Please forgive the tardiness and formatting… we’re having a hard time with internet access and not working from our own computers. You may want to scroll down and work your way back up as we’ve loaded several posts at once and the most current post is always at the top.
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I think I woke the city of Bendigo Thursday morning with cries of terror
As you are probably aware my entire purpose on this trip revolves around electronic gadgetry. Every night I have to charge two batteries for my laptop, two batteries for my camera, my iPhone, not to mention the occasion battery charge for my teammates
So imagine my horror when I found that my charger, which had worked perfectly the night before, was dead this morning. Not to bore you with the technicalities, but because the charger has an Australian converter on one side and a U.S. converter on the other – it would be next to impossible to find one over here.
Unfortunately, there wouldn’t be time to address the issue, as we were scheduled for a vocational day on Thursday. With Good Friday and Easter quickly approaching, Thursday marked our only chance for a vocational visit before the long weekend. Good Friday is a national holiday, so all the businesses will be closed tomorrow. Easter weekend is a huge weekend here in Australia, marking a weekend of family get-togethers. It is one of the biggest travel days of the year in Australia.
So for our vocational day, Jen visited the Bendigo Bank, while Matt, Christine and Aaron all visited the campus at Latrobe University. Our visits finished up around 12:30 p.m., so we all joined up for lunch in downtown Bendigo. We had such good luck at the Beechworth Bakery in Echuca, we thought we could see if lightning would strike twice. Day two might have been better than day one.
Our plans changed at the last moment, so the group had an afternoon of free time. Christine had a commitment to spend the day with her host family at the water park, so the rest of us trotted our way down to the Australian version of Radio Shack/Best Buy, known as Dick Smith’s to try and right our electronic ship.
We got the a huge break, because the charger needed a new fuse, which came in packs of six for $2. Hard to believe a 33-cent part almost brought this trip to a grinding hault.
Judy, Jen, Matt and I explored downtown before stopping a glass of wine to relax and catch our breath.
Tonight the plan is to spend a quiet night with our host families.
