Skipping school (22.10.08)

Yeah, we skipped school today. We had discussed yesterday that it wouldn’t be useful to spend another way at the school, and we’d rather see more of Bourke. Stine had arranged with the organizing people that we would be hanging with the rest of the group for the day, so we went with them to the local newspaper. We were shown around their three rooms, rather crowding them, while a newspaper guy was telling us about the newspaper. Me, Iselin and Frøy were picked to pose on a picture with Stu, which would end up in the newspaper (it actually made the front cover! I’m a celebrity in Bourke!). We went on to and invaded the 2WEB radio station in Bourke, which covers an area the size of Denmark or something. We sang ‘Hurra for deg’ (Norwegian happy birthday song) to one of the women who was working there since it was her birthday. She later interviewed Marieke and Martin, and it was broadcasted that day. We also met Monte Dwyer, some weirdo from the national good morning Australia show called Sunrise, who interviewed a few of us. So, basically, we invaded Australia today.

Hanne and me went with Peter's bus to Toorale, a sheep shearing station in the middle of nowhere. We saw sheep being sheared, shuffled and shushed away. We went with Cecilie, a Norwegian fashion photographer who was going to take pictures of Janne, Frøy and Martine who were also with us. Iselin and Anna were also there, as well as Hanna from Finland, a photographer. We were in the bush, taking pictures of various things such as old rusty cars, bush, trees, water, old buildings, sheep being sheared and girls in silver dresses. Some of us actually saw a King Brown Snake, _the_ most poisonous snake in Australia. I didn't :(

We went back home after a loong day in the bush, and I felt really ill. We got back home, and Hanne went to the Gidgee Guest House to plan the next day's outing with Philipp (the German student) and Hanna. Carole took me to the hospital in Bourke, where they did some tests and decided I had a chest infection. The doctor was Russian and his English was worse than mine, so he did not understand much. He started to question me about Medicare, while I tried explaining that I didn't have any since I was not from Australia. He gave up, muttered something in Russian, waved his arms and said 'free of charge'. Yay! I got some antibiotics and went back home, spending the rest of the evening dozing in bed.