Christine here –Tuesday was a crazy busy day! We visited the Eureka Museum in Ballarat in the morning. The Eureka Museum is a diorama museum…but not like those little tiny dioramas you built in the 3rd grade for geography class. Nooooo…these were gigantic, dioramas that were designed to make a statement and boy, did it ever. Over lunch at a local pizza joint, we were handed off to our new club, Yarraville, and sent back to the city.
The Tuesday event to report on, of course, was the Farewell Dinner in Altona. We, along with the outbound GSE team, the US Consul General (Earl Michael Irving) and DG John Davis were announced one-by-one and descended down the curved staircase to greet the awaiting crowd of 200 Rotarians who came to bid us good-bye.
It was an evening of fun and, I admit, a few tears. Up until now, our team presentation is a 15-20 minute Powerpoint that shares a bit about each of us and a bit about Nebraska (sounds a bit boring, but it’s actually quite good, if I do say so myself). Anyhow, for the Farewell Dinner, Aaron, our most favorite, most talented, most dedicated GSE photographer and computer nerd, came through with a 7 minute slide show of Aussie photos set to music (look up Peter Allen’s “I Still Call Australia Home”). Seriously, the first time he showed it to us back in Bendigo, I sobbed like a little girl who had my puppy stolen. I’m proud to report that at the farewell dinner, I managed to hold it together during the photo presentation (unlike some of the Rotarians). We do love that Aaron! (If it were up to Jen and I, we would have passed around paper photos, I’m sure).
Anyhow, it was a great evening. We had the chance to catch up one final time with some of our new Australian friends and share our experiences.
P.S. – if anybody has any good pictures from the night, send them our way. We were busy working the room, so our library is a bit short!
