Day 2-"No Worries"

Well after realizing I still have a difficult time sleeping in this heat, it was an early morning for me. About 5 AM. I actually am pleasantly surprised at how awake I was, the upside to this is I don't have to worry about oversleeping for school.

After a quick bite to eat for breakfast, my COST Supervisor came and picked me up then it was off to pick up Chelsea (another COST student) to make a day trip to the beach. I still am having a hard time adjusting to getting in on the other side of the car, someone always has to remind me to walk around! Another interesting thing I noticed along our drive were the road signs. Rather than saying "yield" their signs say "give away." Just another quirky Australian fact for you all! Chelsea lives about 30 minutes away closer to the coast, which is a very swanky area. She and I later in the day had the opportunity to walk around and check out all of the multi-million dollar homes. After picking up Chelsea, John dropped us off at Hillary's Harbor which he referred to as quite touristy. We absolutely loved it! It still is "Holiday", or summer vacation as we like to call it, so it was pretty crowded. Sunday's are a big going out day for the people our age, there were tons of pubs covered with young kids celebrating their last couple of days before returning to "Uni" aka their university. Both of our host families warned us to wear plenty of sunscreen because with the cool breeze from the Indian Ocean, one can easily get burned without feeling it. The cool breeze that comes in on the afternoon is known as the "Fremantle Doctor." During the morning, it is rather still and the water is very calm, but early in the afternoon a strong breeze comes through and stirs everything up and usually begins in the Fremantle area of Perth and works it way up to stir everything up and bring everyone back to reality. We both constantly reapplied sunscreen but still ended up pretty sunburned, Chelsea even had to have an ice bath when she got in!

When we got too warm we began our tour of the upscale neighborhood on our walk back home. It got rather warm on the way home, but it wasn't too terrible. Many of the homes have solar paneling installed onto the roofs to conserve energy. One thing that is very important to Aussie's is keeping their environment clean and in good condition. We went for a "dip" in the pool at Chelsea's house which is very beautiful. John later came and picked us up and gave us a quick tour of a memorial garden where I got to see my first kangaroo! They are very friendly and would even walk up to the car expecting to be fed. The kangaroo reserve is also is a cemetery, which the Aussie's pronounce "sem-I-tree", and people become quite frustrated with the roo's because they tend to nibble on the flowers set up in memorial for love ones lostt. We also were able to see ravens and other Australian parrots!

Once I got back in, I had a nice relaxing dinner with my host family. Tomorrow is my first day of school at Belmont City College. I am so anxious to begin and a bit nervous. The teachers here have to do four professional development before the "pupils" return on Thursday. My cost supervisor offered me wonderful advice that is very common here, he said "you'll hear many Aussies say 'no worries' and that's the type of attitude you should have on this adventure in your life." I really took that to heart and thought hey, it might be nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of our American lifestyle and just sit back and smell the roses, I am going to try my best to adopt their laid back view on life!