(Insert catchy title here)

Good afternoon all! :) .....I never know where to start with these things. Do you get sick of reading that as the first line of every blog? It would have been the first line of all of my papers through high school and college if it wouldn't have docked my grade. I was always given the instructions that I had write a "broad and general statement" to start every paper and "I don't know where to start" seems about as broad and general as you can get.................. anyway -- a little bit of adhd kicking in there. the dogs are snoring and the birds are chirping and people are mowing their lawns and builders are hammering and the sun is shining and I don't feel like sitting inside at a computer but TOO much has happened for me to wait another day! :D

A week ago today I attended UNI with my host brothers girlfriend Tori...which is college or a university to us. In Tasmania, they have the Unversity of Tasmania but you can attend that school at several locations. College to the people here happens at age 16-18 (11th and 12th grades) ...they finish high school after tenth grade. They have the same problem of trying to find a place to park on campus as we do in America except their hills to walk to campus and back are an experience. It brought me back to memories of going to class on campus at KU. :) The grading system is a little bit different but mainly mostly their wording of it - i believe their percentages mean about the same thing. Scholarships are available to attend the school for grades and such but sports scholarships do not seem to be much of an issue. That is a huge difference of life here versus life in America. Sports are a HUGE part of life at home and here their main sport is Footie (Football) which is a mix of our sports of football and soccer I would say. Baseball is not played here at all I don't believe and I have probably seen about three basketball goals. Anyway back to school info....their lectures are same as us - about 50 min- with labs; however, their teachers change with each unit. I sat in a chemistry, bio of animals, and bio of plants class. I learned how a dragonfly flies and other species related --- by flexing their thorax (their butt musles). I sat their imagining what it would be like if I flexed my butt muscles and it made me fly.......I also learned that drinking fountains are not the same here. I went to fill up my water bottle in the middle of the most popular hang out spot on campus ...I filled by bottle from the mouth spot and kept tilting it more and more to try and get more and more water in the bottle so nearly the water was actually spilling out the top.....apparently someone saw me struggling and came up to flip on a spout on the side of the fountain that was specifically for bottles! HERES MY SIGN! :D

Wednesday was a quiet day- I watched a movie with my house mom ..Although most of the movies are the same here as at home, she had never seen She's Just Not That Into You and I also did some laundry. Most families do not have dryers here so I have been having fun hanging my laundry out on the line...I admit I was a little embarrassed about hanging my undergarmets so I put my jeans and such around the outside of the circular line and hid my other stuff on the inside. :) I will say good thing I was home Wednesday because three times I had to bring my laundry inside because of rain and then the sun would come out and you think it was over...and it would rain again. All a wonderful experience.

I went on a tour Thursday of Hobart (the state capital) and took a tour of the Cascade Brewery. One of the things I saw on the tour was a signal station  that they used to alert the next hill over and that process would keep going until the Port Arthur (the main site where convicts were kept) was alerted - It was said the process took twenty min and it is an hour or so drive from Hobart now-a-days. The Brewery was established in the early 1800's by a man that owned some prime land at the foot of a mountain by fresh spring water --- he was taken into jail for not paying a debt in England and while he was in jail he thought of the idea of running the brewery, received permission when he got out and it was up and running within a few years. The workers were able to drink all the beer they wanted while they worked and at that time a glass of beer was about 15% alcohol. After the owner realized the workers were drinking about as much as he was making, he started rationing them with an "open bar" (this is where the term came from) and a man would serve beer four times a day for ten minutes; however, the workmen were said to have about ten glasses of beer during the ten min which would amount to more than a case of beer for the workmen throughout the day everyday............ugh! Imagine what their beer bellies looked like! :)  Thursday night was salsa dancing night! I learned pretty quickly and lost the awkward feeling after about fifteen minutes. Some people had been there for four weeks and still couldn't get the basic step...I had the footwork down but couldn't quite get into the whole swinging of the hips thing. I think I'll stick to line dancing and swing dancing!

Friday I went to a wildlife park called Bonorong National Park. I got interact with Kangaroos of all sizes and Koalas, pet a wombat, talk with a few birds, and see Tasmanian Devils, Emu, and possum. I tried to get gutsy and hand feed the Emu and three of them attacked me at once and at one point I thought I was going to lose the skin off my hand. I used the tactic like when I used to hand feed grain to horses to keep my hand tight and then they can't "bite" me...It didnt work out as well. Tasmanian devils do not look anything like the cartoon and are very viscious looking. Their possums are all furry -- head to toe -- which I thought was interesting. The wombat was the most interesting animal - they are similar to our badger and can be kept in a wildlife park til they are two and then they must be released because they develp their adult instinctive habits such as going through everything in their way- even if it is cement. Definately not an animal I would want to meet on a jog down the back roads. Speaking of animals - I was telling my friends and family here that we say in Kansas, "If it flies it dies, if it crawls it falls" ..if you lived in Tassie you would have to add "If it hops it drops." Apparently they hunt and eat  kangaroo and it is also frequent road kill on the side of the road. Imagine hitting that driving down the road? The warning sings for Kangaroo crossings are pretty humorous. Oh and they also have black Swans here instead of white. I keep joking with everyone that swans of death and impurity inhabit their island and America has swans that symbolize purity and life. After Bonorong we visited the home of Cadbury's chocolate and went on a little tour and strolled through their candy store....and I thought strolling through Dillions during easter time was tempting!!!! :)

Saturday I went into the city and visited "Salamanca Market" ...a whole block is shut down for tents and venues of food, crafts, etc. but all of it has to be made in Tasmania. I found all sorts of fun things I wanted to take home with me...apparently I was so excited about one that after it was wrapped and handed to me I tried to walk off without paying for it. :) Luckily, the man at the tent didn't freak out and kindly got my attention and said "maam are you going to pay for that??" wheww I was a little bit embarrassed. Here I was walking around with my bag signaling I am clearly a tourist and now people prob thought I just try to steal things with it..........

Sunday we visited Bruny Island - we tried to make a 930 ferry and as soon as it was our time to load, the ferry had reached its limit of cars and we had to wait til 11:15. The island itself was beautiful (minus the extreme winds) and I have great pictures which I will post soon on facebook...the waters were aqua blue and the beaches were practically white. I decided to run up a ton of stairs to the top of a lighthouse viewing and Monday morning felt the wrath! I was getting a little bit of an ADHD attack from spending a lot of time in the car and saw some of what I thought was ducks on the side of the road. I preceded to quack at them and immediately I saw my host sister slump her shoulders and shake her head. "Hens don't quack in Australia Gretchen......." she told me......Another amazing moment of me having to laugh off being an idiot. :) Now everytime we see a cow she "baa's" at me. Of course just our luck at we pulled up to get on the ferry home, it was just pulling away so we sat and waited another hour for the next one........still, it was a great day.

As for random things that have happned - they do not tip here which is nice and tax is prefigured in costs of everything so what is on the price tag is what your spending. That helps BUT everything is more expensive here ...except for UGG boots. Everyone here can't believe what we pay for the boots in America. I have found that instead of stop lights, round-a-bouts are much more frequent. They do not know what biscuits and gravy are here...I might have to make it. To add to that, if any of you ever come visit rolls is a sandwich. Biscuits is cookies. Chips are fries. Crips are chips. Crackers are plain things you put cheese on,
scones are biscuits, and cookies are not really used. Did you follow all that? Ya, I don't either.....oh! like we have mini oranges, they have mini apples. :) Anyway, they don't rinse their dishes after they wash them, and they call fanny packs bum packs- This is why- the word fanny to Tassie people is another word for a girl part.....oops. :) To add to that and finish my extremely long blog once again I will share my weekly embarrassing story --- My host brother Dale, his girlfriend Tori, sister Simone, and myself were going to a Rural Youth meeting and saw a rather chunky man running down the road in jeans and bright green crocks. I (Trying to use Aussie slang) said loudly, "Ah, my future Tassie husband, I'd chase after him but I'd have to take off my thong to run fast enough........." Huge awkward silence. They obviously call flip flops thongs here....but I forgot to add the "s".....

Today I spent the day at an elementary school but I got back again Thursday so I will save those stories for my next blog. It felt great being around kids and they had a ton of questions to ask me. It was quite interesting what kind of things they asked.................til next time. If you made it to the end thanks for reading! Hugs to everyone back home.

Gretchen