My life for the past couple weeks

For the past couple weeks my host family and I have done some cool things.

For Thanksgiving I cooked my family dinner. We did this on the 25th of November, on the Sunday. I started cooking at 8am and did not have a break until at least 3pm. It was a lot of hard work, but it paid off. I cooked roast chicken, rolls, mashed potatoes, 2 types of casseroles, and more!

Glen's parents, Bert and Karin, also joined us. We had a large meal, that left all of us full at the end. My favorite part was learning how to make from scratch Pumpkin Pie. It was also one of the more rewarding dishes, because many of my host family had either never had it before or had only had it once.

My host mother, on Facebook, also said this...

"

Well the Fisher family just had there first ever Thanksgiving dinner, Lily (our exchange daughter from America) has been preparing food for the last couple of days and tonight we got to get together Karen and Bert Fisher Glen, me and Danni and taste the fine dishers, we had cream cheese and herb stuffed chicken, Green bean casserole, broccoli and cauliflower casserole, mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, homemade stuffing (yum yum yum) made from scratch bread rolls and then to top this all of we had pumpkin pie, mini apple pies and a fruit platter made into the shape of a turkey. Now I feel like I'm going to pop lol. This is a meal we will always remember thank you so much for the experience Lily Manis love ya heaps sweetheart"

Overall, this was a great experience and finally let me give part of my culture to them.

 

 

 

 

After that our family went down to Napier/Hastings which is in an area in Hawkes Bay. We watched Suse's oldest brother Trevor run a half Iron-Man, which was called an Iron-Maori. It's an event that's been put on for the past four years and in those four years the amount of participants has gone from 400 to over 2300.

It was a cool event to watch, and we all had a nice time.

After that we also went to a water park called Splash Planet. It is in Napier. They had a lot of cool water slides and activities. We went on these racing cars, where you're not supposed to hit others, but that didn't happen. There was a gap between me and the side and Suse decided to try and go through it. I got spun out! It was still fun and it was a great time!



I am also starting YMCA volunteer work, my first day is Tuseday. I am so excited and happy that the YMCA has taken me as a worker. I cannot wait!

Sorry for My Lack of Updating

Hi Aunt Kathy, I got your card today and decided I should probably update my blog! : )

I know it's been a while since I've written a blog, and honestly I didn't realize it had been this long! I've been out of school for about 3 weeks now, due to exams and summer break. I haven't been every busy, but we have done some fun things.

The other day our family went to a circus, it was called Zurka circus and they did a lot of cool acrobatics. It was about 2 hours long and there was this really cool act where the guys drove motorcycles around a metal ball! It was very neat.

I am planning on volunteering at the YMCA here, for the summer programs. It would have been quite expensive to do if I wasn't a volunteer, but since I will be (most likely) , it's free to do a lot of fun things. I have my second interview in a few days.

I am also going to cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family. It's a couple days late though, we're going to have ours on Sunday, which is tomorrow. I spent 2 hours the other day, making place cards and napkin rings (although I forgot to buy napkins...) and today I spent most of the day making pies. I made 12 mini apple pie/tarts and make one big pumpkin pie. I'm also cooking dinner rolls! Overall we will be having roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, honey glazed carrots, dressing/stuffing, rolls, broccoli-cauliflower casserole, and pies. I am very excited to make it!

Busy Week!

I know it's been forever since I've written a post, but I've been a bit busy.

Last weekend our family went to Rotorua, a city in New Zealand. We went to a luge place where you ride on tracks on little luge vehicles. http://www.skyline.co.nz/rotorua/ssr_luge/ This is the site for what we did, I couldn't get any pictures.

We also went to a hot springs place, where people go and sit in hot springs pools.


After that I went on a 12km hike up part of Mt. Taranaki. It was a lot of fun, but I'm so out of shape that we had to stop twice just because I couldn't breathe! Very embarassing!

We had a lot of fun going up and coming back down was even better!

While going up, I fell into knee deep mud, shin deep mud, and foot deep mud. My life was peeerrrrfeeecccttttttt!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My friend Klara (end left girl in the group picture) was leaving this week, to go back to Germany, so we had a going away party for her at a place called Marbles (a buffet). We had so much fun and I'm going to miss her soooooo much!

 

 

 

 

Australia Trip

My host family and I just got back from our Holiday in Australia. To say the least, it was an amazing trip. For the first week and a couple days we stayed at Glen's sister's dairy farm, which was in Heywood. It was a neat experience. I was able to "help" milk the cows, granted I wasn't actually any help at all, but anyway... I got to put the milking pumps onto some of the cows (3 cows to be exact). I was a little afraid they would poop or pee on my head, so I didn't stay for long, gladly none of them did their bussiness on me.

While in Heywood we also went other places, such as Portland (not in Oregon) and Warrnambool. We basically went shopping in both of these areas, which was fun. I did manage to find some shirts, a skirt, and a dress so overall I did pretty good.

We also went back to Tower Hill (which I may have talked about before) and saw about 30-40 kangaroos, it was so cool and it was awesome to see them in the wild.

After that we drove up to Mebourne. We did a bunch of stuff there, including (but not limited to), going to the Werribee Open Range Zoo, Souvereign Hill, and a show called Witches in Britches.

At the Open range zoo you got to be within feet of dangerous animals. My family and I were the only people on the open range bus and it was amazing. I'm glad that we did the open range one, because it lasted longer and the other bus (a closed bus) barely stopped, where-as we stopped at every animal and our tour guide explained a lot about the animals we saw.

 

Souvereign Hill was also fun, it was a bit like Hale farm (for those Ohioans), but it talked about the gold rush in Ballarat, Australia. We went for the day and got to look at the "old shops" and one of the actual mines the miners used back in the day. We got to go on a Horse carriage around the town, a tour of the old mine, and then went to a light show that night. The light show wasn't what I expected but it was neat, and you were able to learn about the history of Ballarat.

We also went to the dinner show Witches in Britches when we very funny, the dinner was great, and the actors/waiters were very nice. They also had people come up on the stage (they were chosen from the people who were celebrating things). Overall it was a really great time.





Now I'm back in New Zealand and we have school Monday. I basically only have 4 weeks left of this year, as the Senior classes (years 11, 12, and 13) have exams.     

Made it to Heywood

Yesterday we made it to Heywood Australia which is where we will be staying for the nnext week.

Before making it here we went on Great Ocean Road. There were a lot of great views and it was a nice experience. We first went through an area where Koalas hang in the trees. They were so cute and they were everywhere!

We also stopped at the 12 Apostles where there are a bunch of rock formations in the ocean, over time they have eroded but they are still beautiful.

 

We also stopped at a place called London bridge, and it was also very beautiful and the ocean is the prettiest blue color.

 

 

We also went through a nature reserve and saw Kangaroos and Emus.

 

 

 



 

Made It to Aussie!

So my day started at 3 am this morning. We woke up at that horrible hour to go to the airport.
Our flight boarded at 6 am and we touched down at 8:30am, which was 10:30 am NZ.

It was raining when we first got to Melbourne and our car had a slight problem with power, so we had to switch car.

We drove to Apollo Bay and are staying there tonight. We went down the Great Ocean Road and it had great views! I've added some pictures:

 

 

We also got hailed on, which was loud and scary, The weather has been a bit like Ohio where it changes every minute. We're off to the Farm tomorrow!!



Going to Aussie is a couple days : )

So this last week Danielle got her wisdom teeth out and Suse's birthday happened, but we haven't really done much.
The good thing is that our family is going to Australia next thursday!!
I don't have much to talk about, so this will be a very short post.

Tonight we're going to The Treehouse Bar to watch a rugby match, which will be fun. I've also gotten very attatched to the New Zealand show Shortland Street and the great thing is that it's on every single week night. 5 showings in a week yay!

And we have 2 views away from 700 page views on my blog, thanks soooooo much! I'll be sure to post more when I'm in Australia!

p.s. we'll be living on a farm in Australia, that's a lot different than Akron. It's gonna be an adventure!

Exam week

This week at my school we're having exams, which means I get to go for half of the day!
today I had my English exam, which was to write an essay about a book we had read in class, "The Wave". It was pretty easy and I finished within an hour.
Tomorrow I have to do a Math assessment, which isn't an exam. I'm doing a probability thing, which I've learned before so it should be also pretty easy.
On Wednesday I don't have an exam so I'll probably just sleep in and study for my Thrusday exam.
One Thursday I have a History exam, which I'm worrying about the most. it has two parts, a resource booklet that has information on an event, that I then have to answer questions for, and the other part is where I write a cause and effect type thing. I plan on doing what caused WWII, which I've learned a couple times.

Overall my week should be pretty laid back, and then it'll be back to the grind stone on Monday. In about two weeks my family and I are going to Australia, which is very exciting!

And this blog has had over 600 page views, so thanks for caring guys! : )

Father's Day

On sunday it was Father's day, so Danni and I made breakfast for Glen. We made fried eggs, potato fritters/ hash brown thingies, bacon, and some crumpits. After that we went to Tahwiti Museum. It was a really neat place that had a lot of information on things that happened in New Zealand. There was a train ride that showed how people made a living in the brush, cutting down trees and things. On the way back the conductor started talking about if a boiler blew up it would kill us and then an "explosion" happened right by my head. A stream of really loud air hit me in the face and I started to cry, but I was laughing at the same time.

In the muesum I was so afraid things were going to pop out at me, it had a bunch of human looking figures and it scared me.

We also went on a little boat ride that depicted the Maori wars against each other.

I'm sick

For the past 4 days I've been off sick from school. So has Danni.
We've been playing Monopoly, Skip-bo, LIFE, Battleship, and other games.
It's a bit boring sitting at home, but at least we're not alone!
A cold is going around our school, and it got to us. I'm not as sick as Danni, but she gave me her cold, so I've been coughing and I can't breath out of my nose. I should be better in a couple of days.

Nothing else has happened this week. It's Father's Day this Sunday, which is a lot later than our Father's Day. We're going Tawhiti, which is a place that has train and boat rides.

I cooked dinner tonight, but we haven't eatten it yet, so I don't know if it's good or not. I hope it is. I made a roast chicken with herbs and Glen roasted some potatoes.

 I actually managed to get a picture of the mountain located by us. Mount. Taranaki

 

 

I also got a couple nature pictures around my house.

 

 





 

New Zealand School

I've been going to Inglewood High School for 6 weeks now and it's a pretty nice school. A lot of the stuff we're doing in class I've already learned from 10th grade at home. I am in year 11 here, which I think equals out to our 10th grade. I am taking Math, History, Geography, Science, English, and Computers.

The way you get credits in New Zealand is by doing internal assessments and external exams. The internals and external can give you anywhere from 2 credits to 6. This was strange for me, because I'm used to getting letter/percentage grades at home. Where each homework and test count towards your final grade.

The way you get credits is by completing and getting a good mark on an internal or external. The marks you can get are, Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit, and Excellence. For the two internals that I have been graded, I've gotten an Achieved and Merit.

When you get a Merit or Excellence they look better on your report. They have something to do with the NZQA (schooling system)

The classes are also more general, for instance in Math you learn all of the different kinds of math in one class, opposed to how my school is, where it is seperate classes for each type of math.

In addition they also have levels of classes level 1,2,and3. I am currently in level one math, but working on level 2 stuff, since I'm a bit ahead of the other kids. Level one stuff is for year 11, level 2 is for year 12, and level 3 is for year 13.

In New Zealand schools, even public ones, have a uniform. Mine consists of A blue shirt, a plaid like maroon skirt, tights, and black polishable shoes. There are exceptions, like wearing black sandals insteaad of tights and shoes, there are two different regulation shirts.

I've found that the rules are pretty strict at the school. Some of the rules are very weird (in my opinion). For instance we're not allowed to wear make-up, no eyeshadow, eyeliner, blush, etc. (i still wear it) and our hair has to be of natural color, which means the original color, it couldn't be like brown to blonde, since it's not the persons "real" color.

It's Been a Sad Month

It's been pretty sad couple of weeks. (Mom, don't read this one, you'll probably cry)


Yesterday morning, at around 7:00am they found one of the boys that fell off of Paritutu Rock. It had been 15 days since they fell off, and he washed up on shore. It was the boy from Brazilas an exchange student. It's so scary to think of what it's been like for the family and friends of his. Many people I know didn't know them personally, but I know this has effected us all. It goes from the students who went on TOPEC (the camp/company that does the climbing) last year and did the same thing the boys were doing, to people like me, who are exchange students.

There's a lot of things that are sad about this event. 3 people have lost their lives, one lost his because he tried to help the other two. It's sad because one was an exchange student, who was supposed to go home weeks ago, but asked his family to stay longer. It's horrible what all of the families (and friends)  must be going through, how much they're hurting. These people were children, brothers, and one was a husband and a father. I cannot imagine how they're feeling.

I've realized within the last couple weeks of the things that could happen to me, don't worry I'm careful and cautious, but it just had me thinking that at any point, even when I go home, something could go wrong. I know I'm scaring my mother with this post, I know she's probably crying even. But I've realized that life is way to short. I'm so glad I've come to New Zealand to experience what I am, because, like I said, life is too short and we need to live it to the fullest that we can.

I'm grateful that my mom and my host family are giving me such a great experience.

In addition, this is not the only sad thing that's happened to New Zealand in the past two odd weeks. I believe that 6 of New Zealand's troops have been killed in Afghanistan, one of them being the first woman in what I believe they said to have been 30+ years.

I don't understand all of the deaths. It's not needed or wanted.

Nothing Much has Been Happening

So, as per usual, nothing exciting has happened recently. I'm not as omesick anymore, which is good; and I've been emailing my mom, so it's all good. Today, one of the boys that fell off rock climbing, has surfaced. We don't know which one it is, but it should be announced within a few days. Most likely by tomorrow.

For school, I had an internal assessment to do, which I finished tonight. It was where I had to pretend to be Woodrow Wilson and George Clemencaeu, and talk about the Treaty of Versailles. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't difficult either.

Last week, I got my ears pierced. So now they're double pierced. They hurt a bit, but that's to be expected, there's holes in my ears...

I think I'm ready for it to be summer here, because I'm kinda missing the 80-90 degree weather; and I've bought some cute summer clothes, that are to cold for the 45-50 degrees we're getting right now. In a couple weeks I'll be going to Australia, so maybe it'll be a little warmer up there, crossing my fingers.

Okay, well that's all for now :)

Homesickness and Gratefulness.

This is a volg (I hope it shows up)
I ramble. It's not a super "happy" post.
It's not edited, so I ramble a bit

Here's my video,
So watch it, maybe? 

Hi

Sorry it's been so long since the last update. I don't think there's any super exciting news to share! For the last week I've been attending school, the usual I guess. Tonight we went to a friends house and had dinner, it was lamb roast with potatoes. It was yummy!

I couple days ago 3 people fell off a rock when they were climbing it. The waves were really rough and there's a bunch of riptides around there. They haven't been found yet, and it's really sad. Everyone on facebook is talking about, there was a vigil set up and over a thousand people attended. In addition one of the missing boys was an exchange student like me, and this happened about 15/20 minutes away from our house. That kinda hits home for me. But anyway, I think we're all just hoping they're still alive, but it's been close to 3 days, and the water is freezing. It's said they wouldn't of lasted the first night.

There hasn't been much other than that. So this is just a short update of the week. I'll try and update more often. I'm also hoping to do a vlog (video blog) in a couple of days, so you guys who haven't talked to me in a while can hear my voice again!

It should be up on this blog, or if I can't do that I'll youtube it or something. Whatever works :)

Okay, well I hope that was enough information.

I love you all. and if I don't know you. well. thanks for reading this blog of mine :) <3

Just an Update

Well, my birthday was on the 31st of July. So my host family. friends, and I went out to dinner.
We went to a place called Cobb&Co. and it was really nice. I got the Prawn & Parmasian steak, a banana colada smoothie (non-alcoholic), and then had a really amazing chocolate cake.

The cake was homemade by a friend of ours. It was a really moist chocolate cake, with kit-kat bars all around the outside of it. On top it had a bunch of M&Ms, and little handmade ladybugs on top of it.

As for my gifts, most of them I opened that morning:

From my mom, I got a Kindle Fire eReader (which I love) I've already bought and finished a book on it. Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children is a really good book! I've also got some music and a few more books on it. I also got an Amazon giftcard from my grandmother, to use on the kindle store. My mom also got me some earrings and some bracelets.

From my friend, I got a bunch of snack foods from America, like little mini Oreos, Nutter Butters, and Chips Ahoy (cookies). She also got me 5gum and my favorite makeup.

From my host family, I got my favorite purfume! I was so surprised! It's called Viva la Juicy, from Juicy Couture. They also got me a cute belt from a store here in New Zealand.

From our friends, well there's a lot. I got everything from a cute lacey jacket to a Kiwi bird necklace. I also got more purfume (a different kind), some puzzle books, a bunny hat, and a lot more. I need to write thank you cards now :)

As for the rest of the week, nothing much else happened. Went to school, came home, ate, and repeat. There's a new German exchange student at our school named Clara though, and she's really nice. Actually, I think every single German person I've meet have been really nice.

Okay well that's my update. Gonna go watch the Olympics now! and instead of "rooting" for the USA, China, and New Zealand. I'm "cheering" for them, because rooting is sexual here haha (found that out the awkward way).  

Road Trip

New Zealand is honestly one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Today, my family and I, along with some friends, went in a motorhome and had an adventure.
We traveled to a beach area about an hour and a half away from Inglewood. It was a beautiful place to travel to. We went past beach houses, which they call a batch, we went past cows and sheep, we went past a lot of things. After that we went to a mountain water fall. Which was most definitely an adventure.

We first started up this winding road in our motorhome, it was okay at first but afterwards that changed. About a quarter way up the road got really thin and was still very winding. I was laying on the floor at that time, and got up onto the seat. That was a bad idea. I looked out the window and saw how freakin' high we were, I'm a bit afraid of falling so that wasn't to fun. I proceeded to go and sit back on the floor. After a 45 minute, 27km drive we finally made it to the waterfall, kind of.

What the sign didn't tell us was that we had to take a 15 minute walk to get to the waterfall. Fun right? No. We were already tired from the long drive to the waterfall spot, another 20 minutes wasn't what we really had planned; But we did it anyway. and the waterfall was lack of a better word, crappy. It was probably one of the least impresive things I've seen, but it was pretty and I got a picture.

After that adventure we went into a little town and got some icecream. Yum. Later that night Suse and I dyed my hair back to dark brown/black. So that the tips of my hair weren't lighter than the rest of my head.

Now I'm at home, about to go to bed, watching the olympics. Have school tomorrow, yay?

Went to a Farm

Today, Danielle, Suse, and I went to a friend's farm. It was a really neat experience.

We went and watched Tracy (friend) feed her horses, They have four of them.

Next I went into the horse pen and picked up a chicken, they were really friendly chickens.

Later, after feeding horses and holding chickens, we went to see the calves.

It was really sad, because when we drove up, there were a couple dead calves on

the side of the barn. I had to look away. Anyway, the babies were so cute. If you stuck

your hand into the calf area they would come suck on your fingers, it was such a funny feeling.

They think it's their mother's teats.

That picture up above. yeah, that's the calves saliva. it was gross.

I could feel the sucking feeling for a couple minutes, even after they had stopped.

Later when we got home we had dinner, which consisted of mashed potatoes, sausage rolls (yum!), quiche stuff, mince pies, and sausage.  

Overall i had a really great day. Tomorrow we're going in a motorhome and going up to a beach area, about an hour away.  





First Rugby Match

Today, our school went and watched a Rugby match.
It was really cool, our school's team played first and then the Taranaki Team played.
The school team lost 27-29, so it was super close! The Taranaki team won 67-16.
I think I'm more interested in American football, I think it's because I'm closer to the
team I watch. Rugby, in my opinion, is a little bit like American Football and soccor combined.

I didn't bring my camera, so I didn't get any pictures. I wish I had!

Went for a Drive

Today we went driving around Mt. Taranaki (it was too cloudy to get a good picture). It was a really great experience! There's a bunch of beach area in New Plymouth and even more farm land. We started in New Plymouth and drove along the coast. We went around the Taranaki area and saw where Glen and Suse (host parents) used to live, where Danni (host sister) was born, and then heard how Glen asked Suse to marry him!

Beach View!

At one point we stopped at a Light house, where cows and birds were sitting around. I got some pictures of the cows and the birds. We also stopped and got pictures of baby cows (Calfs).

Cows on our trip!

It was a great time, and I hope we can do it again sometime!

I've Made it to 15 Days

So I have been here for 2 weeks and a day now. I have to say that I really like New Zealand! Although I could do without the rain, but it's actually been sunny for the past two days! I like how there's farm animals everywhere I look in Inglewood. I rarely take a trip anywhere, without seeing a cow or a sheep, it's a lot different than the city/suburbs where I'm from. It's honestly like a different world here! I hate how cliche that sounds, but hey, it's true.

Today during dinner, my host sister, Danni, started quizzing me on the word differences from New Zealand to American English. It was so funny! The amount of different words was amazing! For example, a COOLER is a CHILLY BIN, a BAND-AID is a PLASTER, and an ERASER is a RUBBER. There were a bunch of other ones too! We were laughing for a good half an hour.

After that, we watched a television drama called Shortland Street, it's like a doctor/soap opera show, and it's actually pretty good, It's on every night at 7:00 or 7:30, I can't remember. Half way through that we went to Glen's (host father), mother and father's house, where I watched their jumping dog. When we got home, we started watching a movie called "Room Mate" I think, but got up and "went to bed", I'm actually gonna go to bed, I'm just writing this first!


  

Second Day of School

Second day of School today. Everybody is really nice to me, I'm just guessing it's because I'm the "new girl" but whatever. I've found that people like my "accent", and to me, it's funny thinking I'm the one with the accent. Since everybody around me sounds like they're the ones with the accents. I got my time table set up to, so I'll be taking History, English, Geography, Computers, Math, and Science. I found I'm good at the math stuff, since I've learned it before. We're working on some Algebra stuff. In science we're learning about concrete, which is a bit boring. History is about black segregation in the USA, So I've learned that before, considering I just took American History! In English I've gotta read stories and watch movies, then write responses on them.

I think this year should be pretty easy, I'm just worried about the credit system and if I'll graduate on time. Whatever happens, happens though. I think I'll be fine :)

After school, we went to get my school supplies (stationary as they call it), now I've got all the correct notebooks and stuff!

Hopefully school will stay good, like it is now.

Start of the Adventure

The rain has been falling for the past couple of days and it's cold, but honestly I don't care. I'm in New Zealand! I arrived to Inglewood, New Zealand on the 7th of July, it was actually sunny then! For the week that I have been here we've done a lot. On the first night we went out to eat on a mountain volcano! I had the lamb shank with mashed potatoes, it was yummy. On the second day we got a cell phone and some shoes for me, and then went out to lunch. The rest of the week flew by! Today (July 16th): I started School. I get to  wake up at 7:30 which is awesome, and school doesn't start until like 8:40/50ish. Everyone I met today was really nice.


Okay, well that's it for now.

Lily :)