Australia Day

January 26 was Australia Day. I love being in the country for their national holiday!
In the morning, we had a little presentation about Australian history, and lots of people had Aussie flag tattoos, were wearing red, white, and blue (flag colours), or green and yellow (rugby colours).


There is some controversy over when Australians celebrate their Day, because January 26th, 1788 was the day that “white settlement” first invaded the land. There was a lot of killing of the Aboriginals as the white people set foot, so some people view it as “Invasion Day”. The situation between the whites and the natives is very much like Canada's, and after the presentation we prayed for the country and reconciliation of the two people groups.

Nevertheless, it IS the day they have chosen to celebrate Australia and the great nation it is, so we had lots of festivities:
For morning tea, (the snack between brekkie and lunch) we had homemade scones with strawberries and fresh whipped cream. It was very special.
Usually for morning tea, we have day-old baked goods (cinnamon buns, cheese buns, raisin bread) donated from local bakeries. Which I think is an awesome concept that instead of food going to waste, they bless us by giving it free to young, thankful Christians.

During morning tea, one of the guys from my group proposed a Vegemite Contest. Take a big scoop of vegemite on a knife and swallow it. For those who don’t know Vegemite, it is a very Australian thing that you spread on toast and eat for breakfast, or put in sandwiches. It is dark dark brown, and a very concentrated paste that tastes like salt, fermented yeast, and concentrated chicken bouillion cubes.
Tasting a mere translucent smear of it on your finger is enough to make you cringe.
I took up the challenge along with a couple others, and got a generous amount loaded on my knife. It was sick.

My victory plan of swallowing it immediately before I could taste it...failed!
It is a little bit soft, so it started to coat my mouth and words cannot express the discomfort of the experience! I couldn't seem to swallow it! Admittedly, I actually had to take a napkin and spit it out, for I could feel my gag-reflex kicking in.
Next time...


From there, we went to Queen’s Park, (kind of like Assinboine Park in Winnipeg, but with palm trees and no Leo Mol Sculptures), had an hour of sweet reflection time with Jesus. I laid down on the grass in the hot shade and praised and thanked God for all that I’ve learned here and for the things to come. We then had a BBQ lunch and had a great time.

Then at night we had a special dinner with our school, and walked down to the ocean waterfront where there were probably 300,000 people milling about, getting ready for the fireworks. We got the best spots in the house: we went right to the water, and sat there. It was like a cement curb into the ocean. It was a little stony, but well worth the view.
As we were waiting for the remnants of the sunset to disappear to black, we would get all riled up with the other Australians as they did their “cheer”:

Aussie Aussie Aussie!
Oi Oi Oi!
Aussie Aussie Aussie!
Oi Oi Oi!
Aussie! Oi!
Aussie! Oi!
Aussie Aussie Aussie!
Oi Oi Oi!

(One person leads/shouts the Aussie part, and the rest of the crowd shouts/replies with the Oi part) “Oi” is a slang word they say to get people’s attention.

It was so funny because anyone could initiate it, and everyone else would whole-heartedly engage. I led it once too, with my best Aussie accent!

Above is Hayley, our true Australian girl on our team. She's from Queensland, on the East Coast.

Brooke (USA), me, Sietske (Holland)

The fireworks (or "skyworks" as they say down-under) were awesome!

The salty sea lapped at our toes and the warm ocean breeze wrapped around us like an invisible hug.
As we sat at the ocean’s door step during the Oooh’s and Ahhh’s of the fireworks, sometimes we got a little wet from the crashing waves, but that was quite alright! All the more of an eventful and wonderful end to Australia Day!