Jesus Bunny

I thought I would entertain you all (whoever "you" may be) with an update of my life.

I am now on Easter Holidays, although Australia does not seem to be very religious. It's really commercialized and lets just say that chocolate companies like Cadburry get more recognition than Jesus does.

I googled how the Easter Bunny came to be and you can read all about it following this link. It's actually quite interesting.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/664265/easter_bunny_beginnings_where_did_he.html?cat=22

LINK ^^^^^^

Moving on, I don't think were celebrating Easter this year. Which kind of bums me out because I will be missing the traditional Easter Egg Hunt. I guess that just means less competition for Abby and Kelsey. Instead I will be going to Jamberoo, a water theme park. Yeah?

I finally came through hell and back, known as finals week, and then left the following Sunday to go to Queensland which was a blast! The first three days we were there we sun-tanned by the beach and now I'm black! It was fantastic! Our hotel was right by the beach and I woke up to the ocean every morning. The vacation was very relaxing and laidback. I surfed a few times too, with the help of Steve, Brianna's dad, and stood up on the board a lot more times than the previous trip.

Besides stretching out on the sand, or hanging out with the Penders, another exchange family that came with us, we went to Sea World, Movie World, and Wet N' Wild

Sea World was more for little kids but they had a few cool rides and a spectacular dolphin show! Movie World was the best, especially this ride called The Superman where you practically went vertically up then back down! It was amazing, best 30 seconds of my life.

Wet N' Wild was very fun although it rained the whole day, so we froze our butts off. Best ride was at the end. There was this huge white slide with a raft made for six people. There was no one behind us so we asked the attendent if we could fit seven people in it. Let's just say we now know why you should only fit six people. That extra body sent us zooming down the slide which much too much momentum! We flew up the slides of the slide, at one point Montanna Pender almost fell off. It was the funniest, bestest, scariest ride of my life!

I bought a new swimsuit, it's blue and super cute! I also got my new shoes that I wanted, gladiator sandals! Oh and besides visiting some super cool theme parks, we took a trip up to see Australia Zoo.

That is, hands down, one of the best zoo's I have ever seen, it tops Taronga and Denver Zoo. Steve Irwin really did a good job, the enclosures were huge and the animals were obviously well looked after. We saw the croc show, which was amazing, and there were about 2 dozen birds flapping around all at once! What I did like about the zoo was that the animals weren't trained, or maybe somewhat trained, but it was more based on telling about the animals, rather than "Oh look, the crocodile can balance a ball on his nose!" sort of thing.

The kangaroo exhibit was my favorite. The kangaroos didn't really have a cage so to speak, but it was like a giant enclosed park that you walked through. You could pet and even feed them, they were quite docile animals. I am really really glad to have gone to Australia Zoo, it was a definite highlight of the trip. You can see pictures on Facebook too!

Queensland was great, despite the fact that our flight home got cancelled and we had to leave the next morning instead :/ I definitely do plan to go back to Coolangatta, (where we specifically stayed)it's a beautiful place!

Now that I'm home, I'm STILL enjoying holidays. I saw Thor not last night, but the night before and that was really good! Go see it in 3D, it is soo worth it! That super hot Australian guy is in it!

I went to Toranga Zoo yesterday, and we took a ferry out to the place, even passed Australia's version of Alcatraz, although it was much smaller. Mikaela, Brianna's cousin, came with us, and told us about this island with various cabins on it where the prisoners, if deathly ill, were sent there to die. Obviously, it is quite haunted. We personally didn't see the island that time, but I dont think Mikky is lying.
Anyways, the Toranga Zoo, although it was very compact, was really nice and we even saw three baby elephants! They were the cutest things, let me tell you!

And now today we are supposed to go the Easter Show, the equivalent of the Stock Show in Denver I presume. I am pretty excited for this although the weather is looking quite shit. I'll update ya'll on that later.

Any questions? Just post something on my Facebook or leave a comment here. My scars from my skateboarding accident are slowly going away too!

And yes Mom, I'm still happy and healthy! The Mowbray Park trip is this weekend as well, so I'll be riding horses and milking cows! I hope I can take some pictures too but Brianna broke my camera, (she threw it in the sand) so we'll just hope for the best.

OVER AND OUT

Evan Elizabeth :D

VLOGGING Anyone?

VIDEO BELOW Oh I also found that I didn't include everything. A few updates 1. Exams are next week :( 2. Going to Queensland next Sunday for Easter Holidays. That should be a blast!! :) 3. It's been raining a lot and I am hating my uniform 4. Mmmmm...what else? Basically I am still having fun, I am getting the hang of things, and I am making some more girlfriends. 5. We are learning the sickest dance in Dance Class. I will film it soon and show ya'll MY CHEERLEADING PERFORMANCE VIDEO has been posted on my WALL/PROFILE. Look for it there. :)


UPDATE: NO VIDEO, Blogger can't post it :(

One month in!

Update, update, update.

And ya'll think I wouldn't stick to it. WEll I'm trying my hardest.

Im not sure where I left off from, but I'm still doing great! Still living at the same house, with the same family, going to the same school. Happy and relatively healthy.

The latest exchange thing, minus the mayor's welcome thingy last night, was going to Bendalong! BENDALONG WAS A BLAST. I learned two things at that trip

1. I suck at surfing
2. Those black sharp pointy things on the rocks are not for touching.

Nicky, Bri, and I all drove down (about a 3 hour trip) to Bendalong stopping at this very scenic, incredibly beautiful hill side and watched the people in parachutes and cliff hangy things fly around. If only my insurance would let me! We took some pictures of course and then drove to a place called the Kiama Blowhole. Its this rock formation next to the ocean and the waves come bursting up through it! You'd have to go there on a day with rough waves to see anything though. There was a lighthouse and some birds flapping about. Very east coast like. Mom would like it.

We got to our five-star shack (ha not really) in Bendalong and went down to the ocean. Seriously, I could live in a hut all my life if it meant I could wake up to the ocean every morning. It's incredibly beautiful. It just streches on forever.

We surfed the next day with a 7 or 8 year World Champion Surfer, Pam Burridge. She was a great great lady. We got suited up in our flattering wet suits, grabbed some boards, and then she took us down to the beach. We all learned how to lay and stand up on them. We did some surf yoga and then we had to test the beast ourselves.
The waves were gentle, although I probably swallowed my weight in sea water. Pam, and these other two nice ladies helped the group ride the waves and how to get up effectively. I tried sooo hard! I just kept going and going. I got up on my knees, then one knee. By this time, everyone else had gone in, but I was still out trying. Nicky gave me a sign saying "one more time" and I knew that this one last time had to be it! AND I DID IT! I stood up! Granted, it wasn't for very long, but I was soo happy! I started screaming and jumping up and down. Needless to say, I was pretty proud of myself.

After surfing we just messed around on the beach and wrote things in the sand. I took lots of pictures and me and Jenny managed to get closer over the weekend, so that was good! She is a lovely girl and we have lots of things in common. That night we had a cupcake decorating contest in which me and Eric won and we even saw a kangaroo! You can imagine what the Americans reaction to that was! It was ssoo cute! And speaking of animals, a possum crawled up on our porch one night and we fed it apples. They are pretty calm creatures, or at least this one was, and very curious. I just love little animals. :D Bendalong was fun. It was a nice, relaxing beach get away weekend. Next up is the liasion trip to Nelson Bay I think. :) I am excited for that.

School is going okay. I find i dont really like the curriculum all too much. At least in English. This may come as a shock to you, but I like Math more than I like English right now! WEIRD!!

I am trying to get more involved in things. I am going to Jazz Dance tuesday nights and I want to do some more Yoga with Bec. I am also contemplating on a sport! Any suggestions parents?? Cross country, soccer??? Let me know!

I have a Drama assessment and a Dance Assessment coming up soon. My scene for Drama sucks, (the play is shit) but Dance is interesting. It's hard but its not too out of my limit. I learn a lot too!! I found that Modern Dance is a lot more fun than ballet. It's very free and easy. Not as disciplined as ballet.

I might also join debate so we'll see how that goes! I think I would be great at that. Dad would agree with this.

I am making more friends and becoming accustomed to everything. Slowly but surely the weird American girl is fitting in. People are still bombarding me with questions. I even got the question "Can you take a train to Hawaii?"

Yes! We have these underwater trains now! :/

I am also looking into maybe a volunteer opportunity. But I have to make sure I can balance everything.

OHH THe Mayor's thing. I almost forget. To sum it up, I wrote a speech, only half of it saved, so I winged the last half. I put on my uniform, I talked in front of people, smiled for the camera, ate this amazing cake, got more photos, and tried to represent America, and Lakewood specifically as best I could.

Got some nice compliments, and the mayor liked my speech. Job accomplished.

Anyways, keep checking on Facebook for updates, and I'll continue to post pictures. If you want more info, or think Im not including enough in my blog, SPEAK UP!


Au Revoir


Evan


P.S. I'm jealous of your snow!!

BLOG UPDATE NUMERO TWO

CONTINUED!!

So thats school basically. The people are pretty nice. You'll always have your bitchy girls and man whore boys. Such is life

I am making a lot of new friends! Ben, James, Nicole, Taryn, Nicola, Aleesha, JOSHY BOY! Everyone I have met is really great! They ALWAYS want to know about American School. They are fascinated!

My extracurricular activities right now consist of going up to Engadine after school and getting a thick shake (thicker drink than a milk shake) or an iced chocolate. Despite what Brianna says, they are they exact same thing as a chocolate milkshake!
We can also go to the library or go to what they call Mackers! (McDonalds, Mickey D's) There Mackers is a lot more clean and nice. Makes ours look bad. (not that they weren't bad before) I have also noticed a lot more kids have jobs! I am insanely jealous! And everyone walks. They have the BEST transit system. Buses and trains. They are right on time and pretty muchh hassle free. So me and bri take the bus alot. Im getting a work out.

I am looking into sports. So far I have tried hip hop and jazz. Jazz I loved! Me and Bri's cousin Bec took a class tonight with some older ladies (made me REALLY appreciate my youth) and it was a blast. Dance is just fun! It's a form of expression!

I might do soccer or try to find a gymnastics place. It's all up in the air right now really.Oh and I REALLY want to try to rent a violin. Believe it or not, I miss playing it.

Everything is just so fun! Trivia, school, friends, dance. Not homework. But yeah, I think because it's all new! The weather is a kick too. Had a 7 day heat wave. They close the school if it gets above 40 degrees C. Hope you all are enjoying your snow days! We had the Welcome BBQ as well and that was nice to see everyone in the exchange Prodigy Group.

Okay..my fingers are hurting now and I have little to say. I'm happy, healthy, alive! I will update you again soon!

Now to post pictures.

Au Revoir. I miss everyone. Shannon, Marlyce, Brenna, Marissa, Tia, Madison, Kelsey, Abby, Mom & Dad, Other Family :) , Zander <3, STARBUCKS!

Ciao for now.

Evan

P.S. Say the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Woh.

BLOG UPDATE NUMERO UNO (dont think that's spelled right)

JUST A WARNING: I think this may be a bit of a lengthy post as I have lots to inform you about.

First off, I'm doing fine. Just dandy! Haven't had to go to the hospital or anything like that. I'm loving it!

SCHOOL

Uniforms. Mmmm those are just great. Like everything, they have their pro's and their cons! Cons: They are hot and white and unflattering. The dresses have sleeves and make me look like a little girl. They are not "fashion forward" in any sense of the word. Pros: They equalize everyone. And this is mainly coming from a girl point of view, but if your allowed to dress however you want, it brings out competition. Girls compete with one another to look better than the other one and if your found that you dont meet the "quota" so to speak, (if your not wearing what's hot and popular) your not hot and popular. You don't win the attraction and affection of a guy. If we take out clothes and such like that, we are all on the same level. Then you have to compete with your personality, and you can't buy that on aisle 7 :)

School is outside. Very little is actually inside! Except classrooms of course. But the hallways and courtyards, walkways are all open, or they're covered. And students don't have lockers really. You can buy one, but its cheap and small. We all just carry our stuff in a big binder and we have backpacks. There are 6 classes a day. 1,2 then a recess, 3,4 then lunch, and the day ends with 5&6. No off periods! On Wednesday me and Brianna get up extra early to take a seventh class called an extension class. WE take extenstion english, but there is extension math as well. I'm not even going to attempt to layout my schedule (here they call them time tables) for you, it's so confusing. But I have Advanced English + Extenstion, Advanced Math (shocking), Society and Culture, Dance, Chemistry, and Drama! They also have double classes. So some days you'll have 1 and 2 and they are both chemistry. Each class gets a double, but they fall on different days.

Are you keeping up with me?

The classes are 52 minutes each. Everyone groans that they are long, but I am rejoicing! Everyone balks at me when I say our classes were an hour and half. The only downfall is that you usually don't have time to teach much in 50 minutes.

They basically teach the same, except they follow a much stricter syllabus (specifically called "dot points") laid out by the NSW Government. You also get a less personal interaction. Kinda sucks. Oh and Mr. Mehlbach, if your reading this, I have found your twin. My English teacher and you would be great friends. Your personalities are identical. It's Great! He's funny and very educated, but stern and scary when he needs to be. You and him both get a kick out of life!

They go on a lot more field trips than we do. Partly because students in Australia have to have external and hands on experience in order to get a good score on this HUGE (HUGE) test called the HSC. Half the curriculum is based on this one test. THey get Year 11 and 12 to prepare for it, can you imagine? Plus every class they take is tested in the HSC. You take dance, you have an HSC Dance Performance Test. You take English? You'll get an HSC English Exam. There is more too it, but I don't want to bore you guys tooo much!

Anyways these field trips are called Excursions. I went on a Drama Excursion on Monday and saw some HSC performances that got the best possible score, hence why they were then performed for us. They were incredible. Just wow!

Dance Excursion is tomorrow! I wish our school had a dance class. How SICK would that be! I learned about my alignment, I guess I tend to lean forward and my right leg is longer than the left. How odd!

Okay Im going to end this blog post and start a new one! TO BE CONTINUED

BIG DAY OUT AND CHUGGING COKE

(ONE OF THE STAGES)
Hello Everyone!


I know that it has been a little while since I've updated but you must understand I have been really busy! I've been settling down some and figuring out things here at the house. It's amazing what little things one is not used to and that you have to ask how everything works and where everything is.

Alrighty so...Wednesday was Australia Day. In Brianna's words it's where "adults take the day off of work and get pissed." (drunk) Sounds like Fourth of July to me!
Anyways..we went to Brianna's friends party (Brock Nelson) and had a bit of fun there. Hung out and ate sausage sandwhiches where I again explained to them that America puts sugar in our bread and it's ketchup, not tomato sauce!

I've been meeting a lot of people too. Nicole is becoming a good friend of mine. Gotta love that girl. We relate to eachother a lot and really have a good time together. :) speaking of good times, after Brock's party, me, bri, and b crashed Grangus's party (Brianna's brother) and watched everyone drink copious amounts of Vodka cruisers. (the drinking age is 18 over there) It's all good fun counting the number of times people spew. Bad decision of the night: Chugging a coke. 'nuff said.


We then traveled on down to Bec Melrose's (cousin) and spent the night in anticipation of Big Day Out, which I will explain later. MJ (Madjono everyone), Bec, Bri, and I all watched some trivia type shows. One was really good actually, they had music experts on the show and the host asked them questions and so forth. If there was a celebrity expert, I would do it on Audrey Hepburn. I would so win!

Woke up the next day to these really REALLY annoying birds and then we all headed down to catch the train to the Big Day Out music festival.


Big Gig. 7,000+ people. Big Day Out 20,000 people+ Now I could be wrong with this, but let me tell you. There were soo many people. Ohh my goodness. The heat was intense. EVERYTHING WAS INTENSE. Soo freaking crazy!!!

We saw The Vines, Crystal Castles, Gyroscope, Bliss n Eso, HELL TO THE FREAKING YA WOLFMOTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, MIA (fantastic performance), Bookah Shade, Angus & Julia Stone, John Butler Trio,etc! All in one day. My body is so sore from this experience. Everyone was amazing. We even did Silent Disco. I really really want this to come to the states. You get a pair of headphones, you go into a giant room full of people, and dance to whats on the headphones. You get two to three channels of music to pick from and there is a DJ running all this. How freaking cool is that!!! I think the group of us spent three hours in there dancing. It was so cool! Soo cool!! I want that to come to USA so bad. I had such a fun time.

I have never been to a better concert, music festival in my life. And it was well organized too! Food and beverage places, police dogs sniffing for drugs, first aid stations, theme park rides, barricades to hold back a mosh pit surge or stampede, bathrooms, and cheap water. But dont get me wrong, there were still drunk creepers and guys wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to old for me.

All in all, it was a great day. I was second row for Wolfmother (suck on that Kyle!), MIA let people dance up on the stage with her, a ride that scared the f*** out of me, good dancing, and great people. Gosh I love Sydney!

Anyways..I'll update some more later. If my followers (do I have any??) want me to include more detail in my postings, I will! Just let me know. :) More pictures to come!

Got my uniform today too! One dress, two shirts, two skirts.







They are so cute. (hear the sarcasm)

LOTS OF LOVE, I am missing you all.


Evan :)

P.S. MOm my converter doesn't work....?????? Their outlets are different...what should I do?

P.S.S. If you plan to send me a package anytime soon..not that you would or anything..please include some things. Thank you. :)

Culture Shock

Hello Hello!

I'm sure if your reading this your wondering how Australia is! Well... ITS AWESOME!!
Seriously! It's everything I could have wanted. An awesome family, an awesome sister Brianna, an okay brother (hope he reads this he he), perfect weather,and the ocean!! I'm a beach bum for sure. I could live in my swimsuit.

I live upstairs in Brianna's house in Yarrawarrah. I've always wanted a room upstairs, weird I know! I have some pet fishes and a nice open window, plus the walls are a nice green. It's all very nice!

Nicky is a great cook and I had potato bake on Saturday night. SOOOOOOOOOOOO YUMMY! The sausages are different but they taste good as well and the bread doesn't have high fructose corn syrup. Actually, I dont think a lot of the food does, I had to explain to Bri's friends what it was. Geezz America, liquid sugar????

So here is a little summary of my days so far. I got off the plane at around 8am on Saturday. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MMMMYYYYYYYYYY GOSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. A wave of humidity! Regardless to say, my hair is in for the long haul. Ohh and by the way 14 hour plane rides are just no fun! Just no fun. But I did sit next to a guy who resembled the main character in CSI:MIAMI (the one with the red hair and sunnies)

We went to the beach and met all the other familes, had a little welcome thingy, though our Barbeque is next week. They drive on the left, its soo crazy!! No wonder we cant drive here, there's no way I could without crashing. They also have a lot of roundabouts to keep the flow of traffic going and the cars are nicer to pedestrians.

Ohh and I did try to get on the wrong side of the car to ride shot gun. But thats okay, Brianna did that in Winterpark when she was here :)

So now basically Im settled in! We met her friends Pip, Britney, Nicole,Zach, Alex, Jess, and Jesse I think. Oh and Bri's brother's girlfriend, Nat. Lovely girl!

We rode the train, which makes RTD look even more awful than it is, and spent the day at Cronulla! We shopped a bit and I got one top, YES ONE MOM, for cheap. I could wear it at parties and at the beach. Very versatile. I must say, Australia is very fashion forward. The girls and their attire are very cute! I belong here :p


Then the beach. The ocean is beautiful. Everytime I see it, I am just in awe. Me, bri, and alex got knocked around in the waves, which were little, however there was a surfing competition going on, so that was cool to see! I love swimming, and I love the waves. Once again, I belong here!

I ate lamb for dinner last night! Yummy! Also, beans to us are different here! Nicky thought I meant green beans, he he how cute! But no I love green beans, not black beans and such. I dont think they really have those here, though Im not entirely sure.

The slang is different and everyone talks so fast!! They tend to shorten their words too! But I have no doubt, I'll come home talking like an Aussie.


All in all, everything is going well, I'm still just getting used to things. I miss people back home! Shannon, Marissa, Marlyce, Zander <3, my family! You know who you are! I'll keep posting and look on my Facebook for pictures.

I love you all!

Later, mate :)

Evan