Hi everyone!

Well, I’ve had a rather fun two weeks. I’ve really enjoyed teaching you about Australian schools, sport and food. I hope that you’ve enjoyed learning about them too!

I haven’t done a lot of travelling, however a couple of weekends ago I visited Berlin. It is a very beautiful city. I arrived at about 8 o’clock in the morning on a Thursday and spent the day wandering around the city. Although it was raining, and my backpack got soaked (in other words: very, very wet), I was still very happy looking at all the old buildings and interesting little shops in the north of Berlin city.

I visited the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, which was a very beautiful contemporary art gallery. I saw lots of paintings made recently by German artists. I didn’t understand all of them but it was still fun to go look.

In the afternoon I visited the house that my grandmother grew up in. It was very cool to walk down the same street that my grandmother walked down when she was 16 years old. She lived there with her parents until they all moved to Australia. I took some photos of the house to show the rest of my family when I return home.

During the rest of the weekend I visited a couple of different museums and galleries. These included the Egyptian Museum. This place had lots of different objects from Ancient Egypt. They had an entire room which was filled with mummies! There were 27 all together and they were all once Egyptian kings and queens. It was very spooky.

For dinner one night I ate at a Turkish restaurant. I had incredibly delicious falafel* with hommus** and fresh, crunchy salad. The decorations inside the restaurant were very pretty and middle-eastern looking. There were coloured glass lamps and red, orange and brown patterned carpets. I was very happy with my meal.

This past weekend I stayed in Warsaw. I visited the University of Warsaw to have a look around. The buildings are very beautiful and I was interested to learn that the university is almost 100 years old! I also went for a swim on Saturday and caught up with some of the other volunteers for dinner that night. It was a very relaxing weekend.

See you all in classes!

Sarah

* Turkish balls made of chickpeas.

** A dip made of chickpeas.

Hi kids!

Gosh, the past two weeks have gone by super quickly! I’ve spent them doing lots of different things, including getting to know a lot of you. Thank you for all your brilliant class introductions. I’ve tried to remember names and favourite colours, but please forgive me if I muck them up every once in a while.

I hope you liked learning about Australian animals this week. I really like animals and they are one of my preferred topics. For the record, my favourite animal is the Great White Shark. Although they are very scary and have giant sharp teeth, I am very impressed by how big and powerful they are. In the next couple of classes I would love to hear which animal was your favourite, if you would like to tell me.

Last weekend I took my first trip outside of Warsaw. I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday in beautiful Krakow. All of my volunteer friends came with me and we had a lot of fun. I am now addicted to pretzels, they are so delicious!

I went for a walk on Friday evening around Old Town and saw the big Market Square. Apparently Krakow has the biggest square in all of Europe, so I’m very glad I saw it. I think it’s really cool how all the buildings are lit up at night. It looks like the statues and decorations on the buildings are glowing.

On Saturday I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. This was a very sad and moving experience, but also very informative. It was very surreal* to walk around on the same ground where so much terrible history has taken place. I went with 4 other volunteers, so we were able to comfort and support each other. Returning to the hostel that evening we were all very worn-out from the day.

That night we all ate at the hostel restaurant and I was starving. I had a big, delicious pizza. It may have been the best pizza of my life. It had lots of cheese and delicious vegetable toppings. 5 stars for that pizza.

The next day I got up early to explore some of the town. It was a lovely, bright, sunny day. I visited the beautiful cathedral in Wawel Castle and a market near the Market Square. At this market I saw some traditional Polish singing and dancing, along with some traditional games. My favourite game was one where the competitors used a broom to push a cabbage along the ground. I thought that that was pretty funny, but also looked like a lot of fun too!

Although I did a lot over that weekend, there was lots I missed out on. I will have to go back to Krakow again soon.

I look forward to seeing lots of you in class next week. We’ll be learning about Australian schools which should be pretty fun.

I’ll be sure to write again soon!

Sarah