Tocal weekend

I spent my last weekend in Tocal because we had a Rotary meeting there. The last one was only for inbounds, but this time we met also outbounds. Inbound student is the term for people who are coming to country, and outbound is the word for the people travelling to other countries.  So I am an outbound to Finland, but here I'm an inbound student.

The meeting started in Saturday and ended on Sunday so it was shorter than last time.  There was still a lot to do:

SATURDAY:

6.00 Early wake-up call because of packing  (Maybe I should have done that last night... :D)

7.30 Rotarian from my club picked me up

8.30 Registration in Tocal college

9.00 Introductions and welcome speeches

9.45 Lesson about living in Aussie homes, attending school and travelling = The subject of these lessons is always the same; just talking about rules and regulations

10.30 Morning tea

10.45 Lesson about police matters = One Rotarian is a policeman so he was telling us about Australian laws compared to Rotary rules

11.15 Lesson about illnesses and medical issues = Insurance stuff; surprise, surprise...

11.45 Country group discussion = Scandinavian people talking about our lives here and back home.  These discussions were, in my opinion, clearly the best  parts of our weekend.

12.30 Lunch

13.30 Group photos

Picture above by George Konz

14.00 Guided activities and speech preparation = Chilling out...

15.30 Afternoon tea

15.45 Lesson about personal issues = We were just rating our time here and telling what is good at the moment and if there's problems somewhere

16.30 Physical activities outside = We were trying to throw a ball to a bucket, hard!

17.00 Free time = Inbounds and outbounds got to know each other a bit

18.00 Dinner = The best dinner in a while!!! I met a guy who has been an exchange student in Finland, so we were having our private conversation; half in Finnish, half in English.  It was unbelievably hard for me to speak Finnish so I changed to English quite a few times; maybe it was just because I couldn't be sure how good Finnish speaker he was.  Anyway, the high light of my weekend! :)

19.00 Bush dance = What can I say. Other people didn't maybe had that much fun, but I and my constantly changing dance partner were doing it with a full heart, so at least it was a good workout for my abs because of that never ending laughing :DD

23.00 Lights out = Didn't really affect to us; we just went outside and talked... :D

SUNDAY:

6.30 Rise and shine = Always the same thing.  This time I was so tired that I was laying in by bed 'till seven o'clock though :DD

7.30 Chapel = The reason why we woke up way too early

8.00 Breakfast

9.00 The day's program

9.30 Country group discussions = Same than on Saturday

10.00 Facts about Australia = Nice little quiz and more advice about how to avoid snakes

10.45 Morning tea

11.00 Speech presentations to parents = I failed again.  It should be really easy to talk about yourself for three minutes in other language even without planning, but no.  Actually it wasn't as bad as last time, but people just started clapping so I had to leave.  I can make it sound really bad, can't I? :D

12.00 Capricorn ramble = More information about our safari.  The price is 3400 AUD (ouch), but the route is 10000 kilometers, so I bet you end up having great time and seeing a lot more than you otherwise would!

12.30 Final comments

12.45 Lunch

13.15 Goodbyes = We were in hurry to going skiing, so I left as quickly as I could.  I don't see the reason to take a photo with every single person in the room, because we see each other constantly

Writing about our ski trip tomorrow,

Liisa