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Home >
MonaLisa News
> Australian Student Exchange
MonaLisa in Down Under
Monday, 22 May 2009
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G'day Mates!
I'm Lisa and right now I'm writing you live from Adelaide where Mona and I have spent the last four months and where we will stay till beginning of July.
I think you can guess that it's just great
here! The people, the weather, the Aussie-lifestyle, our
hostfamilies and even our schools are great.
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| Lunchtime with our mates at the Charles Campbell Secondary schoolyard |
Here we live with two different hostfamilies and go to school like everyone else in our age does. We're actually living the Australian everyday life but one thing is sure: We certainly won't get bored as we have always full program here.
But first of all let me give you a few facts
about our school and the musical education here:
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| One of the school's music rooms where we have, among others, our choir rehearsals |
After some considerations I finally changed school and I'm at the same school like Mona now: the "Charles Campbell Secondary School".
Our school is quite famous for its standard in the "Performing Arts" i.e. Drama, Music, Dance and they definitely live up to their good reputation. Of course we do all of these subjects and also Arts, Media as well as the obligatory subjects Maths and English.
The teachers are really good and we don't only do
things like "musical kindergarden excursion" in the Music classes,
but are also singing in the choir, playing in the guitar ensemble
and having professional vocal lessons as well.
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As you can see from the various uniforms this choir was composed of girls from different schools. The minis are our school's uniform. |
Let's start with the choir: I have to say, I was blown away when I first came to one of its rehearsals. It's not just an optional subject, it really sounds like a wonderful choir full of talented singers.
Together we sing pieces that sometimes even are
in five voices and most of the time it just sounds amazing. Listen
to a music clip of a choir competition that took place with other
school choirs about a month ago.
Our guitar lessons are classical which I reckon
is really good. In the lessons at home we never did classical music
(Thank God) but now I have to admit that it's just a really
effective way to improve the technique, especially the fingering.
Surprisingly it's heaps fun to play and we learn a lot. Every
second week Mona and I are playing in a guitar ensemble as well
where we rehearse songs to perform at the school's "music night".
The vocal lessons here are great as well and our teacher is a
professional singer.
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| Rundle Mall is Adelaide's shopping paradise |
Not only are we taking part in as much musical activities as the school is offering, we also indulge in our new passion. Here we say "busking", the English word for "playing on the street".
For that we need a licence which is way easier to get here than it is in Vienna. We just buy one at the City Office for about 5 Australian Dollars per day. Of course there's not as much demand as on our famous "Carinthia Street" in Vienna. But there we are not even allowed to play under the age of 16!
On weekends Mona and I go to Adelaide City, fully equipped with our two new guitars (it's two steel string guitars, one of them is a 12-string and both are from the "Maton" brand), two little Line6 amps and micros and play there for a few hours. By the way, we are usually busking on Adelaide's main shopping mall called Rundle Mall, a beautiful pedestrian zone with lots of green and great buildings and artwork.
When playing our repertoire, especially the Beatles' songs,
people stop to listen and quite often little kids start dancing to
our music. Some people talk with us and buy the one or other CD.
I think busking is kind of the "best training" because you get used
to play for people without having to be nervous or feeling any
pressure. Besides we learn to manage the technics for a good sound.
Getting live-feedback and making people happy - that's not only
great fun but brings a fair bit of pocket money as well :).
In those cases though we also realize that we don't have our parents
here who usually help us with organizing and the technics. Of
course, our hostfamilies are super nice and help us wherever they
can but we just can't and don't want to expect them driving us
all the time and organizing everything for us. And so we take this
as a perfect chance to improve our ability to organize and handle
things ourselves.
That means: guitars, amps, mic stands get stapped on a hand
trolley, micros and the whole cable stuff come into a big bag and
there we go! If we don't do that properly annoying things happen
like micros remaining in our room instead of being IN the bag,
hectic bus-hunting with toppling trolleys and particles spread all
over the street ... but that's why we do it, to get a fast,
professional routine.
You see, we're busy all the time. My family happens to be
very musical too. They regularly do karaoke singings - so that's
really bad luck, that's nothing for me ... hahaha ;). Then we give
some guitar and German lessons :) and Adelaide's Center offers lots
of spacy parks for practicing guitars or meeting our friends.
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| The ultra-fluffy 2 years old baby-kangaroo appears to be hungry ... |
Otherwise we visit the zoo to feed kangaroos or
pet some koalas. Apart that we have been to the WHO concert
in March and at the end of June, just a few days before we go back
to Austria, Simon & Garfunkel are coming to Adelaide for
their Reunion Tour. After 26 years they decided to play together
again, and who knows, perhaps it will be the last time. As they
only confirmed the New Zealand/Australia Tour we have bought
ourselves tickets from our self-earned money.
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| Heaps of sand: Victor Harbour Beach, south-east of Adelaide, can easily keep up with Californian beaches. |
Of course we have checked out various beaches yet and tried a little surfing.
With our parents we did a 10 days journey to Ayers Rock in the Australian Outback which we will never forget. Needless to say that we did a lot of video shooting again that we plan to use for a future project. We'll inform you when time has come, promised!
The 4 days trip to Great Barrier Reef was another highlight and completely different. From a glass boat and by snorkeling the sea we observed the colorful underwater world. You're unable to imagine that unless you haven't experienced that on your own.
So we can say that we came around quite a lot and got known to
the most famous and typical places of Australia.
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If the player doesn't work - YouTube
is always playing: |
Unfortunately there's not enough space for all our great pics here but soon we'll have a gallery and then we'll post the "Best of Australia". In return we've placed a personal video message for you here.
However, Adelaide is a wonderful City and we are very happy that we still have 2 months here! And when rain and cold weather gets too much we just leave for the sunny North ...
Have a great day,
See ya, Lisa & Mona
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