Sunday 13 November 2011

Day 21

11/1/11

Well I have not been keeping up with my trip! Lots has happened in the past few weeks! It has been exciting and adventurous.

School has been pretty good! I am learning a lot and really starting to feel welcome there! I have already been teaching a handful of lessons here and there, which have all gone pretty well. I am looking forward to teaching more and more!  There aren’t a whole lot of differences from schools in Australia to schools in America, but there are a few. The kids language is so different! They use curse words often. I am in shock, but it is pretty normal here. The only word I haven't heard them say is the f one. I guess that's good! But they say damn and shit and bitch. It's crazy! I have been learning lots about how the education system works here. School has been good and I have begun to get into a routine. 

This past weekend we had a long weekend, no school on Friday because of CHOGM! CHOGM is a big event where the Queen and Commonwealth get together and discuss things going on in the countries involved in CHOGM. Since the Queen comes to it, it is a huge event and lots of preparation and hype come because she is here. But tt was very nice to have the extra day off school! I wish we had a few more days off school because I would love to do some more travelling. Anyway, Friday I was going to go to Mandurah with Carly, but we got a late start so we decided to go into Perth and see what was going on there. It ended up being a great day to go to the city! There were a lot of free events going on, as well as different markets set up right by the train station. We walked down to the river to go see the Bell Tower. We figured we might as well check to see how much it cost, since we were there. It was our lucky day because it was free admission! Almost the entire outside of the tower was made in glass, containing a spiral staircase on the inside, going all the way up. This made for an interesting journey up to the top, especially when I have a terrible fear of heights… There were six levels and several of them had rooms with history about the tower and lovely window views of the ocean. We finally reached the top, which was stunning! Well one way was stunning, I turn to the other side of the tower and it has a 360 degree with a grate-like floor, walk out. I was terrified! I started sweating, my legs were shaking, my palms were clammy- basically I was freaking out. Carly started to walk out, I told her I probably couldn’t go out there. I walked to the other side to look at the view of the ocean and get some lovely pictures! I did take some pictures of the skyline, but I didn’t dare walk on the walk out.  After being up there for awhile, taking in the lovely view, and snapping lots of pictures, I started to think. I knew if I walked by down the tower and did not walk out to at least say I had and snapped a picture, I would be mad at myself.  Another few minutes passed I told Carly I was going to do it! I wanted to walk on the walk-out! So I grabbed the rail and slowly braced myself to walk out on the platform. It was really terrifying, but I am glad I did it! Even if it did take me forever!! Some people towards the end of the half circle asked if I was scared of heights. I wanted to ask them whatever would give them that impression, but I was too scared to be sarcastic! It was an adventure to say the least! The lady working up at the top told me congratulations when I had finally made it around, that made me feel proud! After we left the tower, we walked down to the ferries to see times. The ferry takes you to the zoo and into South Perth. It was really our lucky day because that was also free so we decided to ride it over and see what was in South Perth. There was a beautiful view of the cities skyline behind us! Of course we got some pictures in front of it. We wanted to figure out how far away the zoo was so we found some signs and followed them. We passed a delicious looking ice cream/waffle place and decided to stop and eat, we were both starving! They were the best waffles ever and huge! We finally found the zoo, not far at all from where the ferry dropped us off. We are definitely making a trip back to South Perth! By this time it was later evening so we decided to head back to Carly’s, relax some before we went out on the town! 

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