My Away Easter

So, yesterday marked two pretty significant points. One. My first Easter away from my family. Two. Exactly two months since I left home. All in all, I feel that I handled Easter pretty well! Going into the day, I was a little bit anxious, picturing myself having an emotional breakdown in the Sunday service (which was beautiful, by the way!). It really didn't seem much like Easter, for several reasons, the main one being that I am away from family. Also, the weather is backwards. Easter normally doesn't come after summer in CA. Aaaalso, we had no cinnamon rolls or sticky buns. But we did eat some pretty scrumptious Hot Cross Buns! I may just need to bring this tradition to the States! (But can they compete with homemade cinnamon rolls? Hmmm...) And while I probably was a tad more sensitive this weekend, comparatively, I am so thankful for my host family and my new friends who have made this transition not only bearable, but gave me the opportunity to actually have fun and not dwell on my homesickness.
Good Friday was the hardest. An emotional time already, I may or may not have had to wipe my eyes during that service. I was, however, so glad and grateful that I was able to go! I got a few hugs, and that made me feel a little better. It's amazing, when you are out on your own, how much simply saying hello and having a quick chat with people, even random strangers, can totally make your day. Before this trip, I realize that I really wasn't great at talking to new people. Sure, I would introduce myself in school classes, but those people I would be sitting next to and seeing several days a week for the rest of the semester, so I might as well learn their names. But ever since coming to Australia, I love meeting people! Even if it's someone who I probably will never see again, I have come to greatly enjoy starting up a conversation with them. It brightens my day. And I'm sure it makes there day all that more interesting. They are able to go home and tell their family that some random girl with a weird accent kept talking to them in the line at the grocers. Point of this lesson: talk to people! Because it's fun!
Easter Sunday was quite eventful and entertaining! After going to the later service at the church, I hung around for about an hour past the sermon's closure, just saying hi to people I had met before, meeting a few new faces, and generally just passing the time. I've gotten quite good at time-passing. And can I just take a minute to brag on this church! I can't even imagine being here without having found Lifestreams! It is the highlight of my weekend to go on Sundays, and the highlight of my week when I get to meet church friends for lunch (I've been doing that quite often, just about every Tuesday since I've arrived). I definitely believe it was a God thing that I stumbled across it. I was planning on doing some church-shopping to find the perfect fit, and this one was further away from the house than I thought at first (about 25 minutes). But my first morning, I met so many wonderful, welcoming people that I instantly felt connected! So I never had any need to leave! Truly a huge blessing! Anyways, Easter Sunday. After standing around in the cafe chatting until 1pm, a large-ish group of young adults went to have lunch, so I tagged along for some yummy Eggs Benedict (yeah, breakfast for lunch! Cuz that's how I roll) and some fun conversations. Afterwards, I went back to my friend's house and we watched a movie with her housemate. Then, I came home and relaxed for a short time before some of my host parents' friends arrived and we proceeded to have "steamboat," a dish in which everyone sits around a table and dips uncooked food into bubbling soup in the center, until such food is cooked! It's kind of like fondue + soup. Uhhh yum!

To top it all off, this next week is three-day work week! Easter Monday is today, and not many people work, then Friday is a national holiday, Anzac day. (A memorial day for Australian wars, if I'm not mistaken.)
Anyways, it's a pretty easy week!
Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!
xoxo

Surfing Lizards at Coogee!

A couple days ago, I had a me party at Coogee Beach. I had been dying to go to the beach for several weeks, just lacking the motivation to actually turn my desires into actions. But one exceptionally unbusy day, I summoned up the courage to venture out.

 As soon as I pulled into the car park, I knew I had come to the right place! It had been slightly overcast when I left the house, but by the time I got to the beach (a mere 15 or so minute drive!) the sky was blue and the sun was shining! It was perfectly warm, but not too hot, and the ocean water was lovely and cool.

 Apparently people don't come to the beach too much on a Tuesday at 11:00. I had much of it to myself. A few people were off in the distance, swimming or sunbathing...

... like that person with the feet, there.

 There was an awesome looking slidey-thing out a ways from the beach. I didn't swim to it, but I probably would have if there were more people in the water.

 The ocean was sooo calm! It felt like I was swimming in a very giant lake instead of the sea. And so clear! I was able to wade out to my hips, look down, and see my toes!

 I took a lot a pictures of the beach. I was really happy that I brought my camera.

 Okay, story time! (Everyone's favorite words, right?)

So, because there were so few people around, I was a little hesitant on going swimming, even though the water was perfect for it. But I was already in my swim suit and really felt the ocean calling me, so I waded out a ways, just deep enough to wear I could pick up my feet and float, and swim along the shore a little. It really was like swimming laps in a pool. It was that calm! As I swam, I had my eyes glued on the horizon and scanned the water constantly for ominous fins sticking out of it. And I think, looking back, I would have been kind of strange if I didn't see anything, staring that intently at the ocean. But anyways, I'm very cautiously watching the water when I see a big dark shape out a ways ahead of me. EEEP! Then I hurry back onto the beach and look back. I see a dark fin... aaaaand it looks to me like a dolphin. And it moves like a dolphin. But I can't see it great, so I stand there for a while longer, watching. After about 5 minutes I haven't seen the creature, so I ever so slowly head back into the water. I swim for only a could minutes when the shape pops up again, this time very close to me! Probably only about 20 yards or so. Well, you can imagine that I was up on the beach lickity split. Looking back, I saw a couple dolphins playing out in the water. A few other people walked by, and we all stood there and verified that they were, in fact, not sharks, and I edged my way back into the water and continued my swimming!

 After the beach, I walked over to this adorable little cafe! As soon as I sat down, I really wished for a notebook and pencil so I could do a bit of imaginative writing. The creative juju was really flowin. Plus, the people there were so wonderfully nice! I actually just went back an  hour ago. When I walked in, they looked up and me and said "Oh, hi, Emily!" That was great.

 My very yummy chicken-avocado sandwich.

The Surfing Lizard Cafe!

'Cause what else would it be called?

So, there you have it! My love for Aussie beaches is now very well established.

Ordinary Life Continues

It's been awhile since I wrote my last post on here! Oops. I guess I got a little bit sidetracked. I also really didn't know what to write about that would be relevant to my blog. Things are pretty normal here! As an example: today I went grocery shopping, did some laundry, and made some dinner. For some reason, it's not quite what I expected.
I'm not sure exactly what I was predicting ... In all honesty, before I left home I daydreamed about huge adventures out in the wilderness of Australia happening every few days, give or take. Don't know where I got that idea. (It's probably safe to blame the media.) Overall, life down under is very similar, if not the same, to life in the States. People get up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, go to sleep, and start it all over again the next day. It's all very ordinary. Which is nice, in the sense that it makes it feel very home-like, what with the normal routine and everything. There is enough differences, however, to make it not home.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not disappointed or anything. I adjusted my adventure-thinking pretty soon after I arrived, I just couldn't place exactly what was different than I expected. Turns out "normal" is kind of difficult to spot. And this trip is still an adventure. A leaving home, meeting new people, and generally branching out kind of adventure! That's basically all an adventure is, right? Every good (or possibly bad) adventure story usually followed those basic plot lines. Character leaves the familiar. Character meets new people. Character learns new things. My adventure just isn't as dangerous as all those we read about! (Thank goodness!)
Every time I meet someone new, I get so excited! I don't know why, but I do. They are adding little bits to my story and making it more interesting or enjoyable or fun. And every time someone meets me, they usually are a little taken aback that I am here, of all places, by myself, working in a strange country half a world away. It's funny... If anything else had been different, if I had gone somewhere else on this huge, magnificent planet of ours, or if I had chosen not to come at all, I would never have met any of them! And they wouldn't have met me. But this applies to life in general. If we meet some random stranger at the grocery store (I've gotten to talk to the same cashier just about every week) we now know them. They are part of our life, even if it's a very small part. If we had gone to the store even five minutes earlier or later, we would not have met them. Things would be different.
Everything, huge or not, happens for a God-given reason. We don't know what it is, and that's the amazing beauty of it. I always picture an author writing a story. The author knows exactly what is happening with every single one of the characters, and know the ways they are connected, even if the characters themselves never find out. And if it's a good story (preferably one with a happy ending) the characters are grown in ways they never could have imagined or done by themselves, without the help of that unnamed someone in the grocery store.