Ontario Community Newspapers

Port Perry Star, 23 Feb 1993, p. 20

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

20 - PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, February 23, 1993 "Scugog's Community Newspaper of Choice" Scugog native kept hopping in Australia By Amber Herder Amber, a Port Perry native, is in Australia for a year as a Ca- nadian ambassador, as part of a Rotary Club exchange program. The following is an account of hor first six months in Austra- ia. My first Australian encoun- ter was just after my 22 hour flight had landed at the Sydney airport. Getting through the airport by myself would have been fine had I known that I had to catch a bus to another airport. I wasn't sure what bus and I had to clear customs and find my bus. After getting on the bus it suddenly hit me that we were driving on the other side of the road! This seemed to bother me more than my lack of sleep from a 14 hour time differ- ence because I thought we were going to run into cars on the road. Even now, it has taken me some time to get used to driving and. getting into the opposite side of the car. Alot of things have happened to me during my six months in Australia but out of all those things the best experiences that I have had have been through my travels. You would never have imagined that there was snow in Australia, at least I never did. In my first few months in Australia I was tak- en for the first time in my life down-hill skiing to a place in Victoria called Mt. Baw Baw - it was awesome! Fancy that, I'm from Canada and the first time I went down-hill skiing was in Australia. Another very memorable trip was to Philip Island in Victoria. I went and saw the Fairy pen- guins returning from the sea and I saw my first Koala. I took many pictures, among these were pictures of me holding a baby wombat, a baby dingo and cuddling kangaroos. I haven't as of yet been able to hold a Koa- la as they are a protected ani- mal. At Lakes Entrance which was another holiday place on my agenda, I saw my very first kangaroo and as an added bo- nus they had baby joeys in their pouches. In the first few days at my counsellor's house, they practi- cally had to drag me away from the kitchen window as I was ab- solutely mesmerized by the sight of huge sulfur-crested cockatoos and big King parrots. The Australian wildlife is un- real! A funny thing that I experi- enced with kangaroos is that al- though some may let you cuddle them don't try and pick one up because they have powerful. back feet. Needless to say, I now take pictures of kangaroos from afar. On the topic of animals; when I first arrived I was walk- ing to a friends house passing under the trees. It was nesting season for magpies (huge black and white birds). I was walking along and I got swooped by one YY SES HOTU REE ER CECE REEL ES o Improves Concentration + Physical Conditioning INES + Respect For Others o Improves Grades + Child Abduction Prevention Program (members only) LEARN ABOU KARATE BEFORE YOU JOIN INTRODUCTORY 0 05 COURSE o MEN ¢« WOMEN ¢ CHILDREN HIRYU BUSHIDO KAI Martial Arts Centre 15258 Simcoe St., Port Perry 985-0205 T & C LIMOUSINE SERVICE PORT PERRY PLAZA » 68 SCUGOG STREET DIVISION of THE BEST of THINGS FLORISTS at my head - I was so scared that I cringe when I see them. I've been to various beach spots on the New South Wales coast like Merimbuta, Narooma and Manly beach in Sydney, but by far the best places I've been to have been Brisbane, Queens- land and Sydney, New South Wales. I went to the Goldcoast in Queensland and saw my first bungee jumpers at Sea World. In Sydney, all my dreams came true when I visited the Sydney find I quite like them. The crowd makes the game by dress- ing in their teams color. Every- one seems to be for a team, I find it easier to cheer for all the teams - it saves a dispute. I've played Field Hockey, Badminton and a bit of La- crosse since 1 havd been here. There are no interschool sports or activities in my school so you have to hunt for a sports team on your own time. I was very ex- cited to find myself at the Aus- Amber Herder, a Port Perry native, Is In Australia as part of a Rotary Club exchange program. She has written the ac- companying story in which she describes her first six months on the continent. Opera House. Not only did I gaze upon it but I was able to go inside as well. 1 also went up 'centre tower in Sydney which is the tallest tower in the South- ern Hemisphere. . I 'have spent a fair bit of time travelling in Victoria to Mel- bourne and towns surrounding Traralgon. Many Rotary camps have also been set up to give all the exchange students in the district 9820 a chance to see each other and travel. On one of these camps, everyone was ut- terly amazed as I threw a fairly large sheep on its back and at- tempted to shear it, I did fairly well seeing how I had never sheared a sheep before. I've kept a piece of the wool as a souvenir that is hanging on my blazer with all my other pins and badges. The countryside of Australia is beautiful, especially the trop- ical rainforests and rolling hills. Now that I have been bitten by the travelling bug, I've planned trips to Canberra, Central Aus- tralia (including Ayers Rock and Alice Springs) and Adelaide as well as going along the great ocean road. I find that Australians are very sports minded people and a game of Aussierules Footy is their cup of tea. I've been to a: few Aussierules matches and I m= SPECIALIZING w= WEDDINGS « AIRPORT SERVICE BUSINESS TRIPS « SPECIAL OCCASIONS GRADUATIONS & PROMS tralian Tennis open supporting my fellow Canadians who were playing. I saw so many famous tennis pros and I even got Jim (He's _ranked number one in the world!) Courier's autograph. Another part of my Rotary ex- change duties as a Canadian ambasgsador is to give talks about Canada and my interests. I've talked to my rotary club (Latrobe Central Traralgon), to the mayor of Traralgon and his city council and even to two very popular radio stations. There are many differences between Canada and Australia and the biggest of these differ- ences are the phrases and words that Australians use. I've been stumped a few times and have even embarrassed myself by not understanding what they were talking about at the time. Everyone loves my Cana- dian accent, but sometimes I find myself using very Australi- an terms. What we call the trunk of a car they call the boot and a chook is a chicken, and aloickie is our version of a cookie. They tend to use and ad 'ie' to things and shorten them up. With this rule, a mosquito becomes a moz- zie or the postman becomes a postie. It's been fun to learn these new words, and there are still a few words that give me away as a Canadian because of the way we pronounce them. School I find is very different and very complicated to learn the system. In the State of Vic- toria, where 1 am they have what is called a V.L.E. system, where you do work require- ments and C.AT.S. to get marks, generally the teachers do not teach their classes and students must buy all their own books like in university. It has been fun to go to school because that is where I've met a lot of my friends and I'm sure those friends will become my life long mates! One custom of Fairdinkum aussies is to throw some meat on the barbie and call over a few 'friends. The Australians are very friendly people and they tend to socialize a lot and this is where we as exchange students gain our weight. Every ex- change studentis guaranteed to gain 10kg., and believe me I've gained my share. The weight gain is also caused by the change in routine - I reckon the weight you gain just shows how much fun you have had. Another difference is in the food, meat and milk products taste different to me and I've discovered that they eat a lot of pumpkin with their meats as a vegetable. One thing that is Fairdinkum Australian is Vege- mite. I've been told that you would have had to been brought up as a kid to appreciate it, I really feel sorry for those: poor Australian kids - Vegimete is horrible! Every three months I. change host families, which is a_very good experience because itgives me a chance to see how other Australian families live. I have been very fortunate to have two excellent families and I have just currently moved into 'an- other fantastic third family. My rotary club and'everyoné I have met have been very friendly and invite me to go to many places with them. ~~ Abig difference between Aus- tralia and Canada is the hot temperatures. It's summer at the present moment (the sea- sons are opposite) and the tem- peratures have been between 36 degrees C and 42 degrees C although it seems hotter be- cause the sun is very intense. Although it is hot it does get very cold in the winter and not many of the homes are equipped with central heating so you bundle up in your woolen © jumpers. I have experienced so many things that it was hard to select just a few of my experiences over the past months. It's amaz- ing how patriotic you get as a Canadian as you are always sharing views on Canada - and learning about Australia at the same time. BUSINESS COMPUTERS FAMILY COMPUTERS New or Used Get the Full Package | All Major Packages Hardware + Software + Tutoring Setup « Support & Service Call WILLIAM M. SANDIFORD WILLIAM M. SANDIFORD JR. (416) 985-9440 RES, (705) 367-2570

Powered by / Alimenté par VITA Toolkit
Privacy Policy