I have just     1     a letter from my brother, Tim. He is in Australia. He has been there     2     six months. Tim is an     3    . He is working for a big     4     and he has already visited a great number     5     different places in Australia. He has just bought     6     Australian car and has gone     7     Alice springs, a small town in the centre of Australia. He will soon visit Darwin. From there, he will fly to Perth. My brother has never been     8     before, so he is     9     this trip very     10    .

I wake up to the sound of the wind b    1     the cloth of my tent. Even though the sun is brightly s    2    , telling whether it is morning or night is impossible. I’m above the Arctic Circle where in summer the sun never sets. Checking my watch, I see that it is 7:30 a.m. I leave my tent and walk over to the mountain e    3    . Spreading out before me, branches of the Rapa River flow through the v    4     below. I’m in the remote far north of Sweden in Sarek National Park, a place with no roads or towns.

Sarek’s mountains used to be covered by v    5     sheets of ice. Around 9,000 years ago, this ice m    6    , leaving behind about 100 g    7    . Soon after, reindeer began to arrive. Following the reindeer were the Sami people, who made this territory their home. Getting here is quite difficult, so apart from the Sami very few people have ever seen Sarek. In 1909, Sarek was made a national park in order to keep the land in its n    8     state. Though the Sami are allowed to continue their traditional way to life in the park, no one else can live here, and all development is b    9     within park boundaries. At the side of the valley, an ancient Sami c    10     is visible. Close by, there are a few reindeer feeding on grass.

Next week I’m travelling to Australia to visit a friend there over the school holidays, I plan to keep this blog to record my experiences and what I learn. I have already done some research on the country. L    1     to the south of the e    2    , below many other countries on the globe, it’s often informally r    3     to as “down under”.

I have also read about some i    4     sites, such as the Sydney Opera House and the Great Ocean Road, and animals like the cute koalas and kangaroos, I can’t wait to see all of them! However, as I m    5     in social studies, I’m more interested in meeting people in Australia and e    6     their culture, food, and way of life.

I’m here in Sydney! Since I arrived, my friend has brought me to my first open-air b    7     b and has also shared many different but yummy meals with me, so my first impressions of Australia have been all about food! A lot of t    8     Australian food, such as the Sunday roast, is originally British. Bakeries, fast-food joints, butcher shops, cafes, and restaurants everywhere provide some of the p    9     food experiences in the world. The influence of Asian cultures, on the other hand, led to the introduction of bean curd and Asian herbs, along with Australian versions of foods like the Chinese- i    10     dim sim.

Certainly, in many ways this seems to be true. Chinese c    1    is a case in point. P    2     to coming to China, my only experience with Chinese cooking was in America, with Chinese food that had been changed to suit American t    3    . For example, America’s most popular Chinese dish is General Tso’s chicken, which c    4     of fried chicken covered in a sweet sauce, f    5     with hot red peppers. This is probably not an authentic Chinese r    6    , however, so it cannot tell us much about the Chinese. On the other hand, it does tell us a lot about Americans. It tells us, for example, that Americans love bold, simple flavours.And since the dish was also invented recently, it tells us that American are not afraid to try new foods.

Before starting out, they spent a couple of days in Vancouver, seeing the s    7    . During their first day, as is t    8     of Vancouver, it rained. Despite the weather, they were able to take a boat ride out into the bay, and later visit an island that had wonderful shops selling crafts and a    9    . The next day was clear and mild, and they were pleased to see the beautful mountains looking out over the city. Later they took a p    10    hike in a forest just a short distance away.

My hotel is near d     1     in the Mission District, one of the oldest parts of the city. Many of the people l     2     here are from Mexico or Central America. This d     3     used tо be a poor area of town, but is now a c     4     for art, music, and food. In fact, an art m    5     called the “Mission School” started here. It’s i    6     by graffiti art and comic art. I walked around l     7    аt the street art for а few hours. It was quite modern and l    8    . A     9    , I ate some delicious Mexican-Chinese noodles from a food truck. A real mix of c     10     here!