The day to day

We just finished eating our traditional Sunday night pizza dinner, just the four of us, for the second week in a row. Two in a row is a record for us of late. And today, Gabe went to a birthday party, Jordan had a friend over, and Mark and I puttered around the house all day. We don't have many Sundays in Australia like that so I thought I'd write about that too

I just had a few things to write about so I thought I'd get at them before we leave again this weekend for Byron Bay. It's the Queen's birthday, you know, so we have a 3-day weekend (though we've decided she deserves 5 days.) So here are some random and sundry topics...

Mark's school:
When I came out of the grocery store the other day, Mark and the kids were sitting on a bench and Mark was chatting up a retired teacher from this area. She cringed when Mark mentioned that he teaches at Cardiff High School (a common reaction from those in the community who know schools). She said that was one of the tougher schools in the Newcastle area. She completely understood the struggles that Mark has in the classroom with the behavioral issues and though she didn't have any sage advice (save for suggesting he hone his relaxation techniques which isn't a bad suggestion) he said it was really good to talk to someone who understood his struggles. Mark seems to go through some sort of cycle. For a time, he's content to enjoy the bits he enjoys and can leave the rest alone until some bug gets in his bonnet and he gets frustrated that there is no recourse for teachers when the behavior makes it nearly impossible to teach and that frustration leaks into his evenings and weekends. Then he remembers what his priorities are and that he's not here to change a school system and that there are parts to teaching here that he truly enjoys and all is restful for awhile again. Until...and around we go. Someone told us recently that consensus is the kids at Cardiff are great, until you want them to do something. That pretty much sums it up.


Sport:
We have a new after-school activity. Mostly Gabe does but the other three of us join him from time to time. There is a park across the street and next door to this park is a house. In this house is a family who just moved in a month ago. In this family there is an 8-year old boy and a 12-year old girl (both former Waldorf students, coincidentally). With this family, Gabe and the rest of us have begun what may turn out to be a seven-month long extended Australian Rules Football (Footy) game. Footy or AFL is a very weird game. It seems they've taken an assortment of things one can do with a ball and incorporated them all into one game. But it's a fun game if you are looking for a pick-up game in a park. Much more fun than touch-football, in my opinion, but quite odd. We're happy to have this family across the street now so that Gabe doesn't have to suffer in the house after school with just us. (He's getting to that age.)

Whale watching:

Yesterday we had an adventure right here in our own backyard.
Well, Newcastle's backyard. We went out on a boat
onto our very own ocean here on a search for the humpback whales who make their way from Antarctica to Queensland (home of the Great Barrier Reef which is north of New South Wales where we are) every fall to mate and stay warm in the winter. Then those who conceived the year before, have their babies and they all make their way back to Antarctica. Apparently, it all happens in Queensland. This whale watching cruise was just gorgeous even without the whales. It was so good to see this coastline from the ocean.







We got some pictures that I think will remain very special for us for years to come because of the vantage point from which we can now see some of our favorite places in Newcastle.

And the whales were enchanting. We spotted them out where the big ships lay in waiting for their turn to load up with coal. There were two humpbacks and when we first saw them, they were breeching. The captain steered the boat closer to them and I'm not sure who was more happy to see who. We were not allowed, by law, to come closer than 100 meters and we didn't. But they did. They came right up along the side of our boat, probably 15-20 meters away and stayed with us for an hour and a half. We finally had to leave them at the end of our 3-hour cruise. They must have enjoyed our company--must have broken up the trip for them--because they never left our side. After the initial excitement and breath-taking view of these enormous creatures, we all, including the whales, settled into a very peaceful morning of floating along in the sun and breeze with two majestic and gigantic animals rhythmically surfacing and diving, surfacing and diving. I could have stayed in the presence of those two animals for days. It felt like, while they were there, all was right with the world.

















I couldn't and still can't wrap my head around their size. These guys can weigh up to 40 tonnes. 1 tonne is 1000 kilograms. 1 kilogram is 2.2 pounds. Therefore--I'll help you out here--humpback whales can weigh up to 88,000 pounds. That is not a typo. They look the size of the tour buses that go up to Central City but they must weigh as much as four of them. How can something be that large? And how can something so large be so graceful? When I come back for my next life, I want to be a humpback whale. (When Jordan heard me say that she said, "Come back where?" I responded with something like, "Look over there, honey!" We'll save the whole what-happens-when-we-die talk for another day.)







Which is a great segue into some other deep thoughts I've had of late:

I've felt slight bouts of homesickness lately for the first time since we left Colorado. It's not that I miss my house or certain places or specific activities, per se. It's that I miss being "home" in a bigger sense of word. This seems so cliche to me and I had no idea I would feel this but I miss being on American soil, as they say. I miss being connected to my roots. And most of all, I miss my friends (family included). I really miss my friends.

On the other hand, life here feels very normal most of the time, (aside from the fact that we still derive an endless amount of humor from the differences in language. Jordan told me this morning that snapping fingers isn't snapping, it's clicking. Last night when I said I'd take the book back to the library, she told me that it isn't a library but a "li-bree" and that we don't eat strawberries but straw-brees. Mark said that they don't write inventory but in-ven-tree)

Driving on the left side of the road feels normal. I was writing the other day about an American girl getting in her car and for the life of me, I couldn't picture her getting in on the left side of the car. She just kept getting in on the right. And there are some places I drive regularly that I don't have to think about anymore. And if I'm going somewhere new, I can often find my way without once consulting the map.

Watching the sun come up over the ocean most mornings feels normal to me now. When I don't run and therefore, don' t see the sun come up, I experience sunrise-over-the-ocean-deprivation, I think it's called.

I've gotten grocery shopping down to a science now. I've memorized all the strange places they've chosen to put things. Applesauce is not with the fruit it is with the other sauces (like tomato sauce, pronounced toe-mah-toe, otherwise known as ketchup.) Frosting is not by the cake mix, it's by the sugar which is in a different aisle than the flour and a still different aisle than the spices and I know all that. And I never hope to buy bread unless I show up first thing in the morning. If I go shopping in the avo and expect to find bread, shame on me.

This house we are in feels like home. I really love it here. I love that its smallness makes us all pick up our stuff much more frequently than we used to so it is a neater place to live. I love that we are only ever one room away from each other, max. I love the coziness and the familiarity.

On yet another hand, more than five months into our twelve month visit, I'm beginning to think about all the things I'm going to miss when we go. When we thought about what we'd miss leaving Colorado, I just kept reminding myself we'd be back. When I think about what I'll miss here, I can't reassure myself in the same way. I'm sure we'll be back but it will never be the same.

But on the fourth or fifth hand now, I wonder how the second half of our year will unfold. Will it be a time of getting more and more comfortable with all that we've learned so far or will there continue to be new opportunities and new adventures (in addition to the travel, of course) and new friends? Are there things about Newcastle and Australia that we haven't bumped into yet? Or have we pretty much gotten the gist of things and now we just get to live out the lives that we've settled into? I wonder if I should continue to try to cultivate friendships or if I should just allow these people the distance most of them seem to want to keep and focus on the few who've really taken an interest in us.

So there's where it all lays for the moment. You are in our thoughts and hearts. Write/email when you can! Oh, and we had to finalize our return flights recently so we know that we will be coming home on the 25th of December. I think we'll have a party on Saturday, December 27th (though I swear I haven't set the time or planned the menu yet) and you are all enthusiastically invited!