Dauphin - The Sunshine City!

Hello from Dauphin!

We have now arrived in Dauphin after our day and a bit rest. Our rest days were great with a lot of sleeping, reading and "team building" occuring. The fact that the pub and bistro across the road from where we were staying was the only thing open due to Victoria day was very convenient to say the least! The waitress knew all of our names by the end of our stay!

So, we arrived in Dauphin to yet another warm welcome. Our trip to Dauphin was interesting to say the least with a new Rotarian to Dauphin, Kirk, sharing his thoughts and conspiracy theories with us! Although very entertaining and interesting, it has gotten Lisa concerned and thinking about the possibilities! Needless to say, that trip passed by quickly! The afternoon was then spent in the backyard of Kirk and Michelle's sampling some of Kirk's fine home brew! Us Aussies sure did feel right at home!

Our first night in Dauphin was spent at another beautiful house on the Lake. Club President Heather and her husband Mac welcomed us into their home and, in true Canadian style, feed us a wonderful supper (aka dinner / tea! We are getting into the Canadian terms!). A fantastic evening of fine food and fellowship. We were fortunate to catch up with Carrisa and Diane from the inbound team. It was lots of fun chatting and swapping stories. It was also the evening the big city escape to Winnipeg was planned! Thanks to excellent planning and manoeuvring, we have managed a day trip to the "big smoke" on Friday. We are all very excited about this, more so the ladies as we will now get the important culture experience of...shopping!

Today was spent on a tour around the city and a visit to the site of the very popular Country Music Festival. Similar to the Gympie Music Muster at home. This event raises an amazing amount of money that goes back into the community and is all organised by volunteers! WOW! Our afternoon was spent on vocational visits. I went to a small school about 20 minutes from Dauphin, called Ochre River, where my host families daughter teachers a year 7/8 class. I had a great time answering many questions about Australia, including a question about whether we had Lions roaming through our backyards - I politely pointed out that that was probably Africa he was thinking of and that we have more friendly creatures such as Kangaroos and Koalas! I believe I have convinced some students to travel "Down Under" when they leave school. The most exciting part of the visit was gaining a fantastic resource that I will take home and use with my year 9 English classes. Deanne developed an awesome unit based around a novel unit which is mostly independent / self paced work for the students, so naturally I was only too eager to ask for a copy of the unit. The most amazing thing was that all her students submitted the assignment and were very proud of their work. Lets hope my own students will be that enthusiastic and involved in the unit! Our education systems are very similar, as are the students we teach...!

Tonight we were treated to a tour of the old Ukrainian Church of the Resurrection. A beautiful old church that dates back to the 1930's. Afterwards we headed across the road to our Rotary meeting, traditional Ukrainian supper and presentation. Before the presentation we were fortunate to have some traditional Ukrainian dancing. This, I believe, leads us to the most priceless moment of the trip - Matt participating in the traditional dance! He truly looked marvelous dancing; reminded me of a Fairy actually! He pranced and danced like a true professional! Lisa also performed for us, but was a natural at it! To all of Matt's family and friends back home - you need to ask for a special show of this talent, and if he refuses, I have the evidence on video!!

Well, that about sums up our fantastic journey so far. Stay tuned for a blog about our exciting, off the cuff, trip to the the big smoke of Winnipeg where I am sure we will encounter more adventures! We will endeavour to put some photos of Matt's dancing on the blog soon!

A big hello to everyone back home!

Take care, Bec