Girls' Day Out

Now that Chris has moved out and back to Adelaide to finish his last semester of university, I’m back to living alone again. I was thinking the other day about how I have never really lived alone for a long period of time. Up until graduation from high school I was obviously living with my parents, and then in college I lived with three roommates. During the summers I was living with other field assistant in various places. Only when I came to Australia last August did I truly live alone for a little while, and even then it wasn’t that long before Chris moved in. Now that I’m alone again, and not in a college setting, I’ve realized that I need to make more of a concerted effort to get out and socialize. It’s so easy to get in the habit of sitting in the bunkhouse working all day or just being by myself. Because of this, recently I’ve begun to hang out more with the park guides and some people I’ve met in Naracoorte over the year. Last Friday several of the park guides (Jinhwa, Dannielle, Sally, and Lisa) and I had a “girls’ day out” in Mt. Gambier. What a day! We stopped at Penola, which is halfway between Naracoorte and Mt. Gambier, to go to the lolly shop and play in the town’s playground. It was fun to act like kids again for a little bit (although apparently my body is not as tolerant of the spinny contraptions as it used to be). By the time we got to Mt. Gambier it was lunchtime, so we ate lunch in one of the pubs. Then it was time for a little bit of shopping at the Centro (hello $2 shirt from Kmart!) to pass the time before our movie, “Ted”, started. The movie was entertaining, although it took things a bit too far sometimes. After the movie we got coffee at a café and then headed to the Salvation Army thrift shop, where the girls proceeded to pick out clothes for me. They had quite good taste! Our final hoorah of the day was bowling (ten-pin bowling, not lawn bowling which is more common here). I swear I used to be good when I was in a Big-Little league with my grandma when I was younger, but I must have lost my touch since in three games I never bowled over 100. Ouch. Jinhwa was surprisingly good, so we decided she must have been the South Korean bowling champion and she was keeping it a secret. It was such a blast doing one of the activities I’ve loved since I was little. We got home around 9:00pm after a full and fun day. I hope we can have another girls’ day again soon!

Dannielle, Sally, me, Lisa, and Jinhwa at the bowling alley.

 

Random photo: The second kangaroo steak I’ve had while in Australia. It’s quite delicious!