A McTavish Christmas

On Tuesday morning Jon drove down for Missisauga to pick me up from my now empty residence. It was sad to leave what has been my home for the past 4 months, knowing that I would never again walk those hallways. We drove to Jon’s house, did some shopping for Christmas presents that Jon still had to get. Then we just hung out at his house. Mark arrived for a visit and we played some guitar hero, watched snowboarding movies to get in the mood for the upcoming season. Then we decided that we would go snowboarding the next day. No biggie, the hill was only 2 hours away and on the way to the cottage. Brilliant!

Later that night, we played street hockey with all of Jon’s friends from the street. It was great! We played for nearly 2 hours it was so much fun. That finished up around 1230. And we crashed straight away. We woke up early to go boarding at Mt St Louis/Moonstone. The snow was fantastic! The hill wasn’t huge but it had a phenomenal terrain park which we went on most of the time. Mark and Jon were hitting the 45 foot jump which was insane, the 25 foot jump was plenty scary enough for me! I did a few rails as well. Didn’t have the balls to try a 360 on the 25 footer though. Perhaps next time….im working up to it!

We finished up boarding around 3, unfortunately my boa lacing wire snapped somehow so now I need to get my boot fixed before I can go out again. Jon went to the hospital with his family to visit his grandma, so Mark and I chilled for about an hour in the local Tim Hortons. The boys loved teasing me about putting on the freshman fifteen (pounds). I don’t feel fatter though…

So after that we drove to the McTavish cottage in Haliburton. We relaxed that evening and I went to bed early because I was pretty tired. The next morning was spent relaxing at the cottage, cleaning up the driveway and snowskating down the driveway. In the afternoon we all piled into the car to go Christmas tree hunting. We were wandering around the snowy woods for about an hour before we found a good tree. Jon climbed up and cut it down, we tied it to the roof and then headed back to the cottage. That evening I successfully cooked dinner – mum’s special pumpkin pasta, which was quite a hit (I think). At the least I enjoyed it and got a reminder of home tastes. Mum would be particularly proud of me doing some cooking for a change.

After dinner, we put up the tree. It was huge!!! About 12 feet tall. It looked fabulous! I felt a bit feverish after dinner so went to bed early. That night was one of the longest nights of my life. I woke up about 10 times, had some very weird dreams, and constantly had the shivers. Very unpleasant. I woke up on Christmas eve not feeling much better. I spent the most of Christmas Eve day inside, napping and taking it easy. At night we went to their neighbours cottage which was beautiful. They had 4 children who were very entertaining, especially the little girl Avery who made me help her compile Santa’s naughty/nice list. We also played some mini stick hockey in their basement. The meal was very good, but I didn’t eat much because of my sickness.

When we got back, I skyped the family who were celebrating Christmas lunch since they are 15 hours ahead. It was bittersweet seeing them all there having a great time. I was exhausted afterwards so went to bed. That night I only woke up once which was an improvement from the night before. In the morning I felt a bit better. We waited for everyone to wake up then opened the plethora of gifts under the tree. I was spoilt, I got a huge amount of treats in my Canadian stocking, a great snowboarding bandana, a Canada hoody, Canadian mug, Canada Hockey Jersey, and a sweet painting that Jon did. I’m probably gonna have to send a package home with all these goodies because they wont fit in my bag.

In the afternoon, I had a nap, a bath (first one this year) and watched a Christmas movie – Miracle on 34^th street. Played Rummy with Bec and Dylan. We had a very nice dinner, but since I was still a bit sick my appetite was not very large. After dinner, I helped Kathy for a little bit with her puzzle, and played darts before heading to bed because I was exhausted again.

Didn’t wake up at all that night, but still woke up feeling a bit sick. Boxing day was spent relaxing in the cottage, watching some movies, eating some food, emailing, and reading. At night after a good enchilada dinner we played scattegories. It was really fun. I won in the end, thanks to all my Australian answers that they didn’t know haha.

On Monday after a beautiful sleepin, Jon and I packed up our gear and presents, and the family plus myself headed off to Rob’s brothers house where there was a big group of the McTavish Clan. We hung out at their house for a few hours, eating and being merry. Then we played the present game which was a bit different to how we normally play it back home, but I would say better. I ended up with a gift basket full of goodies. After that, Jon and I drove back to their home in Missisauga. This ends my Christmas time at the McTavish Cottage. It was a wonderful experience having a white Christmas at the beauty of the winter at the cottage. It was however a bit dulled by my bad health keeping me inside most of the days. All in all a great time!

Last week at Brock

So I decided to start off my exam study with seeing how I am sitting with my cumulative grade as it was. Turns out for the exam I had on Tuesday I was already on 50% so didn’t even need to sit the exam to pass. Since my grades only show up as pass or fail with my exchange program, I threw studying out the window. Instead I hung out with Carly and Josh and Andrew. Josh stayed over on Sunday night in my room.

A lot of this week was spent saying goodbyes to all the great friends I have made here. It turned out to be much tougher than I originally anticipated it would be. Just as I start to develop really great friendships and find a home away from home I have to say goodbye.

I gave myself a new challenge this week. Pity I didn’t think of it earlier. To walk down the length of the hallway… on my hands. I have made it nearly half way but the end of the hallway seems far far off. Have had fun trying though.

On Monday night, I went over with Sofia and Lachie to visit Helen at her place. We played Pictionary telephone, ate popcorn, wedges and KD and hung out which was fun. Later that night I went back and chilled with Josh and Carly again.

On Tuesday I had my first exam, which was in the huge auditorium filled with about 1000 seats and desks. I managed to get lucky and get a rickety uneven desk. Lucky my grades weren’t riding on this exam. Mulit choice exam - I was out in an hour. Hit up the gym which luckily was pretty empty. On Tuesday night I went out with about 15 people from our floor to Kelsey’s for all you can eat wings. I took the football along and we had fun throwing that around in the carpark. Every time I threw it pretty much the ball ended up under a car and Andrew had to crawl on the cold wet snowy ground to get it. Haha. The waitress was named Dusty.

After dinner, Andrew, Andrew, John, Carly and I went to the cinemas to watch the Tourist with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. The movie was alright. Andrew and Carly hated it so much that they walked out with half an hour to go haha.

So after my first exam I went on to study for the next exam. But I found out for this exam I was sitting on 60% so didn’t need to do this exam either.

Wednesday I had my job interview on the phone for next summer as either a Wake X or Ski/Wake instructor. On Wednesday night, I went to Boston Pizza with Taylor and Jasmine. Gave them a couple of gifts, which was a laugh. I had a hair in my soup and for a change I told the waitress, she snapped up the dish went out back. Then the manager came and apologised profusely, gave me a new soup for free, and a voucher to a free pizza. Very good service!

After dinner I went shopping with them to get some gifts to take home. So hard to shop because I don’t wanna buy tacky souvenirs. After arriving back, I went over with Adam to hang out at Lisa and Jess’. We played some cards and had a jolly old time. We tried beating a few impossibilities, like eating a dry piece of bread in under a minute, and eating a spoonful of cinnamon. Lachie got the piece of bread in 30 seconds which was impressive.

On Thursday I had my exam. It was so weird going into an exam and knowing barely anything, not having studied at all! I knew a few questions though, and will probably get about 30-40% on the exam anyway. On Thursday night, I hung out with Jasmine and Taylor again, then went to Lisa’s 21^st for a couple of hours. After that I went back to res and hung out with Taylor and Jasmine, Andrew and Carly and we watched August Rush. Taylor and Jasmine gave me a shirt that belonged to Taylor as well as some Maple Leaf undies haha.

Then on Friday, at 3pm, Charlene and Shaphan picked me up from uni with my snowboard and we headed off with Charlene’s little brothers to Horseshoe valley for some night snowboarding. We only got 2 hours in, but it was so great to have the first run of my new board. Not 100% sure about the new equal stance of my feet. When we stopped for dinner at Tim hortons down the road, my phone dropped out of the car. I didn’t realise till we arrived at the mountain. So we checked back at the carpark on the way home 3 hours later. To be honest my hopes weren’t very high, but it turns out that it was still working in the freezing wet snow and in one piece. What a miracle!!! Arrived back in residence

On Saturday I played squash for a couple of hours with Lachie and Ben. Then I went back to res to do some relaxing and chatted to Lisa and Eric. Said goodbye to a bunch of people on my floor and hung out with them. Early that night I watched Jingle all the way, then had dinner, watched the leafs game – they lost. Then later on I went to a party with the internationals at the Village – it was a girls birthday who I didn’t even know. But I was there. A true gatecrasher. Stayed there till fairly late, then walked back to res. On the way I bumped into Tyler and Kristen on their way back from a late night mcdonalds run. So chatted to them until my toes got numb so I ran back and jumped into my cosy bed.

On Sunday morning I went to church at the Pen which was great. Said a bunch more goodbyes. Jaime bought me the Central CD as a going away gift which was very generous of him. After church I went for a drive with Lisa, Jess, Ariel (Jasmine) and Elly to Niagara falls. We took some photos in the snow then went to a place called nightmares. Which was like a haunted house. It was a walk through thing and was pitch black. Then things would jump out at us. Even though the girls made me go in the front I didn’t get the full scare and arms grabbing me which was lucky. I did drop to the floor in fright at one point. There was a freaky part where we had to get down and crawl and then a guy jumped out with a electric handsaw and made sparks fly out in front of us. Somehow my pants stayed pretty dry for that occasion.

Later on, Taylor Gillard from camp picked me up from Brock and we drove to the MW Xmas get together. It was pretty much just a room and we all just caught up and chatted whilst eating snacks. It was really great seeing everyone though! After that, a bunch of us went back to Coombs’ house for Hilary’s birthday. We ate a bit more, then just chatted. It was great to hear some of Craig, Justin and Steve’s Europe stories.

Taylor picked me up from Coombs’ house and then we drove back to St Catharines. In the morning I got into some study for my 2pm exam. Said goodbye to Taylor who gave me his hockey jersey as a departing gift which was very generous.

So I did my final exam of my degree. It was pretty hard, but I would have gotten enough marks to get me a pass so im a happy chappy. The rest of the night was spent packing my bags – very tightly, and saying goodbyes to all the great friends I had made here.

That night, the buffalo crew – Andrew, RMD, Becca and myself went out for another adventure, this time to Niagara, to see the falls, the beautiful xmas lights, and then wander around the city. They dressed me up as a Scottsman for our outing and they had to wear my Australian hats. We went into an arcade and played some games, with my last token I decided to use it to try and get some tickets. I wanted to go big or go home so found the machine that offered the most tickets. It was a jackpot game where you could win 641 tickets if you stopped the light on the right spot. I got it!!! We were all so bewildered! Spent the prize tickets to get a few dodgy little gifts worth only a couple of dollars, but it was good fun and brought back some childhood memories. On the way home we stopped at a UFO restaurant, and got some late night Pizza Pizza.

So this chapter of my life is coming to an end but its been a phenomenal experience and God has blessed me with so many amazing experiences, memories and most of all friendships that I will certainly never forget.

Brock Week 13

So on Saturday I spent the day catching up with family, doing some reading, song writing and emailing. On Saturday night, we had planned to go to the casino, but that was cancelled so Andrew, Sophia and I watched a couple of Christmas movies which got us into the Christmas spirit.

Sunday morning I went with Josh to central church. It was a Christmas theme which was really cool. Then I hung out at Josh’ for the day, did some reading, guitaring and indoor golfing. Josh, I found out ran the Vancouver 2010 Olympic torch through Thorold, a local area, which is so cool. So I put on his tracksuit and ran the torch around the neighbourhood. That evening, we went to a Christmas concert downtown put on by central church. It was fantastic! The Christmas songs were great, and then the main act was New World Son, which is a reggae gospel type band. Great music! Every guy in the band was a phenomenal musician. Was there with Josh, Emily, Carly, Lisa, Lyndall and Sophia. We also met a couple of the power view boys there too.

After the concert everyone peaced so we hung around and wanted to get a photo with the band. It wasn’t very hard at all. We ended up chatting to the band for about half an hour. They were really nice and friendly. I even exchanged emails with the guitarist as he is coming to Gold Coast and wanted a connection. After the concert, Josh Emily and Shannon came back to Josh’ house and we hung out, played guitar etc.

So this week it snowed! I think it was Tuesday. I spent the whole day outside in the snow having snowball fights on three separate occasions. Hung out at Lisa and Jess’ apartment playing cards. I even got to have a go down a small hill on a skateboard/snowboard.

On Tuesday night, our MW group had snacks at Vanessa’s house and then went bowling. I played terribly – only got a 64. It was great seeing them all. Some of them for the last time unfortunately. I had to say goodbyes to a few people this week which was sad. Amanda came and hung out for a while and we said goodbye, same with Shauna.

Our floor had their secret santa on Tuesday – I had Kaitlyn and Akhash had me. I got some Canadian mittens. Our floor also booked the swimming pool on Wednesday night so that was fun jumping off the boards and mucking around. I also went swimming on a couple of occasions this week.

I got back into my gym routine, watched a season of the Office. Everyone was studying so most of the week was spent by myself. Because of this I got homesick and it sucked a bit. Got to skype them a couple of times though.

Thursday I hung out for a while at Emily’s house, she was writing a song and so I went along and ‘helped’ with some of it. Not really. We spent a lot of the time just talking but had a good time on the piano and guitar as well. That night I went out for the final social of our C4C group. We had dinner at the London Arms pub – great food – especially garlic bread! Then we went glow in the dark mini putting. That was fun.

On Friday night, I went to the movies to watch the new Narnia with Sophia, Aarne, Clare, Holly, Ethan and Jason. It was a fantastic film. After that I hung out with Aarne, Sophia and Emily. We had a snowball fight, hung out in the café (Grace gave us a free waffle!) and then made an epic snowman.

On Saturday I spent the morning reading and in meditation. Then I met up with Nikki and some of the girls who took us to Nikki’s house for a Christmas day. It was definitely the highlight of my week! We did a huge amount of Christmas cooking – Chocolate pretzels, Christmas bark, shortbread, made a gingerbread house. Candy cane chocolate. So good! We decorated their Christmas (real) tree. Their family (the bakkers) is so wonderful, accommodating and just make you feel at home there. Lovely lovely people.

Played Settler of Catan finally! Oh how I have missed that game! Hadn’t lost my touch – ended up winning haha. We had a wonderful dinner, played a sweet game of Pictionary telephone which was ridiculously hilarious! That night we spent a few hours in the piano room with 8 guitars, a piano, mandolin, tamborines, bass guitar, rattlers and shakers and had an awesome sing along music time. Amazing.

After that I went back to Josh’ house for the night. We chatted until 3am before going to sleep. Woke up at 12. Had Anne, Kristen, Kristyn, Brendon, Josh and I over for a ‘goodbye’ lunch for me at Josh’. We had burgers and played the water game. Shared some good stories and good laughs to finish off the weekend before getting into some solid study for exams this upcoming week.

Nearly finished my degree!

Brock week 12

I apologise for the lengthiness of the last entry. It was a hectic week. Arriving back late on Sunday night from New York, we hit the sack pretty quickly. We had to get up early at 630 to prepare for my lecture and Mark still had a 6 hour drive home to Nipissing. Once I had completed my test in my lecture I couldn’t stay awake so wagged and took a lovely nap. After that I finished off the remainder of my classes for my undergraduate degree! Found out I got an A in my assignment…stoked about that because I certainly wasn’t expecting a good grade.

The rest of the week was filled with sleep, gym, study, shopping, television and eating – not so much anymore because I realised that my meal card can only afford 10 dollars a day for the rest of the year!

On Monday night Taylor and I went out to Boston Pizza for dinner with Kayla and Cait. We shared some great laughs there. Taylor accepted a dare to go up to a table across the room where to people were eating, and just stand there and look at their food until they did or said something. It was hilarious! After dinner we played cards in Kayla’s room and Taylor and I interrogated her roommate Erin which was quite entertaining.

Tuesday night I went with the Don’s to the Brock wind Orchestra concert. The concert was great – quite inspiring musically, even if it went for two and a half hours!

The mustache got shaved! Young innocent Rhys is back. Elle left Brock to go home, and so I hung out with her for a little while, and she gave me a Christmas gift which certainly made my day, and also a lovely card!

Wednesday night we had the international Christmas banquet. Everyone dressed up and we went to a local club for the formal dinner. The food was pretty good, company was great. Japanese santa even made an appearance! Then the 40 year old dj busted some tunes and the dancefloor lit up. After the dinner, most people went to the local bar but I went back to Brock with 5 of the girls. They came up to hang out in my room for a bit. It was hilarious walking past the study room where a bunch of the boys were studying – Just Rhys and 5 hot girls with him. Their jaws literally dropped haha. They had many a question for me the following day. But don’t worry all you back home who might be thinking I have been corrupted with promiscuity and polygamy, the girls and I just played cards.

Thursday night after doing some grocery shopping some of the people from our small group went to the Village residences and cooked pancakes and cleaned the units with Roy from Red Frogs. It was great fun. After that, I went over to visit Lisa, Jess, and Ariel at their apartment. I had quite a feminine night with them, watching a chick flick, playing cards and sharing head scratches.

On Friday we had our final campus for Christ boys group bible study. It was fantastic getting to know those guys, and sharing life with them. Friday afternoon I went back to Lisa and Jess’ apartment to do some cooking for the bcf Christmas banquet. I made a chip dip with sour cream, beans, salsa, cheese and capsicum. I put a lot of effort into it. And at the banquet that night, no one ate my dip (okay maybe a couple of people). The banquet was great! They had a bunch of games, heaps and heaps of food, some great musical items. Once everything was packed up, they had a service type thing with singing, and some Christmas carols!! The band was fantastic!

After the banquet, I went to Emily and Shannon’s house with Josh and we played some music and hung out until 2 in the morning. She had 3 guitars, a violin, harmonica and keyboard. It was a great end to the week!

Brock week 11 + New york

Sunday morning I got up early (not really – 9am) and caught the bus with all the international students to Toronto. There we met up with a few of the other Aussies who were in Toronto the night before, and had lunch at a local sports bar. This bar contained a ridiculous number of televisions… I mean RIDICULOUS! There was even one on the roof, I guess in case someone was lying on the floor and didn’t want to have to turn their head to watch the game.

From there we went to the Air Canada Center to watch the Toronto Raptors take on the Boston Celtics. The atmosphere there was fantastic. We had seats half way across the court and up high but the view was still good. We saw TV camera’s and reporters doing their sports reports. I made an effort to get in the view of the camera and make a fool of myself.

The game was very exciting. To start with Boston cleaned up and got to a nice lead, we figured that they had it in the bag. Then Raptors came back and extended a lead of their own. In the last quarter, Boston came back and got ahead by; 6 points with just a couple of minutes to go. Toronto somehow managed to pull out a win by one point in the last 30 seconds of play! The crowd went wild. Halftime entertainment and timeout entertainment was really cool as well. They had the mascot do a flip slam dunk off a trampoline, the had numerous cheerleaders, and the best of all was the dog relay race with the most hyperactive dogs I have ever seen. Every sport game I have been to here in Canada, there has been a win to the team I supported. It appears that I am Canada’s lucky charm!

On Sunday night when I got back from Toronto, Tyson picked me up and we went to Southridge church’s Sunday night youth program. It was really good, most of the songs I hadn’t heard before so it was cool hearing something new. It was a good time to reassess my priorities.

Monday – classes, washing, doctor yet again. It appears my infection is still lingering about even after about 6 weeks. I found out that for my presentation I got 96%. Such a pleasant surprise considering I was only expecting around 60%! On Monday night I went to Isaac’s bar on campus with Lachie and Adam, where we watched the Monday night football. I left a little bit early to go to hockey. I borrowed my don Andrew’s hockey equipment which was 2 sizes too big, but hey, beggars cant be choosers. At hockey, I improved my game again, this time I even scored a goal! Slipped one past the keeper! Some may argue that it was a fluke, but I beg to differ haha.

On Tuesday I went to the Pen Centre to soak up the Christmas atmosphere and do a little Christmas shopping. I had lunch with Whitney that day, and we had a really great conversation and shared some stories. After class, Elle (girl from MW) asked me to accompany her to the hospital because she had sore knees. So we caught a couple of buses to the hospital where we found that the emergency wait was 6 hours! Stuff that! So we taxied to another hospital that was shut and seemed very derelict, but sure enough out the back there was a back door to a dodgy looking waiting room. I waited in the room while she saw the doctor. Then we taxied back to brock.

As soon as I got back, we had our hall meeting. This week was shave week. All the boys on our floor had been growing their facial hair all November and this night, any girls that donated to prostate cancer got their name in a hat. The boys would pick a name out of the hat, and that girl would get to choose how the mustache would be shaped for the remainder of movember. I picked Carly. She was pretty nice to me and I ended up with a trucker mustache. Much better than a lot of the other boys on the floor. Andrew had stripes across his face!

Wednesday was a very lazy day. Taught Lisa some guitar – she picked it up very quickly. Study –pffft yeah right. My room got broken into (well not really I left it unlocked) and all my furniture was rearranged by Taylor and Nicole. I was so flustered and couldn’t find my stuff because of the rearrangement. Went to the Pen again to send a Christmas package home as well as a special Canadian package to Neily Poos in Ireland.

On Wednesday arvo, Mark arrived from North Bay. We hung out for a while, had dinner, then went to Wainfleet to see Amanda. She was running a game at her church for the youth group, we got a bit lost so missed out on the game. The youth had gone inside to watch a movie so Mark and Amanda and I hung out in the really nice gymnasium and played some games of our own. Mark and I made up our own baseball game, slogging the balls all over the auditorium. There was a nice piano in there as well so I spent 10 minutes or so having a tinkle of the old ivories. After that we went to Amanda’s house and ate caramel corn, talked snowboarding and held our breaths. With Mark’s hyperventilating technique I held my breath for 3 minutes, smashing my previous record. Stoked about that one.

Thursday morning after a bit of a sleep in and breakfast, we headed off for our roadtrip to New York City – The big Apple. Mark, Lachie, Sophia and I all cramped into a sexy blue two door Toyota Yaris. I drove for a few hours. The border didn’t take very long this time which was good. We had fun playing a game like punch buggy but for yellow cars so it was a lot more frequent. Got a slightly dead leg. Hamish and Andy helped us on the ‘drive home’ for a couple of hours as well. We drove past Scranton – the town from the tv show ‘The Office’. Lachie took us on the final leg through the heavy traffic through New York and into Brooklyn. There were a few tedious moments in the car in New York. At one stage we skidded about 10 metres to stop hitting a stationary taxi. We also got a bit lost through New York because we didn’t have a gps, but only google map directions. Somehow we made it there by 1030pm.

Brooklyn is a very slummy/shifty area of the city. Our house that we were staying in, at first looked like we made a big mistake. There was a huge overgrown garden, and the house looked really old, even haunted. When we went inside however, it was really friendly, and the building, whilst old, had a lot of character. The floors were far from level, one toilet had a roof about 1.5 metres high, the stairwells had support beams, and there were stairwells popping up everywhere. Plenty of rooms! We had our own room to the four of us.

The next day, we woke up bright and early at 7 for a big day in the city of New York. We caught the subway to Times Square, where we had a McDonalds breakfast, followed by wandering around the huge area filled with shops and lights and signs and America! Times Square is a much bigger area than I had expected. It is also very much like the Strip of Vegas – extravagant for want of a better word. The signs on the buildings were MASSIVE! The shops were huge, occupying multiple stories a lot of the time. We stopped at the M & M’s store – multilevel, as well as the Toys R Us that had its own Ferris wheel in the shop. There was a sweet NBA shop, and NHL shop that we also visited. Of course I couldn’t come to new york and not buy the I heart NY shirt. I wore it all weekend…such a tourist haha.

We went up to the 69^th floor of the Rockefeller centre where the 360 degree view was spectacular, and included Central park, and the Empire State Building. Had lunch at a real New York Diner serving their ‘prime’ burgers and chips. After that we hailed the hard to find New York taxi, and caught it to McGee’s Bar – which is the pub that the McLaren’s pub from How I Met Your Mother is based on. Had a snack there, chilled at the booth just like Barney, Ted, Robin, Lily and Marshall do.

Our next stop was Christopher Columbus circle, adjacent to Central Park. We met a semi creepy guy dressed up as Spiderman hanging around the playground. Then there was the Central Park ice skating rink. The Grinch ‘Mark’ didn’t want to join, so Sophia, Lachie and myself hired skates and went skating at probably the coolest location ever. It was really fun even though it was packed. After the skate, we walked through Central Park – no muggings - no chance anyone would want to mess with me with my chopper moustache! We saw the John Lennon memorial as well as the fountain from the FRIENDS intro.

Back to Broadway for Mary Poppins, playing in the New Amsterdam theatre. We had seats right up the top, but still had a decent view of all the happenings. The show was spectacular and went for about 2.5 hours! One of the things that impressed me the most was the sets and how they changed as well as some cool stage magic. A great show – much better than I was expecting. Ever since the show, every time Mark and I go up or down stairs, we do it the way Mary Poppins did it so quickly and gracefully. That always gave us a laugh.

After the show most food places were shut but not the Whopper bar. It was a BK type place that sold all the big burgers. We got a whopper pizza. Yeah you read right – a whopper so big that it had to be cut into 6 slices like a pizza. We all shared the 2500 calorie beast. Subway back to Brooklyn and said goodnight to a spectacular day in New York.

The next morning we slept in a big until about 9. Subwayed to the start of the Brooklyn bridge. Walked across that, had breakfast in Starbucks and met Helene the kiwi (also at Brock) there, as she had just arrived by bus. From there we caught the Staten Island Ferry which went past the Statue of Liberty – no surprises in that department.

The 9/11 site was still under construction but we visited it anyway, and saw the plan for the 500 million dollar memorial. Then we visited Wall Street with the Trump building and Stock Exchange. There were a gang of kids skating on the street trying to land a specific trick off a bench seat. Mark went and borrowed one of the guys boards then did the trick they were trying much to their enjoyment and surprise. He did a lot of skating as a kid. Visited Macy’s which was huuuuuge! Too packed though.

After that we went to my favourite Red Lobster for dinner – but it was too long a wait! So instead we ate at Ruby Tuesdays. The food was fantastic anyway and we even got the complimentary scones – or as the Yanks call them ‘biscuits’.

We rushed to Madison Square Garden after dinner to watch Circe Du Soleil – Wintuk. The show was amazing – it blew all my expectations. The story line was hilariously nonexistent. But the stunts were amazing. They had incredible jugglers, gymnasts, roller bladders, skateboarders, Bike riders, contortionists, hula hoopers, skippers, tightrope walkers and balancers just to name a few. They did things that you wouldn’t believe if I told you. Very entertaining!

Heading back after the show, we got split up in the subway. Mark and I were attracted to the sound of drums, Lachie was on a mission and ahead of everyone, and the girls were left dilly dallying. They all met up but mark and I stuck by ourselves the rest of the night.

There was a homeless guy playing drums on a bunch of buckets, pots and pans in the subway station, and he was AMAZING! Mark got his headbang on! – Need to see videos to know what I’m talking about. We decided to head back to the hostel but got severely muddled up with the subway system night changes, and ended up taking about 2 hours to get the right train home. The others came back soon after us.

The next morning we caught the subway to Times Square where we met up for our Harlem Gospel Tour. We hopped on a bus with Lachie’s parents, and got toured around the area of Harlem. It’s a predominately Afro American area, and not the richest area even though most apartments cost around 1500 a month for rent. We got a good historical overview, saw the Apollo theatre, Seinfeld restaurant.

Then we stopped at a local Pentecostal church for the service. It was so gospel like you wouldn’t believe! Like in the movies but even more so. It was really cool, it was pretty much a big jam session and singing celebration. Lots of clapping, dancing, hallelujah’s and singing. I was really impressed with the musicians! They were fantastic and the songs went for about 10 minutes each. Unfortunately we had to leave before the sermon began which I would have liked to stay for. Apparently their church goes for about 3-4 hours.

After the tour we went back, packed the car, wrote down directions and headed off on our long drive back home to Brock University. The traffic was very bad because everyone was heading home from Thanksgiving weekend. We had a close encounter with an empty tank of petrol as well but thankfully made it to the servo.

Brock Week 10

On Saturday afternoon, I caught the greyhound bus to Buffalo with Lachie. Even though the driving distance there is only half an hour, it took us about 3-4 hours! This was all because of the waiting for buses, waiting for border security/customs. They were really slow. It was ok, I got to have a nap on the bus. So we arrived at the buffalo bus terminal, caught the first of many taxi’s to our hostel downtown. Walked to the ice hockey arena where we went to watch the Buffalo Sabres play the Washington Capitals. The Sabres were pretty low on the ladder and the Capitals were much higher, but this night they played really well. The game was fantastic! I really loved it! Ice hockey is my new favourite game to watch, other than NRL of course. The game is so intense and the halftime entertainment and atmosphere is just awesome. I was cheering with the home crowd for the Sabres, but Lachie supports the Caps. Sabres won, and I got to slap Lachie for the win! Haha.

After the game, we wandered the streets trying to find our hostel. We met some other girls from Brock (They saw us wearing our brock jumpers) who gave us a ride back and were very friendly. We pretty much went straight to bed that night.

In the morning we woke up before everyone else in our 16 bed room, and caught the bus to the Galleria Mall. Little did we know the mall didn’t open up until about lunchtime. The bus ride there took a while and was very ghetto. I kind of enjoyed soaking up the ghetto culture, driving through the streets.

Since the shops were shut Lachie and I waited around until the cheesecake factory opened up for breakfast. I had a delicious pizza. We realised that we missed the only bus that went to the Bills game, so we had to catch another taxi there. The atmosphere before the game was really cool. They have ‘tailgating parties’ which is where everyone and their dog comes and has bbq’s in the boot of their car in the carpark, play music, throw the footy around and drink beer. It very much reminded me of the atmosphere at Bathurst raceway. I bought a football from one of the stands for 6 dollars and we wandered around and threw the footy ourselves, which was fun.

When the time came to go in the stadium, we were told we couldn’t take any projectiles into the stadium, so I had to hide my footy in the bushes. We had seats in the 4^th row on about the 30 yard line which was really close! The game was great to watch, even though it started raining and we didn’t have raincoats. One thing that I didn’t like about the game was all the stoppage time in between plays. At the beginning they had an F1-11 fighter jet do a flyover. It was sick! The Buffalo Bills had their first win of the season defeating the Detroit Lions. It was a close game – nearly a draw.

After the game, we were freezing! Jumped in another taxi back into town. Grabbed our bags, then went to the bus terminal. We met up with Lyndall and her father, who were also at the game but we didn’t see them until the bus station. We caught the bus at 630. Because of the traffic going back across the border, we didn’t get back until about 10pm! I spent the travelling time studying for my test the next day.

The next day was the busiest day of my semester. I had a midterm test at 8am, then at 11 I had my hour long presentation on Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, which I presented with Heather (classmate). It was great to get that finally done.

On Monday night, it was Erika’s (a bcf girl) birthday, so I went along to a celebratory dinner at Boston Pizza. Since there was a lack of rides coming back, I walked back up the hill with Kayla. We had a good chat. Then she and Carly hung out with me in my room till 3am when I skyped my family at the formal. Even though the connection was really bad I got to see a bunch of my friends who I haven’t seen since I left, as well as, of course, my beautiful sister who looked sooo stunning! Didn’t get to sleep till 4am that morning.

There were a couple of days this week that I spent as a hermit in my room doing my last assignment of my degree. Great to get that one done. On Tuesday, the exchange fair was on, and Lachie and I ran the Griffith University booth. We spent time simply chatting to people about how awesome Australia is, and Griffith is, and exchange in general is. That was fun. Im hoping that some of my friends from here make it over to Australia for exchange. That way the tables will have turned and they will be on my turf and I will get to show them all the things to do.

On Wednesday night I went with Lachie, Jess, Kendall, Lisa, and Jayne (all aussies) to Niagara’s Keg for dinner with Lachie’s family. Niagara is like a mini vegas really. The restaurant was really nice, on the 9^th story with a fantastic view over the falls. The food was pretty expensive but very tasty. I had some sweet potato fries and bruschetta type flat bread. It was great to have a meal with a nice friendly Aussie family. Lachie’s parents were both very friendly, and his sister and sister’s friend were visiting as well! After dinner, we visited the casino briefly. Two more taxi rides for the night – I’ve never been in a taxi so much!

I spent a few hours on Thursday with Jasmine, playing the guitar while she sang. We even got the key to the fireplace lounge down in the lobby where there was an old piano, and we shared songs on the piano for a while which made me crave my piano back home even more. I think one of the first things I will do when I get back is spend a good hour playing on that beautiful piano again.

On Thursday night I went to Bible study with bcf at Emily’s house. We had a big group that night, it was really nice. After that, since there were a lack of seats in the cars a group of us decided to walk back to university which was nearly an hour walk. I was headed to the Pen Center to watch the premiere of Harry Potter. I ended up leaving the group and running a good 15 minutes to the pen in the freezing weather.

I managed to find the 12 other people on my floor who were lining up since 8pm. Andrew sweet talked some other people into swapping tickets for us, because we had the wrong cinema. It was hilarious as all the boys had organised down the nth degree what was going to happen when we got in the cinema in order for us all to get good seats together. They were talking about blocking and pinch manoeuvres and stuff like that, it was hilarious that they took it so seriously. The movie started at midnight. It was pretty good. I was amazed at how much of the story I had forgotten since reading the book only a year or two back.

The movie finished around 2:30/3am. Since there were over a thousand people that watched the premiere in 6 cinemas, the taxi line up was ridiculous. My previous method of transportation to get to the Pen worked well enough, so I decided to utilise it again. Ethan and I ran back to university, which took about 20 minutes. I got a nosebleed from running in the cold weather. Slept soundly that night.

On Friday I had my C4C group after lunch. We looked at Stephen’s story. The rest of the day was spent finishing off my assignment. In the evening, my good friends Jon and Rachel (From MW) came and picked me up from residence, and we drove all the way to Waterdown – near Hamilton. We went to Burgers’ house and chatted and ate snacks including Jon’s fabulous homemade Christmas treats and poptarts. We watched the Christmas movies – Elf and the Grinch. After that we watched a documentary called babies which Burgers had bought. It was really random! Pretty much just visuals of babies being breastfed and just lying around crying etc. There wasn’t even a commentary. Haha.

Stayed at Rachel’s house that night and the next morning after a sleep in, she drove me back to res, which was very nice of her. At lunch, we had a residence activity, where we had to do a bunch of challenges. One was to protect an egg from cracking when we dropped it off the building – success – we just padded up a witches hat. We serenaded our don, told a joke to one staff, rolled some grapefruits, and did some charades. Our floor was sure to win!

After lunch, Michael, Andrew, Adede and I went to the Brock Badgers hockey game. It was a great game, which Brock won in penalty shootouts. It went to the 7^th shooter. Very thrilling. I even fell over after cheering when I went to sit down and my seat had flipped up.

That night, it was Becca’s birthday, so we went to a restaurant called the Office in town. The food was delicious and very reasonably priced. When we got back we hung out in the fireplace lounge, played some cards, yahtzee, guitar and piano singalongs.

A great week! Got my last undergraduate assignment done! Should be pretty cruisy from here on out!

Brock Week 9

Last Saturday afternoon, Mum (Amanda) picked me up and we drove to Guelph which is just over an hour west of St Catharines. Guelph is another small university town. We arrived at Hilary’s house in a beautiful neighborhood. Coombs was there too. It was cool catching up, hanging out. For dinner we met Burgers and Kate at a Sports Bar called Moxies. It was really bizarre! The lights were dimmed, the booths and tables were very fancy, looked exactly like a fancy restaurant. But then they are blasting pop music and have tv’s surrounding the walls showing the football and hockey games. My highlights was the toilets which had televisions above each urinal as well as a fireplace!

After dinner, we went back to Hilary’s, played the game ‘Things in a box’ which is always good for a laugh. After watching Hamish and Andy on youtube, we were inspired and took to the street for some three step knocking. It was late at night so most people were asleep which lowered our sample space. We still managed to do a couple of houses. Very funny. Late night, late morning.

In the morning we went for breakfast/brunch to a really cool old-school diner. Food was great, atmosphere was great! I got to drive back to Brock…woo! (Yeah that’s right im a ‘woo’er) In the afternoon I went for a nature walk at a ravine on the Niagara river with Krystyn, Jess (another camp girl) and Krystyn’s brother and sister. We got very lost on the way there but eventually made it. The walk was down a very steep part of the mountain covered in autumn leaves. At one point I buried myself in leaves and scared Krystyn when she came past, it was hilarious. The river was very pretty when we got down the bottom. Took some photos then started the climb up. We decided to be adventurous and not go up on the path but make our own paths. This was probably a bad decision, as it was very slippery and steep. After about half an hour we made it up the top, very sweaty and dirty.

The rest of the week went by pretty quickly, even though I got up to many things throughout. Some of the adventures included: gym, tennis (for the last time, because they took the nets down), hallway cricket, swimming, hockey on Tuesday night (didn’t play), seminar preparation, midterm exam (pretty easy), doctors visits, and movie nights.

On Bible studies on Thursday we went off campus to Nikki’s house, which was such a beautiful house out in the sticks. She had a music room with lots of instruments which I got excited about but we didn’t get the chance to have a play.

On Monday afternoon I played squash for two hours with a guy from my class and his friends. They were all really good, they even wore goggles which I thought was a bit funny. I got cleaned up by a couple of them. Unfortunately I broke the string on my racket, so not sure what I will do now…it costs about 30 for new strings. I only payed 24 for my racket.

On Friday, Andrew, RMD, Becca and I went on an adventure to Buffalo! We had to wait for about 2 hours at the border to get my temporary pass into the states. We played plenty of games in the waiting room including ichi-ni. Once we had that done, we drove around the city, went into an abandoned lot near the bay and hung out there, playing gladiators for a while before our party was pooped by a black 4WD driving towards us. Then it turned its lights on…it was a cop! Apparantly we were trespassing on industrial land. He wasn’t very happy but let us go because we weren’t doing anything bad and weren’t from USA.

We drove to the big Buffalo mall – galleria. Met up with Faith – a friend from camp who lives in Buffalo. I got my snowboard that I bought online mailed to her. So I picked up my board and bindings from her. We did some shopping. Played secret santa even though it wasn’t Christmas and bought each other 5 dollar gifts. I got a girly lock up diary from Andrew which was pretty funny.

That night, we went to the Cheesecake factory for dinner – it was delicious. Then the waitress said that our meal was all taken care of! Some random stranger, perhaps her, had payed for our meal and we didn’t know who it was. What a random generous guesture of kindness! After that we cruised the streets, visited an op shop, walmart, then the movie theatres. We watched Due Date – very funny!

After the movie and some McDonalds shakes we headed home to Brock. The Canadian guy at the border let me take my board over without paying tax. What a nice man! Canadians are so much cooler than Americans.

All in all a great day a great adventure in the land of Canada/America!

Brock Week 8

God is up to something over here in Canada!

So the last week as with all others has flown by so quickly. Last Saturday night I hung out with the bcf people, played some pretty fun games. Sunday morning I went to church at the Pen. The main church broadcasts their service (minus the music) to the movie theatres in the Pen shopping centre. So we had church in the movie theatres, which was cool. It was funny walking into the movie theatres and hearing hillsong being played over the main sound system. In the afternoon the church was hosting a Halloween street party and it was pirate themed. It was pretty fun dressing up and just ‘fighting’ each other in the yard.

I met a really cool guy called Roy who has started Red Frogs in Canada after having studied in Australia and seen the phenomenon it has become there. It was fantastic to finally be able to talk some footy with someone as well! The kids that came by trick or treating had some really cool costumes, and there were some really cute baby costumes as well!

I had an exam the next day so studied hard for that one. Once that was over, my week was over because my Tuesday class was cancelled. Not too shabby! Monday afternoon I visited the doctors to try and sort out my really annoying cough which has been hanging around for over 3 weeks. Got some drugs for that – which turned out to cost 150 dollars! And I couldn’t get it covered by my health insurance…not happy Jan!

The rest of the days of the week are all moulded together in my head. Much of the time was spent actually doing work this week! I have a big seminar coming up soon.

Other activities included shopping trips, hanging out with friends, going to the gym, eating, sleeping, watching television, skyping, and playing the guitar. I played tennis with another BCF guy, Tyson, which is always fun.

Monday night was hockey night! I didn’t play but went along to hang out and watch. Tuesday night was our last night of Boxing Kangaroos volleyball. We got knocked out in a pretty close game. After that I took Sofia along to the Muskoka woods Bible study. We had our floor meeting later that night, after it, while Carly was knitting a scarf, Taylor and I stole her massive ball of wool and unthreaded it all around the hallway and down the stairs and outside and then back up to the lounge. It was hilarious… and totally worth all the time it took to re roll the ball of wool.

Wednesday night I went over to Josh Trinder’s house for a yummy home cooked dinner. After hanging out for a while we went to Sarah Brink’s birthday party. It had a lot of people. It was fun.

Thursday night was BCF bible study night. We went off campus this week to the boys’ house! It was a really cool house! It had 7 of the BCF boys living there….very cool.

After Bible study, Kayla and I hung out with Taylor and Jasmine (It was Taylors birthday) till the wee hours of the morning. Friday night Taylor’s twin brother came to Brock and we hung out for a while eating dinner and pestering people on our floor. At around 9 we went to Jasmine’s house and played some games including hide and seek which was a blast from the past…. I really have lost my touch at that game… I guess I am not the small inconspicuous flexible twisty guy I used to be. Later that night after I had caught a taxi back to res, I had a really cool chat with Andrew aka Soup.

This week I nearly got back into the time zone of Australia. I didn’t wake up before 10am and didn’t go to sleep before 2am. The life of a student!

Taylor and I have a new game we like to play at night times. It’s called interrogation. We didn’t even plan this game or speak about it, its just an understanding between us and it just happens haha. We just go into people’s rooms on our floor and interrogate and question them question after question for about an hour. It’s very entertaining. Some of the questions are pretty random and hilarious as well. And they often turn into deep talks.

This week God has taught me, blessed me, and challenged me in countless ways. I went to bed last night excited. My mind was whizzing yet at the same time I was so relaxed and content.

Ps. Its getting pretty cold, but I am persisting with the thongs

Brock week 7

On Saturday I played some leisurely sport with the Campus for Christ people for a couple of hours out on the oval. That night, I helped Josh out doing the stats for the brock basketball game again, which they won easily. It’s great having a front row seat. After that I went with him and two of his friends to the Pen Centre and got free tickets (because one of his friends works there and it was his birthday) to see Jackass 3D. It was very entertaining. We even bumped into Mum and her friends at the movie.

After that, we went back to Josh’ house where we stayed the night. His parents were out of the country. We had some good table tennis games, basketball and football outside on the street, and jammed on the guitar. We went to bed around 130, but Josh and I were up to nearly 3am sharing a great chat.

Woke up early at 830 (Yeah that’s early!) to go to church at Central again. It was really good. After church, about 10 of us from our floor went for a trip into value village to get some Halloween costumes and groceries. I got some fully sick bright blue track pants which are really warm!

When we got back from the shopping adventure, the whole floor had a pizza party in the lounge and decorated it for a res competition – Haunted house. We all dressed up scary and scared the res heads when they came to inspect. A group of us went to the marketplace afterwards to get dinner in our costumes. We got many strange looks from that haha. After dinner, Taylor and I went and annoyed a bunch of people on the floor interrogating them with random questions. It was really funny but turned out to be good to find out more about some of them.

Monday – I woke up when it was still dark!!! That was tough! Lucky I only have to do it once a week. Classes were aight. Did some vacuuming and washing in the afternoon. Then played some soccer with the crew from my floor. Got pretty muddy from that. On Monday night, I played ice hockey for the second time. This time I was a bit better and got a few good touches on the puck. It was really fun. It is always great to hang out with the bcf people. They are very inclusive, friendly and encouraging. Great people.

Tuesday – Shelby and I went to the pen centre to get some cash out, and also check out some necessities for Halloween costumes. I had class in the afternoon. On Tuesday night I had volleyball then went straight to MW bible study at Vanessa’s house. We looked at the parable of the persistent widow, which was encouraging.

On Wednesday, most of the day was spent studying for an upcoming exam and working on my assignment. Thursday morning I played tennis with Ella for an hour and a half (beat her this time) and then played squash with Sophia for another hour and a half. Three hours of sport!!! For the rest of the day my shoulder was very sore and exhausted. I spent the afternoon working on my assignment.

At 9pm, I left with 5 of the girls on my floor for St Catharine’s biggest All Ages Halloween party at the Barracuda club. I dressed up as Aussie-man with my Aussie flag as my cape. It was pretty crazy. There were so many people at the club. And all the girls were wearing the skimpiest Halloween costumes imaginable. There were a lot of seedy guys there as well and I had to come to the rescue of a few of the girls on my floor from being grinded on. It was pretty cool seeing all the costumes but it wasn’t really my scene.

We got back to res around 130. Then a bunch of us went to McDonalds where we had to line up for about an hour because there were so many people there at 2 in the morning!

Slept in the next morning. Went to c4c bible study with Jaime, Mike and Tyler. I did some more study, went to Merge which was run by bcf and it was focused around worship. Straight after merge, Burgers and Hilary from Guelph came to visit. It was great hanging out with them, catching up over some dinner. Then we dressed up in some Halloween costumes (this time I was a fat lady) and went wandering around town. It was hilarious as Burgers dressed up as a ninja and got up to some ninja antics that we caught on camera. It was hilarious!

Spent about an hour at Tim Hortons, eating and chatting at 1am. Then watched a movie before hitting the hay. Burgers and I slept in the lounge room while Hilary slept in my bed. It was amazing how comfortable the couches were to sleep on! Probably more comfortable than my bed!

On Saturday, we slept in until the pm came about. Then grabbed some food. Said goodbye to my good friends, then went with Leanne and watched the Brock Mens Rugby game (win) and womens volleyball game (win).

My time here at Brock is just about half over. I have done many things already but still my time has flown by and I realise that I need to get out there and do as much as I can in the time that I have!

Brock Week 6

On Saturday night I went to a birthday party over in the village part of campus which is a more apartment style residences. It was Jess’ (one of the Aussie girls) birthday party. So we hung out there for the night. Played some poker, which was won by yours truly. Either I am getting much better at poker, or Canadians are pretty useless at it. A late night visit to McDonalds which are now having the much loved promotion of monopoly! Instant winner right here! Free pancakes!

The next morning I woke up bright and early to go with Josh, Kristen and Anne to Central Community Church. It was a really cool church. Very contempory. They broadcast all their services to other locations in movie theatres around St Catharines. The music was really great as well, sounded like a recording!

On Sunday afternoon we had ‘deep talks’ (weekly event that is pretty self explanatory) with some people on our floor, then all of our floor participated with a bunch of other people from Brock residences in the Don hunt. We dressed up and ran around finding all the Dons from the different residences. It was pretty fun.

On Sunday night I studied for the midterm exam I had the next morning. The exam arrived bright and early, it wasn’t too bad, but they had a heap of questions that were completely irrelevant and trivial and were only testing the fact that you learnt all the nitty gritty stuff on the lecture slides.

I actually fell asleep in my other lecture that day…which has never happened before. On Monday night I did something pretty cool but I forget now.

Tuesday – gym, swim, did some skyping, played badminton with Rohit, played volley ball at night time with the Aussies. Then went for a swim and taught sofia how to dive. Rushed back to my floor meeting. After the floor meeting we played a game called man hunt out in the courtyard with everyone on our floor. It was really fun and tiring.

Next morning I woke up realised that I left my camera on the stairs when we were playing manhunt the night before. It wasn’t there and hadn’t been turned into lost property. Shattered! Can only blame myself for it though.

I played squash with Sofia that morning. She had improved a lot and we had some great rallies! I spent the rest of the day being very conscientious on my assignment. Got some good progress.

In the afternoon after visiting the doctor about my cough, the international students had a dinner social in town. It was all you can eat sushi. Fantastic! It wasn’t buffet either….order from the waiter and he keeps bringing stuff out according to what you want. I even tried some eel!

Later that night, at 11pm, I went to the hockey again with the bcf crew. Only this time, one of the guys lent me his gear because he wasn’t playing. I got to play ice hockey!!! It was fantastic. I was terrible, very slow and pretty clumsy and goofy. I was the laughing stock of everyone there. But I got a few touches on the puck and even took a shot at goal. All the guys I played with were very friendly and inclusive which made it all the better.

On Thursday, I pretty much did nothing…started podcasting Hamish and Andy, which I don’t know why I haven’t done before, and I went to the gym. At night at 7 we had our Bible study with bcf. We moved it to our lounge room on Earp because all the library rooms were taken. After Bible study as I was walking into the elevator to skype dad about buying a new camera, I got a text from Andrew saying that he knew the guy who had my camera. It was such an answer to prayer!!! Perfect timing as well! Just as I am about to get a new one. Praise the Lord!

On Friday, I played tennis with Andrew in the morning – I beat him two to one but it was a great game! Watched some All Aussie adventures with him. At 1 I went to the C4C bible study with the boys which was good as usual. Then I went and hung out with Lyndall and Sofia for a while. That night I went to a drama presentation/show full of little drama skits. One of the girls on our floor Holly was in it so a bunch of us from the floor went along to support. After that, I bought a snowboard online, and hung out with people from my floor. I even met some people from the floor below which was cool.

Another week done, the time is flying by so quickly. With some of the spare time on my hands I made a video for upcoming halloween...

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/jligSlqfVE2xUFHJ

Brock Week 5

Jon, Dylan (brother), Becca (sister) and I all slept the whole ride to his cottage. Arrived at his cottage which was beautiful! Right on the lake, beautiful views. We spent some time relaxing. Then Dylan, Jon and I went exploring up the road. We climbed up a ridge and looked out over the cliff and lake. It was nice just to relax up there. Then when we came back, we put the wetsuits on and took his boat out. Dylan, Jon and I all had a turn, but the water was freezing! I only had one run. When I fell in, I got out because the cold was numbing. I have realised I have become a bit fussy with my wakes. Jon’s boat put out an okay wake but now I am used to riding on the big wakes of the nautiques.

That night, after a lovely dinner, we watched Get him to the Greek with the family. I spent a lot of time getting my video working again. It has been the bane of my existence!

Sunday morning held a lengthy sleep-in. Breakfast out on the veranda at 12 noon. In the afternoon, we did some more skiing, behind the tinny. Jon had made his own kicker/jump and we just kept doing that! It was really fun. I even learnt a new trick on it (roll to revert), but couldn’t ride away from it. I also got to try his no foot ski which is basically just a plank of wood. It took me a few tries to get up but eventually I did and had a great ride.

On Sunday night, which was officially thanksgiving, we went to their neighbours cottage where a few family’s would share a big feast. It was fantastic – turkey, veges and best of all - STUFFING! The food was great, and we played some games of darts, foosball, and table tennis down in their basement. The other people were very friendly as well. That night I stayed up till 330 finishing the video….finally!

Slept in again, and then helped the McTavish’s pack up the cottage and yard in preparation for the winter. Something that we don’t have to worry about back home. I did some study on the drive back home.

That night I stayed at Jon’s house in his basement, where I did some skyping, relaxing as well as study for the midterm I had the next day. The next morning, Jon’s dad Robby drove me back to Brock which was very nice. He had a golf game in Niagara which was close by. I did my midterm which turned out to be the easiest test I have done at university. It was ridiculous! And my only class for the whole week. Sweeet.

For the rest of the week the days mesh in together and are hard to distinguish from each other. So I will just give you some of the highlights.

I went swimming twice in the pool to do some laps, plus one night went with people from my floor and we played brandy and volleyball. I went to the gym a couple of times. I had 2 visits to the athletic therapist who worked on both my wrist and shoulder.

I played tennis with a friend named Ella, who used to play nationals in Canada, so she gave me a talking to haha. Also played squash with Sofia, it was more teaching than playing. On Tuesday night we had our Aussie team intermural volleyball games. Our first one we got flogged in, but the second game we came back from about 15 down to win by one point right on the buzzer. It was very exciting.

I went to the bcf bible study on Thursday night which looked at the temptations of Jesus, and then on Friday morning I went to the campus for Christ bible group which looked at Peter’s first miracle.

One day at lunchtime I caught up with a friend Tyler for lunch and then we went to his room in Valley (residence next door) and he had a bongo, guitar and keyboard, so we jammed for a bit.

I had an emotional rollercoaster where my hard drive crashed, which contained all my photos, all my videos and all my music. I was quite upset and angry. But then after some prayer, the next day I figured out how to get it back and running which was such a blessing. I also figured out why my summer camp video wasn’t exporting properly and fixed that up.

On Friday night, I went to merge which was a bcf church type thing. It was pretty cool to hang out with some more Christians. Josh and I had to leave it a little bit early, because he was having people over at his house from muskoka woods. A reunion. It was fantastic! We had burgers, played some table tennis, watched some YouTube and played ‘things in a box’.

Sabbath morning sleep-in (You guys don’t need to worry about me having a lack of sleep here!). I replied to some emails and did some relaxing. I went for a walk along the escarpment with some of the people from my floor which was very pretty seeing all the autumn colours and getting outside in the great outdoors.

I have a new favourite thing to eat in the cafeteria – and that is waffles. You make your own in the press, and they have hot jam, cream and hot chocolate syrup to smother it in. mmmm.

The week involved a few skypes back home which was pleasant despite making me somewhat homesick. Still enjoying it here though. Please do send me emails and/or skype me. I love hearing from and seeing everyone!