Blog 1: Life In Australia

Christmas. Christmas in Australia is hot. Christmas in Australia along the coast includes the beach, cricket, family, beer and a whole lot of fun. Here is my Christmas.

Christmas for me starts with a few months prior as my family takes it in turns of which family we see on Christmas and which we see the week before. I essentially have a double Christmas. From there its shopping and shopping and shopping for all sorts of presents and food. Whoever hosts that year delegates who brings which meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert). Then a few days before we leave, we wash EVERYTHING so we have the clothes we want to go away with and also so that when we get back we don’t have to worry about chores.

We generally leave on about the 23 of December, this year the 24, at about 8 ish. Our drive depends on whose turn it is hosting but it varies anywhere from a 1 and a half hour drive to an 11 hour drive. The drive is nothing but staring out window, sleeping and listening to music.

Christmas eve this year included our drive up to Forster, NSW, to my cousins house, which took just over 4 hours, then two of my cousins, my brother and I went over to the sand dunes and went flying down them on boogie boards, went back home and had a swim, then we went upstairs and played the play station with a 2v2 tournament, then we went over to the rocks just walked around them, then we went home and relaxed for a bit. Mid afternoon all the parents went over to the beach so Jack (cousin) went over to the beach and we started throwing the ball to our dads whilst our mums and Pa were blaring music. This ball was flying about 20-30 metres each time, this went on for about 20 mins before we stopped and went for a swim. The beach was amazing, cold on entry but then warm after that. Other than the few rips here and there it was calm for the beach with the waves not being powerful. That day ended with us after dinner watching a movie just Jack and I before heading off to bed.

Christmas day was chillaxed, we woke everyone up at 5 and did presents, all mine are for my exchange, this also included 300 euros. Then we waited around for breakie, which was bacon and eggs. After that we went for swim in the beach, then back home in the pool (these guys are in water restriction level 4 so we weren’t allowed to shower everyday so the pool was our shower). After becoming dry we played some backyard cricket in the little 4 metre wide gap between the house and the fence, until more cousins arrived. Then more presents happened, more beach and pool swimming, Christmas lunch feast with bon bons and to top it all off we played cards against humanity.

Skip forward to Saturday the 28, I come home and get a surprise from my family. Seeing as i’m going away I would miss Australia day so they gave me an early one. That day was full of all typical Australia foods, party pies, fairy bread, tim tams, and so much more as well as a game of Cricket (kids vs adults (which us kids won by 1 run)) some whip cracking, swimming in the pool. We also had a great BBQ full of sausages, rissoles and steak that we put on bread to eat. That is what a typical Australia day is. That day was ended with a game of Bogans against humanity

The last thing we did that Christmas was we went up to Coffs Harbour and met my soon to be Host Brother Adam. He is awesome and taught us so much about Coffs as well as took us on a trip to the Mutton Bird Island and we went along the Jetty. Great day.

This is my Christmas blog and this is the end.