Happy Thanksgiving

I miss American food. Maybe I just miss home cooked meals, and on Thanksgiving especially!

About six Americans, including myself, decided to head over to Sydney to attempt a Thanksgiving celebration. Since we had class today and could not find a kitchen large enough to cook a proper Thanksgiving meal in, we ended up going to Pancake On The Rocks. The Rocks is a large area of central Sydney close to Circular Quay. On the weekends we have been shopping at the Rocks Markets.
This is a caricature I had done at the markets this weekend. It's suppose to be the Harbour Bridge and Opera House in the background. It is a fun place and very touristy.

The pancake restaurant actually felt more like home. Sure, it was almost as if we spent the holiday at Cracker Barrell, but it was still fun. We held hands for our Thanksgiving blessing and went around sharing our favorite memories of the trip thus far.


We also went out to celebrate Mike's 23 birthday!
After eating our pancake/nachos/Cesar salads we went down to the Market place for a Christmas tree lighting and celebration. There was a chorus singing Christmas carols, such as Aussie Jingle Bells (I'll have to remember to sing it for you, it's a hoot.) We may have missed the Macy's Day parade, but at least this got me in the holiday spirit. At the end of the celebration they lit up a big Christmas tree and set off lots of fire works. Maybe it wasn't a traditional celebration, but it was definitely a Thanksgiving I'll never forget.

E Pluribus Unum

Well, dad asked for some updates on school and such, so here you have it.

Ever since that lecture Dr. McRae had about the Civil Rights Movement, I've started to feel like her class is a nightmare in which I am on the show Jeopardy and the category is stuck on United States history. She has always asks me if she is saying something right or has her history correct. I usually just nod in agreement because history was never my strong subject. I did well at history, but I never enjoyed studying it. I struggled to remember names and dates and facts about wars that at the time seemed so far away and unimportant to me. Of course as I get older I would like to learn more for myself just to be educated and knowledgeable, but that is a different story.
The other day in class Dr. McRae pulls out a paper she wrote while she was at Harvard, A Woman's Story: E Pluribus Unum.
We read a bit of it in class and when she came to the part about e pluribus unum she asked me to define what it meant. Well, either I forgot learning about it or maybe I never properly learned the meaning behind it because I was not sure of what to say. I responded by saying that it is written on all of our currency and a motto like we now have In God We Trust, but that was the extent of what I knew. She made a fuss about how this phrase lies at the foundation of America and called me a disgrace to society for not knowing that the founding fathers' of America put the idea of "one out of many" as our common ground across the nation..... well, no-one told me! I got a little frustrated and after class I did some research on the infamous e pluribus unum only to find that what I said was correct, just not the answer she was looking for. I even sent her an email about how the once used motto was replaced by the motto In God We Trust in 1956. That is the motto I have always known.
She wrote me back something about teaching some students the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". She really is an interesting lady. Oh, and in her story she interviewed Louisa Rogers Alger- yes, related to Horatio Alger. This woman's grandmother was in church the day that President Lincoln was informed that the civil war had started. And from the story Louisa tells her grandmother and Mrs. Robert E Lee were once friends and would do tea together, until the day the war began . "Mrs. Robert E Lee, who had been a lifelong friend of my grandmother's, my grandmother spoke to her cordially, she looked at her haughtily and cut her head..." Interesting information.
I have never heard a woman speak so much about southern rebels and the confederates being conspirators and such until I met Dr. McRae. Funny how she writes one thing about us yet confesses she loved the south when she went to visit. She even wrote on my friend Amy's paper, "When I stood at the University of Virgina, over looking the Shenandoah valley, for a brief moment I wished the confederates had won."

How's that for an education, daddy? haha

Scuba Time

I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown by. It feels like yesterday that the girls and I were looking at brochures for sailing trips and planning our stay in the islands, and now it is over.

We flew out on Thursday afternoon and headed up to the Whitsunday Islands. We spent Thursday night, all day Friday and Friday night in Airlie beach. We stayed at a hostel close to the shops and pool. We were a little anxious to find out what it would be like, but it honestly wasn’t bad. We had a room to ourselves with one double and two twin beds. It wasn’t the Hilton, but at least we figured out how to turn on the air conditioner on the second day! Haha.
Friday at Airlie beach we had fun just relaxing and browsing the shops, but don’t get excited, I couldn’t find anything good there. That night Sam and I went out to eat at a nicer restaurant. The other girls bought food at the grocery store. It probably would have saved me a little money, but I was on vacation so I wanted to enjoy a nice meal. I ended up ordering kangaroo. I figured I have been here for two months so I better go ahead and try it while I had an excuse. I ordered it rare because the waitress said it was better that way, and she must have been right. Kangaroo is a gamey meat and it was so tender and juicy. I really enjoyed it. After that the girls and I had one of our best nights together. We walked down Airlie beach and tried out a few different places including the bar at our hostel, Beaches. They were playing some great music and when “Surfin USA” came on we got up and danced and had so much fun!!
Saturday morning we checked out of the hotel and had to pack up a very small soft sided bag for the boat. I packed my backpack for the entire vacation and then just threw 2 bathing suits, shorts and one dress/cover up for the boat into my purse. Yup, that was luggage for the next 2 days. I didn’t really need more because we weren’t able to shower on the boat due to a lack of fresh water. Believe me by that third day of salt water and sweat my hair was looking great and I smelled fantastic! No, not really.
We went on a catamaran called WINGS. The boat was one of the bigger ones and it was really nice. They consider it a dive and adventure boat, not a party boat so I was excited about that. The first day we sailed over to Whitehaven Beach.

This beach was breathtaking. We were able to get in the water and swim around. The beach is consists of pure white silica sand, the softest sand I have ever felt. It was so light and beautiful and the water was the clearest prettiest shade of aqua blue. It was actual warmer up there than the water here in Manly and I enjoyed swimming and taking in the beauty of where we were. That night we sailed over to an inlet where we dropped anchor.



The next morning we woke up early and went scuba diving. Our scuba instructor, Cookie, was so great. He was hilarious and kept me smiling. First he split up the boat into groups of three or four. My group of American girls, Sam, Ali, Andria and I were originally named The Mermaids, but we quickly turned into Team America. After the team got all geared up with our wetsuits, masks and fins, Cookie sat us down and strapped our scuba tanks on us. When he told us to stand up and get into the dingy I almost fell back over! Those tanks are heavy. We went over to the beach where Cookie taught us about scuba safety. We had to learn how to clear water out of our masks while under water and what to do if our air compressor thing fell out of our mouths as well as how to get water out of it. We all passed the five minute skills test and were on our way down into the deep blue. It took me a little while to get used to actually being able to breath while underwater, but once I stopped worrying about that and started looking around me I had a great time. The water was a little muggy because it was semi-cloudy and dreary out, but it was still a fantastic first dive. So much so that I went on to do the second dive offered and even after the rest of Team America backed out of dive three I jumped right in and went for a dive with two Canadian girls.

I loved the experience of diving and looking at the breath taking coral. I saw so many of God’s beautiful creations down there and it was a moving experience. I could have stayed for so much longer than an hour each dive. By dive three I was wondering why Cookie kept giving me the okay signal to ask if I was alright. Each time I would tell him I was fine and go one swimming around and looking for more nemos and colorful fish. That night while we were looking through the slideshow I saw this picture of my eyes fully open a mile wide. I was just enjoying the star cloud, but I can see why Cookie would think something could have been wrong. He told me I was a “freaky girl underwater.” Thanks Cookie.
Sunday night we parked the boat in a nice cove and we all gathered around to watch the sunset. It was one of the prettiest sunsets, not because it was the best I've ever seen, but because of all of the beauty surrounding it and involved in the trip.
Monday we woke up extra early to go for our final dive. I was excited because I heard the coral at this location was really good as well as the fact that we were going early enough to hopefully see some turtles. The last dive was wonderful. I cannot even find the words to describe the coral. There was so much to see and it was gorgeous. Everything was so colorful; right purples and orange colors with big blue fish and black and white fish glowing with blue around the edges. We stayed out for about an hour, which was long enough for me to come extremely close to running out of air. On every dive Cookie would have to check my little air meter thing more than others. I always used up much more air than everyone else. We think it is because in being trained to sing through my diaphragm I must also breathe through my diaphragm more than the others which would use up more of the pure oxygen. That was his theory behind it and since he is the expert I’ll agree with that. After the last dive we returned to Airlie beach. Since I did all four dives I received a “free” t-shirt and DVD with the pictures from our dives.

That Monday I was exhausted and decided to hit the sack early in order to wake up for our plane adventure over the Great Barrier Reef. We caught a bus out to the very small Whitsunday Airport and boarded a 9 passenger plane to go for a one our flight over the reef. After sitting on our first plane for about ten minutes the captain informed us that the engine wasn’t running properly. I don’t think he knew what he was doing and I started to get worried when we changed into a smaller plane. Luckily we took off and ended up alright. We had some great views of Whitehaven Beach and the other spots we went to on the catamaran, as well as a dip into the water right over actual Great Barrier Reef.
Pictures from the plane window did not do these views justice, but it was so amazing. This is "The Heart Reef". It is really amazing to see in person.
After the flight we went to catch the bus where it dropped us off. (There wasn’t actually a bus stop at the ‘airport’ because it was so small. The bus driver who dropped us off told us to go to the other side of the street and just waive him down.) Unfortunately, the buses driving by us After over 30 minutes of standing outside in the rain we began getting silly and desperate. Ali started holding out her thumb and pretending to hitchhike and a man pulled out of the airport and actually stopped to pick us up. He seemed nice but we were all a little worried about getting into a car with a stranger. Then we decided it may be our only option and it would get us out of the rain. We jumped in and yes, we’re lucky that he was a nice Samaritan. He took us right back where we needed to be in Airlie beach.
Since our last day at the beach was rainy, the big ending to our vacation ended up being a visit to Vic Hislop’s Great White Shark and Whale Expo. It was interesting reading about his efforts to protect whales, turtles, seals and even humans from very dangerous and deadly predators of the ocean. That night we boarded a plane back to Sydney and I realized that the next time I’ll be getting on a plane would be a month from now when I’m headed home. I cannot believe how quickly this time has flown by. I already have the next few weekends of my time here planned out, and a lot of it involves what I’ve been doing these past two days non-stop, school. It looks like my fun adventures and excursions have come to an end and that was a very sad realization.

Halloween and Auction Night

Australians don’t really celebrate Halloween, but that wasn’t about to stop my American friends and I from doing it!! Wednesday we all got dressed up in the best costumes that could be found, made or dug up in Manly and we headed out on the town. Sam, Ali and I started off by going to our German friend’s house to play SingStar. It’s a play station karaoke game and I am in love with it!!! Jan and I are the only two that get intense about it, but it is a lot of fun. After the singing party I we were pumped up and ready to go out. The Halloween environment was like nothing at home. People knew that it was Halloween and all, but no-one was really dressed up except for us, and those that were dressed up stuck to the very traditional witch or vampire costumes. At least I heard my Marilyn get up was great. Lot’s of compliments on that one- probably because most people here haven’t seen anything like it.

Thursday night Ali and I were in an auction at school. Let me start by saying that it was originally just Ali who was suppose to be in it, but last week as she was in my room complaining about not having a costume, song, or dance and how difficult it was to come up with an act, I decided to shut her up by saying “It’s really not that hard, I’m sure you can come up with something.” To which she responded by telling me that if it was so easy then I should sign up for it, too I told her I would have but they probably had all the spots filled and didn’t need anyone else. Five minutes later she had talked to the RA and had my name on the auction list…..oh goodie!!! NOT!
So, I was very nervous, but the auction money that was raised went to BearCottage which is right down the road from our school. It’s a hospital for dying kids with cancer. So, I felt compelled to go through with this little shindig. I attempted to dress up like a country/cowgirl and do a line dance to “Play Something Country” by Brooks and Dunn. The only problem with this attire was that I couldn’t find any cowboy boots or a good outfit. I ended up in some heels, a skirt, my Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey shirt and a cowboy hat- YeeeeHaw!!!!
When we got to the auction there were a lot of people and I started getting nervous because I realized that no one here listens to country—not even most of these northern Americans! Much less would anyone actually know my song or get excited to hear it. BUT, I hear I ended up putting on quite a show! I only got auctioned for $100, but I think that isn’t too bad. At least I nailed my question-answer session after I performed. The hosts asked me about bull-riding and I nailed my answers. I guess if I become anorexic and get into beauty pageants then I know I’d do better than that stupid girl this year in the Miss America Pageant who couldn’t even answer the question about why Americans have a hard time locating our own country on a map- she was an idiot!
So, after the auction last night, when I went to class today people were saying, “Hey Texas girl!” TEXAS??? No, no. Let’s have a little chat about the south, country music, and the difference between Tennessee and Texas.

Speaking of the south, it reminded me of one last thing. Today Dr. McRae was talking about leadership and ended up spending 2 hours teaching the students about LBJ, the Civil Rights Act, the March on Selma, Martin Luther King and Gov Wallace. It was probably the best US History class I’ve ever sat through. She made it much more interesting than how we learned it in high school, nothing against Coach Chapman of course. Either that or I was just more interested myself, especially considering Dr. McRae would look to me for answers, or maybe approval about the conversation, and I kind of liked that. Although the issue may have given a negative appearance to the south she proceeded to tell about how great the south was when she visited it during her time in the states. She said she loves the southern hospitality and the southern dialect and went on to say that it is probably the best part of the United States. It made me proud to be a southerner.