Exciting Things That I've Done Recently

My family and I have done some pretty fun things recently. One of the places that we went to is the Enchanted Adventure Garden. It was really fun! Here are some pics of my brother and I in the Enchanted Adventure Garden.

My brother and I on a really neat wood carving with the tree walk behind us.

Here we are in front of the "enchanted" lake. See the face in the background? Isn't it cool?!

Getting ready/excited to zip line for my first time!

Now, I'm going to show you a couple of pics on different days, but those are the highlights so far for me. Hope you like them!

Here I am with Ameer and our tennis coach, Stefano.

While we were at Phillip Island, there was a tennis court nearby, so Ameer and I went there a lot.

So far, we've been here 3 times (I think). It's the Melbourne Zoo. We keep coming back because the whole family likes it and it's only a 20 minute drive.

Here, Ameer and I are in front of our house that were renting.

Here we are at the "lightning room" in Scienceworks (which is a lot like the Sciencenter). In there, the staff show us lightning and what can happen with it. It was really cool.



That's all I have for now. Hope you liked all the pics and captions! Merry Christmas!

First Month

Hey teachers! Sorry I haven't posted anything yet because I've been pretty busy with doing different activities with my family that I'm going to tell you guys about. Also, it was a pain to set this up, but thankfully I was able to. When I got here it was hard to get used to the time difference because in Australia, we're ahead by about 15 to 16 hours! First I'll start with the people, place, and food here. The people here seem pretty nice, but it's hard to understand what they're saying sometimes because of their accents. The place itself is really nice, but dry. With that, there are a ton of flies everywhere. Its starting to get really hot here (because it's almost summer) and a lot of times I wish that I was back in STL where it was cold. Now for the food, they have a lot of the same food/restaurants that we have in the US, but mostly they have somewhat different stuff. For example, our Lays chips is their Smiths chips. Also, if you ask someone for plain cheese pizza, you literally get plain cheese pizza. No tomato sauce, just cheese. The people here also call things differently. For instance, they call fries, chips. They call chips, crisps. They call ketchup, tomato sauce. And that's only a few examples. Also, I tasted the famous vegemite and it was disgusting, but my mom and brother surprisingly like it (as do most australians). Now, I'll tell you guys about the tennis here.

Australians love their tennis. Tennis is one of the most popular sports here (besides rugby and cricket). I already play tennis (and soccer) in the US; so, I tried playing tennis here. It was really fun! I play tennis twice a week now. The first lesson that I have is private. With that lesson, my coach is Stephano. He’s a really nice guy. My second lesson is a group lesson with about 4 other kids. With that lesson, my coach is Tim. Plus the city that I'm staying in (Melbourne) is hosting the Australian Open and we might be able to go! I hope we can. The next thing I'll tell you guys about is what my family and I just did recently.

Last week, my family and I went to Phillip Island. There we did a lot of great once-in-a-lifetime stuff. When we first got there, we went to a cafe called Mad Cowes. They had fantastic food. I got french toast and some pastries. (We went to other places to eat as well but none of them were as good as Mad Cowes). Then, we went to (over a two day period) Phillip Island Nature Parks which include four different parks. Those were Penguin Parade, Koala Conservation Center, Churchill Island (that’s a farming based area with farm animals), and The Nobbies (that’s about animals based on the antarctic). They were all very fun. My favorite was Penguin Parade because you get to see little penguins at night go find their babies. Those couple days were very special. There's also a place called Queen Victoria Market that has amazing stuff that I'll tell you guys about.

We had a very adventurous time there. We bought a lot of different things for ourselves. For instance, my dad got a light brown leather jacket and my mom bought soap. I bought a mini white air drone and a CD of a great band that was playing there, while my brother got a bag of candy and some donuts. Those are only the main things each of us were able to get. With the thrill of being able to get new things, there was entertainment as well. There was the great band that we bought the CD from and another band (they weren't as good as the first band though). We all had a great time.

Those are the highlights of the trip so far. Sorry again about not writing sooner, but we've been busy. From now on, I'm going to try to write every week. 1 month down, 2 to go! Bye!