Today is our last full day in Brisbane. Whale watching was cancelled because of the tall waves. We have had very good weather the whole time we have been here.  There has been no rain and nice temperatures ranging from 18-25. I hear it has been miserably hot at home.  Maybe the new tilt of the axis after the quake is starting to affect our weather. We visited two schools yesterday. One was a real disappointment. The children who were gifted were the ones who were put into multi-age.  They even had a laptop class for one group of students.  We took a look at the classroom and the students were doing worksheets online.  Enrichment?  They were pleased that they had a kinder come to school who was reading chapter books.  But what about comprehension?  Not our idea of multi-age. The second school was more to our liking.  They had each group of about 30-40 students house in their own building with 2 teachers and an aide.   Schools here are rambling.  They woild take up the area of our playground and were gated There would be upwards of 6-10 buildings with walkways between each building. There is a lot of green space but not what they play on. Their play areas are either concrete or blacktop. The Canadian group has been having many good conversations at meals, while walking EVERYWHERE, in the evenings while we are on our computers, IPads, iPods, blackberries, etc in the lobby about how we would see this working in our classrooms. We are going to a wildlife sanctuary today. We are calling it a day after that. We are on the bus at 6:30 in the morning. We leave the airport at around 10:00am on Wednesay and arrive at L.A. at 6:30 am on Wednesday. We have a 5 hour layover then to Toronto and then a 3 hour layover and get to Winnipeg around 11:00 pm. Long day tomorrow. What a whirlwind holiday. Sad to be leaving but also missing home. G'day mates. Sent from my iPad