Curses!

When you’re in the small town of Broken Bow saying the words ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ is incredibly unacceptable. I know this. I haven’t know it for long, but I do. So you’d think I’d be smart enough to not shout ‘DAMN IT!’ loudly in Spanish class when I got the answer wrong. You’d THINK that, but you’d be wrong. So after a few moments of awkward silence I got to play the confused little exchange student card. It goes a little something like this ‘Oh my goodness I’m sorry I keep forgetting thats a bad word here. I’m so sorry miss’. You’d be shocked to know I have to play this card a few times a day. No doubt the teachers will soon catch on. But in all honesty I did NOT mean to say a naughty word. It just slipped out of my mouth like pudding from a lipless man. My Spanish teacher just sorta stood there speechless for a second until she said ‘I can’t believe what I just heard’. Good way to start my Monday.

Today is Monday. On SUNDAY I strolled on over to Grand Island to experience the Nebraska state fair. Activities at the fair include: The Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show, Hedricks Racing Pigs, Texaco Country Showdown, witnessing Nebraska’s largest pig, Pigeon Show, visiting the sheep barn and the best attraction of them all...AUSSIE KINGDOM! I however did not get around to seeing any of these things. I spent all day trying on the rides. I did manage to catch the Broken Bow marching band though. They are off the chain. Best marching band at the fair by far. The played Greenday’s Holiday and When September ends as well as Safety dance! They were wonderful. I’m going to see if they need a triangle and or tambourine player. They also had some pretty rad flag girls doing their thing in the back too.

This week has not been overly eventful apart from that...I got removed from my Algebra class because the teacher thought I was a silly duffer. She was correct. I learned to ride the 4 wheeler...that was fun. Oh oh oh! I helped round up a bunch of dumb cows! It took about 34 hours but we got them into that pasture in the end! :D It was a good family effort. Sorry this post is a short one but thats all I got for now.

Aaaaadios!

Flag girls!Wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man!

Broken Bow Band!

I’m super cool

Schooools OUT for SUMMER! But not really I just started...

Righto chico’s and chica’s! Oh yeah, you better believe I take spanish now. I’m almost fluent and it’s only been 2 days. Okie dokie so yesterday I started SCHOOL. I hopped on that crap yellow school bus and headed to BBHS. I don’t think I opened my own locker once the whole day but on the plus side the 7 people that had to help me open it know my combination incase I forget. Excellente’! Whad I tellz ya? Fluent. I started the day in Mr. Kujaths office waiting to get my classes sorted and my locker and stuff. That was ok I guess but the real fun started when I got to go to class! EVERYONE wants to talk to the australian girl. Like I said before, they have a whole lot of questions and I’m their answer. Sometimes people make fun of the way I talk but I love that. It’s hilarious listening to them all trying to do my accent. Even when I walked into Algebra Ms. Stamp actually encouraged people to come up to me and say 'g’day mate’. I think one kid said and heard how ridiculous he sounded and he hasn’t done it since. Some of the freshman guys still say it to me but once again, it just makes me laugh.

I’m taking Spanish, Consumer Ed, English, Algebra, Choir, Biology, American studies and then I have a period of study hall at the end of the day. Biology is my favourite, simply because Mr. Altig makes me go into laughing fits. He likes hearing about Australia, everyone does. It’s great. In study hall today the first 20 minutes was spent looking up pictures of Warrnambool! It’s especially hilarious watching them try pronounce Warrnambool. ‘Wannie Boo? Warro boll? Wambool?’. Hehehe. I love being the Aussie. It’s good fun.

I have to get up super early because my bus arrives at 7:30! Ewwies. There is only 1 lunch break and it’s not until later in the day. I really like my American school but the food it god awful. I’d say it’s awful as hell but you get in loads of trouble for saying hell over there. It naturally just falls out of my mouth when I’m talking and I don’t really think much of it. It wasn’t until my friend Austin said ‘Man you cuss a lot’ that I realised I was saying something offensive. WoOpSiE DaIsY! Anyway back to the food, it’s dreadful. It’s like some guy was in charge of cleaning the school and every piece of gunk and muck he found on the floor he decided he wouldn’t waste and he made the school hamburgers out of it. I think they buy their broccoli from Madras Rubber Factory.

I’m really enjoying my classes and I’m meeting some cool people. I signed up for the dance team yesterday. Weeew! Anyway thats just sorta my first 2 days of school in a nutshell. I lot of study and harassment. I’ll catch ya’ll on the flip side. Later Gators!

Jacqui

P.S In spanish we had to choose a Spanish name that our teacher will call us and that we’ll sign our work with and I chose Paloma, after the brilliant musical genius Paloma Faith. Yay!

Questions and cars.

I’d like to start of this post with a list of questions I’ve been asked since arriving here in Nebraska. Thanks.

-Do you celebrate birthdays in Australia?
-Do you all drive Jeeps?
-Do you have the same days and months in Australia?
-Do you have TV?
-Are there Lions in your backyard?
-Do you have Giraffes?
-Do you have Zebras?
-Are there drugs in Australia?
-Do you live in the outback?
-Are there killer snakes everywhere?
-Do people get eaten by sharks all the time?
-Do you have native indian tribes?
-Do you ride Kangaroos?
-Do you have Snickers?
-Do you have Lasagne in Australia?
-“What kind of food do you like Jacqui?” “I like indian food the best” “is that like our mexican food?”
-Do you have chinese food there?
-Do you have your own Australian language?
-Do you have Wii’s and Xbox’s there?
-Do you have sport in Australia?

I’m sure there is more but I can’t remember them all right now. Those are the few I remember.

Moving on...the night I was here I went with my host cousin Lexie to a football game. It was just a pre game thing before the season started but it was still loads of fun. They had cheerleaders and everything. It was brilliant. I could not understand a word they said. It was just like...bubbly screaming. I met a whole bunch of people from my school which was cool. Last night we went to Broken Bows annual car derby. I didn’t really know what I was in for when I went but I found out soon enough. It was LOUD. For those of you who don’t know what a car derby is, it’s a bunch of crap old cars in a sort of muddy arena, crashing into each other. Some of the cars even had pipes sticking out of the bonnet that shot out flames. It was crazy. After the first couple races I was kind of over it though haha. I spent most of the time chatting with a bunch of freshman’s and sophomore guys all wanting to know about Australia. This one guy went through every african animal and asked if we had them. “Do you have Lions?” “Africa.” “Elephants?” “Africa” “You gotta have Zebras! I know you have those!” “Dude! Africa!”.

Tomorrow I start school. I’m actually looking forward to it quite a bit. I have Spanish first. That will be fun. I’m excited about learning another language. Thats all thats really been happening at the momento. I’ll keep ya’ll posted. Ta ta..

Jacqui

Nebraska baby!

Hey all. I landed in North Platte Nebraska yesterday and met up with my host family at the airport. I had a lot of flights but I managed to get around ok. In chicago a woman who worked at the airport took me to my gate which was really nice because I never would have found it. Once I got to denver I was on my own though. I just kept looking for people in uniform and asking them questions. This one pilot told me I had to go down the escalators and catch a train to the A gates. I assumed ‘train’ was what they called those weird conveyor belt things people were walking along. I was a fool! I went down the escalators and there was an actual train. In the airport. A train. What. After I got on that and did a bit more asking, I made it to my gate alright. Then I had to catch a tiny little itty bitty plane to north platte. It was seriously small. Not much sitting between you and the clouds. There were only about 7 or 8 of us on the plane. Only a 45 minute flight though. Yay! Oh my goodness! I got off the plane and met a guy who worked in Washington D.C at the white house. He said he sees Obama all the time and they used to hang out before he became el presidente’! Best thing ever.

Moving on. Once I met my host family they took me for dinner at Arby’s. It was only about 12pm but they still call it dinner. They don’t say lunch. They go breakfast, dinner, supper. I found that a bit strange. Arby’s was alright actually. I liked what I had but some of the stuff on the menu looked a bit nasty. It was VERY hot. We popped over to wall mart and did some shopping, I got my school supplies then we went to the dairy queen. I had never been to a dairy queen before. It smells like frosting in there. Yummy yet sickening. I got a small strawberry sunday. Well thats what I asked for. What a got was a strawberry mountain in a cup. It was ginormica. Never again.

Today! I woke up and got ready to go into my school so I could get enrolled and get my classes sorted and stuff. That was all fine and dandy. They made me a sophomore and the principle showed me around the school which seems quite good. I’m taking US History, English, Algebra, Consumer Education, Biology, Spanish, Choir and I have a study hall period at the end of each day. Before I went to school we went and had dinner (lunch) at the Tumbleweed cafe. It was a classic american style diner and I actually really enjoyed my food. My plate was HUGE and there was a lot of food on it but I just ate what I wanted and it was above satisfactory.

Tonight I went to a football game with Lexie (host mums niece). I had lots of fun. I got to see the cheerleaders and see everyone dressed in the school colours cheering everyone on. Lots of fun. I met some great girls too. We were laughing because I keep getting words wrong when I talk to people. I said maths instead of math, bin instead of trash and stuff like that. I can’t wait to go to more games.

Thats pretty much all thats happening at the moment. I’ll keep ya’ll posted. Hehe...ya’ll...

Jacqui

Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away...

Singing ‘Bevo’ with Josefine, Matteo, Pascal, and Martina in Times Square. Best place ever.

Yesterday was filled with anger and rage. But thats ok. I got to do other things as well as being furious. We woke up early in the morning, got out brekkie etc. and caught the bus to to subway. At this point I would like to let everyone know that subways are disgusting. They’re hot, stuffy and there are rats everywhere. Bleh! Anyway we caught the bus to times square. Getting off the subway I could have sworn my jaw hit the ground. It was the most amazing sight. This city has EVERYTHING! Flashy advertising everywhere, billboards, bright lights, guy selling Obama condoms (lol)  I don’t have time to write a 2000 word essay describing how genius it was so I’ll post some photos. We got to look around for 30 minutes before lunch which we ate at Planet Hollywood. Planet Hollywood is awesome! It’s just a big restaurant thats Hollywood themed. There are celebrity hand prints all over the walls and costumes from old movies etc. It’s pretty rad. I liked it. I’ll put up some photos of that too. Now comes the part with the fury and rage. 

Times Square with Kate, Belle and Emma

Real life jonas handprints guys!

“Wrap your willy!” “Don’t be a fool, protect your tool!"

After lunch we had a couple hours free time in Times Square to do whatever we wanted. Yay! But no. Terrible. I made a huge mistake. Some italians, and Pascal decided they wanted to go see a movie and I thought ‘oh yeah cool, I’ll come along’. FOOLISH. We got to the cinema and all the movies we wanted to see were rated R so we couldn’t get in. Buggery. So we were left with one choice...The Smurfs. I hated it. It was god awful. Smurfs can go die. See if I care. After this movie we still had an hour left which I wanted to use to shop and do fun things but instead someone decided we’d go to Rockafella which I was ok with because I wanted to see it to but THEN we ended up walking to central park! Ugh! We only walked past it and then we were out of time and had to race back to meet up with everyone else. I got back and everyone had been to M&M World and the wax statue museum. I COULD HAVE HAD A PHOTO WITH WAX OBAMA. ALL I HAVE EVER WANTED. The moral of the story is, Smurfs ruin everything. Totally wasted my last day in Manhattan. 

 Not all bad news though. After my anger started to settle we got to take a ferry ride all around 4 of the 5 boroughs of New York. It was really beautiful at night. We even got to see the statue of liberty up nice and close. Getting off the boat was better though because it meant we got to ride home in LIMOS! Weew! 14 friends all piled into 1 limo makes for a fun time. It was so cool. The whole inside was lit up in a bunch of different colours and there were wine glasses hanging opposite the seats (one of which we smashed. Shhh! ). We were screaming with excitement while we tried to find a good party music radio station. Sadly every station was spanish so we were trying to club dance to ‘la la lala moochacho...chica chica...grande...etc.!’ Not so good. We ended up singing ‘Bevo’ as loud as we could over the top of the spanish music all the way home. So much fun. Good way to end the night. 

Statue of liberty

Our lame tour guide and I

Out the front of the limo!

TODAY. Woke up, had breakfast and went straight to rehearsal with the rest of my team for our big show tonight. Don’t think I mentioned that all week we have been in teams and we had to come up with a show to perform for tonight that was funny, had singing, dancing, sex appeal and creativity. We’re going to rock it. So we rehearsed and packed up and stuff and now we’re just lying around. I’m going to be so sad tomorrow. I don’t want to leave the beautiful friends I have made because I honestly believe I’ll never see them again. It’s amazing how close you can get to people in just one short week. I love everyone. I just got back from saying good-bye to my friends. I’m writing this a few hours after I wrote everything else so sorry if it’s weird. I shed more than a few tears. I balled my eyes out. I’ve only had these people in my life for a week and now I don’t want to imagine my life without them. This is a sad sad day. I will see all of them again eventually though. I just need to get rich first. Probably wont take too long.

Love Jacqui

At the Mall

Ranga!

Just another day in New York...

Today was quite good! Got up early and had breakfast with the italians for the first time. The italians sort of keep to themselves so being accepted by them at the brekkie table felt pretty awesome. They’re sort of like the ‘popular’ kids at school. It sort of sucks being one of two Australians because everyone else is from europe and speaks another language. Everyone found the people from their country when they arrived and thats who they stick with. So I’ll be like ‘Hmm I’m bored, I’ll go talk to the Swedish...’ and they’ll all be speaking Swedish while I just nod my head with a smile on my face thinking ‘what the crappin crapper..!?’ and the same thing happens when I go to talk to the Finish kids, or the italians. They’re all too lazy to speak english when they don’t have to. My good friend Andrea makes an effort to try and get the other italians to speak english around me though. He’s wonderful. He is going to let me stay with him in Milan when I visit.

After breakfast we got our big yellow school buses to the mall which was HUGE! Exactly like the ones you see in the movies. There was even mall cops running around pretending they were important. I managed to get a photo of one walking past. I spent the whole day with Andrea, or as I call him ‘pollice’ which means ‘thumb’ in italian. I have another italian friend Matteo who I call ‘polpaccio’ which means ‘calf’ and he calls me ‘cibo’ which means food. I can’t remember exactly how this all happened. Matteo was trying to teach me italian and he was just pointing to body parts and saying what they were called. I took quite a liking to ‘polpaccio’ and decided I would call him that from now on. Then they same thing ended up happening with Andrea and he became thumb. Matteo spent ages teaching me to say ‘I WANT FOOD NOW’ in italian and then once I learned he just started calling me food- cibo.

On the bus today Matteo taught me a song that drunken italians sing. It translates into ‘I drink, I drink, I drink I drink I drink, I get drunk and I’m happy, even after I throw up!’. It’s brilliant in italian. On the bus I was sitting next to a Swiss boy called Pascall. I’m not sure if thats how you spell it but thats how you say it. Like Pascall swirl haha. He has red hair and I told him he was a ‘Ranga’. He loves it. I just call him Ranga now. Makes him smile every time.

Tomorrow I will put up pictures and a video of the drunk italian song but for now I must sleep. Good night everyone! Love you!!

Jacqui

First New York hot dog!

Andrea and I on top of the empire state building

Belle, Andrea, Emma and I

My sweet view! And this was only a tiny bit of it

Waiting in line at the Empire state building with my ticket and pamphlet 

New York baby!

Shop shop shop!!

Ok this shall be a long post today folks. Last night we got the choice between going to the brooklyn bridge or the empire state building. I was pretty set on brooklyn bridge but for some reason I changed my mind last minute. At first I was kind of bummed about my decision. I had to pay for a ticket when the bridge was free. Oh well. So we got there and waited in line to get to the elevator to get to the top. Waiting in line in the Empire State building was more painful than my 22 hour flight to New York. I thought I was going to wither away and die before we got to the top. After seven thousand years of waiting we FINALLY got to the top and BOY was it worth it!! Best view I have ever seen of anything. You could see every inch of the city, and all lit up at night it was absolutely beautiful. I will post pictures.

Moving on...

Today was INSANE! So amazing. We got a bus tour of Manhattan this morning. It was an early start at 7 but it was worth it. We drove past Snoop Dogs house in Harlem, we saw central park, that giant Library where Carrie and Big were supposed to get married in the first Sex and the City movie, HEAPS OF STUFF. Going down 5th avenue was awesome. We saw all the big brands like Gucci, Chanel, Dolce and Gabbana, EVERYTHING!! Then finally the bus stopped and our leaders told us we had 3 hours to shop wherever we wanted. We got out of the bus and pretty much went insane. It was absolutely pouring rain which sucked except the shopping was still good. I got some stuff from forever 21 and Victoria’s Secret. Macy’s was kind of a let down. The good clothes were too expensive and the affordable clothes look like they were from K-Mart. I also got one of those street New York hot dogs. It was rather yum. Oh well. I still got some good shopping done. I completely destroyed the shoes I was wearing because it was SO rainy we were running around in puddles.

 After a long shop we got back on the bus for lunch. Nom nom noms...and we were off again. We stopped at ground zero and had a look at that as well as going in the American Express tower. It was awesome in there. They have 50 foot palm trees growing inside. I’ll post pictures later. That might have been a different building though...we were sort of just speed walking in a whole bunch of places it was hard to keep track of where we were. Then we drove for a bit again then stopped at Abercrombie and Fitch and had 2 hours to shop. I went a bit insane in there and spent far more than I should of but then I still had another hour to kill. I was pretty tired and my feet were squelchy and soggy and I was ready for bed. I lasted the hour though. My friends and I went to strawberry fields for frozen yogurt. I had an amazing day. I can’t wait to spend more of my parents money tomorrow.

Catchall later folks!

Jacqui

New York New York, it’s a hell of a town

First day in New York today! It. Is. Amazing. The long flight to get here was incredibly sucky but seeing the city makes it all worth it. I arrived at our campus last night at around 11:30pm and got into my room by around 12. This morning I woke up and met all the girls in my room, they’re all lovely. There are only 2 Australian students here everyone else is from europe. Most people are from Sweden and Norway. The campus is HUGE and beautiful, exactly like the universities you would see on the TV. I want to live here. Believe everything you see on TV. Seriously, it’s the exact same.

Today we have class then lunch, then we get to go learn how to play American football! I keep calling it footy and people look at me weird. Tonight we have dinner then a music quiz in the evening. The food here is wonderful. Breakfast was pretty much everything you could imagine. I had lots of yummy fruit! They served cake though which was weird. I tried an American kellogs fruit bar thing last night. Oh my goodness it was so sweet. Horrible. I couldn’t finish it.

Just thought I’d give you all a quick update of whats happening now. I’ll upload pictures soon! Pictures of me in FIRST CLASS. Hell yeah they upgraded me. Only from Melbourne to Sydney but STILL GOOD.

Signing off now.

Jacqui

First post. The post that hurts the most!

Hey everyone! Jacqui here...obviously.


Today I finally got my placement from the exchange people and I will be living in Berwyn, Nebraska. It’s TINY but I’ll be going to school in Broken Bow which is lots bigger. Broken Bow still has a population of less than 4000 but I’m staying optimistic! I’ll be living on a ranch with a very young family. My host dad (Josh) and my host mum (Christy) are both ranchers and they have two young children aged 4 and 2.


Everything sort of happened very suddenly today. I was under the impression I wasn’t leaving for a few weeks then I get a call at school saying I’m leaving in 6 days AND I’m going to New York first! Madness I say! I couldn’t be more excited though. So I’ll be doing a little prep course in NY for 8 days which includes stuff like a boat cruise of Manhattan, learning to play American sports, swimming in the Atlantic ocean etc. I’ll be staying at a university sharing a room with other exchange students from all over the world.


I’ve been really anxious for about a week now DYING to know where I’ll be living and now that I know I can finally relax! Well I can’t really relax as I have 6 days to pack my things, say good-bye to everyone I love and jump on a plane to New York but I’m relieved I guess you could say. This is the first post of many and next time you hear from me I will be on my way or maybe even landed in the USA.


Ciao Ciao for now!


P.S My host family are REALLY into country music...oh dear...