Australia Exchange: Happy to be in school at St Philip’s College!

Although it is summer, I am still in school! Even so, I am really happy that I chose to come to St Philip’s College in Alice Springs, Australia. We started off the exchange at a school camp called Mittagundi and I had a great time there. The camp was eight hours out of Melbourne by bus. That part of the trip was horrible because no one wants to be on a bus on a windy road for eight hours straight. Once we arrived at the camp they took all of our electronics and then we were told that the following day we would be going to the snow. The next day we hiked up three hills to finally arrive at snow level very late at night. We had to set up our tents and cook ourselves dinner. We spent two days there and then we hiked back down to the camp. We spent the rest of the week working on the farm. We fed the animals and cooked meals in the kitchen. We had to cook using absolutely no electricity! After a week we returned to Melbourne for the night.

The next morning we flew back to Alice Springs where I met the host family at the airport. We went on a bit of a driving tour and the first thing they showed me was the Todd River. The Todd River is not really a river because most of the year there is no water in it. The only time that there is water is when it rains and it only rains around four times a year! People say that if you see the river flood three times then you can be called a local.

When we arrived at the house we watched a movie and ate Tim Tams. We spent a couple of days off from school but we returned to school on Monday. I met everyone and had a tour of the school. I already knew most people because of the camp except for a few kids who did not attend the camp. I also met the other exchange students. We spent the rest of the week getting used to everything and making sure we liked all of our classes.

Anina, my exchange partner has a job like most of the kids here and had to go to a meeting on Saturday.  So I went out with my friend Georgia instead. We walked around the shopping center until Anina was finished. After that we watched friends play netball. When all of our friends were done playing a bunch of them were going to go bowling and so they invited us but Anina had to work so I went alone. At bowling I met another exchange student named Tamsin from South Africa. The next day Anina and her family took me on a day trip to Simpsons Gap and Stanley Chasm so we decided to invite Tamsin to come with us. We traveled to Simpsons Gap, which took about 20 minutes. We then drove 20 more minutes to Stanley Chasm, where we hiked to the center of the Chasm. Then we returned to the cafe where Tamsin and I had our first Australian meat pies! The next day we went back to school and planned our trip to Ares rock. — Emily Bekins ’15

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