In The Lovely Land Of Oz

So this is the blog where I'll be talking, amongst other things, about the Aussie culture and especially the dialect. As always I'll be writing in paragraphs titled so that you can read the part you want to.

Oz:
So one thing that first struck me about Australia is how much it is like the US. It starts at the big shopping malls, the big stores, the poorly built houses and ends at the big wasteful cars and lack of interest in other countries (at least as far as I have noticed in the news). Of course there are parts that are very british: school uniforms even at public schools, the presence of black tea at almost every occasion (you have to be careful, cause if they ask you if you want tea, it automatically means black tea) and different words and the accent. Of course the dialect isn't 100% british, but depending who you talk to, their English can sound very british. So to the weird words/expressions they have:
thongs = flip-flops
boot = trunk of the car
arvo = afternoon
dinner = supper
capsicum = pepper
togs = general term for swimwear
singlet = tank top/ wife beater
fortnight = two weeks
to be keen = to be interested/excited/eager
rubbish = garbage
lollies = candy
push bike = bike
mobile phone = cellphone
They don't say g'day anymore, at least never when they're speaking normaly. Well I also haven't met any real "country" person, so someone that is from the less populated areas of Australia; the Australia everyone thinks about when they hear "Australia" :)

Altogether they like shortening names with a "y" sound. So Brisbane is Brisy/Brisie (don't quite know how they spell it). Football is footy, mosquito is mosy and of course that continues when it comes to nicknames, however I still have successfully prevented them (or at least most of them) from calling me Suzy (or any variation of it).

Of course there are also weird Aussie foods, or combinations:
-A cookie called a tim-tam. It is a soft chocolate dough that is covered in chocolate, so basically a chocolate bomb. But that isn't all of it, see there's something even better: a tim-tam-slam. It's when you bite off one corner and then the other corner diagonal of it and take a cup of hot chocolate, use the tim-tam as a straw and suck up the hot chocolate till you notice that the tim-tam is starting to melt and is just filled with hot chocolate and then quickly slam it into your mouth. It is sooooo lovely (lovely being another word that I can finally say here without sounding like someone from an old fashioned movie) and the ultimate chocolate bomb :)
-they put beets on their sandwiches/hamburgers
-vegemite: I actually still haven't tried it, since I've often heard from different people how gross or weird tasting it is. However it is on my list to try before I leave.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure I'll be adding a few new things to every blog post, after all I've only seen a small fraction of Australia up to now :)

My fourth week:
As some of my dear facebook friends may have read, on the weekend of the 14th I watched the sun rise. The occasion was actually the birthday of one guy from church. He was supposed to go to this lookout with one of his friends and we (the few young adults that were crazy enough to get up at 3am for this) were going to surprise him. The only problem of this whole thing was that in the end we were only 6 people and the birthday guy didn't even come because of various reasons. But it still was totally worth it. When we got there it was still dark enough to see the stars (I can now find the south star :D ). Then the stars slowly faded and the sun slowly began to rise. It was so beautiful to see the colors develop and I must say I don't understand how people can see such beauty and not be filled with awe and wonder for God. After hanging out there for around 2 hours we went to Mooloolaba to eat breakfast together. Then I quickly went home, got changed and went to the morning service. In the end of the service I was so dead tired I could barely stand. I should maybe mention that on saturday night I was at a women's event at church and didn't get back till 11pm. And that wasn't even it: for some disturbing reason I was so hyper I just couldn't fall asleep, so I probably only slept 2-3 hours that night. But when I came back from the morning service I also barely slept, so by the end of the day (which took a while, since after the evening service I went to the young adults house party) I was so tired and hyper, also through the copious amounts of coffee, that I managed to hold a monologue for most of the drive home. Luckly the driver was equally tired and can thus barely remember a word I said :)
But it was an awesome weekend, like all of my weekends up to now.
Here some pictures from the sunrise adventure:

the sky getting lighter...

and lighter...

and lighter

it was really cold, thus the scarf around my head :)

now all of the stars are gone

the beautiful glasshouse mountains

the sun is almost there...

tadaaaa :D

the group of people that were there with me (and yes I especially picked a picture where you can't quite see them, since I don't think any of them would like pictures of the morning in the internet, since we all look like we just rolled out of bed :)

"second" sunrise

on the walk down to the car

the bush in Australia 

me holding the sun 

the beach in Mooloolaba

my lovely (and rather overpriced) breakfast :)

Summary of my first month:
I must say I can't quite believe that I've already been here for a month. The weeks have really passed in a blur, especially the week days. This leads to me usually not being able to answer anything intellligible to the question "how was your week?" because the week just passes so quickly I can barely remember what I did when. The only way I can keep track of time is through the weekends, though that also is helping too much anymore as the pace picks up. So I've resorted to counting the weeks on my fingers or just looking on the calender on my phone :)
I feel like I'm in the right place, especially because of the amazing people in the young adults group in church. They really make me feel so welcome and appreciated. I already know now that I will miss them really badly, but I am trying not to think of that, since I'll still be here for 9 months.

So much from me :)
Pease and Love,
Susan

P.S.(in case you're wondering why this post is called "the lovely land of oz" it is because Oz is another name for australia. I don't think they're really referring to "the wizard of oz"-Oz, but I still have yet to figure it quite out. The only sense it makes to me is that Australians call themselves/are called "aussies" which could also be written/pronounced "ozzies" (especially if you pronounce the "o" the way the aussies do) thus Oz would make sense) :)

The Massive Post

Hey,

so I have soooo much to tell, especially since I haven't written for a while, but I will try to keep it short. As always I'll be writing in paragraphs that will be titled, so read the paragraphs you want to and leave out  the rest, I won't be insulted :D

Young Adults Retreat:
So on my second week here in Australia I went on a Young Adults Retreat from the church I've been going to, called Calvary. Altogether it was really great. The camping part of it was horrid, especially since I hate camping, but it was worth it because I was able to get to know so many new people. The young adults group from the church is so great, they are really considerate, helpfull and selfless (or at least the majority of the ones I have gotten to know). I already know that I will really miss them all when I go back to Germany in almost 9 months. I leaned a lot of new ausi words (I'll have to dedicate a blog post just to that sometime) and experienced ausi things, some fun (tim-tam-slam) and some not fun (4 wheel drive on the beach).
And here are some pictures:

this was at the restaurant closest to the camping site, it was so weird to see it

                                   

they even decorated it with german and bavarian flags and there was German music later on

these kinds of birds are everywhere, so beautiful

view from my tent :)

this was on saturday at rainbow bay

to get there you had to drive in a four-wheel-drive car, thus there are tracks on the beach

I thought the hills looked so cool, with the mix of sand, orangish rock and  trees

they were playing tag football on the beach

a cute little crab, theoretically there were thousands there, but I only found one

the view from the sanddune

some guys had the genius idea of taking a canoe to slide down the dune, it acutally worked better than I thought

back at the camp

the view to the south

the view to the north

this is where we camped, as one can see, exactly at the beach, which at the first thought is nice, second thought should remind you though that beach=sand. Need I say more?

Brisbane:
So on the Friday after that I was in Brisbane for a doctor's appointment. The appointment itsself was only an hour long, but because I had to use public transportation it took 4 hours to get there and 4 hours to get back. The trip wasn't acutally too bad, especially since I was able to see quite a bit of the landscape between Buddina and Brisbane during the train ride. It was also cool to be able to see Brisbane. It's a really nice city, as far as I could see. Pictures follow:

this was in Fortitude Valley, the station where I had to wait for an hour (the inside of the station looked nicer). I was nicely informed on the day before I went to Brisbane that Fortitude Valley is one of the more dangerous areas of Brisbane, the best thing being that the train conductor wished people a SAFE and nice day right before the stop, that's never a good sign, but I survived :)

such a cool mix to have trees growing right before that modern office building

a view at the skyline of Brisbane

you may have noticed by now that there are a lot of pictures of buildings, that is because I always find buildings quite fascinating

luckily the light was just red, so I was able to get some good pictures of this square. So weird to have a little european-looking church right next to all these modern skyscrapers

all of the people walking to the central station in brisbane

buildings that one can see from the central station

Saturday Barbecue:
So on Saturday I finally went to my first Ausi barbecue. It actually wasn't that special of one, thus it can't be counted really as one, but I was able to sample typical things eaten at an ausi barbecue.

so there are barbecues right along the beach in mooloolaba

my plate, the thing on the left is called something that starts with a "r"

mine was especially formed to resemble Australia, the ketchup being Tasmania

Sushi Sunday:
Last Sunday was so great (as some may already know through facebook). After the morning service I went with a group of young adults for coffee, sushi and then the beach. It finally was warm enough to go into the water, so I that Sunday can be marked as the first day I went swimming in Australia :)
The not so good thing about the beach was that it was really windy so if you laid on the beach you couldn't open your eyes, otherwise you would have sand in your eyes. After only being at the beach for an hour I was totally covered in sand (there was even sand on my eyelashes) and it took me a few days to get all of the sand out of my hair (washing it did help, but didn't get all of it out).
I got to church really early since the person I drove with was doing the camera (yep the church has two cameras for the service, one in the back and one handheld on the stage, so awesome :D ) and had to be there early. But it was fine, I just hung out with the people that were also there early to help out. At 5 there was food and at 6 the service started. After the service I went to Mooloolaba again (it's the tradition of the young adults group) and stayed there till 10:30pm. It was a long, but amazing day and I came home happy and totally hyper active :D

So this is Maroochydore/Cotton Tree (it's really confusing here, cause all towns just kind of melt together, there's no real space in between, so it's hard to say where you really are at the moment :D

to my defense why there are a lot of pictures of me: my camera was kidnapped

a very cool shell I just found on the way

I know I have my eyes closed, but it's the only picture of the sunshine plaza and that is the biggest shopping centre on the sunshine coast

at the sushi restaurant

trying to explain sushi to me, in the end he just picked two different kind out for me

I was starting to get nervous about all the pictures being taken, especially since their goal was to take "natural pictures" of me, so pictures where I'm not staring at the camera. Turns out I have this sick urge to always look at the camera when I know someone's taking a picture of me. And not only that, I also have a 6th sense that notices when a picture is being taken of me. I know, I'm weird :)

they were all staring at me, just waiting for me to take my first bite (only two other people ordered something) and since this was my fist time eating sushi I served as their entertainment. Sushi is meant to be eaten in one bite, which is not easy for someone with a small mouth like mine. Anyways they were all staring at me and I was getting really nervous and was giggling the whole time and after gathering up my courage I managed to stuff the sushi roll in my mouth without making a mess, which I am very proud of :D

Bowling:

Yesterday I went bowling at a typical, cut-out-of-a-movie bowling centre. The bowling itsself wasn't so special, but it was the first time I had been to a place like that, thus I HAD to take pictures :)

the group of young adults I was there with

Thank you for your patience and I promise to make the next post shorter :)

Peace and Love,

Susan