Note: Deze blog is in het Engels, gewoon, even voor de verandering.

I’d like to make one thing perfectly clear: I'm not Denmark neither am I from Sweden. This teacher at school who had to fill in my final evaluation wrote down that my nationality is ‘Denmark’. Well that’s a bit stupid, isn’t it haha. And when I meet new people they keep asking me: Where's your accent from, oh wait you're swedish aren't you? Nah mate just because I have blond hair and blue eyes doesn't mean I'm Swedish.

Let's move on, so what have I been doing the past 3 months? I actually have no idea because my brain doesnt function properly anymore. I'll try anyways.

On a saturday Jess asked me if I wanted to see a drama performance of her cousin in Wollongong. Yeah sure, so off we went to Wollongong. First we grabbed dinner at this Thai place (figured that Thai's not my fave) and then we drove to Wollongong Uni to see the drama piece. It was a really nice performance, however I wasn't sure what the story was about... But anyways I liked it.

Then it was Easter. My kiwi hostbro came over and we went to Surfside with the whole fam for a long weekend. We pretty much just chilled all weekend. Anyways we went beach couple of times even though it was pretty cold for aussie standards. Therefore we pretty much just played soccer. After all it was a nice chill weekend.

And then the Central Australia trip. Which was so awesome! However the Australian desert was different than expected, I was expecting nothing but sand, but there was heaps of vegetation.

Day 1:

Waking up at 4am (fml) to leave at 5am, to be at Menai High at 6am. Smooth car ride there, wasn't it Tess? hahaha. Got our names marked off in the bus and off we went to the Junee licorice & chocolate factory. When we arrived we had to wait for a bit untill our tour of the factory started. So we had a little tour around where and how the chocolate & licorice were made. Then we also had the opportunity to make a chocolate freckle (uitleg: gewoon zo'n schijf chocola met spikkels erop) which was really nice. Also bought some licorice, just cause I'm European like that. So back on the bus again we had to shout out our numbers (we got numbered so they could check if everyone was on the bus). I was number 6 and in the back of the bus so obviously couldn't hear shit. Fucking dipshits in front of the bus decided to whisper their numbers, so could never hear my number until everyone in the bus turned around "MANDY YOU'RE NUMBER 6". Anyways, we set up camp in Hay. Not really acing putting up a tent yet, but we were pretty good. It was mad cold outside, and I obviously didn't bring heaps of warm clothes because I expected desert temperatures. So pretty much died at night.

Day 2:

Can't remember much of this day, think we just drove for hours and stopped a couple of times in the middle of nowhere Well if you have to be in a bus for like 8 hours, you get restless, like really restless which was just messed up (toch gewoon even door de zure appel heenbijten). So when we reached Burra we set up camp again. And again it was like 5C at night, so we decided to fill our waterbottles with boiling hot water. We pretty much fell asleep cuddling our waterbottles, how pathetic.

Day 3:

Travelling through Port Augusta we headed into the desert to our next destination: Coober Pedy. It's quite a famous town because of its opal mines and almost entire population living underground. These people live underground because it's too hot to live in a house above the ground. So when we arrived we drove around the town for a bit. Seeing lots of aboriginals living in really bad conditions kind of surprised me, but not at the same time. There were also lots of "dry zone" signs (betekent dat er niet gedronken mag worden op die plek want die abo's houden wel van een biertje, of 8 haha). But we had a tour through the opal mine: we watched a short movie of how the town was established. After that we walked through the mine ourselves. Then we visited a typically underground house. And back in the days people could just dig their own houses and expand as much as they like, until they reached their neighbours house for example. We didn't have to set up camp this night because we slept underground (in beds) in the Umoona Opal mine.

Day 4:

Again a day where we had to be in the bus for ages. And we had to wake up at 5:30/6 am every morning. However travelling through the tranquil vast outback is not that bad when there's Kangaroos and Emu's to look at. And we were pretty excited anyways because we were on our way to Alice Springs! So we arrived and set up camp again, totally aced putting up our tent (thanks for all the help kat, at least you were there for the moral support). So we had a look around the holiday park, had dinner with everyone, and then went to sleep (it wasn't cold #win).

Day 5:

A jam packed day in Alice Springs. First we went to Simpson's gap. That was so beautiful, but we went there to take a stupid group photo. The professional photographer pretty much said that we all had to lay on top of each other. Well that obviously turned out ugly af. But no worries, it's all about the memories haha. We went to the desert park after that where we walked around and checked out some animals. However Phoebe and I sorta got lost, even though we had a map. Then we went to this bird show with the whole group, pretty amazing how they can train those wild birds. So that was pretty cool. After that we went to this lady who showed us all the tools that the aborigionals used to use. Arli ik wilde eigenlijk al die schalen voor je kopen want ik weet dat je van die gekarfde houten schalen mooi vindt haha. After that we went to the town center to buy some souvenirs. Soz mum and dad I didn't buy anything because you guys will be here in a month anyways. Then we drove to the Royal Flying Doctors Base where we also got to see a short movie of how the organisation works. It's pretty much if someone living in the desert area has had an accident or whatsoever,they can call RFDB so that they can be transported by plane to the neareast hospital in cities such as Adelaide, Melbourne etc. This organisation was totally winner because they had transcripts which were translated into dutch. Following was the guided tour of the School of Air. This is a school that teaches children through the internet who don't have access to schools because they live in the middle of nowhere. It surprises me that they have internet over there though. Anyways we visited Anzac Hill after that which was nice because we could pretty much see the whole city. Went back to the camp after that, had lamb for dinner (ff kotsen brb), and played mafia with the whole group after. Anyways had a great 2 days in Alice Springs.

Day 6:

We were ready to leave at 7am to go to the next location: Watarrka. This was the "real" desert. Red sand everywhere. So we set up camp again at Kings Creek station and in the afternoon we visited Watarrka National Park where we climbed Kings Canyon (it was 37C). Besides being dehydrated, it was such a great experience. It was a bit of a hike, but we needed that exercise anyways. We eventually reached the "Garden of Eden" which was this tropical garden with a massive rock pool. Totally exhausted we went back to the campsite where the crappiest shower was waiting for me. It was so bad, but i could wash my hair so all good. The sky was so clear that night that we could see lots of stars and we could even see the milky way! So grateful that we had the opportunity to fall asleep with such a great view.

Day 7:

The day we travelled to Uluru. Again quite a long bus ride, but we started playing heads up with everyone in the bus so it didn't feel too long. When we arrived we had to put up our tents again. It was kind of exhausting putting up and breaking down those tents every day. But that didn't take away the fun. That arvo we visited the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre. One thing they made clear at the center was: please don't climb the rock. Well we already weren't allowed to climb the rock because it's quite dangerous to climb it. I think about 40 people died falling off the rock. So yeah not too safe. And on top of that, the rock is considered sacred by the Anangu Aboriginal people of the area so it would be disrespectful if we would climb it. However, if we were allowed to and it wouldn't have been a problem to the abo population, I definitely would've climbed Uluru. That evening we visited the "Sunset Strip" to witness the sunset over Uluru, which was absolutely beautiful.

Day 8:

So even though we couldn't climb Uluru this day, we still walked around it. It was a 10.6km walk, which was fine because the land around Uluru is mostly flat. But it was also bloody hot that day, and there were so many flies which annoyed the shit out of me. But it was good. One thing that I didn't like was that there were signs around the rock with "sensitive side" written on them. So we couldn't take photo's of those specific sides of the rock, but since when can rocks have sensitive sides..? Anyways we went back to the campsite where we went for a swim and then chilled with the group. Also had my first Golden Gaytime (ijs) hahaha it was great. Because it was our last night and didn't want to wake up at 4am in the morning, we decided to hire a cabin so we could take it easy in the morning. Because unlike the others who were leaving early in the morning, we left in the afternoon because we wenthome by plane. So after saying goodbye to all the Menai people, we went to sleep in our cabin.

Day 9:

We woke up later than normal this morning (8:30am). So when we finally packed all our stuff it was time to go into 'town' (read: souvenir store, iga, 2 cafés). So we had brekkie, walked around for a bit and slept in the grass. Then it was time to catch our shuttle bus to the airport. After a 3hr flight I was happy to go home and sleep in my own bed because we pretty much had been sleeping on the ground for a solid 7 days.

Unfortunately I had to play hockey the next day at 10:30 for the Sydney West team (it wasn’t too bad actually). I already did trials a while ago and made it into the team. We will have a 3-day championship in a couple of weeks as well so I'm pretty excited for that!

Also met up with another exchangestudent from Finland last week after school and just talked heaps, which was nice.

Anyways, only have one month left here in Straya but I'm pretty excited to go home as well. Kan niet wachten om iedereen weer te zien!

XXX

P.s. "It doesn't matter how popular you think you are, you have to wear a seatbelt" - Proctor

P.p.s. If there's spelling and/or grammar mistakes idc.