View from a look out at nelsons bay

sand dunes at nelsons bay

Nelsons Bay etc

Hey everyone

sorry for the wait :)

Nelsons bay was really good and i had a very good time with Steve and Sue who took me down. they're kids also came which was great and we all had a good time going to the beach and going to some great lookout spots. there's also some dunes that start at nelsons bay and then go 40 kilometers south to newcastle which is pretty anazing. it looked more like a dessert to me...

Then last weekend i went to Seal Rocks with my host parents which is a nice spot just 45 minutes south of forster where we have a picnic and went for a walk to the lighthouse.
the last few days the weather has been great and i have enjoyed swimming in the pool every day. now the weather changed but still the water is nice and warm so thats not going to stop me :-)
for the coming weekend i dont have much planned yet but probably just go to the beach and stuff like that....

anyways i hope yous all are having a good time and enjoy the quiet time because in just 70 days i will be back to bug everyone :-)

host parents

us at the australian outback spectacular

beach............

me at dreamworld

some idea of the fun i had :-)

beach at surfers

view from our apartment

my house again :D

My Place and the view

hey guys

just to prove how in australia things just plan themselves i thought i might mention that the same day tat i wrote that i dont have any plans right now a guy from rotary came to me and offered me a trip to nelsons bay with him....we are leaving friday night until sunday.thats the sort of thing that happens alot over here and you just have to get used to it :)

pictures will follow soon by the way

hey everyone

today is the first day of school and thats where i am right now...back to normal its pretty tough getting up at 7.30 haha
my holidays were great and i was home for a bout two days in two weeks which is just about hte best thing that can happen to you...on thursday i went to surfers paradise with my host family which was great...on the way up we stoped at a place called Balina which is about 2.5 hours out of surfers...so we stayed at a motel for the night and next morning we were off to downtown surfers paradise...the coast is very pretty and it was a nice atmosphere....in the afternoon we went to our apartment at a place called main beach...yeah its called main beach its not the main beach.we had a nice apartment with a nice view over the harbour.i will upload some pictures later on....that night we went to a show called the australian outback spectacular which was about an australian army built up by horse riders...it was a pretty important part of australian history and it was very well done with lots of actual horse riding but also a huge wall which was a screen for animations and video clips...as you were watching dinner was served and it was a very nice 3 course meal.

then on saturday we went to dreamworld which was only about 15 minutes away. dreamworld is one of the theme parks at surfers paradise and its sort of like the europapark that we have in germany. it was good fun although the weather got pretty bad at some points of the day. so that day was full of crazy rides and other entertainment like an imax cinema and a show with siberian tigers.
the next day we went to seaworld which is another theme park at surfers. there were obviously lots of sea animals like heaps of fish,dolphns,sharks polar bears and heaps of others...we went to see a dolphin show which was pretty good and there were other activities like feeding sting rays and feeding penguins...
then on monday morning which was a beautiful morning of course we left and drove down to coffs harbour where i went to vini's for the week until saturday. we chilled alot and went to the beach and caught up with some other exchange students that were camping in coffs....also we went camping by a river for a few days.vini's host family had organised that we all could go rafting at a campsite by the nymboida river...or something similar to that...the river didnt have much water though so the tubes got stuck alot and all we did was lie in them and chill :D

anyways now its back to school and tonight is rotary again...i havent got too many plans coming up but there's usually something coming up that you didnt expect so thats ok...

i will upload some pictures today or then latest wednesday...hope yous are all good in freezing switzerland!here its geting warm again :)

holidays

Hello my Swiss friends!

Well all my exams are now done and I finally got holidays...good feeling!

In these holidays I have a lot planed which is pretty much the best thing that can happen to you. first I am going to surfers paradise where my host family and I will be enjoying some of the parks there like dream world and others…I don’t really know what to expect but I know that the area is beautiful and then I will tell you how the parks were when I am back. I am staying at surfers from Thursday until Monday and then on the Monday we are heading home although they are dropping me off in Coffs harbour, which is where vini is hosted so that I can spend a few days with him. I am pretty sure that we are going camping with his host family so that should be fun

Then towards the end of the week I head home and then school starts again.

My current host family is really nice and the location is just beautiful right on the water in Tuncurry. My host dad takes me golfing a lot and I get along really well with both of them but also with my host brothers that are 28. they are twins and they both live in Forster. I am pretty sure that this is my third last host family because I will be moving to my next one after the year 12 HSC courses are done which is in the middle of November. Then I move to a guy called John Daniel and he’s a locksmith in Forster. He and his family are going to Adelaide over Christmas and they offered me to go with them. But I chose not to because I would rather spend my holidays with all my friends in Forster also because after Christmas I have about two weeks until I leave Australia. right now I still cant really imagine what it will be like to go back home....
So last I will go back to my first host family to the McGarrigle’s.

now i wanted to upload some pictures of my new house and the street etc but the computer doesnt recognise my micro card thingy so i will try later on before i go to surfers....

what i've been up to

hello everyone
sorry thats its been so long since i last blogged. i guess u could call it lazyness but lets not talk about that...

anyways district tour....was great!!
we started off in a small place called uralla where all the new exchange students and vini and i got together and quickly became friends and we had a briefing there where the new exchangies were all introduced to the system.
the next day we went off to gunnedah which is even further west and on the way there we stopped at an animal park where there were koalas kangaroos and many other ozi animals.

we stayed in gunnedah for the night where we were hosted by local rotarians.the next morning we headed off to bingara for horse riding which was something i had never done before and i think my horse that i called emma didnt really like me but it was alright anyways :)

from there we went on to inverell the same day. in inverell there are lots of mines where people look for saphires. we also got the chance to do that and found plenty.

from there we went on to wollgoolga that most aussies just call woopi. this was the first stop on the coast and it was beautiful!we stayed there for two nights just like in inverell. the second day we went out on a boat which was great because it was a great day for it. we went snorkeling and saw lots of fish near a reef and also did that thing where u tie an air ring behind the boat and then the boat drags u over the water,,,was great fun anyways.

in the evening we went to a bonfire that the local rotary club organised.

next morning we headed off to kempsey. there we didnt get up to too much except being hosted for the night which was special enough for me coz i was hosted by a guy that had moved to australia from switzerland so i spoke swiss german all night and trust me i didnt like it :)

from kempsey we were off to port macquarie which was our last stop and we stayed for three nights. on the way three we stopped at a porpoise pool where they had dolphins,seals and penguins and also some fish. in port we did all sorts of stuff like go kayaking and go surfing.

surfing was good fun but the water was freeeezzzzing. we stayed at a big house just outside the main street of port which was great because we had a lot of space for footy, bonfires and even a pool. also an aboriginal came to speak to us and explained some oh the culture and their habits.

from port everyone went home which was sad because everyone had become such good friends.

after that i have been in school working very hard and had two trips with rotarians to sydney and also to newcastle. both of them i really enjoyed.

in sydney we stayed in nowra for the first two nights which is about 1.5 hours south of sydney. we visited kangaroo valley which almost looked like switzerland....well a bit...green hills sorta thing.

the second day we went to cockatoo island which is an island in sydney harbour. there's a prison there that was built by the prisoners themselves :)

the last night which was sunday night we stayed near kings cross right in sydney. last day was monday and we went to watsons bay which is the south end of the entrance to sydney harbour so there were alot of cannons and other defencive military things there...overall i had seen lots of new stuff in and near sydney which was great.

then last weekend i was in newcastle for one night. on friday i went down with my ex host family the dwyers. we stayed at their sons place which was very well located so they showed me some areas of newcastle because i had never been anywhere else than the airport :) newcastle was good but not the most exciting ever...

so here i am now the exams have started and i had my first one yesterday...it was english and it was quite hard but not only for me so that was alrite :)

thats about all for the moment and i will try to move my lazy ass a bit more regularly so that this blog doesnt die completely :)

cya mate xoxo

hello everyone!

i just came home from my district tour on tuesday and i had a great time!
on friday night i am moving hosts so i will tell you all about it after that is finished.
here in forster its getting warmer and summer is definately on its way.

more news soon!

Whats been hapenin....

i havent blogged in ages and but here i go trying to tell yous whats been going on...

well after the holidays had ended i started school again which was okay to see what everyone had got up to but after a very short time i missed the getting up late..on friday after the holidays i went to gloucester to visit my host family's son anthony who took me to his work place. he is a manager of a coal mine called gloucester coal. i have never been to a coal mine so it was quite interesting to see whats happening. the area was huge and so was the coal piling up on a huge hill waiting to be transported away to newcastle where it is further processed.
we stayed at his place for the night and the next day he showed me all the cattle that he has. he doesnt have a lot and most australians would call him a hobby farmer.
on sunday i played soccer against one of the top teams called taree. we lost 1-0 which was sort of unnecessary but we didnt take it too seriously.
then the weekend after i was supposed to go to sydney to visit my host sister nicole but she had to go to canberra so i didn't go. i played soccer again and sadly another defeat which burried our hopes for making the finals. the good thing about that is that we then just started muckin around in soccer.
now this last weekend i just spent in the blue mountains where we stayed with my host father's sister who lives in blaxland. about an hour out of sydney. on friday arvo we went down and then on saturday we went to an enagement party of my hosts nephew. in the evening we then went to the panthers club to have dinner with some friends. the panthers club is great and huge. the panters are a footy team called the penrith panthers. then sunday we went to visit some of the "mountains". its rather just driving up a hill and then looking down and saying yeah we are pretty high up. but instead of mountains on top of the hill the hill is the mountain.
then yesterday i went to rotary which was a pretty special one. first they told me that they had bought four paves that will be part of a pathway leading to one of the beaches and that they would like to ingrave my name in them. i decided to put my name,hometown,dates that i was here and the logo of rotary youth exchange on them. this is a very nice gesture from my rotary club that will make me stay a part of forster even when i leave.then there was also a part i didnt really like that much but i almost expected it. they told me that i could not go visit my host sister by myself in sydney. which is fair enough because she is only 19 and lives with her boyfriend alone in sydney. i obviously didnt like it but knew that they of course had a point for not letting me go. another member then offered to take me down to sydney the same weekend i was going to go in september. this wont be the same but of course i appreciate the offer and said yes. i will now just catch up with my host sister when she comes up to forster again.

so this is pretty much everything that happened lately in a few words....my plans now are going on my district tour for about 10 days from saturday on. this will be great and i finally get to meet all the new exchangies. then a few days after i move to my new host family from which i only know brian lidbury my host dad so far but i know it will be good. thats about all for the moment. i will definately blog more often again from now on. the only thing that kept me from bloging was that i couldnt use the internet very often.

cheers

 

here's the international monopoly tournament and below me on magnetic hill  

 

      here was me making zopf                            which eventually ended up aight

for some reason i cant put this close to the pictures which really annoyes me but yeah....anyways theres pete and i at alligator gorge and also some wallabies that we saw on a walk on some hill that i cant remember the name...

i hope thats enough for right now cause i am sooo tired and going to bed now....have a good one!

My time in adelaide and then back in forster

hey everyone!!

the last two weeks have been really great for me and i enjoyed them heaps!as i already told u i went to adelaide and now i am back in forster since sarurday night.

in my second half of the stay in adelaide i went to the flinders rangers which is a chain of hills that go through a few parts of south australia. i dont know exactly how long the chain of hills is but it was pretty big and it was very nice. there was a hill called magnetic hill where you have to turn off the engine of your car and put it in neutral and then loosen the brakes. at this stage you expect to roll backwards but really you roll forwards so it looks like your rolling up. i didnt think it was going up much but it was definitely flat and the car was rolling too fast for the surface being flat.....so that was interesting.

after we went to alligator gorge where we walked on some paths that took us through the gorge. this was very beautiful since there was also water flowing through the gorge.

also we went to a place on the coast south of port pirie called wallaroo. a very nice little village where we had a cabin in a resort. the weather wasnt too great but mainly windy and also it rained from time to time...first night some friends of the arnolds came over that also live in port pirie and also stayed in wallaroo for a few nights. they brought their son hugo and two english guys about my age that were on holiday in australia with them for 4 months. we had a good barbeque and then had an international monopoly tournament which britain won.

the next day we met the same people again that we had had over for dinner and we played poker. i can proudly say that i dominated and brought the win home for switzerland. also we went fishing in the morning but it was very windy and chilly so that peter who is one of the two arnolds i stayed with took me for a drive to see some small places around. this was good but later in the afternoon i was so tired that i slept for three hours and almost ended up not going to visit the english for a revenge in monopoly. but once again britain struck another important win in this financial crisis....i ended up giving my remaining money to sam who was one of the two british guys so that he could finish off the job and not let australia claim a win over europe.

the next morning it was already time to say goodbye to wallaroo and since dianne had to see a doctor in adelaide i decided to join her and go shopping in one of adelaids biggest shopping centers....was pretty good and i got some things to give the arnolds to take to switzerland when they visit georgia at the end of september..

other than that not much more happened after that because only few days were remaining. and after all that midnight monopoly i was more than happy with a day off. the last evening some friends came over and we played pool and watched the aussies play cricket although they werent doing any good at all....

then on saturday it was time to say goodbye and drive down to adelaide again. i had a good flight to melbourne and then off to newcastle where my host family the dwyers picked me up.

then the next day on sunday a girl from denmark that had just arrived on saturday in australia and that is staying near my place in gloucester which is about 40 minutes away from forster. it was a beauty of a day so the water was very pretty and it was nice and warm. we checked out most of forster and then she went back to gloucester with her hosts.
then i spent some time playing picionnary with gillian, who is the dwyer's daughter, and her three kids asleigh (11) giorgi (9) and cameron (7).

since i have one more week of holidays left i spent monday in tuncurry with ben who is a great mate of mine. we played some golf and went for a drive around forster.....in the evening i went to rotary and i spoke about my experience in adelaide and they presented a nice badge shaped like the border of australia, this will look great on my blazer!
now today i went for a drive with terry and he showed me some places near forster that i hadnt been to. since it was a very nice day the looks were beautiful....

so thats pretty much it and now i still have heaps of program for a while...here's whats comin up:

soon i will go deep sea fishing with noel from my rotary club
going to sydney to visit my host sister
going to the blue mountains with my hosts
going on district tour for 9 days...

and all that in august haha lookin good ay??

cheers

hey everyone

alot has happened since i last blogged and soon i am leaving adelaide :(

i dont really have time to blog right now but tomorrow i am flying back and then sometime soon after that i will refresh my blog with the happenings from adelaide and also upload some pictures...i noticed that i have been horrible with uploading pictures...it just takes a while to do it so yeah but i will upload some!

MAFOTWTCBAILEIIMSW

so here i go with my aussie feature of the week...

its THE ASHES

this is a cricket tournament that is currently played in cardiff, england.
ages and ages ago the aussies played england and australia won. because england had always been the best team in the world the aussies burnt the wickets which lie on top of the stumps. the ashes were then put in an urne and this is ever since a tradition and every three years australia plays england and the winner gets the cup. this tournament means alot to everyone and its quite popular on tv aswell. its a best of 3 series and every game lasts 5(!!!) days with each team bowling and batting twice.
so there u go!

this was "my aussie feature of the week that can be anything i like even if it might seem weird" hope u enjoyed it!

adelaide

hello everyone

so here as promised what i have been up to in the last few days....

last friday i went to armidale for a rotary meeting where all the aussies were briefed and i was just there to tell them some things about what will expect them on their exchange and so on...it was a very good meeting with lots of talking to a group of exchangies going to europe and their parents....some people from rotary asked me to do a short talk infront of them and ended up being a 45 minute lecture caused by the curiousness of everyone....i of course would have been the same.

then on monday i came home and felt really bad so i didnt go to school or do anythin except sleep and pack and get ready for adelaide.....
then on tuesday morning i caught the bus to newcastle and then got on my plane to melbourne...on the plane my ears really hurt because over the weekend i had caught a very bad cold and was a bit sick still...so in melbourne my ears were buzzing and i couldnt hear a thing :D
then when i finally got on my plane and flew to adelaide it got really bad with my ears and it still is a today...it doesnt hurt when i am not in the air but i just cant hear very well sometimes but this will clear soon otherwise i will go to a doctor on monday..also i have limited voice due to extremely sore throat...
anyways in adelaide i met dianne and pete and they told me that we were staying in adelaide for a few days first so we went to a house that belongs to some friends of theirs but they were camping somewhere so the house was empty. it was really nice to stay there although a bit cold still nothing like it was in armidale...
in the evening we went to a nice pizza place where i met the son of the arnold's josh and his mate patrick and also his girlfriend...it was a very nice evening.
next day we decided to head south to victor harbor (not harbour but dont ask me why...) and there we saw some whales but they were far off the coast and u could barely see them by bare eye but still we saw some....then we went into town and also visited an animal park where i fed some roos out of my hand and also some emus....i saw many different aussie animals like wombats and some crocs and all other sorts....i even got up close to a koala and patted him that was very nice..
later in the evening we went to granite island where we went on a penguin tour and we saw some that were just coming in from the sea...
then thursday so yesterday we went into town and i saw some of the main streets of adelaide and met georgia's best friend who then later in the evening came to port pirie with us...we arrived in pirie around 8.30 in the evening and dropped issy off at her place and then i got a tour around the house and yeah watched some cricket and then went to bed.
today pete and di showed me around pirie and took me to their bakery...i am planning on showing them how to make some swiss zopf and other stuff...
so here i am know and the plans for the next few days are made but i wouldnt have a clue anymore...

hey everyone

sorry that i havent been active lately....i am in south australia since tuesday night and spent a few days in adelaide and since yesterday night i am in port pirie....today i am going to explore port pirie and in the evening i will tell you what i did in adelaide....i can tell you i have seen some great animals from really close!!
catch ya later!

MAFOTWTCBAILEIIMSW

my aussie feature is aqua golfing...

in tuncurry we have a place where u can go aqua golfing. its heaps of fun thats for sure!!
what u do is u buy a bucket of balls, bring your own golf club and then you have a green mat with a tee on it. in front of you there are signs in the water that you can hit. these signs have different meanings. two say hit me! so when you hit them you get a coupon "2 for 1"....there really is no such thing as a free lunch ay....
there are other targets where you can win a golf lesson or a ride on the amaroo cruise boat or then the jackpot of 200 dollars which is basically impossible to hit....
anyways it's great fun and my aussie feature of the week!

Safari part two!!

Hello everyone!

sorry that it has been so long sice my last post but i have been fairely busy and it doesn't get too quite until the middle of july.....last weekend i played soccer for tuncurry in tunners (tuncurry) and we were versing forster so it was a fair bit of rivalery....the game began quite bad for us with our goal keeper getting sent off for swering and also forster being rewarded a penalty. so with 10 men left and the score being 0-1 against us we really started playing....in the first half we were able to score once. my very good mate jack jenkins was able to “nutty” the opponents goalkeeper...so his shot went inbetween the keepers legs. second half we were dominating and scored one more and in the end we won an intense game 2-1...thanks to this we are still 4th in the league which would lead us into the semis at the end of august which is definitely what we are heading for....
later on i went to ben's house and stayed there for a bonfire where a few others came aswell and then i slept at ben's....sunday i was meant to go surfing but obviously it didn't work out because my mate jake robertson had to do his business speach...bloody hell...
anyways so ben, shannon, cody,who is the guy who got sent off for swearing, shane and i went golfing in forster and then aqua golfing in tuncurry. more about aqua golfing in an other post...
since monday i havent been up to too much but school and preparing my trips to armidale and adelaide coming up in the next 6 days. on friday i am leaving for a meeting in armidale where a few aussie exchangies leaving in january for all sorts of places and vini and i get together to catch up and meet each other..there will be another few meetings like this one.
now another episode of my safari adventures....again if u have any questiones to the places i visited or anything...go ahead and ask!

Day 7
early as always we got up and made our way from bed to the showers to breky and into our seats on the bus where we fell asleep again....we had some more than just spectacular views of the 12 apostels which are cliffs about 100 meters offshore....i have never seen anything like it so i will have to upload some pictures for you guys. in the evening we arrived in warrnambool where some people went for a 2 minute swim at the beach but the people living on the coast didn't even bother thinking “it's not that cold” because yes it was “that cold!”....in the evening we went to see a show where we were taken through a rebuilt village of the 17th century where they believe everything had been exactly like that and a boar had sunk due to hitting the cliffs of warrnambool....must be very frustrating when you come all the way from england and then as soon as you reach your destination you sink...i would have gone troppo i know that!!

Day 8
this day was so boring. just driving all day and then arriving in mildura. where there is nothing what so ever which meant self entertainment like music, bonfire and everyone singing songs from they're own country....the next day our “very capable” tour leader yvonne said that there everyone had been talking too much in their native language by the bonfire...dear yvonne....this is what happens if everyone sings native songs from their countries...she was quite upset with us and we were upset with her....suprisingly....

Day 9
another day of pure driving. we stopped in port augusta which was the closest to adelaide i have been so far until tuesday anyways....we were meant to stay there for the night but it was raining really badly so we decided to go on to coober pedy straight away. this was a great thing that the leaders arranged for us because in cooer pedy we stayed in one big room inside where it was 22° instead of rain and 5 °....we arrived in coober pedy around 11.30 at night so we didn't get up to too much that night....

Day 10
coober pedy was very different from everything else...we saw that very soon after getting up. we had a tour guide from coober pedy on our bus who told us about everything. we visited a grave yard that was more international than most others. because in coober pedy opal is found there are people from all over the world coming and trying to find the fortune they are hoping for. there was a very special grave there aswell. a cat everyone had loved had a grave with a nice and big grave stone. quite funny was that the owner of the cat had a much more plaiin grave...
then we went on to the golf course. yes there is a golf course in coober pedy. it works different than all other golf courses of the world though. because the surface is all sand in coober pedy they took very fine dirt to make the brown “greens” and then to tee off you have a patch of gras that you take with you in the beginning. after that you carry it around with you and whenever you want to hit the ball you pick it up and place it on your patch of gras...how cool is that!!
later that day we went “noodling” which is looking for your own opals in an area that was dug out so that everyone that wants to can try their luck. almost everyone found some sort of opal but nobody had any breakthrough sort of opals....a few went to an opal shop to see if they could get any money for their opals...the owner just laughed....a nice souvenir still! also we went to a museum that showed how people live underground in coober pedy and how locals dig for opals...

Day 11
next day was all driving until we reached our destination: bush camp....well actually you could get the wrong image of it so let's give it an easier name: bush!
nothing there but 3 fire places. during the day we had loaded heaps of wood on top of the trailer so we didn't have to look for too much when we got there. that night we wrote our safari song and sang lots of others aswell before sleeping only in your sleeping bag under the free sky!it gets quite cold i can tell you that!!

Day 12
after sleeping in the bush we were all quite happy to get into the comfortable bus seats and sleep some more since the night had been rather unusual and some people were keeping others awake with their rather loud snoring....in the afternoon we arrived in yulara ayers rock resort. we built up our tents and then went to see uluru/ayers rock in the sunset. it was very pretty and i will also have to upload some pictures from this.

Day 13
the day had arrived where we were going to climb ayers rock. after having seen it in the sunset we agreed it does look like a steep climb but there was nothing like it when you were standing at the bottom of uluru and looking up the track that you were supposed to go on. it was very steep and in the beginning there was a metal chain that you can grab so that you were more stable and trust me you needed it...the steepest points were almost at a 45° angle!that is steep!i am not quite sure about the exact angle but its one of the steepest things i've climbed that's for sure....uluru is also very special because it's one piece of rock. it's the second largest monolith in the world...the largest can be found somewhere in western australia. anyways the climb was fantastic and there were groups going the same pace because it was very different how people reacted not only with the exersise but also with the height. it was very scary at some points!!when i reached the top together with vini, carlos, jp and tillmann we were the first up so there was nobody other than us on the top of the rock. it was very impressive!!after about 40 minutes of enjoying the view from the rock everyone had arrived and after several group photos we climbed down again which was not less scary than goin up!

Day 14
after climbing uluru we headed for the next natural sensation which was kings creek. we stayed at kings creek resort which is a horse and camel station. yes there are camels in australia and there are more than you would think. we arrived in kings creek before lunch time and left for kings canyon after lunch. we decided to do the rim walk which took us about 3 hours but it was so worth it!!we walked on the edge of the canyon looking down through and onto the canyon. it was amazing!!again pictures will be added to the blog! that night we went to see a camel show at the resort where they told us about camels in australia and how they are caught in the wild and some other things....

Day 15
after enjoying a hot chocolate and marshmallows after the camel show we went on the next day to alice springs...this drive took us a fair while but on the way we stopped to have lunch and there we did something rather special. we had the opportunity to ride camels. just a 2 minute ride but still it was pretty cool!
arriving in alice in the evening we went to a didgeridoo concert. that was awesome! one of the best didg players in the world accompanied by a drummer and another musician, they were great! one song they invited everyone to join in and play a simple instrument like sticks or a shake instrument...it was great!


so here you go another big part of my trip!!the last part will follow before i go to adelaide i hope!

Safari part one

Well.... i came home from safari on sunday night and changed host directly because they had already taken the rest of my bags to my new host's house, the dwyer's.
i will try to tell you a lot about the safari trip although u have to understand that i am not too keen on writing everything... for various reasons :-)
anyone that doesn't feel like reading too much:
it was great and i would do it again anytime. the city and the outback experience were both very interesting and the people on the trip were just great!!i am uploading plenty of pictures on facebook and also i will put new pics into the slideshow on the side of this blog

now for the people that have the time and nerves to read a bit more than that:
Okay here's part number one of my safari trip:

it all started of with me going to port macquarie on friday morning to stay with mika, carlos and renat who were already there or arrived the same day.

Day 1
on saturday we all got on the safari tour bus and met all the new people from the district of brisbane that we went on safari with. new was also the tour leaderfrom brisbane called yvonne i won't be talking about her much though because she didn't really get along with us and nobody got along with her...from our district there eas john walton who is a very nice guy that has been on heaps of safaris so he was much more in control!also we met the rest of our district's exchange students who got on earlier on. the bus had started off in brisbane around 8 in the morning and we got on in port around 4 in the arvo so they had been travelling for a while already. we started off talking to everyone and getting to know each other. then around 11 we finally got to sydney and we even got to stay in cabins because it had been raining all day and we had never put up the tents and it was dark and raining. the cabins were great! we stayed as groups of five and we had 3 girls and 2 boys cabins.....anyways that night was rather quiet and we had a nice rest in our beds.

Day 2
on the second day of safari we went to check out some parts of sydney including some nice lookout points onto the harbour bridge and opera house. it was a very nice day overall but still the weather wasn't too great but at least it wasn't raining too badly anymore. we also went to bondi beach that day but there was hardly anyone there. very unlike the time i had been there in january where it had been crowded as. in the evening when we came back we met some other rotary exchange students from southern australia. we had a really nice evening singing and catching up with them.

Day 3
on the last day in sydney we went to town and we could make our own program. some people in our group decided to do the sydney harbour bridge climb. i didn't do it and went to darling harbour, paddy's market and queen victoria building with the others. also we went for a ride on the monorail which gave u a nice overview. and because it was still raining we made a few tours around the whole circle :-)
that day we also went on a boat ride in sydney harbour. not sightseeing but rather rollercoaster on water. 180° turns and all sorts of other manovers were included.
then we had another chilli evening with the other exchange students and sang some more songs and then said goodbye because early next morning we would head off to canberra. we had another night in cozy cabins :-)

Day 4
we got up at 6 and then headed off around 7.30.... we arrived in canberra around 2-3 i think. we were in cabins for one last time there :-(
we had lunch and then headed off to town where we went to parliament house first. it's a very nice building but the best part was definatley to sit in the gallery and watch a question session with all the high ranked politicians. questions not asked by us obviously but labour party to liberal party and the other way around. now also i have to say that this session is shown on tv so everyone acts up alot. here are my favourtie senteces that i remember, although u have to know that kevin rudd is australian prime minister:

“You have no friends Kevin!”
“You had too much coffe Kevin!”

there were heaps more but i can't remember them. senteces like these were just shouted to Kevin Rudd by the oppositiion whilst he was speaking on the microphone. very entertaining and also very new to me! imagine that in switzerland!
after parliament house we went to see all the embassies although i did not see a swiss one. later we went to go on top of telstra tower where we had a wonderful view over canberra. canberra is very nice but not that big. you can clearly notice that it was planned to be the capital city of australia. that night we had our last night in cabins...

Day 5
after spending only one day in canberra proceeded on our journey south and got to melbourne 5. we didn't do much that day except drive and then in the evening it was STATE OF ORIGIN time!!this is a series of footy games that are very important to every Aussie. in this game the best players born in queensland head off against the best of new south wales. we all gathered infront of the tv since we couldn't exactly go into town and watch it in a pub :-) this would have been great because the game was in melbourne.....anyways the evening ended with a rather clear loss of new south wales to queensland. this was a shame because this meant all the exchangies from the other district had a reason to pick on us :-)

Day 6
this day was free for us to explore the city. this was great! we started off at some market and then just headed inwards somewhere into the city nobody knowing exactly what was where and so on. i went in a group with Vini, JP, Carlos and Mika. we went to an outlet which was great! so many things and i ended up buying a nice jumper. later on we met again at the markets and headed off home for dinner.

okay well this is the first part of my safari adventures. i hope u enjoyed reading it and if u actually made it through the whole thing....wow....also feel free to coment and tell me what u wanna know more about from the specific cities/places!

hey guys...

today its wednesday again so i have plenty of time to blog and upload some pictures....u can expect them in the afternoon....

life has been alright but its a bit of a shock going to school again instead of exploring new places...i also think its a great shame that mika one of my best mates is leaving for finland tomorrow...

have a good one guys and it won't be long til u get the first safari news

hey everyone...

i just got back from my safari yesterday and i am fine but still very tired....i will tell you all about it in the next few days!
tonight is also a very important night in rotary.....changeover which means all the functions that people had change...new president and so on....

anyways stay tuned in the next few days when i will tell you all the action and happenings on safari....well not all but some :-)

MAFOTWTCBAILEIIMSW

well well well
here is a combination of a report of the happenings and also of my aussie feature of the week.
last few days have been quite busy and mainly due to preparing my safari trip. so monday and tuesday had been fairly normal days but on wednesday i packed up everything that goes on safari in my safari bag and also all the rest was stored into my CCM bag because right after safari i change host families....
wednesday afternoon i went to pacific palms and visited john morris from my rotary club. he showed me around pacific palms and told me this story here about a beach and this is my aussie feature of the week:

a beach in pacific palms is called blueys beach and this supposedly is because once a cow had been on a patch of grass and then had tripped over a small cliff and fell into the water. the cow was called bluey so thats what they called the beach. here is a picture of it:

 

the beach that i can see on the left in the back is blueys...

i stayed at johns house for the night and then in the morning i caught the bus to school. then today at school we had the RYDA day. this is a program called rotary youth driving awareness day where people from rotary organise special activities to demonstrate different things like showing braking distances and listening to real life stories that happened to other people. it was really impressive and revealed facts that are very useful to know.

then i went to johns barbeques galore store where we booked my return flight. i will return on the 13th of january at about 7:15 in the morning i think. 

and now of course tomorrow i am getting picked up by a guy from valeries rotary club and then he will take us to port macquarie where i stay at the place i have stayed before with jan and bob. and then saturday safari starts :-) ..

well thats about it i will blog again when i get a chance to so hear from ya when i hear from ya aye!

hello everyone

seriously this weekend...pretty boring. although that is fairly normal when its storming and the surf goes crazy and waves are 3 meters and more. but like always up to now forster and tuncurry have shown themselves as very flood safe places to live. other parts of australia havent been that lucky and were flooded brutally.
now on friday i got a haircut after school and then stayed home and hoped that soccer would be on saturday morning. but it wasnt on so i had basically no plans except the weekly barbeque at bens but not even that was on so yeah was a "rather" boring day that i passed with reading a book for school.
then today i went to the lakeside church in the morning although this church is very very different from an average church in switzerland. a band consisting of young people plays a few songs in the beginning and then the rest of the program goes on. also very different is the location. its basically a room that has walls not painted properly and is about the size of a big living room..
after that i finished that book for school and then went to buy some new shoes before safari starts on saturday next weekend. after i went to the aquatic center to go for a swim.
and here i am now at home one last week to safari although its much more five days.
also i spoke to florian lichtin today he is also an exchange student from switzerland and he is in sydney and we agreed on trying to book our return flights on the same day. we are booking next week.
so whats comin up? school is getting really tough now......for my mates hahahahhahaha
nah i'm just takin the mickey outa ya mate...its not that rough down 'ere...
i wrote a business test the other day and i am still convinced that i beat two of my mates...well we'll see but i shall remain confident.
and last but not least i hereby tribute this last line to the most important ongoing stuff in switzerland tonight
GO FCB!!!

hello everybody

just a quick note
the weather is really bad and its storming a fair bit and further p north there are heaps of flooded areas. check my gadget on the right hand side near the bottom where you can check the wave height. somebody told me it will get up to 15-20 feet waves tomorrow. that would mean about 5-7 meters.
wow i think i will go take some pics for sure.

hang loose!!

contacts

here just a small but for me very important remark

this morning when i went to the optometrist i got the contacts in second go which was a fantastic thing and after about five tries i got them out again. i now have them at home and am very relieved  that it all worked out after all..other than that not much happened during the day...school was school and practice is gonna be practice in half an hour. luckily it's not raining cuz its not that much fun playing soccer in the rain for two hours especially after that fever and i still have a bit of a cold...a cold and today it was 26 degrees...crazy mate isnt it??

MAFOTWTCBAILEIIMSW

okay here's how today's rotary meeting went....

in the beginning everybody starts to trickle in sometime between 6 and 6.30 so usually i have a chat to a few people and catch up with them. today i caught p with my first host dad and i really like him. then slowly everyone grabs a seat only to stand up again to say/sing rotary grace and then there's always bread rolls and butter. then some of the board members report on going things like upcoming fund raisers or the treasurer says whats been happening to the money and all that....
then the meal comes in which is usually a choice of fish or chicken with veggies and bacon and other things. during the meal there's always discussions about the ongoings in the footy comp and right now there are two main things that everyone talks about. firstly and thats what really everyone is talking about is a scandal involving footy players that had a group sex scandal back in 2001. now the team and the league are losing sponsors and also their reputation. it all reminds me of a certain FC Thun in switzerland....also last years champion of the league, manly, isnt going to go through to the playoffs so thats a big disappointment for man(l)y (please understand the genius in this word play!!i just thought of that myself!!oh yeah!!). then the desserts are served. today i had pavelova.
after the meal there's the fine session which is always funny. one guy in our club, trevor, makes a list of things that he can get people for so that they have to pay one or two dollars. today people got fined for being early and late and heaps of other things... and then after trevor is finished fining everyone there is the possibility for cross fines where individuals can fine individuals... i got fined today with the following by a guy called david:
he said to me :"David you do know that there are some places where you can cut your hair in tuncurry?" yeah yeah i got the message but responded that he was probably just jealous that mine is still growing the way it is :-)
after the fine session we had a guest speaker today that is a teacher at my college and is also the principal of the junior campus. he is going to india fairly soon to work there at a school and be the principal there. i think its a great thing of him and his wife to do. a great challenge thats for sure.
after the talk everyone sings the australian anthem and then some stick around adn others buzz off straight away.
i had a talk to david nix from my club and he told me that the fourth family that had been planned so far is just moving out of town so i won't be staying with them. he also told me that he has someone else that is 99% sure and that he will tell me tomorrow or so.
so thats the procedure of a rotary meeting of course not very detailed but it gives you a rough idea. i will blog again later on in the week to tell you how my meeting with the optometrist went that i have tomorrow morning. and also i am now getting rather angry with the people from the surf shop because i have called them twice and been in they're shop twice and still they have always only told me that someone will contact me concerning a surf lesson that i have a voucher for.

i bring to you MAFOTWTCBAILEIIMSW.

hello everyone
i know that last week i didnt mention an aussie specialty of the week
 because i was thinking of some food. well i will change the intention of that weekly post to a more general life based thing. to make it simple i call those posts from now on:
my aussie feature of the week that can be anything i like even if it might seem weird, or in a short form MAFOTWTCBAILEIIMSW.
so this weeks edition will be on tonights rotary meeting. i will take my ipod with me to make some notes and then afterwards when i get home i can make my first blog entry on that matter.

just quickly what else has happened: on friday as always i went to the soccer fields in the evening with my mates to watch some games. saturday morning we played a game and lost for the first time which is okay cuz sometimes i asked myself how such a chaotic team managed to win the fist two games in a row so i guess we can still be very happy with the way we are going so far. in the arvo i went over to forster to get a sandwich at subway and met kellie from school there and then went back home. it was a beautiful day and riding over the bridge with my bike was very nice.
in the evening i went to ben's place for the usual bonfire and barbeque and on sunday morning i got up early to help my rotary club with a project of theirs called the rotary motor market which i think i have explained before but please correct me if not.
also i had caught a nasty cold at the end of last week so on sunday in the arvo i had a bit of a fever and headache and i decided that it was safer for my mates at school if i would stay at home today to recover fully :-)

anyways i'll get back on you later after rotary!

Why golfing and contact lenses arent too different after all

Hello everybody!
last time you heard of me i was about to go to port macquarie to visit my friend mika who is from finnlan. i went up on thursday afternoon on a bus with about 10 seats so it was very cozy and about two hours later i was in port with mika. we went to buy a dvd for the evening and then we watched it. it's called "you dont mess with the zohan".
in port i stayed with mika's hosts called bob and jan. they are really nice people and i had a very nice time staying in their apartment.
on friday mika had to go to school but before i went to rotary breakfast at his rotary club with him and it was very good. pan cakes and scrambled eggs...mhhmmm was delicious!also i met a guy called peter grob who is a swiss living in port since 30 years.  after that mika went to school for the first part of the morning until he came to have lunch with bob and jan and me. after went to the center of port and mika caught up with some mates so it was god for me to also meet some new people. in the evening we went to a mates house. saturday was really rainy so we didnt get up to too much but it was good anyways...
sunday was mother's day and it was quite special. we went for a drive and it was nice but still very rainy. we went to a lookout and then went for some burgers and fish n chips.
monday morning i left port at 7 a.m. and went to school around 10.30. rotary in the evening was normal and tuesday was soccer as always. on the weekend my soccer team had won again on saturday so we are now top of the table and looking forward to defending our lead on saturday.
yesterday i went golfing with paddy burn from my rotary club and it was the first time for quite a while and it went very well and i was quite pleased. still it is one of the most frustrating things....
then today i had an appointment with the optometrist in the morning and he started to show me how to put in the contact lenses and putting them in went alright but taking them out...a disaster. it isnt easy and i knew that already before but i felt like i didnt get anywhere so after a while i got another appointment later in the day after school. so i went back to school with the contacts in and it was very good. then after school i went again and i got alot closer but still am unable to remove them so he took the out and we made another appointment. so overall i am very happy with the result but also awfully frustrating. just like golf :-)
so now i am at home, my eyes are really really sore from all that trying out with the lenses and the weekend is now surely coming closer.
on saturday like i said i have a soccer game and then in the evening i'm going to bens for a barby as always. then on sunday i have told my rotary club that i would help them with their "rotary motor martket" where people who want to sell something with a motor and then other people come and have a look at it so you can bring it there instead of just have your car standing in your front yard.
i am still looking for something as the aussie specialty of the week and am confident that i will find something.

aussie specialty of the week

i almost forgot about this part here!
for the party me and nicole made some rum balls i even have some pictures to prove this!

they are quite easy to make! i have a link with a recipe for you and i can confirm that its a good one but what we did was leave away the sulatanas.

so yeah enjoy and try it its really a much much easier one this week compared to last weeks lamingtons :-)

here is my link
http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/2006/10/rum-balls-recipe.html

and here the pictures:

 

Nicole making the rum balls with me. 

Pat

  

left overs of the rum balls. 

  

one particular rum ball covered in white chocolate and marshmallows. 

hey guys

long time no posts aye...this is always a good sign but because that means that i dont have time to blog and that was exactly the case this weekend. my host sister nicole came up from sydney with her boyfriend pat and anther friend called ben. they came up because my host lyn had her 50th birthday party and there were stacks of people around the house and i was really glad to be able to hang with them! i had a really great time with them! they involved me in everything and i really enjoyed it and they even came up with the idea of me visiting them in sydney and then i stay at their place for a few nights. this will either be before safari or sometime after. by the way safari starts on the 30th of this month or the fist of june i'm not sure yet....
today i booked a bus trip to port maquire tomorrow in the arvo so that i can be there in the evening and meet mika and his hosts. then on monday morning i catch the bus again and come back and go back to school.
what else?hmm oh yeah on the weekend i had my fist real soccer game of the season and we played at bulahdelah which is like the smallest place with the least going on and so on... it took us about an hour to get there with our two team buses. when we got there my first reaction was something like:
okay i see the goals but where's the field? well the field was the thingy surrounded by something that looked way too much like a swamp or something. the field was very uneven but that wouldnt be an excuse so we pretty much smoked them with a 5 to nil win. i didnt score but as a midfielder i did my job and set up three goals.
yesterday it was soccer practice and everything would have been good but when we were playing a game i had decided to tackle and the tackle was great except that afterwards my right leg hurt really bad and i could hardly walk.... of course it had happened exactly where i have my scar :-)
oh well some ice and sleep helped and now i feel a lot better!

i spose that i'm all ready for port now whatever might come!

A Lamington

Today i start a new thing that i will try to keep up weekly. so every week i want to present something really aussie to you. right now the focus is on food since thats the only thing i can think of right now.

So:
A lamington is a sweet that is chocolate on the outside and sort of like a cake on the inside. also there are heaps of coconut sprinkles on the outside. yesterday i was at the local bakery and asked them if they have lamingtons and she said yes sure. i said i'd like three. when she got them i realized that those were the biggest ones i've seen so far. i had two before rotary and one today. now what really is missing for this are pictures and a recipe and some pictures. now the recipe is not a problem although i have to say i dont know if its exactly like the lamingtons i eat from the bakery. so please someone try it and then tell me and the other people wondering and reading this blog. so here is the recipe:

• Ingredients:

• 2 cups of flour
• 2 tsp of baking powder
• 1/4 tsp of sea salt
• 2 large, free-range eggs
• 1/2 cup of room temperature butter
• 3/4 cup of white sugar
• 1 tsp of pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 2 cups of icing sugar
• 1/3 cup of coco powder
• 3 tbs of butter
• 1/2 cup of milk
• Whipped cream for serving

1. 1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
   2. Lightly butter an 20 centimeters square cake tin. Set aside.
   3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
   4. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar mixture until light and fluffy.
   5. Add the eggs on at a time to the butter/sugar mixture. Beat well after adding each egg.
   6. Add the vanilla to the mixture and mix well.
   7. Now, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, starting and finishing with the flour. Use a large spatula for mixing.
   8. Spread the batter into the cake tin and make sure it is evenly spread.
   9. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes. Test the center of the cake with a toothpick and make sure it comes out clean.
   10. Cool the cake in the tin for about 5 minutes and then invert it onto a wire rack. Once the cake has cooled cut it into squares of a desired size and place them in an airtight container. Pop the container in the fridge for at least 2 hours or even overnight.
   11. Now for the icing. Place the icing sugar, cocoa powder, butter and milk in a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
   12. Stir the mixture until it is smooth but still a bit thick. You don't want the liquid to get too thin otherwise the sponge won't absorb the coating.
   13. Now it's time to assemble the Lamingtons. Put out some newspaper under wire racks to catch any mess. Place the cake pieces on the racks and have your chocolate icing and coconut ready.
   14. Quickly coat the sponge cake on all sides in the icing mixture and then gently roll the cake in the coconut. Repeat the process.
   
   
   quite a process aye...i just figured that probably nobody will have the nerves to do everything i just copied from an australian cooking website. so next week i'll try to find something a "bit" more simple. but i think that this is SOOOO aussie that it cant miss in this blog. next week another aussie dish is coming up. 
   tomorrow school is starting again.  

bloody aussie attitude

hey everyone!
firstly, no i did not have the chance to go surfing. this is really starting to get a bit annoying but its really just the aussie attitude. very spontaneous so it can be very good but also very annoying when it comes to planning.
on the other hand i had a really good day today. i have wanted to get contact lenses for quite a bit of time because playing soccer without glasses is fairly hard. so i went to the local optometrist and they got me an appointment the same day and now i'm at the point where next i'll be trying the contacts on.
after that i had a nice big lamington and then went to rotary where the guest speaker was the owner of the forster-tuncurry race course not car racing but horses.
tomorrow its the last day of the holidays and i'm going to jim morwich's house for dinner. this is part of the weekly program with my rotary club on wednesdays. also i will tomorrow present to you something very aussie in this blog.
you wanna know what? check tomorrow at this time!

a surfy update

my board has arrived and i might upload a picture. also my friend jake has told me that tomorrow we can go for a surf.
so today i got myself a wet suit so that i am now fully prepared.

When holidays end and school returns...life is still very easy :-)

Hello everyone

my blog has got the shape that i will leave it in i think...by the way: sometimes there will now be a poll on the side of the posts. if you want to you can chose your answer it will not affect you in any way it will just record your answer and show you what the others voted.
well the holidays are slowly but surely ending...on wednesday it's back to school.last few days i haven't been doing too much. usually just hangin at brad's or ben's house... yesterday i was at ben's saturday night barbie and then after i went to jack's place for the night. today the surf has finally calmed down so the mission "get david on that surfboard" can start. i called up the local surf shop and they told me that surf lessons are over but that their instructor will call me up tomorrow so that we can arrange a private lesson or something. also i will probably soon get the surfboard i was promised by the guy that i only know that he was a heaps good surfer once but dont even know his name....
so now what i'm doing is waiting for jack to text me and then we're gonna go for a kick on the soccer fields...
if anything spectacular happens i'll let y'all know but right now it's pure relaxing and enjoying.

Surfing plans and the coconut theory

yesterday i spent the day in my counsellors shop, barbeques galore. i helped and then in the evening i went to johns house to eat dinner at his house and then sleep there. it was his birthday so i got him some lindt chocolate. then today i went home around lunch time and went body boarding with my friends jack and brad. when i came home there was a builder at our place fixing up the veranda. the guy that was there came up to me and we had a little chat. he told me that twenty years ago he had been a pro surfer and number 3 in the world. he then also told me that he will drop a board at our house so that i could start off easily on my own. thats very good news! its a big and heavy board so its optimal to start surfing and is also the type that he learned how to surf. and i mean hey he made it very far so it cant be bad to start on a board like he did.
also i went to a surf shop called xsight because i have a voucher for a surf lesson but i just wanted to check out when it would be the best to do it. right now the surf is still rather big so i gave them my name and my mobile number. now the surf instructor will call me when he thinks it makes sense to go for a surf....

it is very good that i'm FINALLY getting into the surfing. last few days i've been getting pretty desperate to start something new which would most likely be surfing. i'm not saying that my holidays are boring not at all but i just needed a new challenge that i can go for during a normal day when i dont have any special program. like this i have something to work on. a goal that i can set myself and that i had set myself a long time ago. and now it is finally getting started.

Now you still wonder what the coconut theory is about aye?
Well this should be a bit of a relief to some of you:
Whilst about 15 people get killed by shark attacks every year 150 get killed by falling coconuts. THERE YOU GO! but you dont have to get all scared about me getting hit by coconuts now ;-) there's only few here!

Pimp your Blog

hello everyone!

like my new blog? i'm not quite that happy with it but its getting there.... so what i've been up to?hmmm... the holidays started on friday last week so i havent been in school for a while which is a pretty good thing. at the end of last week lyns daughter and her boyfriend came up from sydney and spent the weekend here. they showed me around a bit and we went for a drive on saturday and sunday. on saturday we went to wingham which is where pats parents live. pat is the boyfriend of nicole who is lyns daughter. so near wingham we went to this forest and there weer heaps of fruit bats there. htey sleep during the day just like every other bat so you got a pretty good look at them. i might post some picures or might not depends on how lazy i am...and trust me holidays make you lazy! but this doesnt mean that i dont do anything it just means i only do what i feel like doing... anyways so we went there and also went to the longest single drop waterfall in the southern hemisphere...or something like that. well it was big thats the main thing......
after that i went bowling with nicole and pat in forster just before we had dinner. it was good fun and everyone won once although nicole used what they call the bumpers...a plastic edge at the side of the gutter so the ball cant go down....this helped her quite a bit so pt and i had no choice but to lose ...
on sunday we drove by wingham again where we dropped off pat and then went on to go for a drive to a beach somewhere and also to a light house. it was nice weather so it was a good day...

then on monday it was no rotary because of easter monday, duh :-) ......
on tuesday it was soccer practice and now i'm starting to get my game experience that i need so i think i should be in the starting eleven for sure when season starts on the 2nd of may... cause mate you like it or not but i represent switzerland not only in school but also on the soccer field so i have to show them hoe bloody good we are aye!!

on wednesday i went to paddy burn's place to go fishing with him and his grand kids. i think they were called...cameron and something else..they were really nice. i caught two fish but they were both too small so they were illegal to keep but paddy caught two others that were big enough. one was 37 cm so that was a pretty good one. better to look at than to eat for dinner thats what i figured at dinner table but yeah... "sorta" starting to like it.
on thursday i went to pick up vini from taree. he is an exchange student from brazil staying in coffs harbour which is about five hours from forster. he caught a train in coffs and was in taree at 11 or something... in the arvo we went body boarding at tuncurry beach. BAD IDEA!! when we got there some surfers and scuba divers were just coming out of the water. we went in and the waves were okay but not that great almost a bit too big for us non-locals...
when we got out about one and a half hours later a woman walked up to us and asked us if we knew that there had been a shark exactly where we were boarding but about, yes you guessed it, one and a half hours ago. scuba divers had seen it and recognized it as a bronze whaler. a shark that is usually around 2-3.5 meters long. VERY CREEPY!! luckily we didnt have any rendez-vous scheduled with that creature so we got away nice and easy with an aftershock...
on friday we went body boarding at one mile beach in forster where the waves were now getting outrageously big. just for you notice the biggest waves were just around 5.8 meters. now imagine that in front of you while lying flat on a board and seeing the curl on the top of the wave and then realize its going to dump straight on you. happend to vini and me once each and trust me after that experience you just want to get out of the water and never go back in... but if you stay in you recover quite quickly because you dont have ANY time to think about other things than estimating what the next wave is going to be like....
that day me and vini were in the water for almost 4 hours and caught 2 very big waves each. barrels are the nicest thing you can experience in the surf when its pumping like it was! caught two of those each and then after four hours of swimming in the freezing cold water we went home and were pretty much what you could call "dead meat"....
on saturday we went to forster main beach where the surf is usually calmer than at tuncurry beach or one mile...and so it was. thank god! my feet had huge blisters but hey...gotta get on the horse again right??!! in the evening it was party time and we went to bens house. the fact that we knew that we could stay there for the night was very pleasing. the party was good. not big but still heaps of fun.
on sunday we slept in until after 12.30...so much for the party having been good or not :)
we didnt do too much but then went to forster main beach again and spent little time in the water but much more climbing rocks and then making videos of surfers catching pretty big waves. some pictures in the slide show on the side of this blog at the top are made from the rocks there...
and then today it was the worst weather day all weekend (i do know that its monday)...we didnt do too much at all but check out some beaches but the surf was too muddy and messy so we didnt go in. we wanted to go play tennis but it rained all day so we couldnt do that... and then a few hours ago we went to rotary and then came home and this is where i am now. this must be my longest post so far so congrats if you actually made it all the way through!!

i am still experimenting with some gadgets that i can add to the blog.....so dont be astonished if everything keeps changing for a while....

smilla die zwei sin für di :-)

WATCH OUT, HOLIDAYS COMING UP!

Hello switzelvananians

as promised here's my post that will probably be pretty big....

last week it was shitty weather so i couldnt go and play golf for the last time on thursday which was a shame. friday was school and then the weekend finally started. on friday night lyn told me that she was going to some fitness program on saturday morning so i thought okay no problem....when she told me that she had announced that i would join her i looked at the whole thing in a new perspective. when she then told me when we leave my perspective now went from "i dont feel like doing this" to "hell no".....
so on saturday i got up at 5.30, almost like in good old gymi times aye georgia, and we left to go to some beach where we met some others. they were all nice people and everything was good except for the fact that it was 6 in the morning on a saturday. to warm up we went for a jog and then we did some boxing and running combined. after that it was time to get wet and step into the water to have some fun with paddle boats. but guess what. pushing them isnt as fun as sitting in them but i spose u can imagine which one was on the list. so we did a whole lot of activities in the water before we got out and had some breaky.
just a few hours later it was soccer time. our first game was against a team called aulbar or somthin like that. i didnt have any trouble keeping up physically or technically but i wasnt quite in the mood for scoring.... at least thats
what my shots looked like. in the end we drew 2-2 and i had one goal and too many missed shots but hey its no season yet....
after that i went to tuncurry and took a look at some old cars that were parked there....some real beauties i can tell ya. i also took some pictures and i'll post them later on.
i felt pretty hungry after that so i went to forster to go to subway. on the way i bumped into kellie and zane from my school and ended up getting my sub about an hour and a half later....
in the evening i went to the movies to watch the worst movie ever...a friend of mine really wanted to see it so i went along. aliens vs. monsters....havent seen it yet? good on ya mate!!
after that i slept at jack's house and got uo an hour too early in the morning because we changed time over night. the time difference is now only 8 hours to switzerland.
that afternoon i went matress surfing with some friends and it was good fun.
on monday the last week of school started before the holidays. on tuesday it was bernie kelly day. i have no idea who that is but at our school there was a program going on that involved all year 11 students to participate in several activities like going through underneath a rope together and talking to people about stuff....it was pretty boring but yeah...
today it was cross country at school so everyone got ready for the race....it started at 1 and went on until about 2.15. the tension was very high and everyone was very concentrated at the start line....nah not really notbody really cared at all and we just walked along the beach and went for a swim....on the way we saw some killer ants, about 5 centimeters long, and ran into some people that were dressed up as monkeys and tigers...they were supposed to scare us. so after we finished that we went home and i got picked up by david nix from my rotary club to go to his house and have dinner with him and his wife sheryl. it was really nice!

so now i'm lying on my bed and writing this today so tomorrow when the holidays start i dont have to do it. my plans for the holidays are very open still and as always here down under u have to be flexible. i know that some exchange students are coming to forster for a few days and also i know that there's finally going to be my birthday party!!
after the holidays i'm going to see mika in port maquirie. i would've gone during the holidays but it doesnt fit in so i'll just get a few days off school.
well that about wraps it up...