AUSTRALIA DAY!

Me with Australian Flag on my Head trying

to celebrate Australia Day

On Wednesday, Febuary 26th was "Australia Day" which apparently is the "biggest holiday in Australia" all year. Emma (the aussie gap student) wanted to go out to celebrate this day as I think she was feeling a bit homesick seeing all of her friends pictures and mobile uploads of them floating in the ocean and frolicking around in bathing suits.

We went out and invited a few of her hockey male (yes field hockey) is primarily a men's sport over here.....
Anyways ... we went to this nice bar called the boathouse to begin the celebration. I was trying to be funny, make friends with some of her friends, and try to be the charming, pleasant, delightful erin rigby you all know and love ;) . Unfortunately - not one person thought I was funny and it got to a point where almost every time I tried to make a joke/comment...you could literally here crickets. Emma courtesy laughed at my jokes which I was thankful for !!!!

Womp. Womp. Better luck next time!

LAX!!!!!!!!!!

Lax or Die (I know ... colors are Purple and White... don't judge)

On Saturday I got to play in my first lacrosse game for "Whirral" (which sounds nothing like Whirl). We played Birmingham and beat them 15-11. It was awesome to be playing again.

The lax was pretty good competition! They hardly call anything and the style of play was a lot scrapier (meaning you got slashed pretty hard going for ground balls). It was a fun game because they let a lot go and the whistle wasn't blown every 2 seconds.

This is my friend Beth Nimmo. She comes to help coach lacrosse with me 2 days a week and invited me to play on her club team!

There is a tournament this weekend! While I can't play on Saturday, I am going to play some of the games on Sunday.

Soccer Game

Live.Love.Lax

Soccer Club Team

Joined a soccer team and had our first practice Wedns night. The ages ranged from 17-30. However...there were 2 girls that played with their hair down.....which drove me nuts. I nearly offered them my extra hair ties because I dont understand how a girl with long hair can play a sport with their hair in their face.

I took a taxi to practice but met a girl who lives right by Prestfelde and was riding her bike home so I walked next to her on the way home. It was nice to meet some more people! We have our first game on Sunday which I am pretty excited for.

Lacrosse vs. Packwood

We had our first game on Wednesday. Unfortunately we ended in a tie (11-11), however Packwood is our biggest rival and their coach is known for being a cheater. She did in fact cheat and we still squeaked out a tie so I wasn't to upset. Next game we play against her I am going to ref/coach so I can make sure the calls are fair. We were down by 5 goals with 3 minutes left and the girls miraculously scored 5 goals to tie it up!

I gave all the girls some pre-wrap for their hair before the game which they loved. I was very proud of them, but we definitely have a lot to work on before the next game! I am taking them back to basics!

We have lacrosse club 2 nights a week. We started with only 3 girls, and now we get 10 regulars who come. I am interested to see the numbers next Monday night. The girls that are coming are getting a lot better and I can tell are really interested in learning the sport and wanting to get better at it.

There is one boarder who I give private little clinics to on Tuesday nights when she stays over. She is definitely one of the better girls, but has a problem being a ball hog. No me gusta ball hogs.

Pictures / Video of House Match to come!

Hair Braiding

Every night at the boarding house the matron prepares an activity for the boarders. Last night the activity was hair braiding...I used my Sands Beach Club skills to become the most requested hair braider. (an by braid I mean wrap string around a strand of hair)

The kids are really cute! The older woman you see in one of the pictures is known as "Matron." She is the stand in "mother" to all of the kids when they are boarding. She cleans, cooks, (folded my laundry one time), and is very stern when she needs to be!

We had to reprimand one boy at the dinner table last night for throwing water on a girl. He then started crying. I wanted to tell im to suck it up and stop crying because he was in fact a 12 year old boy...

Prestfelde School "Gappies"

Paul (Paulie) - South African, Me, Emma - Aussie, Stuart - South African

These are the 3 people I am spending the majority of my time with! (Watch out Fuchs...friends list is getting a tad long!!!) Emma took me out on Saturday to meet some of her hockey(field hockey) friends. I met up with Stu and Paul for lunch on Sunday in the town of Shrewsbury. They wanted to go out for a nice lunch...so suggested either Subway or McDonalds. I put the kibosh on that and we went to a cute little bistro where I had- shocker .... chicken, pesto, & mozzarella panini! We stopped at a candy store on the way home where Stu got some skittles. I got some sour skittles which are SO different from the sour skittles at home that I couldn't even eat them.

Tonight (Sunday), Paul and I went to a local pub the watch some of the Jets/Pats game! He is a Rugby player so it was hard to argue with him why American Football is manlier than rugby... I also got into a little "skuttle" Saturday night at the bar with a few people who tried to tell me that football was stupid as well. Quite frustrating however I don't fancy losing arguments :)