Australia Day!

Hi everyone, 

Ya girl from Down Under is back with a brand new post! Today I want to talk about Australia Day. This day might have been my favourite one of the entire exchange program so far. I hope that after such a huge statement I have your full attention. So let’s don’t make this intro any longer and time travel back to exactly thirteen days ago...

Saturday the 26^th of January, we woke up early. With early I don't mean "let's go to school the first hour" early but "we woke up at eight on a vacation day" early. Phoebe and I showered, made a delicious smoothie, grabbed our bags and together with Alyssa's family (including her cousin Yasmine who had been sleeping over at "our" place after we spent the Friday at Bondi beach with her) we headed off to the south of Sydney.  There, we were welcomed by Alyssa's grandfather and her Chinese step-grandmother. They had a beautiful and modern house. However, we didn't spend the day at their main house but at their smaller lake house which could be reached by just walking down stairs from the house. When we arrived downstairs, we met Alyssa's aunt and uncle (Yasmine’s parents). I would say they were real Australians. Very kind. Very sarcastic. Very cool. Love it!

 We helped Alyssa's aunt decorating the house, the “garden” and the boats. Yes, the boatS. Both, Alyssa's grandfather and uncle owned a speed boat. This on itself is off course already really cool. But what was even cooler...Yasmine has her boat driver license. I think you can imagine what happened during that day.. Lots of boat trips with the girrrls! We blasted "I've Just Got Paid" and several Billie Eilish songs through the speakers. Yasmine drove really hard which created the same feeling as if you were in a rollercoaster. Don’t take this as bragging but our boat was cooler than that of most of the forty-years-old on the water. If you can’t tell already, I will say it for you; I felt pretty badass on that boat ;-).

Apart from driving a boat we did other activities on the water as well. For example, we went on a towed buoy behind the boat. I’ve been on this sort of circular floatie before. In Ibiza. Which was well… different. Let’s say that over there the main purpose isn’t falling off, which here in Australia.. it is, hahaha. I don’t know if it was just this family or if all Aussies are like this but again we went full speed. People who know me well, know that I laugh more than the average person. This was also the case on the towed buoy. I got the giggles . I’m 100% sure that normally my little brothers and sister would’ve gotten the giggles as well so I would not have bothered trying to stop myself. However, now I was lying in between two people who seemed to be a little less enthusiastic about the amount of fun this was as I did, so I did try to stop but this even made me laugh more (writing this makes me laugh again, I didn’t even know what it was that I found so funny, I guess I was just enjoying myself). The moment I finally stopped laughing was when we all fell into the water. When we came out they didn’t have to ask me if I enjoyed it, they heard, they sure heard ;-)...

Alyssa’s family and Yasmine’s family weren’t the only ones at the grandfather’s house. After us arrived Alyssa’s twin aunts. They looked exactly like one another (no shit, they were twins Frederique hahaha). I had a really good conversation with one of them. We talked about a lot of different things such as her time in Europe as an au pair, the scar on her leg, the exchange program and much more. As I mentioned before Alyssa’s step-grandmother was Chinese and so around lunch time it seemed as if half the cast of “Crazy Rich Asians” walked into the lake house (please don’t take this as racism). Head to toe Chanel outfits, Dior caps and Fendi bags, check! I also made a new little friend Nick. He reminded me of the Chinese version of my own little brother Piet-Hein. Both are very into swimming and video games. 

The day passed by and all we did was driving the boat, swimming in the lake, eating, tanning, exploring beaches around the area, talking, swimming in the pool and chilling in the jacuzzi. Basically all my favourite activities in life. At the end of the day we did one other really cool water activity which was knee boarding. It was sort of water skiing on a surfboard on your knees. At first it was very difficult but with the help of Yasmine I got the drill in the end. Sort of. Almost. Maybe I need a little more practice.

We ended the day with a delicious barbeque at the lake house. I almost lost my appetite when my Chinese friend Nick thought it was a good idea to eat a chicken’s feet (a traditional Chinese dish) but the food was too good not to eat. After we said goodbye to Yasmine and her family and all the other family members we headed home to Concord, Sydney again. As I said, it was a lovely Australia Day with a lot of fun in and on the water. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about how I celebrated Australia Day! I will speak to you soon! My next post is about the the Blue Mountains so keep visiting my blog if you want to find out more!

With love,

Frederique