Fremantle, WA

This weekend was awesome! I am so happy that we were able to take the trip down to Fremantle and do some touristy things and sightseeing! On Saturday, I went with Tracy to Monique’s last net ball game of the season. Sadly, the Chippettes (Monique’s team) lost but they played a great game against a hard team! Everyone speaks so proper down here and whenever the girls made a good shot or something, the parents say, “well done!” A few times, I had the urge to say, “Nice, good one!” J After we finished her game and she got her medal for the season, we went to the train station to pick up Erin for our big weekend! Monique stayed with Catie’s host family because their son, Luke, was having a birthday party! He is the cutest thing ever and I hate that we missed his party! When I first was getting to know him, Catie told me to ask him what his nick name was. He told me that it was Sticks and when I asked him how he got it he said, “I gave it to myself because I am really skinny” haha Anyway, we picked up Catie and Catherine and then we were off like a herd of turtles!

We got to Tracy’s friend Tess’s house around 2:30 and it was perfect timing for us to make it to the Fremantle Prison for a tour. I believe it is the oldest building in Western Australia and it was in operation for almost 140 years but closed down in 1991. It was very interesting to hear about everything that went on there and I can’t wait to post pictures.  Then we went to the Markets and I saw lots of cool stuff there too. They had the didgeridoos and I asked the guy if it was illegal for women to play and he sort of laughed and said that it may be in different aboriginal tribes but now-a-days white people can play them too.  The markets reminded me of when I went to Charleston this past summer. It is crazy how different parts of Perth remind me of the states. Fremantle is sort of known as the hippy town so it was just my cup of tea to check out all the booths to see what people were selling. I didn’t buy anything yesterday but I hope to go back and get some presents to bring back with me! After we walked around the town we met up with Tracy and Tess at Little Creatures. It is a brewery and a restaurant on the water. I usually do not like the taste of beer but I really liked the one that I ordered, I think it was Little Creatures Bright Ale. They just made up a new one this week and gave us a sample of it but it was really dark and I didn’t like it at all! Anyway, for dinner we went to another restaurant and it was really good! We had fun hanging with Tracy and Tess too! Tess has been around the world two times and she is just really cool. She let me know that I misunderstood when I thought nekkid meant tired. They are really saying “knacked”. Just wanted to clear that up! But, yea I had a great night out with the girls and it was fun to see a lot of young people out too because last weekend we couldn’t seem to find the young crowd!

However, this morning I probably did the coolest thing that I have ever done! I went snorkeling in the Indian Ocean! It was beautiful! We went to Penguin Island at Rockingham and it was so gorgeous! We got to see the penguin feeding in the morning and then we walked around the island to find the best spot for snorkeling. Tracy has been snorkeling and scuba diving lots of times (she has traveled across the country and done lots of cool things too) and she helped us to get out there and see the beautiful fish and plants. We were worried that the wind would be too strong for us to go out but it was a beautiful day and we got to check off everything on our agenda this weekend!

Catherine took lots of pictures that she will post on Facebook soon so check those out if you can (I told her to tag me in all her photos so my friends can look at them on my page)! She has an underwater camera and got some great shots! I was just in awe today because I don’t think I have ever seen a more beautiful place. I kept stopping to look around and thank the Lord for His good works because it was amazing to His beautiful creations.  It doesn’t even seem real that I am in this city and I want to do all that I can to see as much of it as possible! It is the most isolated city in the world and it takes a good 5 hour plane ride to get to anywhere on the east coast but I don’t really care because I have loved getting to live in the capital city of Western Australia. The people here are so friendly and it is a beautiful place to be. I hope I will be able to go snorkeling again soon! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I am continuing to pray for y’all and I hope to be able to Skype soon! Erin told me that McDonald’s has free Wi-Fi so hopefully I can get up there sometime this week to plan some Skype dates with some of you! Speaking of McDonald’s, we went there for brekky this morning! It was about $8 for a breakfast combo! It is amazing how expensive things are here! And Zana, you can tell Michael Lord that I saw his Aussie twin there! I seriously did a double-take when I saw him! People at McDonald’s get paid about $15 dollars an hour and it looks a lot different than ours on the inside. It was more like a real restaurant and a lot cleaner. Food pretty much tasted the same, but sadly they didn’t have biscuits!

Ok, well I am going to watch an episode of Modern Family and then head to bed! Hope to see lots of comments! On to the start of week 3!

John 14:27