Experience shared with special friends

Something amazing happened after our orientation way back at the beginning of our exchange experience. A wonderful teacher from Canada decided to form a Sydney Teachers Dinner group on Facebook and invited teachers from Canada to come together to share our stories and have a great time.  Over the next 10 months we have all gotten together to share the experience of a lifetime we all have been on. We were able to laugh and vent about everything that was going on. From the frustrations of different expectations, to the struggles with the language of photocopying on different paper and different paper sizes. We compared the students and schools to those that we left back home. Each of us has had struggles that we have been able to support each other through. Some have had the dream exchange and other not so much. But, we have all come from all over Canada, the west right through to the east and we all shared the love for teaching and courage to take a leap and say yes to a teacher exchange. 

Our first dinner get together

Dinner and hike number 2

Two more join the group after arriving from Alberta in July.

This amazing group of friends grew as the year went on. From trips to the zoo, hikes and dinners hosted by each other, we are now linked forever by this exchange.

Matt and I are lucky in that one of the other exhangees also comes from Beaumont, Alberta. We will be lucky to now know one more person when we return home.

Matt and I were happy to host one last Sydney dinner group get together this Friday. We enjoyed sharing our stories. We all have agreed we have done so much while in Australia, but still have only seen so little of this wonderful country. Most are leaving with so many stories to take home and the lessons we have learned from our teaching experiences down under.  I am confident to say that we all will be bringing something back to our school in Canada.


Some pictures of our "Canadian" feast.
Smoked meat on rye bread and of course a few celebratory drinks! We were supposed to have a swim in the pool, but the weather once again didn't cooperate.