All just memories now...

Hello All!
We arrived back at the Seattle Airport a little after 2 pm on Wednesday...nearly 24 hours of travel (even though we left Melbourne Wednesday morning!). See...we even got to expereince "time travel" on this trip!

As I hope you've seen from the blog, the expereince was incredible. To spend 35 days of doing 4-8 new & exciting things every day, meeting new people and learning something from everyone, is an adventure I truly wish everyone could have. So, for those of you who are NOT involved with the Rotary Club, or not family members of anyone who is, and are between 25 and 40 years old, I encourage you to research your local Rotary Clubs & District to see if you can apply for a Group Study Exchange trip. Rotary International has other great travel programs as well, including Youth Exchange for kids in high school, and Friendship Exchanges (I think for older adults, but I don't know the specifics). This is in addition to the community and international service projects they organize and make happen. The amount of goodwill we encountered from Rotarians along the way was impressive.

I haven't downloaded pictures yet from the last stop on our trip, Ballarat. For folks who may not be seeing any of us for a while, I will still try to do that in the next few days and upload some with captions. While in Ballarat, we:

• Attended a welcome reception for Rotarians at City Hall.
• Went to the sound & light show "Blood on the Southern Cross", depicting an uprising of miners in Ballarat in the 1850s. It was a very unique depiction of the story, with recorded voices and narration simultaneous with the selective lighting of historical buildings and miner's tents at Sovereign Hill (more to come about that on Tuesday).
• Explored the city including the art museum, historic buildings, and shopping,
• Enjoyed a leisurely BBQ lunch at a host's home, since it was still raining (!)
• Toured the Botanic Gardens, including viewing their sculptures & begonia display.
• Attended the Rotary 9780 District Conference Dinner; Dave, Ben, & Koshare went out dancing afterwards with outgoing GSE team members Shana & Jane.
• Gave our presentation at the District Conference Sunday morning.
• Went to the "Trash & Trivia" market, a Rotary Fundraiser of the South Ballarat Club.
• Lunched at the District Conference, with the opportunity to re-connect with "families" from along the trip & say good-byes.
• Went to the Ballarat "Wild Animal Park", where we saw and, in some cases - touched, local animals such as kangaroos, emus, koalas, tasmanian devils, crocodiles, snakes, and more. There is a HILARIOUS story that goes along with this about Dave finding the pouch on the kangaroo...but words on paper won't do the story justice!
• Monday was our last vocational day. We went to the Mt. Cole State Forest with 2 professors from the local Forestry School at Creswick and discussed native ecosystems, native forest management, and forest roads. It was still drizzly, so the short hike did not have a view from the top, but felt more like home to us.
• In the afternoon we went to the Creswick School of Forestry and toured their facilities, and talked with one of the coordinators of the program.
• Monday evening was our last presentation to a Rotary Club - the Wendouree Club, and guests.
• Tuesday we spent the day at Sovereign Hill, a re-creation of the historical mining town that became Ballarat. The "town" includes schools, bakeries, blacksmiths, candle-making, wheelwrights, etc. We got our picture taken together in old-time clothes, went on mine tours, watched wheel-making demonstration, saw gold-pouring, watched school kids in their 1850s environment, went bowling, watched candle-making, had a drink at the pub, saw a special tug-of-war between the Catholics & the Protestants in honor of St. Patrick's Day, and did some gold panning (Jill was the only one who had the technique down and found a few flakes).
• The end of the trip was a BBQ at Kim's hosts' home, with our host families joining us. We all had a good time - good food, good drinks, and fun conversations!

Thanks so much to all the families who hosted us and drove us around during the trip, to the people who coordinated the schedules, and especially to Rotary International for providing the funds for such an incredible program. The personal and professional growth has been tremendous for all of us, and I believe we have created some contacts (and learned some phrases!) which I reckon will remain throughout our lives!