scarborough beach #3

sunday beach day #2

sunday session at scarborough beach

Oot and Aboot Wine Tour

Last Saturday me, my roommate Anette, Dale and friend Chris went on the "Out and About Wine Tour" (or the "OOT and ABOOT" as we called it). The tour bus picked us up at 9:00am, and we drove to the Swan Valley wine region to visit 5 wineries, a brewery and a choclate factory......yes, it was as much trouble as it sounds!!!

There were about 15 of us in total....most of the people were 20year old-ish girls from Scotland that are here working. We were all very reserved at the beginning, but after a few wineries that changed!!!

All the wineries we visited were family run, and we sampled white, reds, rose and lots of port! Each winery also gave us a ton of cheese and crackers, and when I asked the tour guide, Claude if the cheese was supossed to compliment the wine, his reply was "nope, it's just to fill your stomach so you don't throw up" hahahaha....ummmm ok. At each vineyard we sampled about 15 different wines, and I actually learned a lot about the different types and now know for sure that i'm a white wine drinker!

The best wine was at the Windy Esates, and we all took a great wine home for $10. Chesters Micro Bewery was the last place we visited, and of course that's where Anette and I ran into our gorgeous landlord!!! I haven't mentioned him before, but now is the perfect time to introduce him..... Anette and I are renting a house from 2 gorgeous 30 year old doctors that bought the house to eventually turn into their private practice. Until they get their permit approved by the council, they are renting to us....very cheap I might add....so, everytime they call us or come by the house, Anette and I tranfrom from our usual mature, sensible selves (haha....feel free to laugh here) into giggling, blushing 12 year old girls....these doctors are soooo sooo wonderful! Not only are the gorgeous, but sooo nice and funny too! and they one that calls me about rent etc...always says "hey sarah, its paul....remember? the good looking one? " hahaha....ok, i digress.....back tot eh original story....

so there we are sitting in the brewery, 5 wineries down....it's 3pm....a crowd of 30-something guys walk in and I say to Anette "doctor, doctor?"....the crowd parts....and there he is....the cuter of the two doctors walking towards us hahahha....Anette and I don't function well on a regualar day talking to him, so you can imagine our giggling and stuttering at that point hahaha.....it was all very funny and after he left dale said wanted to know who he was and why our faces were so red! hehehehe

next was the chocolate factory, where I ran into a guy from my class who was there with his mother and his kids hahaha....The bus ride back to the city was much much louder than it was at 9am!!! all the scottish girls wanted us to go to the pub with them since it was only 4:30 pm! So off we went to Tiger Lilly's to play drnking games.....I was in bed by 9:30 that night!!! hahaha

Next day was our usual sunday routine as Anette and I spent the day at Scarborough beach playing in the waves....I have lots of pics and some really really funny videos I will add!!!!

grrrrreat weekend!

xoxoxo sarah

42 Degrees and no Air-Con!!!

Well, as you can tell from the title of this blog, it's bloody hot here. Today was the hottest day in March EVER! I watched the news last night, and Perth was the hottest city in all of Australia both yesterday and today. Even hotter than the middle of the outback! only 30 degrees there!

So, yes it's extremely hot and we have no air-con and neither do most of the buses that I take to school. Last night my roommate Anette and i lay on the couches in our bathers (bathing suits) with 2 fans facing us, watching horrible tv and unable to talk to each other because we were so hot. We also had a frozen water bottle that we each took turns hugging until we were sure we had frostbite. My other roommate hasn't been around since the heatwave started on sunday and has been staying at her boyfriend's.....I have a sneaking suspicion that her boyfriend has air con....lucky girl!!! An aussie friend of mine told me that in the middle of summer she sleeps with a wet towel to keep her cool at night, I had a good laugh when I heard that one....until I tried it and it worked!!! hahaha

hmmm....what else....we had a fun housewarming party last Saturday with all the new people we've met and then spent sunday at the beach recovering....some of the pics i'm posting might be repeats from the last entry...sorry.

I found out about my practicum placement for school....starting next week I will spend every wednesday in a year 2 class, then will eventually spend 2 weeks at a time in the class.....and i must admit, I am scared to death!!!! My classes are going well, lots of work, but it's really simple/practical work. one of my classes is called "teaching with specialist support" and the class is split into 3 groups. One group goes to Art class, one to Music class and the last group to Phys-ed for a 4 week block, then we rotate. Right now I am in the phys-ed class and each tuesday we have class from 8:39-11:30am and I am having a very tough time coming to terms with the fact that we are in university and playing games!!! For the first part of the class we are taught about children's physical development, motor skills, fundamental movements, hand eye coordination etc....then we all put on our gym shoes and play games that are suitable for primary children, and learn how to teach these skills and games to the kids.

Yesterday we paired up and worked on movement skills needed for over hand throwing, kicking a football, rolling a ball and running. Then we played a game of volleyball where we were allowed to let the ball hit the floor to make it easy for kids. Finally we ended the lesson by playing a simplified version on CRICKET. can i just tell you that cricket is an obsession here (along with footie) just like the hockey obsession in Canada. I don't know the first thing about cricket and I was up to bat and the bases were loaded (just like baseball) and one of the guys in my class yells at the top of his lungs "DO IT FOR CANADA SARAH!!!!" and of course i swung and missed and only tipped the ball about one inch off the plate. hahahah talk about embarrassing!

tomorrow (thursday) is my last day of class for the week since I have fridays off!! On Saturday i'm going on a wine tour with some friends to the swan valley and get to visit 5 wineries (all you can drink), a brewery and a chocolate chocolate factory! fun times :-)

well, it's 5:00pm here and i am sitting in a pool of sweat (lovely visual, i know) so I am off to the beach to jump in the ocean to cool down.


love , sarah!!!.... here are a couple pics, the rest are at http://www.ballofdirt.com/members/69530.html