Helen drove me to Magill this morning, I am very fortunate to have someone who lives down the street who often goes to the Magill office too! The traffic was a bit bad this morning because the Eclipsel (sp?) which is a car racing thing that is set up in the city. They close down a lot of the streets, so people are all in a hurry to get to work and find different ways to get to their destinations.
Right before we got to Magill, Beibei stopped by and dropped off some sushi for me for lunch- she is so nice! After getting the sushi out of the fridge Karen arrived and I hopped in her car and we drove to Ingle Farm. There was a mix up about whether or not I was going to be there, so I didn't have a house visit in the morning (but I will on Mondays from now on). I am also in charge of setting up, and helping out with a craft group that comes in every Monday early afternoon. Karen had to pick her son up from school early so she drove me to the Magill site that is just down the street form her son's school.
At Magill I worked with Helen and tried to figure out some advertising for her Dreams and Dramas pre-marriage course she's offering in April. We were placing an ad on Facebook, then when we hit the "submit" button at the end it said there was an error. After toying around with it and giving up we decided to head back to Highgate.
Ellie spent a few days in Kristy's beach where she helped out with a budget training session overnight, so it was just Hil and I tonight. Hilary is making a few very cool videos (check out her blog to see if they're up), and I went on a nice run into the city before calling it a night.
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Tuesday:
Yesterday Helen and Helene said that they would appreciate some assistance around Magill tomorrow to get some marketing work done, so I rode with Helen to Magill this morning. When I got there everyone ran in a different direction to work on various work things. During this time I signed up for courses at Wartburg next year. I ran into some complications because a class that I thought was being offered really wasn't, so I spent a bit of time figuring out what I needed to graduate.
Paushali (she works at Magill 2 days a week doing administration things), Helen, Helene, and I had lunch then a couple of us went on a walk around the block. It was a beautiful day! After our walk we returned to the office and I began to go through the materials for a pre-marriage course for Helen. After a few minutes I picked up the job of beginning a newsletter up-date that Helen sends to all of the couples that have done counseling and pre-marriage workshops through her services.
Helen and I went home early (6:30) and I returned to an empty house. Hil and El went to the supermarket to buy things for dinner/green foods. They made green eggs, green mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and green beer (it was St. Patricks day here). They put up a sign to advertise the "pub" they made. Haha... I don't know how they ate the green eggs and mac and cheese.
While the girls continued their St. Patrick's day celebration I took a spin in Helen's car! I was told that I will probably need to borrow someone's car on Friday to do house visits, so Helen was kind enough to offer her car for me to practice on. I thought it would probably be best to at least be behind the wheel of a car before I'm driving around Ingle Farm in traffic. At first it was a little weird because I wanted to make sure I didn't get too close to cars that were parked on the left side of the street... but I picked up on it pretty quickly.
It isn't all that different than in the United States because when you're driving on the right side of the road there is a line on your left side, and when you're driving on the left side of the road there is a line on your right side. You just have to make sure you're sticking close to the line. haha. The hardest thing for me to adjust to was the fact that the blinker was on the right side of the steering wheel. So when I tried to signal for a turn I was putting on my windshield wipers. I think I will try to practice driving one more time before I'm driving around Ingle Farm.
Yay for the experience of driving in Australia!
Wednesday:
I left really early to try to avoid the traffic from the Eclipsel (sp?) car racing. However, it was not necessary because it was the quickest and easiest bus ride I've ever been on! I got to playgroup about an hour early so I decided to walk around until people started to arrive.
There were quite a few children and mums at play group this week, it was really good! Lorinda organizes play group and has two children, Sophie and Bethany. Sophie just turned 3 and is very cute! Lorinda tells me that Sophie will be talking on her play phone at home saying "would you like to come for tea," then Lorinda will ask her who she was talking to. Sophie tells her mom that I'm coming over for tea (dinner). haha. It is so sweet! Lorinda actually called me up this week and invited Hil, El, and me over for tea next Monday. Lorinda and her family are all very nice people.
After play group I was dropped off and Magill and just as I was checking email I was informed that everyone was going leaving to go to other sites to do work. Helen was at Sefton Park all day, Emily was out working as well, Helene was on her way to Sefton Park for the afternoon and Di was going to Gumaracha to do an introduction. Di's job is to find people who don't have visitors in nursing homes and pairing them up with a volunteer.
My options were to be locked in Magill all afternoon, go to Sefton Park with Helene and wait until her meeting was over, or go with Di to Gumaracha a look around a bit until her introduction was over. I figured since I've never been to Gumaracha I should seize the opportunity. Gumaracha is home of the world's largest rocking horse. I was going to climb it, but it cost $2 and I wanted to see what else was around (and I'm glad I did!) There was a toy store where they make toys and sell souvenirs from Australia. After looking around a bit I saw a door behind the cash register that said "Free, just ask a staff member to open the door." I asked about it and went through.
The door led outside to an area sort of like a petting zoo. The area was fenced in and had alpacas, goats, lamb, sheep, peacocks, ducks, black swans, other random birds, and kangaroos. All the animals were free to roam wherever they wanted! There was a foot path, but because the animals weren't caged or separated from me or each other I could really walk where I wanted(there were also mini horse/donkey animals and emus that were fenced in other places). It was weird because I could approach and pet kangaroos, I was a little bit scared at first because they weren't caged, and I was the only person out there for a while until other viewers came.
After Di's introduction she rang my work mobile and picked me up. Along the way home we drove through Lobathol and stopped at the bakery (one of three strong German towns still around). At the bakery Di and I shared a small custard tart and I had a coffee (plain coffee with a bit of milk is called "short white").
It was about 4:30 when we were getting back into town and Di didn't want to return to the office so she was kind enough to drop me by the house. Hil and I hung around until Ellie returned from Calvary and we had dinner and watched a few Australian reality tv shows. "Farmer Wants a Wife" is kind of like the bachelor, but there are three farmers living on separate farms in Australia and have women on their land competing for the love of the Farmer. haha. Even though I'm on the opposite side of the world it seems some things never change.
p.s. photos soon to come!
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