Daily Life September 5th

G'day Mates!

Ta da! Our jet-lag is finally finished! Wow. It took longer than we expected. We were finally able to stay up later than 8:30 and sleep in longer than 6am.

We are really settling into a groove here in Hurstville. We did our first solo train ride with no problems and are learning how to navigate the town. Yesterday was our first day of official work for the society. Our task was to organize the Sunday School closets. It needed some serious love. We sorted through crayons, markers, tape, lessons, art supplies and paper. It wasn't too hard, just took some time. Luckily we have had plenty of experience with this type of work before so we were fully equiped to tackle the problem.

After working, we headed back to the manse and made some lunch realizing that our food supply was running low. We were excited for our first trip to the grocery store. Loading up our backpacks, we headed out the door towards Hurstville where Coles supermaket is located inside the shopping mall. We found the store, no problems, filled up our cart, and stuffed our backpacks full. One thing we've noticed is that Australians don't have regular mac'n cheese, they just have EasyMac. They also don't keep their eggs in the fridge, they just store them on the shelf.

It was a long haul back to the manse with all our groceries. They were quite heavy. For those of you who live in Bryn Athyn, we had to hike up a hill similar to Sleepy Hollow. Yikes!!

For dinner, we met the Murray Heldons in the city. This meant taking the train ALONE. We had been given a phone in case of emergencies, but unfortunately during the only emergency we had, it cut out. We were meant to get off at Town Hall, but by accident got off one stop early. We couldn't find any signs, so we naiively assumed that this was our stop. But as we stood just outside the train doors, we heard the overhead speakers saying, "Next stop, Town Hall." Panicking, we jumped back on the train as the loudspeaker said, "Stand clear, doors closing." Let's just say, we were lucky.

Once we finally reached Town Hall, we were met by Murray and Lori Heldon who walked us to Seoul-ria, a Korean Restaurant downtown Sydney. There was lots of traffic because of APEC. We met up there with Murray and Lori's daughter Naomi and their niece Angela. Naomi, knowing some Korean, ordered a delicious array of food for everyone. On the corner of the table is a button that rings a bell for the waitress so you don't have to wait long which was great because we were starving (note to self: don't go to the grocery store when really hungry!). The food was delicious. And there was nothing too scary.

After dinner, we split up and went off with Angela to purchase some gelato. That was also delicious. Then we met up with Angela's twin sister Michelle and took the train back together sharing some great laughs on the way. These girls are energetic and so much fun. They are great friends and we have felt comfortable with them since we met.

The past few days the weather has been extremely changeable. One minute the sun is shining, the next it is pouring rain. While at Margaret Heldon's for dinner on Tuesday, we witnessed the most beautiful rainbow. The colors were so bright and we could see where it touched the ground on both sides. Minutes later, another rainbow arched its way along this one, making a perfect double rainbow. Sarah and I had never seen anything like this. Margaret said that they often see rainbows with all six colors and with a full arch. Very different from the little sundogs we see in the US. On Wednesday we saw another rainbow which wasn't as impressive, but still quite lovely.

We now have a few shoutouts to our faithful blog readers.

#1 The ninth and tenth graders at KNCS. Study hard!

#2 Mr. B. for being the first to comment on our blog. Thank you!

#3 To Tony Griffin the R.A. Go Phillies! Make friends with the freshmen.

#4 To Jace Odhner. Stay happy and go on a bike ride.

Check back later for more updates.

We love you all,

Sarah and Carling