ROYAL ALBATROSS COLONY

bees: Today all the international students from St. Hilda's went to the Royal Albatross Colony on the Otago Peninsula. We saw albatrosses and fur seals. I had to dress up like an albatross which looked quite funny. I will show you some pictures later.                                                                                                  

Albatross Colony

Ann: Today all the "new" Internationals went to the Albatross Colony instead going to school :):):) We saw albatrosses and seals, but no penguins. We learned a bit about the albatrosses, for example that they are 3m large. Bees had to be a albatross and we put all the important things on her, so she looked very funny. We took a few photos of that which we'll show you here later.
It was really cool to have another day where we didn't go to school.

ABEL TASMAN!!!

THE BIG STARFISH

ME AND ONE OF THE GIRLS THAT DISCOVERED THE MAGIC SAND

A TURTLE SHAPED ISLAND

bees: I´ve been on Abel Tasman, too. It was the best thing I´ve ever done. I´ve never seen anything like that before. There are so many trees and plants at once, the water is bright blue, the wheather was amazing and I´ve seen animals I had never seen in wildlife before eg. big starfish, baby seals and glowworms. Me and two kiwi girls also discovered some "magic sand": when you rubbed over it it started    glowing. That was so pretty!            

Abel Tasman, again!

Marie: I know I am a bit late, but I still want to write about the amazing trip to the Abel Tasman National park. This week is my highlight of the whole time here. The landscape in the Abel Tasman was just stunning. You could see beautiful beaches and not far away you were standing in the jungle.
Of course the tramping and kayaking was hard sometimes, but it was much easier than I thought it would be. I really enjoyed the kayaking, because you could see seals and it was cool to be on the water the whole day.
My group was really nice as well. While we were tramping everyone was singing, which was funny. Sometimes there were some little arguments in my cooking group, but it was still a great experience to cook all your food and to carry out all the waste again.
In the end I just can say: Go and visit the Abel Tasman National Park and if you don’t have the possibility to do so, than at least check out the pictures I took :)

Abel Tasman National Park

Katy: Hey everybody!!! Yesterday we arrived back from the Abel Tasman NP after a 10hour bus drive. Now it's sunday morning, and lie have to recover from this most exhausting week of my life:


1 Day: We drove 12 hours to a Backpacker hostel for the first night. We all had a day pack fith us, that means a small bag with lot's of food for the drive, and what elso you need for a day:-D And a big/gigant pack with sleepingbag, tent, bedroll, cooker, pam, billi, food for one week, which we had prepared and bought before and everything you need to survive oe week without supermarkets, cellphones, house and showers.



2. Day: We had to do our first own breakfast the first time, which was very exciting, although it wasn't that brilliant breakfast. After we had put our day pack in the bus, we went to the sea kajak company, for be introduced in kajaks, how to put all your staff in there(which isn't that easy) and so on.Then we drove to the sea to start tramping or kajaking. I was in the tramping first group. On this day we walked about



4-5 hours with a pack a 30Kg. At the evening we had to make or tents and did our first meal with choclat pudding for desert.Yummy...we also had a swimm in this caribean blue water...
3. Day: The third day was nearly the same like day 2 exept, that we had to walk about 7 hours........
4. Day: At the fourth day we didn't have to carry our tents with us because we went to a place, were the kajaking groupe swop with the tramping group, so we could leave our tents on the campground. The walk without the tents, sleepingbags and bedrolls was like flying, so the walk only took us about 1 hour. At a beach, we changed and so we had to go back with the kajaks...which is even more exhausting, than tramping.
At the evening, when it was dark, we could see the billion stars in the sky and even the southern cross and the milyway. Besides we went in a whole covered in glouworms(!!!)This was amazing.



5. Day: We were kajaking for 5hours and then made flip overs in the water, which was sooooo cold.But we could warm up afterwords in the sun. And this night we had a nice animal in our tent: A mous!!!




6.Day: On this day we had our last 4 kajak hours and went back to the backpackers to stay there the night...in this night we had our first fisch&chips for one week! They were aawesome.






All in all this week was amazig and I am so lucky to had the chance to go there!!!

Abel Tasman

Ann: Hey everybody!! We´re back!! The last week was so awesome! Kathy, Marie, Bees and I went to Abel Tasman National Park with our PE group. We went tramping two and a half day and kayaking two and a half day. It was very hard and hot, but it was so much fun!! And we got to know all the kiwigirls better.
The water in Abel Tasman National Park is so blue, I´ve never seen water like this before. We´ll post some photos later!!

Subjects

Krissy:

Hey everybody!!!

I decided to tell or write something about my subjects.

Music is the first one because I like it so much...

Last week I get a Merit, which is a really good mark from four. They are Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit and Excellence but Excellence is actually a really exceptionally mark. So I was so happy!!!

At the moment we are doing compositions, which makes a lot of fun.

Bye the way, we are just 4 persons and I'm in year 13 because there isn't this subject in year 12.

All in all I like Music a lot especially because it isn't as boring as other subjects.

Hostfamily change

Lena: Last Monday I changed my hostfamily :) and I'm so lucky about that. It was a good decision !
Now I live in St. Clairs, i need 5 minutes to walk to the beach :) They have got a dog called 'Angel', she's so cute :) I have got a Host-Mom called Annie, a Host-Dad called Paul and a Host-sister called Alex, she's also going to St. Hildas, but in year 13 :) I really like my new homestay :)  The house is so nice, and I like my room :) i have got a big bed and a lot of space for my things :) The cooking I like, too. :D they are so lovely :)

This Saturay we (Krissy, Kathy, Anne, Britta, Sophia, Jule) went to the St. Clairs beach. The sun was shining and it was not that cold. We had a picnic and took funny pictures :)  I really like the beach when the sun is shining :) In the evening I stayed for a sleepover at Krissy's house with Jule. We watched a lot of movies and ordered pizza :) Yummy ;)
On Monday we had a look around Cadbury, the chocolate factory. We got a lot of chocolate and there was a real big chocolate fontain :)
The weekend was great !

Welcome in Dunedin!!!

Katy: Today almost every international in Dunedin went to King's High School to see the performens of the different schools and were welcomed by the leaders of Dunedin schools. We saw a Kapa Haka, which is a typical Maori type of dance and which I really like, one girls performing a song with a guitarre, the St.Hilda's choire, a boy how played china flute and we got ice creame, something to drink and.........this best pancakes with jam and cream in the world. One week ago each student got the same one in school break. I love them (!!!)

Today I printed of a few pictures, that we took till now........I can say you for sure: DUNEDIN IS BEAUTIFUL and we all love being here so much.

Picture Day!

Marie: Today we had a picture day at school. It was really strange. Our uniform needed to be perfect, of course. We had to line up from tall to short. I was always one of the tallest. I had to take pictures three times. First they took a picture of me with all the other year twelves. Than they took pictures of every single tutor group. By the way, a tutor group is a bit like your class in Germany. You are mixed together randomly with pupils from year 11,12 and 13. Every tutor group has its own teacher.
So they took pictures of us in our tutor group. Last, but not least they took pictures of all the international students. It was quite funny, because all the German pupil were really tall and all the girls from Asia pretty small.
All this pictures are going to hang in the foyer of our school.
I never had a picture day before, so it was quite exciting and new for me. I hope my eyes are opend on every picture :)

The typical food here!

 Marie: You may ask yourself what we are eating here in New Zealand. Okay, probably not, because this is weird question. However I thought I could write about the typical food here and what I personally miss from Germany!

For breakfast the Kiwis are often having a really popular cereal called Weet Bix. This are like clumped together cornflakes. I can’t describe them very well, but I like them while most of the others on this blog here say they taste like nothing.

The next thing I had to try was Vegemite. You normally put a really thin layer of it on your warm toast. It looks like Nutella, but it is actually nearly the same as the Maggi we have in Germany. It is a bit to strange for me, but most of the New Zealanders love it.

Another thing we are eating a lot is not typical for New Zealand, more for England. Fish’n’Chips. I have seen even more Fish’n’Chips shops here than in England. I really like the fish. The chips are just normal chips, but they are nice as well.

Okay and know I still have to tell you what I miss. I probably miss most the German Bread. It is just so much darker and crunchier. I may start baking here. Something else I miss sometimes is sparkling water. You can get it here as well, but it is much more expensive.

So, all in all, the food here is totally okay and I still don’t want to go back. Even if I miss the German bread that much …

Great Saturday

Lena:  Today Kathy, Krissy, Jule, Sophia, Anne, Micki and I went blowling. It was real fun!!! But I really do not like the shoes you have to wear!!! They are so ugly and they smell sooo bad!! :D

At first I made 0 points. I never hit the cones :D So the first play we played I was not so good. But the second time I won the game :) ! I like bowling :)

After that we went to town but almost all shops were closed, although it was only 4 o'clock. So we went to Starbucks and drunk a White Hot Chocolate <3 It's so yummy!!

When we were finished we went to Mc Donals and ate something.

Because I didn't want to wait  for the bus about 20 minutes, I decided to walk home with Jule, up the hill. Although I saved money , it was a bad idea :D It was so exhausting!!! :D
Tomorrow we are going to Moana Pool and then we are going to town, in hope the shops will be open ;)

Bowling!!!

Katy: Today we went bowling, which was really exiting and funny because Miki a Japanese girl went there too and we had to speak english all the time...Really...speaking english the whole day is quite hard but very good for us. After that we went into town, which was funny as well. It was a really great day and we all really enjoy beeing here!!!

Sleepover at school!!!:-))

Krissy:

As you know, we had a sleepover at school last night.

First we bought all our staff for tea at New World. After that we went back to school and built up our tents, I had a tent with Jule, which was really cool. One hour before all the guests arrived, we had begun cooking the meal. In my group, there were Tintin and Sally, two Kiwigirls.

And that was our meal:

Starter:

Creckers with cheese, carrots and dip

Main:

vegetables with chicken over noodles

Dessert:

Fruit Salad

The meal was really yummy!!!

I invited Miyako, my host sister form Japan. And she said the dinner was yummy, too.

After we had tidied up the kitchen, we watched a movie, which was really good.

At about 11 o'clock we went to bed and talked a long time till we slept.

All in all i can say that it was a really funny and cool Wednesday afternoon.

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My Birthday!

Marie: You may know that it was my birthday yesterday. It was really nice. I got a super cool video from my friends in Germany. I want to say thank you very much! My homestay family was really nice. They bake me a cake and sang for me. Later in the evening my parents called and they told me that they have something for me as well, but it didn't arrive yet. All in all it was a really lovely birthday and I am proud to be 15 now!!!

Joining this blog

Lena:  Hey everybody :) I will also join this blog now.                                                                                  The time in New Zealand is really amazing! And the time runs so fast, but we all have so much fun! On Monday I will change my hostfamily. The first month now I lived in Roslyn in Dunedin, now I will move to St. Clairs. And my new homestay lives near the beach. They have a girl which goes in year 13 at St. Hildas and they have a dog :) I am really excited! I hope that we'll understand well with eachother.
Tomorrow Krissy, Katharina, Jule, I and the others who have the subject Outdooreducation will have a sleepover at the school in tents. I think it will be great. We have to cook for us and everyone has to bring a guest. My guest is Kathy :) after cooking we'll watch a movie and then we have to sleep
I really love the time in New Zealand <3

SCHOOL

Bees: We all told you lots of stuff about our activities outside school but you probably don´t really know what school life is like over here. Well, here´s what we do at school:

School starts at 8.40am and finishes at 3.30pm. We have either tutor group, chapel or student assembly on monday, tuesday, thursday and friday and an extra lesson on wednesday. Some lessons are 55 minutes and some are 60 minutes long. We have one big lunch break after period 4.

As some people in Christchurch can´t go to school there because of the earthquake we have some girls from Christchurch at our school now. They all wear different school uniforms which is quite funny. One of them is in my Drama class. She´s really nice.

Some german girls´ hobby is to teach the kiwi girls some german words which is always fun. It gets even better when teachers get involved (I remember a very cool scene in my maths class) ;)

All in all we have lots of fun and we get along well with the kiwis.

My family

Ann: Hey everybody!! I live in my new family for more than two weeks now and I really like them. We are 7 people, the parents, their 19-year old son, another 15-year old kiwi girl and a 14-year old kiwi girl and her brother, but I don't know how old he is, maybe 16 or 17. My hostparent's 23-year old daughter comes and visits us very often. She always takes her friend with her, I think they live together. She studies Art and Graphics at University and my hostbrother learns to be a teacher for rockclimbing, so he told me to come back in two years, when he's finished and learn it from him.
The food in my new family is different, we have fish & chips day every Thursday and they eat meat every day. They all eat very much and say I'm a small eater :)
It's funny in my new family, and at teatime everyone's a bit crazy :):)
My hostparents come and pick me up from my friend's or somewhere else or they take me there at the weekends if I want to, which is really cool! They also take me to waterskiing or things like that. In a few weeks they want to go to a rugby game with me.

INTERNATIONAL CAMP

my group´s egg

the egg game

Grouppicture

Bees: Like kathy has already told you we were on an international camp. I don,t have much more to say than that we all had lots of fun and that it was a great opportunity to get to know the other international girls better. Here are a few photos.

International weekend!!!

Katy:
Today we arrived back from our international camp. We started on friday from the school and drove about half an hour with the bus to a house next to a lake. When we arrived we first ate fish & chips and then went through a forest to the "flying fox", which is a kind of slide through the forest. It was very funny allthough it wasn't very high:-D. When it was getting dark we went home and played a game in the big hall. 

On saturtad we had breakfast very early: at about 8 o'clock!!! After that we were put into groups and played a game, where we had to safe an eg...this was very funny!!! In the evening we had a concert, were we all had to do something to entertain the others. Our group of germans sang "das Fliegerlied" and everybody was dancing with us, and Titanic...

After that we had a "Dance Party" where everybody was dancing. Before we went to sleep we took a sleepingbag and went on one of the gras field, where we were laing and watching this amazing star sky.

So how you can see we had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the weekend!!!

Surfing!!!

Krissy:

Hey everybody!

You know, one of my subjects is Outdoor Education, which is really cool.

Every Wednesday we make sport outside like surfing, walking, climbing, etc.

Yesterday we surfed at St.Claire beach and it was really fun even I spend more time in the water than on the surfboard. :-))

MUFFINS

Bees: I know I haven´t written for ages, I´m sorry. 

Today Kathi and I baked some Muffins for my Tutor group because tomorrow we will have a food party. Of  course we made chocolate muffins. They are the best. See?