gifted me with a cool shirt with the names of all the surf spots along the South Coast! Then, my actual birthday became one of my best ever thanks to my fellow classmates and my brother, Will! Will had organised the entire class to throw me a little surprise party during lunch at school, which had me so stoked! Everyone did a fantastic job with not letting it on to me and it put a huge smile on my face. One of my classmates even baked a very delicious cake! :D Thank you to Will and everyone who was involved with doing that! I loved it! :D My amazing birthday continued at cadets that night when they did a very similar thing for me! The surprise wasn't quite as good because they expressed intent to do something for my birthday and they told me not to go near one of the rooms though the night, but I still loved it. :) The next Sunday, my counsellor was awesome and got [almost] all of my host families together in the afternoon for a little suprise party! This even continued more than a week after my birthday at the Rotary meeting. The Moruya Club gave me a book with panoramic pictures of Australia, which they had all signed! :) My actual birthday, thanks to some amazing friends, was probably one of the best, if not the best birthday I've ever had, and then combined with all the other festivities over the week and a half, it was astounding!
Now, skip back a little bit to the weekend immediately following my birthday, and I'll tell you about my little trip to the top of Australia! That Friday, my family drove up to a little town called Dalgetty on the banks of the Snowy River and we stayed in a pub there for the night. The next morning, we were up early to drive over to Jindabyne for breakfast and coffee before heading up the mountain. We parked at Charlotte's Pass, which is about 8km (5 miles) from the summit of My Kosciuszko, Australia highest mountain. There, we unloaded our bicycles and started pedaling up, and up, and up, for several kilometres, until finally, we went down to cross the Snowy River, but then, back up. This time the up was 2 or 3 times as steep with a headwind coming at us around 50 km/h, making that portion the slowest 500m of the trip! Once the three of us were finally up at the top, we stopped inside a little hut for morning tea and a quick warm up since it was only 8 Celcius outside. Afterward, we continued going up before my parents left their bikes at a toilet stop before the final ascent. I, however, decided to continue riding the next 500m to the summit, which gave me a much bigger sense of achievement than walking would have done! Now that I sound amazing, biking up Australia's tallest mountain and all, I'll let you know what the mountain actually is... haha. Mt. Kosciuszko is only 2200m (7300 ft) and it doesn't really have much of a peak, so to most of the world, it would be more of a large hill, and with no peak, it definitely looks like one. Anyways, It was a very fun day with a lot of exercise and adventure. We had lunch at the top, despite the wind, and even enjoyed Tim Tams! Despite just wanting the ride to end when we were riding up, once at the top, I kinda felt like I wanted the mountain to be higher so I could keep riding...I kinda liked it. Anyway, we had to ride down, and back to the car, which for something that took 2 and a half hours to go up, only took 25 min to go down! That afternoon, we felt we didn't get enough bike riding in, so when we went back to Jindabyne, we went for another 5km ride around the lake before packing up and driving back down to Moruya.
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I'll post more a bit later, but for now, its time to watch some football, or soccer, or whatever you call it! Go Socceroos! Go Australia!
