July 17, 2012
CALOUNDRA, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – After we all got a
much-needed full night’s sleep, in a bed, we woke up to a traditional English
breakfast at the hotel, and a few students tried out the vegemite. Most of them
were okay with it or even seemed to enjoy it!
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| July 17 - Our lovely hotel from brekky! |
During our free time after breakfast, I headed out for a
run! As readers of this blog know, I am currently training for the Chicago
Marathon, and as such, while it is inevitable I will miss a few runs, I am
going to try as much as possible to get some runs in. I only needed to do four
miles today, so I found the beach path a few blocks from our hotel and took it
down and back from central Caloundra, all while the sun was reflecting off the
waves towards us – it was beautiful, with more good weather on our side!
After the run (and a quick shower), we boarded the coach and
ironically had lunch at Sizzler, of all places. In any event, it was quite
good, and most of the students got to try traditional Aussie dessert pavlova,
which I have had before and like a lot! It is very sugary but once in awhile,
that is great!
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| Amazing TL's at Mooloolaba Beach (from left: Stephanie, Kelly, Me, Kerri, Paula) |
From lunch we headed to Mooloolaba Beach for the afternoon.
Everyone put their feet in the water, took some photos of the waves, got some
sun, collected seashells, and threw around a Frisbee or an Aussie-rules rugby
football. We had a couple of hours in the sun and water, and then we went to
nearby Underwater World, which is essentially a world-class aquarium in a small
town on the water, much like Monterey, CA or Seward, Alaska.
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| Students learning about salt water fish at Underwater World |
At Underwater World we had a special private twilight
after-hours tour, another one of those unique things People to People gets, and
it was really great to see all of the exhibits without fighting crowds or
anything. We had two tour guides with us in the exhibits, and we got a private
seal show (that was really impressive – the seal standing on one arm while
balancing a ball on its nose, that sort of thing), where one of our students
got to actually feed the seal! We saw sea otters (one’s name was Kaos, with a
K, and another Mayhem, haha), and we got to hold a turtle, starfish, and other
sea creatures too! We had dinner at
Underwater World, then received program completion certificates, and retired
back to our Caloundra hotel for the night.
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