ASTRID'S FIRST THREE MONTHS

 

I arrived on 23^rd July 2014 and Matt Northeast picked me (and the other Danish exchange student Cecilie Sorensen) up from the airport and drove us to Warrnambool. Terry O’Neill helped me to get my bank and phone organised and to show me the town and my new school. He bought me my first meat pie and a lamington. I saw whales the second day I was here.

 

To start with we both stayed with Shane and Louise Keogh from Central Rotary Club.

On 2 August I moved to Wangoom to Anne Adams’ home and settled into my own visitors section of the house. Very good!!  I stayed with Anne until 26 October when I moved to John and Anne Hunt’s house.

 

But let me tell you about some of the wonderful things I did while I was at Wangoom. Anne took me to Tower Hill and Port Fairy. I saw the Twelve Apostles and we went to Timboon and ate ice cream and I had a soft-shelled crab for lunch. I ate it all that was interesting! I met all Anne’s children and their wives and all her grandchildren. There are a lot of Adams’, especially in Wangoom. I met the neighbours and made friends with a girl called Rachael from the next-door farm. But the big thing I had to do when I was at Anne’s was to take the bus to school – now this is different to at home in Denmark where I bicycle to school. I did not like the bus, mostly because I had to get up early to catch it. I like to sleep a lot and Anne has trouble getting me out of bed (every morning).

 

Anne and Isobel and Cecilie and I went to Horsham on the first exchange student District meeting. We stayed in a motel and I met lots of other students from all over the world and had a fun weekend. I’m looking forward to the next meeting in Maryborough where I will meet all the outgoing Aussie students as well as the same exchange students I met up with in Horsham.

 

I went to Geelong by train because Dale McIntyre my District country coordinator invited me for his wife’s 50^th surprise birthday party down at Phillip Island.

 

I’ve been to Melbourne three times since I came to Australia and it’s a lovely place. The first time was with Andrea Sampson on the Brauer Yr 9 school camp (and I’m in year 11). The next time I went to Melbourne with my Warrnambool friends on the train to see the Royal Melbourne Show and I stayed with my Danish friend Ellen (also an Exchange student that I knew before I came to Australia). The third time was on Saturday 1^st November when I went on the train with my school friends to have a shopping day in Melbourne.

 

I’ve done lots of other things – Rotary each week, I worked at the Warrnambool show, I helped at a BBQ for Diabetes,

 

I think I’ve settled in OK at school. I have never worn a school uniform before but I don’t mind it. I just hate the school shoes (sorry Ron Rauret).  I’ve been for sleepovers at some of my friend’s house and everyone has made me feel very welcome.

 

When people ask me where I am from I say I’m not from around here. They say where do you come from? I say Denmark and they just nod. Then I say do you know where it is? They say – no not really. Then I say do you know where Germany is, well its right above Germany. Then I say have you heard about Princess Mary? Then I see the light bulb come on in their heads.

 

I am having a wonderful, lovely, amazing time. Thank to all my friends and my lovely Rotary club for giving me the opportunity to experience all this.