Downtown Sydney

 Caleb here.

Sydney is a remarkable city and the most memorable place in Sydney for the Green family is Circular Quay, which is the harbor right at the heart of downtown Sydney.

This is Sydney from a seaside cliff.

Our friend, Annabel Gill, whom we met with her family in Cambridge, lives in Sydney, and we got to spend some great time with them, here with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background.

Sydney Harbour Bridge (there are tours to climb to the top of this bridge) on the left, and the famous Sydney Opera House on the right.

The Sydney Opera House, with it's famous 'shells' architecture.  Our friend Malcolm Gill said some in Australia fondly refer to it as '6 nuns in a scrum' (A scrum is a reference to rugby, whereby players from each team interlock.)

Two other pics that are just plain awesome.

Geelong, Australia.

              This is Dan and I am going to talk about our week in Geelong, Australia. Geelong is a town an hour away from Melbourne. We stayed at Reformed Theological College (RTC). Located next to RTC is Deakin University, a secular university with students from all over the world, and some of the international students from Deakin stayed in the dorms of Reformed Theological College, where we stayed. We had a lot of fun with them. (Movies, Cricket, Ping Pong. The students from Oman and Bangladesh were amazing at ping pong). We also did a long day trip along the Great Ocean Road. It was great and beautiful, and we stopped on the side of the road and saw koalas and parrots in the wild. They were so cute.

But most of the days we homeschooled and chilled and played cricket at the uni.

Caleb is amazing at cricket.

Tori kills it.

 My skills were lackluster at best.  We enjoyed it a lot, especially getting to play with students from places like India, where they play loads of cricket.

Caleb and Mohammed (from Oman) made a great team...

...but not too much to handle for this American/Bangladeshi duo!!

On the day we left Geelong, we drove through Melbourne, and we stopped by this Spanish churros place. (Melted Chocolate on donut stick things.) We met our friend, Ellie, from Cambridge there, which was cool.

 We loved Geelong and its fun day trips! 

Australia, Land of Sunshine and Sandy Beaches

Duchess here reporting from Australia, the land of sunshine and sandy beaches. 

I had the opportunity to go to Meriden, the Anglican all-girls school where my Aussie friend Annabel, goes. I was surprised by how similar it was to Augustine. Their middle school uniform was a jumper, similar to Augustine(though hopefully less awkward), and the older girls wore knee length skirts. Annabel told me that one day they all had to get on their knees. If their skirts/dresses didn't touch the ground, they had to go to the office to get them adjusted. Yikes! Also, the girls have to wear a flat hat to and from school. When dad heard all these rules, he jokingly (I hope) got out his notebook and started taking notes.

We got to see this amazing lighthouse on the edge of this gorgeous cliff. The view was stunning even though we didn't climb the lighthouse.

At a different beach (they are everywhere--we stopped and swam a lot), we caught some waves.

 Caleb caught some...

Daniel caught some...

And Tori likes playing peek-a-boo.

It was a ton of fun. Daniel was so good at it. It's a lot harder than it looks getting into that perfect spot where you ride it. One time something was off, because my top half was being pulled forward by the crest, and my legs were being pulled backward by the undertow. We saw some tan fish, that were actually a pretty good size. For some reason we tried catching them Gollum-style. I'm not sure what we were thinking. The waves must have knocked out too many brain cells. We looked like a bunch of jumping dolphins. :)

Preparing for the customary post-swimming photoshoot:

Caleb's biceps? Check.

Daniel's abs? Check.
 

Alright, we are ready:


Just kidding.
 

 Mom had a play in the water with me!

Dan is a fantastic photographer:

It was so much fun to see Ellie again, an Aussie friend whom I had met in England. We met at a churros place. (Fried sweet dough, smothered in cinnamon sugar, dipped in the chocolate of your choice)

Mom was sooooooo excited to have churros again! She kept having flashbacks to her year as a Rotary scholar in Spain, when she and her friends would go often to have these amazing yummy treats.

While at a beach house on our way to Sydney, we took a little walk onto this spit.

The head of this spit was only about 100 feet across, and then curved around back to the mainland. It was strange to be standing on land, surrounded by the sea, and not be on an island. And the fact that if you did a 360, you could see water all around. It looked a lot like the island Jack Sparrow was abandoned on in Pirates of the Caribbean.

We chilled on the edge of the spit with this colony of seagulls. The wind was so strong, the braver ones would shoot up into the sky, flap frantically, and slowly creep backwards. It was like watching a cartoon. :)

Here we are totally surrounded by water. Some parts of the spit would get down to 30 ft across.

The Seagulls weren't the wind's only  victim...yes, I am actually looking at the camera.

We met this little guy. We named him Shelley. I was surprised that the black shell was actually a part of Shelley's body. I thought it was just a shell jammed in there, but when I tried to pull it out, I noticed him all hunched in there. We strategically placed him far enough away from the seagulls, and close enough to the water to where he could swim out there easily, or get back up on shore. Caleb recommended just chucking him into the water. "He's got to man up!"

was his reasoning. Maybe next time.

On the way back Caleb spotted a jellyfish! They are the weirdest things: it had a sort of cartilage-like structure, supporting its "head", But besides that, it was pretty clear. I kept wondering how they worked. Who knows, maybe the next time you read a book on the Life of a Jellyfish, the author will be Victoria Green. The darker round spot on the jellyfish is where a bird grabbed a desperate snack, and decided he was not that desperate. :)

"I LOVE MOMA---VG" 
(A little sand message I made for mom.)

By the way, I thought it was funny that Adele, Martin Garrix, Justin Beiber, and Marshmello (random DJ artist that Daniel likes) were all in Sydney the same time we were. Well, no wonder. Once they heard the Greens were going to be there, they all came running. :)

G'day mate, till next time.

An Unforgettable Day with Friends in Brisbane, Australia

This is Caleb.

We spent our first week in Australia at the Brisbane School of Theology. Our friends, Jonny Lush and Alan Stanley, along with both their families, took us on an ideal Australian adventure. This is how the day went:

 We started out by hiking through a tropical rainforest:

Any ideas what those creatures are hanging from the trees? Wait for it... Bats. 

After the hike we found a nearby park, had a picnic, and played ultimate.

Then went to the beach

And then found kangaroos.

We finished up the day with fish and chips over-looking the beach. 

                           Thanks Lushes and Stanleys for the Best Aussie Adventure Ever!!