Australia Part 1

I arrived in Melbourne as a weary traveler on Thursday December 22 at around 11:00 am.  I made it through customs despite the fact that I didn't have Natalie's address.  The dog didn't find any contraband items in my luggage so I was able to walk through quite quickly.  I met Sean, Nicole's husband, at the exit of customs and walked to the car.  Once at the car I instinctivally walked to the right of the car to get in the passenger's side only to be told from Sean that I need to get in on the other side unless I wanted to drive.  I definitely did not want to drive so I switched to the left, passenger side in Australia, and got in.  The drive to their house wasn't bad, only about 1/2 an hour.  As soon as I got there I took a shower.  I felt super slimy and disgusting.  After the shower came a good tooth brushing.  Once I felt better I took a quick nap, about 1 hour, before the girls got home from school.  Then it was time to meet the family.  Natalie lives with her daughter, Nicole, son-in-law, Sean, and two granddaughters, Ashleigh (9) and Caitlyn (8).  When Natalie came home from work we went shopping for a bit but I didn't last all that long and was in bed by 8:00.  I was exhausted after my 16 hour flight.

Friday 12/23

being processed at the
Old Watch House

After getting about 12 hours sleep we - Natalie, Ashleigh, Caitlyn, and I - headed into the city for a day of sight seeing.  We went to the Old Melbourne Gaol (Jail) and I learned a lot about Ned Kelly.  He is the Asutralian version of Robin Hood.  The jail was pretty interesting as they had death masks of many of the prisoners and the acutal gallows that were used to hang Ned Kelly.  After the jail we walked down the road to the Old Watch House and had a tour of that.  The tour was run as if we were prisoners being processed.  It was neat.  We were treated as they would have treated prisoners before they closed in 1984.  We were processed and sent to a cell where they turned off all the lights and it was pitch black.  Just a little bit of light was filtering in through the crack between the floor and the door.  Ashleigh and Caitlyn were the hit of the tour as the Sargeant really liked them and used them in various demonstrations.  It was a nice bit of Australian history.

flying cow

After the tour of the Jail and the Watch House we went to the Docklands and had a nice lunch and walk on the pier.  It was nice to be near water!  I miss it living in Al Ain.  At the Docklands I saw the flying cow, one of Melbourne's random art pieces.  We walked around for a bit and then headed home.  It was getting hot and near dinner time and I think I was still recovering from a bit of jetlag.

Friday night at the house is take out fish 'n chips night.  So we had a
nice meal of somewhat soggy take out fish 'n chips and then I was in bed.

Christmas Eve Saturday 12/24

Saturday morning was a pretty quiet morning.  Natalie had some last minute shopping and wrapping to do so I got some laundry done.  After I had the laundry started, Sean, the kids, and I went for a walk in the park by their house to look for kangaroos.  I actually saw some out in the field, but they were too far away to get a good picture.  Sean suggested that we walk closer, but I was wearing sandals and the grass was wet and long and I didn't want to walk through it.  Plus I had been warned about there being snakes in the park and I didn't want to come across one of those in sandals.  So I just watched them for a bit and then we continued our walk. 

In the afternoon there was a block party followed by a billy cart race.  What's a billy cart race you ask?  It's a soap box derby.  All the neighborhood kids had made a billy cart and they were going to race down the hill.  Thing is the parents were a bit worrked about their children's safety so all the dads rode the billy carts down the hill.  It was hillarious!  Grown men climbing on a billy cart/soap box car and "speeding" down the hill!  A couple of carts got ruined and 2 of the dads, Sean included, picked up their cart and ran to the finish line!  Trophies were awarded and Santa arrived to give presents to the kids and then we had dinner.  We stayed at the party for a while and then headed home to watch Carols by Candelight.

Evidently this is a tradition in this neighborhood.  Well not the billy cart race but the block party.  They, meaning Australians, don't celebrate too much on Christmas Eve like we do. 

Christmas Day Sunday 12/25

Christmas in the summer is just odd!  It's not warm like in Florida it's sunny and hot.  Just different.  Natalie had planned to take me to church for a 9:00 service so I was up and ready to go by 8:00.  The girls were ready as well, ready to open their presents.  They were told that they couldn't come out of their rooms until 8:00.  They waited very patiently and then they had to wait some more because Natalie and I left for church.  They were allowed to open one present before we left.  So we get to church and there's a big sign by the door that says Sunday services 10:00 am.  There were only 2 cars in the parking lot so we figured that the service wasn't until 10:00 even though Natalie checked online and it said 9:00, so we left.  We got back and the girls opened a couple more presents and I tried to Skype with Mark and the rest of the family for their big Christmas Eve dinner and present opening time.  They didn't answer:(  Oh well, I knew they were home and I was planning on trying again when we got back from church.  We left about 9:30 and get to the church and there are a bunch of cars there.  Good sign.  I walk in and the service is already in progress!  What?  I thought it didn't start until 10:00.  So I come back out and see a blue poster that says Christmas Eve Service 9:00 am!!  Where was that when we went the first time?!  Where were all the cars the first time?  All of that to say that I didn't end up going to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas.  Quite disappointing.  We get back home a little after 10:00 and I try Skype again and was successfull.  It was great to see my family!  Unfortunately they had finished opening presents so I didn't get to see any of the excitement like I did last year.  Mason was quite talkative about some toy that he got and Alexa was busy having a tea party with Brenna.  It was just good to see the family on Christmas Day.

After I finished Skyping, the girls opened the rest of their presents and Nicole got ready for Christmas dinner.  Natalie's parents, sister, and nieces came over around 3 for lunch and more presents for the girls.  We had a very fancy dinner with appetizers followed by salad and then the entree which was turkey or ham. 

I was able to have a nice family Christmas and that made it easier to be away from my family on Christmas.

After dinner Natalie and I were going to head to Lygon Street (where the guy I was sitting next to on the plane told me I had to go for the best pizza and coffee) for pizza, coffee, and a movie.   Before we went to Lygon Street we had to stop at Natalie's parents to drop off some trash.  On the way there it started pouring and we decided that we didn't need to be walking in that kind of weather so we were going to throw the trash away and then head home for a nice evening at home.  Thing is when we got there we immediately had to take cover under one of the covered parking areas because it started hailing.  The hailstorm lasted a good 5-10 minutes and covered the ground in white and ruined many cars and houses.  Thankfully Nicole and Sean's house was fine, but their cars are a bit dented.  Melbourne doesn't typically get weather like this so this will definitely be a Christmas to remember.  This will be a Christmas for me to remember as well, because not only was in Australia I was there for a "white" Christmas!!

More to come later.

Dubai and Australia Departure and Arrival

Thursday, December 15th, at school, was yet another day before a holiday.  And that meant that no, or very few, kids showed up.  There were enough students to make one class of each grade level and they assigned the teachers to one period.  I got to "babysit" period 5 so I worked got a lot done during the day.  I got my cleaning and organizing done along with finally finishing my mapping and grading.  I also had time to socialize and have fun.  Period 5 arrived and I went to get the kids from the room and took them to my room.  They were settled on the carpet getting ready to play the games when Alanoud says "go home."  I wasn't sure so I sent her to go find out and sure enough it was time to go home!  Yeah!  No "babysitting" for me!  The girls left around 12:00 and I got to leave at 1:00.  That was great news!  I left school and got some errands done and got home just a little after I normally do.  It was nice.

I still had a lot to do before I left for Dubai and then Australia so I got busy with laundry and cleaning.  When I was in Dubai a few weekends ago I found this super cool mop!  I know mop and super cool shouldn't go in the same sentence but just wait.  It's like a Swiffer, only better because the pads are washable instead of disposable.  So I can mop now!!!  Exciting stuff!  Really it is, maybe I won't have to have Safeer come clean anymore?!  I got the apartment cleaned, finished laundry, and finished packing and I was on my way by 7:30.  A little later than I wanted, but it got me there before 10:00 so that was fine. 

Final product!

Saturday Cindy and I worked on cookies for the cookie exchange.  We made the candy cane cookies and cut out cookies.  Two very time consuming cookies to make.  But, she did help figure out how to make the candy cane cookies.  Even though they turned out very good, I still like mom's better.  These are too soft and mom's are nice and crunchy but not burned.  Yummy!  The neighbor kids, Aisha and Hamdan, came over to help make the cut out cookies.  I must admit they did a fairly good job.  That is until Hamdan threw a bunch of frosting at Aisha!  I missed that as I was Skyping with my family.  Anyway we got the 2 hardest cookies done and Sarah finished on Sunday.

So the cookie exchange.  How do I explain this?  It turned out to be a mess.  The problem was Khulood, Cindy's neighbor, wanted to have a birthday party for the kids the same day so the party was combined with the cookie exchanged.  Well, that was the thought anyway.  What actually happened was the birthday party kind of took over.  Arabic birthday parties are something else.  Loud music, adults dancing, kids running around, poppers, tons of food, and gifts (real gifts) for everyone.  It was completely chaotic.  After cake was served Sarah suggested that we move the cookie exchange back to their house and we finally got around to doing that.  Once there things settled down and we talked and had cookies.  Lots of cookies were made; some from Germany, England, UAE, and Scotland.  It was nice!  I am glad that the cookie exchange was brought back to the house because I don't think it would have went over in the party hall.

On Tuesday we went to the Dubai Mall to see the Dubai Fountain.  Although I have seen this many times during the day I had yet to see it at night when it is much better.  Craig decided to fix that and we spent the evening at the mall.  I got to see the show 2 times and it was different each time.  It was pretty cool.  I guess just like any other dancing fountain that you may have seen, other than the fact that the water goes pretty high.  I thought that they colored the water, but I didn't see any of that.  I did enjoy the show and am looking forward to taking my parents and Amy when they come in March.

Wednesday was departure day.  The Wilson's live close to the airport so I didn't have to leave that early.  I got to the airport around 7:30 for my 9:30 flight.  Enough time to eat breakfast and relax for a bit.  Actually enough time to eat breakfast and walk around because I didn't want to sit any longer than I had to.  Unfortunately there were no exit row seats available, but I did get an aisle seat.  Small consolation I guess.  The flight was fine, once we took off.  We were delayed because there was a sick person on board and the medics were called on.  Not sure what they did because the medics didn't leave with anyone so I am assuming that the sick person got better?  Our late departure out of Dubai meant a late arrival in Singapore so I only had about 45 minutes, instead of 2 hours, to walk around and stretch my legs.  I was just thankful that I got to get off the plane and stretch.  The flight from Singapore was good as well.  No major issues other than terribly long and I think I may have slept for 1 hour on the entire trip. 

As we are nearing Australia we watch this video about the strict quarantine laws that they have.  You are not allowed to bring any food, or plant/wood material into Australia.  Well you can't bring any animals either, but somehow I don't think that should be necessary to say.  So we watch this video where I think they are trying to scare you about trying to sneak in items and then I had to fill out a visa form.  Thing is I didn't know Natalie's address so I just put Natalie Lim Melbourne.  I didn't know what to do.  She gave me her number, but I didn't have it written down because I can't make international calls on my phone.  I didn't think it would be an issue.  Well, I was wrong.  That and the fact that I didn't put my middle name on the form caused a problem.  The guy had to call someone to fix the form.  Really, all I needed to do was add my middle name.  Then I tried to explain that I didn't have any contact information for Natalie and he looked at me like I was crazy.  I guess that is sort of crazy; going to visit someone without any contact information.  But since I had my phone number and email on there he decided that it would be ok and he stamped my passport and let me through the passport control line.  Then it was onto customs where a dog sniffed my bags for any contraband items.  Of course he/she didn't find anything because all I was bringing was clothes and books.  No problems there.

Sean, Nichole's (Natalie's daughter) husband picked me up at the airport and we drove back to their place.  Driving on the wrong side of the road is just weird.  I don't think I'd be able to do it.  The first thing I did when I got here was take a shower and brush my teeth.  I felt disgusting.  Then I took a little nap, really little; maybe 1 hour.  It was nice to lay down though.  I tried to make it going out shopping but I was too tired so we went back home.  I was in bed by 8:00 and woke up at 7:30 Friday morning.

I will write an Australia post when I return.  Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Candy Cane Cookies

Just a quick update to my last blog entry.  The candy cane cookies are successfully made!  And they are delicious.  Although they are delicious, they are not as good as mom's but nothing really ever is.  So this is what we (Cindy and I) ended up doing: oven at 170 C, parchment paper to prevent them from sticking, and only baking them for 7 minutes.  I am so glad that we got it figured out and they are finished.  We made cut out cookies as well today.  Those are also pretty labor intensive, but they turned out good.

I think I'm done with cookie making for a while!

70 degrees at 8:30

Amazing Week Plus Some Baking Frustrations

The last week of school for 2011!!  One term down; two more to go! 

The last week of school before a break is always hectic and chaotic with a lot of reviewing and not much planned.  Those of you who know me, know that typically I do not handle lack of structure and chaos very well.  And I knew that was what was going to happen this week due to the fact that I wanted to get assessments done in grade 3 and I needed to individually edit letters with grade 4.  That meant a lot of time for "independent" work for the students.  They don't handle that all that well, which in turn means that I get frustrated and angry.  So I prayed about it.  I prayed for God's peace to be with me and in the classroom.  And guess what?  He was so faithful!  The girls were very well behaved and worked quite well at their centers!  I got most of my assessments done and most of the pen pal letters edited!  Chaos did not reign in my class; it was very peaceful!  I will continue to keep this in prayer and hope that it continues in 2012!!

Thursday being the day before the break meant that not many girls showed up.  They combined all the grades, so there were only 5 classes, and each teacher had to teach one period.  I was scheduled to teach period 5 so I got a lot of work done in the morning.  I went to get the girls and got them settled in the classroom with games when Alanoud tells me "go home."  I had no idea what was going on so I had her go check and sure enough it was time to go home.  So the girls cleaned up and left.  I "babysat" for 5 minutes and then they left.  I got to go home at 1:00; which was a wonderful thing because I had so much to do before leaving for Dubai for the week and then heading to Australia.

Baking Frustrations

Cindy is hosting a cookie exchange on Sunday and I was planning on making candy cane cookies (my favorite Christmas cookie) and fudge.  I found a recipe for fudge on allrecipes.com but I didn't like how it turned out so I got my mom's recipe.  I love my mom's fudge!  The only issue was that it calls for marshmallow creme and they don't sell that here so I had to find a recipe to make it.  It's really easy to make; just egg whites, confectioners sugar, vanilla, and corn syrup.  OK I shouldn't say really easy because you have to beat it for 10 minutes until it gets "thick" and that's a lot of beating!   I got the creme made and began to make the fudge.  According to my mom's recipe you have to bring part of the ingredients to a quick boil so bubbles appear all over the top, all the while stirring constantly.  More stirring!!  Well, I stirred and stirred and stirred some more.  I stirred for about 15-20 minutes and discovered that it was burning!  Thing is, it hadn't boiled yet!  I didn't think 15-20 minutes constitued "quick" so I gave up.  Obviously I did something wrong.  My mom has never had this problem.  Arabic heat must not be high enough to boil, but high enough to burn?!  OK so no fudge just candy cane cookies.  No problem.

Well, it was a problem.  I love candy cane cookies!  I love them even more when I don't have to make them!  They require sooooo much work.  I made the first dozen and burned them.  I made a second cookie sheet and burned those as well.  The third cookie sheet turned out wonderfully, only I broke them trying to get them off the cookie sheet.  By the fourth cookie sheetI thought I had figured out the changes I needed to make: grease the cookie sheet, turn down the heat, and only 7-8 minutes.  I eventually got 21 cookies out of the whole night's process:(  Not good and not nearly enough for a cookie exchange.  I was going to have to make more the following night; which meant another trip to LuLu for candy canes and vanilla. 

Night 2 turned out to be just as frustrating.  Plus the dough was really sticky and I kept adding more flour but it kept sticking to the counter when I was making the candy canes.  I burned 2 more sheets of cookies and broke more canes before I finally gave up.  I still had dough left over, but I was so frustrated and, I must admit, near tears.  I was going to cry over cookies!  No way!  I was NOT going to cry over cookies!!  I called Cindy and told her that I was soooo frustrated and near tears and she said I could make them over there.  Hopefully she'll be able to help.  Really, I just need my mom to come and make them!!!  They'll taste much better if she makes them:) 

I can't figure out if it's the ingredients here, the oven/stove, or just my plain lack of baking skill.  Whatever it is I have no cookies to take to Dubai with me.

I am getting ready to leave for Dubai for 5 days before I head to Australia for 13 days!!  Although I am going to miss celebrating Christmas with my family I am looking forward to Christmas and New Years in Australia!  It will be quite interesting to be one of the first people to celebrated 2012!

67 degrees at 6:30.

عيد الاتحاد - National Day

Well, a lot has happened since I have last posted 2 weeks ago.  I'm going to start with National Day and work my way backwards.

National Day was Dec. 2nd.  The UAE is 40 years old!  What a young country.  Sheikh Zayed joined all the emirates, minus Ras Al Khaimah, in 1971.  RAK joined in 1972.  I just found that out.  Interesting.  Even though RAK joined in 1972 they still celebrate, they're just a year behind.  The amount of celebration that goes on in this young country makes me wonder if our founding fathers celebrated when the USA was only 40 years old.  Did they decorate their horse and buggies?  Did they have parades?  Did they decorate their houses?  Did they get off work for a 2 day celebration?  Interesting thoughts and questions! 

My National Day celebrations began at school with our day long assembly/party.  We celebrated on Tuesday 11/29 due to a parade for the older students on Wednesday and no school on Thursday.  It was actually much better than last year.  I think it's because I sort of knew what to expect.  The girls looked amazing in their fancy dresses and make-up.  There were some that didn't get all fancied up, they just wore "play clothes" and I thought they looked cuter than the ones in the fancy dresses and make-up.  There was lots of singing, dancing, and hair flinging (national dance).  The 4th graders sang the song that Andrea wrote for them.  They did a good job even though everyone wasn't in attendance.  I also had 2 students read a paragraph that they wrote about National Day.  I was very proud of all my 4th graders, but I didn't want to have them all read when I knew that no one would be paying attention.  Hessa Mohammed and Fatima Saif wrote with lots of details and did a wonderful job reading their paragraph.  They, all of them, have come so far in their English abilities.

Since I had Thursday off of school I headed to Dubai early in the morning.  Well, not too early.  I actually left later than I wanted to and didn't arrive until 11:45.  I wanted to be there at 11:00.  Oh well.  I slept in!  I guess I needed it!  Thursday was a nice day hanging out with Cindy and helping her get ready to teach the 5 and 6 year olds at church on Friday.

Friday December 2nd was National Day.  After church we: Cindy, Sarah, Merle (Sarah's friend) and I went to Khulood's (Cindy's neighbor) house and got prepared for what was going to happen.  We foudn out that we were going to be driving on Jumeriah Beach road and it was like a huge party atmosphere.  We didn't feel all that prepared!  Oh well.  We all piled into Khulood's car, and Aysha her 7 year old daughter sat on Sarah's lap.  It was a crammed car.  As soon as we got to Jumeriah Beach Road the traffic picked up.  We were riding in the car parade.  She didn't really tell us this part.  I thought we were going to go to a party somewhere.  The car parade turned out to be sooooo much fun!  People decorate their cars and drive up and down the road.  There are also men/boys out running around spraying silly string, snow foam, shaving cream, and water at/in passing cars.  If you had your window down there was a huge chance that you were going to get creamed with something!  It happend quite frequently.  As much as I didn't want to get sprayed with shaving cream and silly string I wanted to!  Weird!  Plus it was fun taunting them to see if they could get me before I got the window up.  There was one man that actually opened the door and sprayed me with snow foam!  From that moment on we kept the doors locked.  A few even put their arms in the open window to prevent it from going up!  Too funny!  We were laughing and shrieking the whole time!  Unfortunately we didn't have anything to fight back with, but I ended up grabbing someone's can of snow foam and using it on him.  It was hillarious!  I think our car got targeted quite a bit because there were only girls in the car.  Khulood's husband went to Abu Dhabi with her sons, so it was just a girls' night. 

The night didn't actually turn out as I had imagined.  Aysha began crying when the windshield got so covered with shaving cream.  She thought her mom wasn't able to see and was going to get in an accident.  Then the fumes got to me and I couldn't stop coughing.  It was terrible.  The windows were up so we wouldn't get sprayed, but they needed to be down so I could get some fresh air, but when we put the windows down we got attacked more.  Not good.  Khulood ended up pulling over so I could get out and walk around.  It took me quite a while to get calmed down and stop coughing enough so I could breath.  I was coughing so much I thought I was going to get sick and my throat was so raw.  By this time Aysha was pretty tired and still upset so we decided to go home and drop her off.  I thought it best to stay at home as well, as much as I wanted to go back out and have fun I didn't want to have another fit.  When we got home I kept coughing uncontrollably and Cindy gave me her inhaler, some cough medicine, tea, and honey and I ended up sitting in the bathroom with the hot water running.  I eventually stopped coughing and tried to read, but I was exhausted so I ended up in bed by 9:30.  Not sure if it was the combination of the medicine or all the coughing but I couldn't stay up.  I thought I would be up all night coughing, but that wasn't the case.  I didn't even hear them come home and take showers.  I woke up Sat. morning thinking that they weren't home because it was so quiet.  They actually got home at about 1:15 in the morning, but I didn't hear a thing.  Cindy said that they weren't all that quiet either.

I was able to wake up early today and leave Dubai before noon.  I had so much to do that I couldn't stay even though I wanted to.  I talked with Cindy for a while and then had to head home so I could go shopping, do laundry, do lesson plans, post pictures on Fb, do this blog, do grades and check papers.  I still have to do grades and check papers and finish this blog!

Flashback to last weekend.  That was the Thanksgiving celebration.  I was in Dubai for Thanksgiving, but since I had already celebrated Thanksgiving with the Wilson's we didn't do anything until Saturday.  Thanksgiving was actually Sarah's 19th birthday and Cindy and her neighbor had planned a surprise party for her.  So that's what we did Thursday night.  She was totally surprised and it was a lot of fun.  So Thanksgiving was celebrated on Saturday.  We went to the same lady's house that hosted the German feast to celebrate an international Thanksgiving.  Angela, the German lady (although it's not really Angela but she said that's what we can call her), has an American friend who wanted to have a Thanksgiving dinner but her house wasn't big enough so Angela agreed to host it.  It was an international Thanksgiving because the only Americans there were Cindy, Sarah, me, and Betty.  There were people from Panama, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, England, and India.  It was fun!  All the Thanksgiving trimmings were there, plus some other things.  It was a very different Thanksgiving and one that I will always remember!

I am still coughing a little, but not nearly as much as last night.

10 days left of school and 18 days till I leave for Australia!

81 degrees at 6:00pm.