Sanders Family Australian Adventures

 Easter April 17, 2022 Caitlyn~     When we woke up our parents were in the living room, they said you can only get 15 eggs each and you each have a big basket for yourself. We looked around and eventually I got 15 and Lauren was at 14, and while we were looking for the last egg I found my basket. It had some candy, a chocolate bunny, a chocolate koala, and an Oodie (a very fuzzy pull-over thing). We gave up on finding the last egg and had candy for breakfast, then played Minecraft. Then eat one point my mom was like "I found it!" and it was on the thermostat, "I was going to see what the temperature was then I found it," she said. We all felt a little stupid we didn't see it because it was so easy to spot. After all that we went to the Old Bus Depot Markets, and got some very cool things and food.  Then I got a brownie and Lauren got an Ice-Cone thing with the Blue Raspberry, grape, and cherry flavors. Also we got 5 cannoli's.   Then we dropped off our stuf

Date: April 16 2022 Where: Australia This is week two of being in Australia. Here are some words that are different in Australia:  US word= Australian word Jello = jelly in Australia  Jelly = jam in Australia  Chips = crips in Australia  French fries = chips in Australia  Ketchup = tomato sauce in Australia  4th grade = year four in Australia  We tried Vegemite. In our opinion it was not good. It reminded me of tomato soup, in a bad way. We also tried meat pie. Meat pie is like pie but replace the inside, with meat. My mom and my sister liked it and I thought it was okay. We tried it at this restaurant called Sonoma. I tried a almond croissant there and it was amazing.   We saw a big kangaroo in our neighborhood we named Big Jim.  There was this obstacle corse. It was blown up like a bouncy house. It was very fun, and we also went down these giant also blown up slides, which we went down. It was only two weeks, and it was called Tuffnutterz.  We went to the parliament house and walked

 Our Second week here got off to a bit of rough start as poor Caitlyn caught some sort of stomach bug. I fear this is just the beginning of all the bugs we may catch as they have a different crop of them down here AND we've spent the last two years mostly with ourselves or masked and distanced from everyone due to Covid. Despite the fact that covid is everywhere here at the moment, mask usage is not high here. Though, in their defense, something like 98% of all adults in Canberra have been vaccinated. Kids under 12 have a lower vaccination rate, but I think still higher than kids under 12 in the U.S. I'm undecided about how masked I think we should be. We are heading into winter here, so the likelihood that people will be passing winter bugs is higher. But, I'm not sure we can wear masks forever, and there isn't much more people can do if almost everyone is vaccinated.  Because winter is coming, we are actually set to get our Southern Hemisphere flu shots the day the gi

 We have officially been in Australia for a week and two days.  I think we are just starting to get into a rhythm. But we are all still a bit tired. Many people have said that it takes a couple of weeks to really adjust. The first night here we were all so tired that we passed out and slept basically all night, but the rest of the week we've been waking up around 3 or 4 am.  I think this morning was one of the first where everyone slept past 630am.   We had hoped to get out and see and do some fun things in the first week, but it rained most of the week, and there were just so many not fun things on the to-do list. We did a ton (TON) of shopping, we went into the office to do some check ins, we researched, shopped for, and bought a car, registered the car, got drivers licenses, got the girls fitted for their new uniforms, etc. etc. Here are some observations from the first week: Shopping Though we came here with a total of 16 bags, there was still a lot of stuff we needed. Our fast

 Shannon here.   We arrived at our new house in the afternoon on 2 April.  I made the mistake of not taking photos before we have emptied our suitcases and right now the house is a bit of mess, so you will only be seeing pictures of the outside and a few rooms that are currently presentable.  :) Our new house is in the suburb called Isaacs. We are close to the Isaacs Ridge Nature Preserve.  We have yet to go see it because frankly we've just been too busy trying to make sure we have things in the house like toilet paper and other necessities.   Here are some pictures of our new place: Our new house and new (to us) car Front door formal living and dining room other view of living room Caitlyn's new room The magpie that visits Caitlyn the backyard bird feeder full of bird seed that is supposed to attract "beautiful birds" we have a lemon tree The house is bigger than it looked in person.  The girls rooms are smaller than they had in Maryland, but it  will be fine.  We w

 Caitlyn~ April 1st (Australia time)  The driver in the big taxi dropped us off at the hotel but it was weird driving on the other side of the road, and the steering wheel was on the other side. When we arrived to the hotel, the person at the front desk said we couldn’t check in yet. Before we could do anything or go anywhere, we had to take Covid tests.  Thankfully we could take rapid covid test (they call them RATs here). We brought some with us to take at the hotel.  We were all negative, so we could leave the hotel. So, we went to the park and it had a very cool net part with a slide going down:  We spent a while climbing around on it, then we went to get lunch. The rest of the time we walked around. Then a little while later we signed in to our hotel room. Here is the hotel lobby, it was called Alina: We got a 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms, we had a kitchen, a living room, a balcony, and a little dinning room table. Me and Lauren shared a little room with a desk and 2 twin beds, it wasn

 Lauren  ~ April 8 March 30: On March 30th we arrived at the airport. We had so much luggage, I was astonished when it fit into the rental car perfectly. All our luggage in the back of the rental car Almost to the airport When we got there we were five hours early and our dad dropped us off to return the rental car, so we waited for him to come back. When he came he came back we checked our bags. Then we went into a bus and drove to our gate. Once we got there we went through security. We didn’t have to wait very long. Then our dad signed us into the club. We got lunch there and found good seats. We stayed there for a while and took a occasional walking breaks.  Walking break at Dulles Airport Then it was time to go to our gate. We got dinner and ate at the gate. Then it was time to board. We waited in a line until finally we got on the plane. We found our seats and sat down. After maybe 50 minutes our first plane to San Francisco took off. The plane ride to San Francisco took about 6

 March 30th Caitlyn                         Today is our last day living in our hotel. Around noon today we have to start driving to Dulles  Airport. Our hotel is about 1-1 1/2 hours away so we have a little car ride. We have to arrive to the airport 5 hours early! And the plane leaves around 6:00pm (Maryland time), so when we get on the plane ride we go from Virginia (the Dulles airport) to San Francisco (SFO). Then we wait there for a few hours, and our Dad got us into the club (where they will give us food and nicer seats will we wait). And we get on the plane to SFO, which is about 5 or 6 hours long. Next we would wait to board the plane to SYD and probably walk around a lot. Then we will board out plane to SYD, which is about 14 hours long! When we arrive it will about 8 or 9 am Sydney time and we will stay in a hotel for about one day till we get a rental car. Once we do we can drive to our house in Canberra. I’m so excited to see our new house in person. The only hard thing (oth