an aussie holiday, then back in the saddle again

Hello! I've been a bad blogger, so I'll have to give you some snippets and highlights from when I last wrote.


I took an 18 day trip to Melbourne, Sydney, the North Island of New Zealand, and Townsville, Australia! It was such a great vacation and it was amazing to have been able to wear a jacket for once. The heat and humidity is still going strong here in Bangkok, so you can imagine that being in a cooler and dryer climate was incredible. I think Melbourne was my favorite city. It reminded me of a mix between Atlanta and Austin with its artsy vibe, cafe/foodie culture and clean city layout. Also, my travel buddy Ashley and I went on a "Savannah Walkabout" about an hour outside of Melbourne in the You Yang Mountains. It was so fun because we had an awesome tourguide with fiery red, curly hair (with a personality to match) that led us into the natural habitat of koalas, emus and kangaroos. We used binoculars to see the adorable koalas slumbering high up in the Eucalyptus trees. We saw a pappa emu guarding his unborn chicks, and we saw tons of kangaroos, some of which were massive! The walkabout was a phenomenal introduction into the beautiful continent of Australia.

Next, we spent a few days in Sydney, which was incredible as well. We took a tour of the Sydney Opera House and learned all about the history of its design and its evolution into a venue that hosts all kinds of events ranging from boxing to opera (of course) to puppet shows to pop concerts - who would've guessed? Sydney was a great city as well because there is just tons to do there. We rode the underground to get most places and the highlight of our Sydney stay was seeing the London Philharmonic Orchestra perform in the S.O.H. It was their debut performance and we had a blast getting dressed up to attend the affair. We also had dessert at a fancy cafe afterward and felt like true Aussie socialites.

After Sydney, we took a dip down to Auckland, New Zealand, which is the biggest city on the North Island. There really isn't much to do in Auckland itself, but we were only there for one night before our three day tour of the Bay of Islands, which took us to the nothernmost tip of the country. The country was just breathtaking and each stop looked like a postcard shot. We got to see where the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea converge, ride a bus along a ninety-mile beach, take a boat ride through a massive hole in an island composed entirely of rock, and sample some divine seafood paired with the best white wine I've ever had. Needless to say, we are truly blessed to have gone on such a grand adventure!

We ended our trip on the northeast coast of Australia in a little beach town called Townsville, where we planned on snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, but the waves were too high, so we resorted to touring the local aquarium to see a bit of the reef that way. We were pretty tired by this point in our travels, so we just took it easy in Townsville and took a ferry out to Magnetic Island, which is a low-key island just off of the coast.

I have to admit, Ashley and I shed a couple of tears on our way back to Bangkok - we just weren't quite ready to return to reality! We kept saying, "this plane is taking us home, home....right?" But, sure enough, it landed us back in Bangkok and into the heat that Bangkok is so good at producing.

It's been almost a month since I returned from my holiday and I'm pretty much back in the swing of things. I'm enjoying teaching more this semester because I'm a lot more laid back than I was when I first began. I've learned that the more relaxed and flexible I am, the more fun my students and I have, although, they might be having too much fun sometimes :) Just the other day, I had my five year olds make their own doctor's bags, which required some cutting. I was deeply focused on stapling handles onto about 15 bags and in between my intermittent looks around the classroom, I heard a group of students yelling, "teachah, teachah!" and pointing to a pile of black stuff on the floor in the far corner of the room. I thought, surely no one cut their hair or anything......boy was I wrong. Five year olds are really good at tattling, so they all pointed to the culprit who was just sitting on the floor with scissors-in-hand, and a smirk on a face framed by jagged bangs. My first reaction was to laugh, so unfortunately, any scolding was taken incredibly lightly, but seriously.....it was HILARIOUS! Gotta love kindergarten.

Hopefully I'll have some equally entertaining teaching stories to share with you all in the near future! As for now, I think that's quite enough. Hope you are well and I would love to hear from all of you!!

xoxo