Holy, Holiday!

Current AU time and date: 6:45 pm, Monday 6/10/13
Current US time and date: 4:45 am, Monday 6/10/13

Like the title says--holy, holiday! I feel like it's been forever since I've gotten to write to you all! As you know, I spent the last week traveling, and it was amazing. Unfortunately, internet wasn't very accessible, so if you emailed me and didn't hear back, that's why! Sorry! I went up to the northern parts of Australia and got to do a lot of really, super exciting things--but we'll get to that later. First, let me pick up where I left off in my last post: the pavlova!
For those of you that emailed me saying that the desserts here (specifically the pavlova) look delicious--yes, yes they are! This dessert turned out to be no exception. They are a bit of work to bake seeing as though they are so fluffy and light, but they are well worth the work. I'm definitely going to bake one up once I'm home.

Here we're beating the egg whites, sugar, and other ingredients. We had to beat it all for about 10 minutes--until the mixture got thicker and mouse-like. 

Almost there!

Once it's at the right consistency, you scoop it all out onto a plate (one that can be put in the oven) and gather it all into the center to reach a peak. 

While that bakes, you start making your own whipped cream by doing exactly what it sounds like: whipping cream with a beater! Here's the remains once we used all the whipped cream. It came out really tasty, I had to resist from licking the bowl.

Once the whipped cream is on the cooled meringue, you can start chopping up your fruits and putting them on. We chose bananas, strawberries, and passion fruit (the little purple things up there). Kiwi and berries are also good, but we were in a rush at the grocery store!

And there you have it! Pavlova! It tasted even better than it looks. 

The seeds on there are the passion fruit. Such a yummy fruit--I'm not sure if we have them at home or not, but if we do then I'm buying a bunch when I get back!

Aside from making a pavlova, that week I had to say goodbye to my students as I finished up my teaching :( the kids were as sad as I was, but I promised them I'd keep in touch so I'll be hearing from them again! I hope you all liked their pen pal video, especially the silly bit at the end of it. Did you notice Barbie was the one starting the dance? That was their idea, I thought it was hilarious. As well, if you've recently sent me a pen pal letter, I have passed it onto your pen pal's teacher to give to him/her! They had off today (Monday) for the Queen's birthday--a national holiday--but they will get the letter this week when Mrs. Gardoll hands them out. If I get any responses back for you guys, I'll send them to either you directly or Ms. Michael. That all is depending on when they come in since you all finish up school for summer soon, right? So exciting! Which reminds me, I hope the Philadelphia field trip was a blast. Feel free to write me and tell me all about it, I'd love to know how it went.

Here are your pen pals again! We took this on my last day.

So onto the vacation (or 'holiday')! Well, as I said, it was AWESOME. It started last weekend with a trip to Sydney for the Sydney Swans AFL game. Some of you may have heard about AFL from your pen pals; it's a big sport here and another version of 'football' for them. I love it! It's a very fun and exciting sport.

The players!

The field is circular! 

After the game that the Swans won (woohoo!), Miss Crane--the other PSU intern--and I headed to the Sydney Opera house for dinner and to see the sights of something going on in the city called Vivid Sydney. Basically, they turned the entire city of Sydney into a humongous light show! 

There's the Opera House all lit up! They also had music going and the lights changed with the music. 

Our view of the Harbour Bridge while eating dinner at the Opera House! The bridge was lit up really nicely too. 

More of Vivid Sydney! 

The next day, we hopped on a plane and traveled up North to the city of Cairns! While there, I got to go snorkel and scuba the Great Barrier Reef, hike through the oldest living rain forests in the world, swim in waterfalls, rock slide, and jump into volcanoes! Talk about adventure. The first day was spent on a Barrier Reef excursion! 

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system. 

So large, in fact, that it can be seen from space! It is the world's biggest single structure made out of living organisms. 

Pulling up to one of the reefs we went to. The Great Barrier Reef has over 2,900 individual reefs. 

While there, I got to scuba! 

I also got to snorkel. The sights I saw were unlike anything I've ever seen before. They were absolutely breathtaking, I can't even begin to put into words the beauty of everything there. The colors, the coral, the fish...all just astounding. 

Even this picture can't depict how pretty, bright, and colorful the coral was in real life. 

This picture isn't from my trip, but I had to show you it because I saw a big sea turtle like this while snorkeling and did just what these people are doing! I swam up next to it and touched its shell, then continued to swim alongside it and follow it for about 10 minutes. So awesome!

I also saw a bunch of clams this size. I didn't even realize they were clams at first! They are huge. 

I like this picture because it shows what it was like at our second reef. The coral was more shallow than the first reef so we were this close! I had to be careful kicking my legs to be sure I wasn't kicking coral. I mostly used my arms to swim and sometimes had to be careful not to scape my stomach on the coral! 

Another good picture to show how close we were to the coral and how shallow it is! 

Unfortunately, the reef is under a ton of environmental threats that are killing it. One of the big threats is this thing above: the crown of thorns starfish. This type of starfish is populating the reef and eating the coral. It has contributed to 66% of the coral loss on the reef. 

Driving home after a long, long day in the sun and ocean! Overall, the reef was one of the best things I've ever experienced. I really hope I get the chance to go back there again one day.

The next day I went play in some more water, but rather than playing in the ocean again, I went to swim around in some waterfalls! 

Into the rain forest I went! 

Immediately upon entering, I found this guy. Eek! Golden orb spider!

Our first swim break at the bottom of a waterfall. 

While swimming, we got the chance to crawl up these slippery rocks, then slide down them! 

Rock sliding was a blast!

The next stop was to Milla Milla falls. How pretty is this? We got to swim in this one as well. I went behind the waterfall and dove through it! 

After the waterfalls, we went up to the top of an inactive volcano that is now filled with water. Here, we got to swim around and jump out of trees into the water! I had to do throw a little bit of cheerleading into it, so I decided to do a toe-touch into the water. 

After 12 hours of swimming and hiking, we left the rain forests and went home. The next day, I continued my swimming and relaxing at the beautiful "lagoon" of Cairns! 

And that night, I joined many other travelers and townspeople to watch the State of Origin rugby game. This is a huge game in Australia where ruby players originally from the state of New South Wales verse players originally from the state of Queensland. It's pretty cool because this means that a player could be playing against one of his own teammates if they're originally from different states. 

Think of it like a game where NFL players originally from NY verse NFL players originally from PA. Say a player from the Steelers gets picked to be on the PA state team because he's from Pennsylvania, and another Steelers player is from NY and gets picked to play for the NY state team because he's from New York--teammate verse teammate!

 Seeing as though I'm living in NSW with a family that are NSW fans, and watching the game in Queensland surrounded by Queensland fans, this was a fun game! I had to route for the blues--aka New South Wales--and it paid off because they won!

Then it was back onto a plane to go to the Gold Coast. Bye, Barrier Reef and Cairns, you'll be missed! I promise I'll try my hardest to come back to you sometime! 

We arrived to our next destination: Surfers Paradise in the Gold Coast

...and the swimming continued in the warm oceans of Surfer's Paradise! 

While there, we also got to spend a day at surf lessons, surfing! This was a blast. The waves were pretty rough at times, and I definitely drank my fair share of salt water, but it was still fun. 

Learning the form before we took the water!

Australia is world-renown for its surfing, and it has some of the best surfing spots in the world. People from all over come to the states of Australia hoping to catch some of their sensational waves. 

Okay, maybe I'm not as good as the picture above this, but I did ride some waves! That's a start, right?!

Anyway, I'm back home now but I'm heading out for a few day in the city to do some traveling tomorrow followed by a few more days here, and before I know it, I'm back on a 26 hour flight to the states! I can't believe it's almost over already--don't make me leave!! Well, hopefully I'll get to blog at least one more time this week (but no promises, depends on the internet situation while I'm away). Be on the lookout!

Have a great Monday, everyone! I miss you all! 

-Miss Probasco 

P.S. 

Anyone need a hand? Saw these in a souvi (souvenir) shop in Cairns haha! Creepy kanga hands! No, I did not buy one!

Jackson Pollock and Healthy Harold--who are they??

Current AU time and date: 7:42 pm, Tuesday 5/28/13
Current US time and date: 5:42 am, Tuesday 5/28/13

G'day cobbers! (That's another word for 'friends')

I'm very sorry for the long delay between blog posts, I've been meaning to post for the past few days but have been so busy down unda. Anyway! I just finished a delicious Aussie dinner of chicken schnitzel (also known as 'chicken schnitty'), and now I'm ready to buckle down and get to this blog.

I've been hearing nonstop about these 'schnitzels' here (they're quite iconic). Schnitzel has been on basically every menu at the restaurants I've gone to, there are numerous schnitzel shops in food courts and down in town, and people have been talking about it quite a lot. I've been curious as to what all the hype was about, so my host family thought it was time I actually tried it. I must say, it was very good! It's essentially just breaded chicken--can't go wrong there, right? It's typically served with chips (fries) and gravy, but my host mom just made it with gravy on the side tonight and a salad instead of chips. I put a little gravy on it, but I'm not much of a gravy-person unlike many of the Australians; they love their gravy! So, now I can happily cross 'schnitzel' off my Aussie Foods bucket list. Maybe I should tackle the emu next? Ehh...we'll see.

"The terms “Schnitty” and “Schnitter” are gaining popularity, particularly in South Australia, where the Schnitzel has reached almost cult or iconic status in local pub culture and on local menus." -Wikipedia

So, onto other Australian matters. I wanted to write to tell you all about 1.) my latest American art lesson and 2.) our field trip to "Healthy Harold" yesterday! I'll start with art.

Remember I said I was teaching about American artists, and last week we learned about Andy Warhol? Well, this week I introduced the students to Jackson Pollock. Jackson was a very influential American painter and major figure in the abstract expressionist movement--an art movement that started post-World War 2. He was most renown for his unique style of "drip painting", which is basically just what it sounds like. Drip painting is a form of abstract art in which paint is dripped or poured onto the canvas. Jackson Pollock liked to do so with hardened brushes, basting syringes, and house paint. He would start by putting the canvas on the ground as this would allow him to walk all around his art as he created it. Then, he would let the dripping and paint slinging begin. It definitely is not a clean form of art (my students learned this after we made our own pieces)! Though some of his work may look like he just splattered paint onto a canvas, he said he always had an idea of what he wanted the outcome to be and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see. He also claimed he had control of his work; it was never accidental. This is somewhat hard to believe because of the many uncontrollable factors in this form of painting such as the force of gravity and absorption of paint on the canvas. He also had to deal with the movement of his body and viscous flow of the paint, but those were a little more controllable. Once all factors came together, he created some pretty amazing art. Take a look at some of his famous pieces:

Looks fun, huh?

Check out this one above ^^ This is called "Blue Poles", and it is actually quite famous in Australia. 

Got a good look at it? Now, tell me, would you pay $1.3 million for that? Australia did! 

In 1973, the National Gallery of Australia purchased that painting at a world-record breaking price of $1.3 million. At the time, this was the most money ever spent on a contemporary American painting in Australia. The painting caused quite the controversy over here, as some people just could not make sense as to why Australia was spending so much money on this piece of art. Here's a picture of it in the National Gallery of Australia:

And now, here are some of our own "Jackson Pollock" pieces!

Here was the start of the demonstration piece I did for the kids

My little Pollocks hard at work!

The demonstration piece once I finished the demo

Awesome student work pieces...

Don't they look great? Jackson Pollock would be proud! 

Now, onto Healthy Harold. First, meet Harold! 

As you see, Harold is a giraffe with his own "life science" center. At his center, students from all over can come learn about different health issues and topics. On Monday, we learned about the effects of smoking. I actually learned way more than I ever knew about this topic! We all know smoking is terrible for you and can lead to a lot of health issues, one big one being lung cancer, but there are also so many more horrible, life threatening aspects to smoking that I never knew. 

In Australia, the leading cause of death amongst any and all drugs (legal and illegal) is smoking. Thankfully, the number of smokers has dropped significantly over the past few years--dropping more than 1 million smokers between 2001-2012 from 24.2% of the population to 17.5%. Still, smoking is a major issue in the country. There have been a lot of laws passed here regarding smoking, many of which are like ours. For example, restaurants, casinos, and public places are non-smoking. They also have some different laws such as it is illegal to smoke with any person under the age of 16 with you, and it is illegal to throw your cigarette butts out the window (many, many bush fires in Australia have been started because of this). The fines for both of these crimes are pretty hefty. Plus the fees of $15 per pack of cigarettes? That's one expensive habit. 

I also learned a lot about what smoking does to our insides--it was all pretty disgusting, and I was feeling queazy seeing and hearing the effects. Did you know there are more than 4,000 chemicals in just one cigarette? Some of which include chemicals found in lighter fluid, batteries, candle wax, sewer gas, rat poison, rocket fuel, insecticide, toilet cleaner, and barbecue lighters. Sounds appetizing, right? 

Here's the kids matching up some of the cigarette chemicals with things they are also found in

Car emission, rat poison, nail polish remover, toilet cleaner...

There's Healthy Harold coming out to answer some questions about smoking!

One of the most disturbing things I learned about was the way that smoking can build up fat and plaque inside your heart's arteries--the main blood vessels that move blood to your heart and keep it going strong--and clog them.

Here is the video they played on this topic. It is a AU anti-smoking commercial. Warning: it is NOT for anyone that cannot handle gory sights. When I said I felt queasy during the presentation, it was partly because of this video. That being said, do not watch it if you don't like to see gross, "yucky", unpleasant things---I'm lookin' at you here, Ashlynn ;) (I remember your reaction during the scissors part in Joey Pigza)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEc-Rsv9pMc 

So, rather than spending the rest of this blog by telling you every interesting, disturbing, crazy fact about smoking and its effects, I'll just stop myself now and leave you with this: Smoking is not a joke. It should not, and cannot, be taken lightly. Yes, it does cause cancer, but if that wasn't enough to turn you off, then go take a look at the other long-term health effects. Not to mention the smell of your hair, clothes, and breath! If you find the time, research more about smoking and cigarettes; I'm still amazed by all that I learned on Monday. 

Well, that about wraps up this post! I hope you all enjoyed your Memorial Day and day off from school! Make sure you thank any current and past soldiers for all that they have done if you haven't already. Sadly, I didn't get off on Monday since that is an American holiday :( oh well, I still participated in giving thanks from all the way across the world! 

I promise I'll follow up with the culture/language blog posts soon. I'm really hoping I can get at least one of those done this week, but it all depends on my school work and your pen pal letters! The students are working on responding, and I'm slowly putting them all together to send over. 

Also, this is my last week teaching :( don't worry though, I'm still going to play 'messenger' and send your messages to and from. I'll be traveling around this great country over the course of the next week and a half starting Saturday and won't be home, so I may not be as fast with the letters (or the blog posts), but I'm giving you my word it'll all get done! Can't wait to share everything I see and experience with you guys once I'm back from my travels! I'm sure that will result in some lengthy blog posts--sorry ahead of time for that.

Talk to you later, fifth grade! 

-Miss Probasco

PS... during the course of writing this blog, I have also been baking a pavlova with my host mom! The first part is done, and tomorrow we're going to finish it by putting the cream on top and decorating it with fruit. Yum! I'll let you know how it turns out and how it tastes!