Day 2

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And here begins day two…

Welcome to Australia! The only place where people eat their own national animal.

I woke up with a start at the sound of the alarm and enjoyed the feeling of refreshment after a much needed sleep in a comfortable bed. Again, I will try to describe the day like my grandma would by highlighting the food. For breakfast, I had bacon, sausage, a toasted English muffin, and some delicious watermelon. The bacon was interesting because it was in a strange shape. The only thing that I could describe it as is kinda like a pork chop shape. It is thicker than the bacon back home but still very tasty.
We had some sessions, as you would expect, in our orientation. Then we had a break for lunch. We walked into the town of Sorrento (which was only about 5 minutes away). Sorrento was a cute little one street town with lots of shops, cafés, and beautiful ocean views. I really like to open sidewalk café feel that I experienced in both St. Kilda yesterday and in Sorrento today. We had a lovely snack of gelatto and fruit juice while sitting on the sidewalk watching the time go by. I had Strawberry Pear gelato and a freshly juiced watermelon, orange and apple fruit juice. It was very tasty and refreshing. We saw an internet café but all of the computers were taken and I didn’t have my laptop with me to try and catch some wireless. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to get to the internet so that I can post all these entries I’m writing. After lunch we had more sessions and then a small hike around the coast nearby. I was excited because we went to see London Bridge, which I just read about in In a Sunburned Country. The beach was fun to walk along but I had forgotten how hard it is to walk in the sand sometimes. Some people in the group decided to go swimming despite the cold temperatures and gusty winds. I watched. While we were at the beach some guy came along and we got to watch him surf a little. It was pretty cool I was amazed at his ability to read the waves and predict where they were going to break.
For dinner we took a cruise across the bay to Melbourne where they brought Fish ‘N’ Chips to the boat. We sat on the docked boat and ate the food while seagulls swarming around our heads. Of course it didn’t help for some of the students in our group to be throwing food at them. The fish ‘n’ chips from yesterday was much better, but who can turn down a free meal.
Walking back from the boat to our hotel we got a chance to talk to Emily (our arcadia contact in Sydney). She is a really nice person, who is actually from England but immigrated here 8 years ago. I got a chance to ask about the arcadia trips a little and I’m trying to decide which ones I want to go on. The problem is the ones I think I would like the most are the ones that are the most expensive. The Outback trip takes the entire week of easter break, which would rule out my opportunity for visiting my Uncle and family in New Zealand. Well tomorrow they are supposed to have an info session on all the trips so maybe after that I can make an informed decision.
Again sorry mom and dad for not calling yet but the phone has almost always been tied up when we have breaks and I’m having trouble getting the calling card I bought to work. Sometime I will take the time to figure it out but for now I’m enjoying my time here with other people. I love you all so much. Talk to you soon!

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Photos

The Oceanic
The beautiful place where we stayed for most of orientation.

The London Bridge
This rock formation used to be a bridge called the London Bridge but as you can see it fell down!

A beautiful view
here is a view from the beach looking out at the ocean