Hey there =)
Last Weekend I have been to California, at a Anishinabe Workshop.
The Lodge we were staying at was very beautiful, it was around 15 minutes away from Santa Cruz, and the people very nice. The Workshop itself wasn't for me. Already after 20 minutes of a 3-day Workshop I was asking myself: "WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE?": One thing for example was the asema. It actually is just tobacco you give to Mothe Earth when you take something from it. That means, when you take an apple from the tree, you put down some asema to thank Mother Earth. One other thing was that we would have to get some stones, and one of the so called Spiritual Leaders said, before we take the stone we should talk to the stone, ask him if it is ok to take him away, and then listen to the answer... Well yeah, like I said, nothing for me. But since I was there and couln't just walk off, I participated the first 2 days. I even help making a hole into a gourd, to pour the water in the sweat lodge. In the evening of the second day we had the sweat lodge. In there it was absolutely dark and when they started to put some herbes on the stone and then poured water over them I felt uncomfortable. Unfortunately I couldn't get out until they finished their round of prayer. That was when I got claustrophobic, the voice of the girl, sitting right in front of me, suddendly came from my right side, so I had no longer any orientation and didn't even know, where the door was. As soon as their prayers were over I stood up and walked (it was more like crawling though^^) out of the sweat lodge.
The next morning I slept in and get to the meeting too late, but I wasn't the only one. When Connie, the main spiritual leader, started to tell us about the visions she had, I was fine. But when she said, that these vision were real, that she didn't only made them up, I just wanted to leave the room, because this seemed like brain washing to me. Well I left the room then and because I haven't had anything else to do, I went into the kitchen. The rest of the day I helped in the kitchen to prepare the food. I helped makin the cornbread, the meatloaf and the mashed potatoes. In the evening the meeting of the group took way longer, than the had planned and since the two cooks had to leave, they put me in charge of the kitchen, I really enjoyed this day!
On Monday then, we left the Lodge and started on our way home. My hostmum wanted me to see the coast once, so we drove along Highway 1, which is right next to the coast. We made it just to Big Sur, due to our late departing at the lodge and because we took it really easy, and even went to a bookstore in Santa Cruz, so I had something to read while driving. We stayed in a lodge in Big Sur for the night, and my hostmum actually planned to go for a hike in the morning befor leaving, but we sort of slept in, so we didn't had the time for a hike, and we left the lodge around 11:30 in the morning. We kept going along Highway 1 and made a short stop at Hearst Castle, unfortunately we didn't had time to go on a tour to see the castle. But I saw some pictures of it, it is HUGE! After Hearst Castle we soon turned inland, and the boring part of the travel began. We were finally home at 11:20 in the evening and I went to bed pretty soon, because I had to get up for school at 5 the next morning.
This Weekend was really great and luckily I only had school on Wednesday, because of Veteransday. Then on Thursday I got the most awesome message ever, guess what? I am going to South Dakota around Christmas, isnt' that awesome? Well I may tell you that my twin sister is in South Dakota for an exchange year, so in other words, I'm going to see her after 5 month of not seeing her. And that's just AWESOME!!!!!!!
So, that's it, I may make another post after this weekend, because there is the sleepover and aviation thing today =)
Freitag, 12. November 2010
Sonntag, 31. Oktober 2010
Halloween Weekend \m/
Hey everybody =)
This weekend is Halloween! Isn't that cool, well I think it is.
So, my Halloween weekend already started on Thursday after school. Why? Because of Nevada Day, we haven't had school on Friday. So on Friday I took my time to skype with Fabiola, Cynthia and Natalie. It was great to talk to all of them after quite a long time.
Then after the talk with them, my hostmum took me to the Atomic Museum. This museum is all about the Nevada Test Side. On the Nevada Test Side they tested (what a surprise :P) atomic bombs. I learned some things about it, for example they didn't even inform the people in Las Vegas about the tests. They just were woken up at 5 in the morning because of the shaking of the earth. That's how they found out about the tests...
And because people didn't know about the radioactiv effects, they went to watch the bombs exploding. It became sort of a tourist attraction, and they even elected a MISS ATOMIC BOMB.
In the evening then, I went to Selin for a sleepover. We watched O.C. California and also some Türkish für Anfänger, but her internet didn't really work, so we couldn't watch that much of it.
The next morning when we got up, we ate breakfast and then Juliane's hostfamily came to pick us up and drive us to Town Square. There we went shopping, for around 5 hours. I bought quite a few things, which I actually also needed. After the shopping my hostmum picked us up, to bring Juliane home and me and Selin back to Selin's house. Her hostdad took us then to dinner and the carshow on the parking lot next to the restaurant. Afterwards we went home, to change the car and go to Freemont-Street.
The Freemont-Street is in old Las Vegas and not accessible for cars. There is a lightshow very hour after 8 pm. It was lot of fun and there were some really weird people. Well actually they weren't even that weird, they just wore Halloween costumes and it was a real pleasure to look at all the diffrent costumes, even when there were some, you didn't even wanted to see :P
On Sunday, Hallween was finally here. I went to the EF-Halloween-Party. At 5:45 Selin's hostdad picked me up and we went over to Henderson, where the party was. When we arrived there weren't that many people yet. We ate something before we finally went trick or treating. I got a whole lot of candy and I think I'm not gonna finish them so soon. I really had a great time with all the people, but unfortunately Selin's hostdad was there very soon to give us a ride back home.
If you want to see some pictures, go to my facebook!
Johanna
This weekend is Halloween! Isn't that cool, well I think it is.
So, my Halloween weekend already started on Thursday after school. Why? Because of Nevada Day, we haven't had school on Friday. So on Friday I took my time to skype with Fabiola, Cynthia and Natalie. It was great to talk to all of them after quite a long time.
Then after the talk with them, my hostmum took me to the Atomic Museum. This museum is all about the Nevada Test Side. On the Nevada Test Side they tested (what a surprise :P) atomic bombs. I learned some things about it, for example they didn't even inform the people in Las Vegas about the tests. They just were woken up at 5 in the morning because of the shaking of the earth. That's how they found out about the tests...
And because people didn't know about the radioactiv effects, they went to watch the bombs exploding. It became sort of a tourist attraction, and they even elected a MISS ATOMIC BOMB.
In the evening then, I went to Selin for a sleepover. We watched O.C. California and also some Türkish für Anfänger, but her internet didn't really work, so we couldn't watch that much of it.
The next morning when we got up, we ate breakfast and then Juliane's hostfamily came to pick us up and drive us to Town Square. There we went shopping, for around 5 hours. I bought quite a few things, which I actually also needed. After the shopping my hostmum picked us up, to bring Juliane home and me and Selin back to Selin's house. Her hostdad took us then to dinner and the carshow on the parking lot next to the restaurant. Afterwards we went home, to change the car and go to Freemont-Street.
The Freemont-Street is in old Las Vegas and not accessible for cars. There is a lightshow very hour after 8 pm. It was lot of fun and there were some really weird people. Well actually they weren't even that weird, they just wore Halloween costumes and it was a real pleasure to look at all the diffrent costumes, even when there were some, you didn't even wanted to see :P
On Sunday, Hallween was finally here. I went to the EF-Halloween-Party. At 5:45 Selin's hostdad picked me up and we went over to Henderson, where the party was. When we arrived there weren't that many people yet. We ate something before we finally went trick or treating. I got a whole lot of candy and I think I'm not gonna finish them so soon. I really had a great time with all the people, but unfortunately Selin's hostdad was there very soon to give us a ride back home.
If you want to see some pictures, go to my facebook!
Johanna
Mittwoch, 13. Oktober 2010
San Francisco =)
Hell yeah, I was in San Francisco, isn't that awesome!?
On Thursday evening I went to the airport to meet with all the other EF students going on the trip. After a 1 and a half hour flight we arrive in San Francisco, where we had to wait for the buses to pick us up and bring us to the hotel. When we arrived around 10 o'clock we just went to our rooms and soon after to bed.
The next morning we got up around 7 to get ready before we met for breakfast at 8. The breakfast room was crowded when we came, so we first had to wait 10 min to get a table. After breakfast we went to the sightseeing busstop. But on the way some girls of our group discovered a Staebucks so we had to wait at the busstop for over 30 minutes, because the first bus was already full. This gave us some time to go shopping in the stores right around the stop. All there was, was a shoestore, a camera store and a souvenirshop, with a lot of shirts and sweaters.
The first sightseeing tour was through downtown San Francisco and took about an hour. After this we had 2 hours for shopping and eating lunch, before the second sightseeing tour out to the Golden Gate Bridge began.
We stopped after the Golden Gate Bridge on a parkinglot to make pictures, but we only had about 5 minutes, so I didn't really took that many pictures. After the stop at the parking lot we went to Sausalito, a town where you can't find a house for under $3 Millions, even when the houses aren't that spectacular.
When we came back, we had some more time for shopping and then we went to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. It was pretty expensive and the food wasn't even that tasty. Well yeah, that's life.
After dinner we went for a walk on Pier 39. There were a lot of little stores, but we haven't had enough time to really buy something.
Back in the hotel, we went to our rooms. I wrote some postcards and talked to the other girls in the room, it was funny.
The next day we met half an hour later for breakfast, so it wasn't that crowded and we were sooner finished. Then we went once again to the busstop to make the 3rd sightseeing tour. This one took us out to the Golden Gate Park, a really nice, green (yeah, I miss green plants) and huge park. But we didn't got off the bus, because we would have had to wait 2 hours until the next one would come.
Then we got of the bus at Union Square. A big shopping area, with a lot of expensive stores. We had around 3 hours of free time. My group spent most of the time just sitting in the park and relax a bit. We even discovered that there are plugs next to trees in San Franciso. (We saw a homeless charging his cellphone there^^)
Then after the shopping at Union Square, we went to China Town. Some more shopping, this time mostly cheap souvenirs^^, and finally dinner in a Chinese restaurant.
After we had a very delicious dinner we went to the cablecar stop to get a ride, but infortunately all of them were too full, so we had to walk. When we were near the hotel we had the choice of going back to the hotel or going to the Lombard Street, that's the one with the turns. I decided to go there. We walked down to take some pictures, but thus it was dark, all of them turn out pretty bad. On the way back up, we saw a Strechlimousine stuck in the first turn. It was hillarious, because he needed around 15 minutes to get out again.
The next morning we would have met at 6:30 for breakfast, but in my room nobody heard the alarmclock. So we had to get ready, pack all our things and eat breakfast in 20 minutes... we got it, luckily.
Then after we checked out of the hotel, we went for a walk to the Alcatraztur departing pier. It took us around 40 minutes. After waiting for around an hour, we got on the boat, which took us to Alcatraz. It was really awesome, to see this prison once from the inside. By the way, the view from Alcatraz is just magnificent!
After Alcatraz we had some time left for eating lunch and shopping(once again^^).
Then we went back to the hotel for the buses to takes us to the airport.
While we were waiting for our flight to board, we decided to make a pyramide. It didn't really work to the top, but it was fun though.
After such an amazing weekend, school on monday was even harder, but I somehow survived it without fallin asleep.
You'll here from me sometime around Halloween again, hopefully.
Johanna
On Thursday evening I went to the airport to meet with all the other EF students going on the trip. After a 1 and a half hour flight we arrive in San Francisco, where we had to wait for the buses to pick us up and bring us to the hotel. When we arrived around 10 o'clock we just went to our rooms and soon after to bed.
The next morning we got up around 7 to get ready before we met for breakfast at 8. The breakfast room was crowded when we came, so we first had to wait 10 min to get a table. After breakfast we went to the sightseeing busstop. But on the way some girls of our group discovered a Staebucks so we had to wait at the busstop for over 30 minutes, because the first bus was already full. This gave us some time to go shopping in the stores right around the stop. All there was, was a shoestore, a camera store and a souvenirshop, with a lot of shirts and sweaters.
The first sightseeing tour was through downtown San Francisco and took about an hour. After this we had 2 hours for shopping and eating lunch, before the second sightseeing tour out to the Golden Gate Bridge began.
We stopped after the Golden Gate Bridge on a parkinglot to make pictures, but we only had about 5 minutes, so I didn't really took that many pictures. After the stop at the parking lot we went to Sausalito, a town where you can't find a house for under $3 Millions, even when the houses aren't that spectacular.
When we came back, we had some more time for shopping and then we went to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. It was pretty expensive and the food wasn't even that tasty. Well yeah, that's life.
After dinner we went for a walk on Pier 39. There were a lot of little stores, but we haven't had enough time to really buy something.
Back in the hotel, we went to our rooms. I wrote some postcards and talked to the other girls in the room, it was funny.
The next day we met half an hour later for breakfast, so it wasn't that crowded and we were sooner finished. Then we went once again to the busstop to make the 3rd sightseeing tour. This one took us out to the Golden Gate Park, a really nice, green (yeah, I miss green plants) and huge park. But we didn't got off the bus, because we would have had to wait 2 hours until the next one would come.
Then we got of the bus at Union Square. A big shopping area, with a lot of expensive stores. We had around 3 hours of free time. My group spent most of the time just sitting in the park and relax a bit. We even discovered that there are plugs next to trees in San Franciso. (We saw a homeless charging his cellphone there^^)
Then after the shopping at Union Square, we went to China Town. Some more shopping, this time mostly cheap souvenirs^^, and finally dinner in a Chinese restaurant.
After we had a very delicious dinner we went to the cablecar stop to get a ride, but infortunately all of them were too full, so we had to walk. When we were near the hotel we had the choice of going back to the hotel or going to the Lombard Street, that's the one with the turns. I decided to go there. We walked down to take some pictures, but thus it was dark, all of them turn out pretty bad. On the way back up, we saw a Strechlimousine stuck in the first turn. It was hillarious, because he needed around 15 minutes to get out again.
The next morning we would have met at 6:30 for breakfast, but in my room nobody heard the alarmclock. So we had to get ready, pack all our things and eat breakfast in 20 minutes... we got it, luckily.
Then after we checked out of the hotel, we went for a walk to the Alcatraztur departing pier. It took us around 40 minutes. After waiting for around an hour, we got on the boat, which took us to Alcatraz. It was really awesome, to see this prison once from the inside. By the way, the view from Alcatraz is just magnificent!
After Alcatraz we had some time left for eating lunch and shopping(once again^^).
Then we went back to the hotel for the buses to takes us to the airport.
While we were waiting for our flight to board, we decided to make a pyramide. It didn't really work to the top, but it was fun though.
After such an amazing weekend, school on monday was even harder, but I somehow survived it without fallin asleep.
You'll here from me sometime around Halloween again, hopefully.
Johanna
Homecoming
Yeah, ok... it's already been more than a week, but I thought you would like to hear about my Homecoming though.
So, Friday evening a week ago, I went to the Homecoming game. The cool thing about the game was actually the parade after the 2nd quartet. Why should a parade be so cool? Well I tell you one thing. I am in the international club and we had a float. Two hours befor the game began, we started to decorate a truck. It look really really cool. Then we went watching the game, it was pretty boring and I had the feeling the teams only stood on the field without doing anything. After the 2nd quarter we went to the float and I could go on the float and so participate in the parade. It was so much fun. After the parade, the game seemed to be even more boring than before, I left befor the third quarter was over. By the way, my team won 40 to 0. So it was the perfect homecoming game, and they didn't only stand around, even if it seemed so to me.
Then on Saturday I went to Selin's House to get ready for the dance. We had a blast. After we were ready, we took some picture around her house. Then soon after Selin's hostdad drove us to the school in an old (1965) car. He told us it would be an American mussel car, i just don't remember the brand. But it was the most awesome carride in my life! When we arrived at the dance, 30 min after it started, I met my date... I didn't really like him and I was glad, that Selin and Julian were there as well, so I could more hang out with them, that with my date. The dance was, all in all, boring. The music was bad, the people weren't really dancing... but I had a lot of fun with the people I was there with or who I met there.
After the dance we went to Juliane's house to eat pizza (we hadn't had dinner yet) and to hang out a little bit.
The crazy thing about the dance was, that it started at 7pm and was already over at 10 pm. Which was actually good for me, because I was bored.
So, that was my homecoming, boring, pretty short but still fun. =)
So, Friday evening a week ago, I went to the Homecoming game. The cool thing about the game was actually the parade after the 2nd quartet. Why should a parade be so cool? Well I tell you one thing. I am in the international club and we had a float. Two hours befor the game began, we started to decorate a truck. It look really really cool. Then we went watching the game, it was pretty boring and I had the feeling the teams only stood on the field without doing anything. After the 2nd quarter we went to the float and I could go on the float and so participate in the parade. It was so much fun. After the parade, the game seemed to be even more boring than before, I left befor the third quarter was over. By the way, my team won 40 to 0. So it was the perfect homecoming game, and they didn't only stand around, even if it seemed so to me.
Then on Saturday I went to Selin's House to get ready for the dance. We had a blast. After we were ready, we took some picture around her house. Then soon after Selin's hostdad drove us to the school in an old (1965) car. He told us it would be an American mussel car, i just don't remember the brand. But it was the most awesome carride in my life! When we arrived at the dance, 30 min after it started, I met my date... I didn't really like him and I was glad, that Selin and Julian were there as well, so I could more hang out with them, that with my date. The dance was, all in all, boring. The music was bad, the people weren't really dancing... but I had a lot of fun with the people I was there with or who I met there.
After the dance we went to Juliane's house to eat pizza (we hadn't had dinner yet) and to hang out a little bit.
The crazy thing about the dance was, that it started at 7pm and was already over at 10 pm. Which was actually good for me, because I was bored.
So, that was my homecoming, boring, pretty short but still fun. =)
Sonntag, 19. September 2010
Update
Hello =)
I'm sorry that I hadn't posted anything so long, but I just didn't feel like writing and was also quite busy with school and all the other stuff. But today I decided that it's time to do another post.
Becaus it's almost 3 weeks since my last post, I have a lot to tell you and I will probably make 2 post, but yeah, we'll see.
Laborday-weekend:
Wow, that's cool. After a week of school already a 3-day weekend. On Saturday I was quite bored, because Lorena was the whole day at a workshop. So all I could do, was staying at home, be on the computer, watch Tv, etc. When I was too bored even to watch TV, I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies. They are yummi =)Soon after Lorena came back and we just ate dinner and watch a little bit more of TV.
On Sunday then, Lorena took me to the International Market. That was fun. We just wandered through the store for about 3 hours, and still didn't saw everything, it's just huge. But I had a lot of fun, to see all the diffrent foods from all over the world. And I discovered "OVALTINE" and some huge cooking pan and spoons (see pictures).
On Tuesday the second week of school began. I met up with the German girl Juliane everyday before school, and on every A-day also at lunch. At lunch Claudette joined us as well, she's a 15 year old freshmen at Centennial and I met her on my first day.
On Thursday I also met Selin, she's from Germany and is here with EF, like me.
The next weekend Lorena took me to the Rampart Casino for lunch, and we had planned to go to the cinema afterwards. But after lunch we still had 1 hour to go until the movie started, so we decided to walk around the hotel a bit. The "garden" was so beautiful, it was all green with some trees, and also some waterponds. We also were inside the hotel and stop at the shop, just to see what they offer. In the end, we needed longer than an hour, and Lorena had to go buy something in a shop near the Rampart, so we ended up going home, instead to the cinema. The day was great though.
In the 3rd week of school I met some more exchange students and I actually like going to school by now. I figured out, that geometry is way to easy for me, so I went to see my teacher and asked him what I should do. He told me I should go to the counselor and ask her, if I could sort of try out algebry 2 for a week or something, to see if it would be too hard for me (on the vocabulary basis). I haven't met up with my counselor yet, it seemed like she wasn't around, so I will go to the counselor office tomorrow again.
The 3rd week was only 4 days for me. This is so, because I had to go to the mandatory EF Orientation Camp at the Fox Trail Camp on Mt. Charleston. In the beginning I didn't want to go there, because I would miss a day of school, and because I had the suspicion, that they're going to tell us all the stuff they told us before on the Orientation Meeting in Switzerland and the L&C camp. But in the end I looked forward to it, because I would see Kathi and Julia again.
So on Thursday when I came back from school I just packed my things for camp and then Lorena and I went to pick up Kaori and Alina, to go to camp. Fox Trail Camp is a girls scout camp up in Mt. Charleston. All the exchange students were split up in cabins of 12/13 people.
The first evening we just ate dinner and then we went making smorres on a campfire. It was very freezing outside, unless you were near the fire.
The next day we got up at 7. After breakfast we had our first OM (orientation meeting). It was about 2 hours, and very boring. There were even some students fallen asleep. After the meeting we had some free time and also lunch. Then in the afternoon we had some more Orientation, in 3 diffrent groups, called break up session. In one of the groups we played Apple to Apple, a quite funny game. In the evening after dinner, we had a dance. It was quiet fun, but already ended at 10pm.
Then on Saturday, the last day of camp, we had another break up session. The informatif part was boring like ever before, but the game part was a lot of fun. We played 3 diffrent games. One of them was called "When you can't do this, then you're dumb, dumb, dumb". It was so funny. After the break up session, my cabin finally started to prepare the country presentation for the evening, my cabin had Spain. We didn't need too long. After lunch we had free time, and almost all the girls in my cabin were together in our cabin, just talking about everything.
Then around 4:30 the parents arrived and we had to go to down to the main building, to welcome them and get ready for the presentation. The presetations were pretty cool and very funny to watch.
After the presentation we ate dinner, and then Lorena took me back home.
My suspicion that all the information is going to be the same as in Switzerland and the L&C camp was absolutely right. The camp was awesome though, becuase I had a lot of fun and met a bunch of new people.
On the picture you see the whole group of the EF exchange student in Las Vegas, Mesquite and Moapa Valley, and the main building of the Fox Trail Camp:
.bmp)
Today I went lookin for shoes with Lorena, I found to pairs =). After we bought my shoes, we went to a Halloween store. This is something typical American I would say. A Halloween store is a shop, which opens just around Halloween with a lot of costumes and Halloween decoration. I try out several mask, and Lorena had fun taking picture of me, so I decided I'll share on with you:
That's already it. I decided I leave it in on pieces even though it's pretty long. But on this way it's less confusing (don't ask me why, i just needed a reason :P)
I try to post more often, so the posts won't be too long.
Johanna
I'm sorry that I hadn't posted anything so long, but I just didn't feel like writing and was also quite busy with school and all the other stuff. But today I decided that it's time to do another post.
Becaus it's almost 3 weeks since my last post, I have a lot to tell you and I will probably make 2 post, but yeah, we'll see.
Laborday-weekend:
Wow, that's cool. After a week of school already a 3-day weekend. On Saturday I was quite bored, because Lorena was the whole day at a workshop. So all I could do, was staying at home, be on the computer, watch Tv, etc. When I was too bored even to watch TV, I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies. They are yummi =)Soon after Lorena came back and we just ate dinner and watch a little bit more of TV.
On Sunday then, Lorena took me to the International Market. That was fun. We just wandered through the store for about 3 hours, and still didn't saw everything, it's just huge. But I had a lot of fun, to see all the diffrent foods from all over the world. And I discovered "OVALTINE" and some huge cooking pan and spoons (see pictures).
On Tuesday the second week of school began. I met up with the German girl Juliane everyday before school, and on every A-day also at lunch. At lunch Claudette joined us as well, she's a 15 year old freshmen at Centennial and I met her on my first day.
On Thursday I also met Selin, she's from Germany and is here with EF, like me.
The next weekend Lorena took me to the Rampart Casino for lunch, and we had planned to go to the cinema afterwards. But after lunch we still had 1 hour to go until the movie started, so we decided to walk around the hotel a bit. The "garden" was so beautiful, it was all green with some trees, and also some waterponds. We also were inside the hotel and stop at the shop, just to see what they offer. In the end, we needed longer than an hour, and Lorena had to go buy something in a shop near the Rampart, so we ended up going home, instead to the cinema. The day was great though.
In the 3rd week of school I met some more exchange students and I actually like going to school by now. I figured out, that geometry is way to easy for me, so I went to see my teacher and asked him what I should do. He told me I should go to the counselor and ask her, if I could sort of try out algebry 2 for a week or something, to see if it would be too hard for me (on the vocabulary basis). I haven't met up with my counselor yet, it seemed like she wasn't around, so I will go to the counselor office tomorrow again.
The 3rd week was only 4 days for me. This is so, because I had to go to the mandatory EF Orientation Camp at the Fox Trail Camp on Mt. Charleston. In the beginning I didn't want to go there, because I would miss a day of school, and because I had the suspicion, that they're going to tell us all the stuff they told us before on the Orientation Meeting in Switzerland and the L&C camp. But in the end I looked forward to it, because I would see Kathi and Julia again.
So on Thursday when I came back from school I just packed my things for camp and then Lorena and I went to pick up Kaori and Alina, to go to camp. Fox Trail Camp is a girls scout camp up in Mt. Charleston. All the exchange students were split up in cabins of 12/13 people.
The first evening we just ate dinner and then we went making smorres on a campfire. It was very freezing outside, unless you were near the fire.
The next day we got up at 7. After breakfast we had our first OM (orientation meeting). It was about 2 hours, and very boring. There were even some students fallen asleep. After the meeting we had some free time and also lunch. Then in the afternoon we had some more Orientation, in 3 diffrent groups, called break up session. In one of the groups we played Apple to Apple, a quite funny game. In the evening after dinner, we had a dance. It was quiet fun, but already ended at 10pm.
Then on Saturday, the last day of camp, we had another break up session. The informatif part was boring like ever before, but the game part was a lot of fun. We played 3 diffrent games. One of them was called "When you can't do this, then you're dumb, dumb, dumb". It was so funny. After the break up session, my cabin finally started to prepare the country presentation for the evening, my cabin had Spain. We didn't need too long. After lunch we had free time, and almost all the girls in my cabin were together in our cabin, just talking about everything.
Then around 4:30 the parents arrived and we had to go to down to the main building, to welcome them and get ready for the presentation. The presetations were pretty cool and very funny to watch.
After the presentation we ate dinner, and then Lorena took me back home.
My suspicion that all the information is going to be the same as in Switzerland and the L&C camp was absolutely right. The camp was awesome though, becuase I had a lot of fun and met a bunch of new people.
On the picture you see the whole group of the EF exchange student in Las Vegas, Mesquite and Moapa Valley, and the main building of the Fox Trail Camp:
.bmp)
Today I went lookin for shoes with Lorena, I found to pairs =). After we bought my shoes, we went to a Halloween store. This is something typical American I would say. A Halloween store is a shop, which opens just around Halloween with a lot of costumes and Halloween decoration. I try out several mask, and Lorena had fun taking picture of me, so I decided I'll share on with you:
That's already it. I decided I leave it in on pieces even though it's pretty long. But on this way it's less confusing (don't ask me why, i just needed a reason :P)
I try to post more often, so the posts won't be too long.
Johanna
Dienstag, 31. August 2010
School
Hey you =)
So Yesterday I had my first schoolday at an American High School. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? But I tell you, it is only exciting for the first 15 muntes, afterwards it was boring. Why? Well you're going to see, when I tell you more about my first schoolday:
I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning. That's pretty early, especially for me. But anyway. I left home at 6 o'clock, to go to the schoolbus-stop. My schoolbus left at 6:21 and arrived at school around 6:45. The first hour in school was homeroom. We got our schedule and all the information about A and B days, lunchtime and all this stuff. After homeroom I had Geometry, but only for half an hour: All we did in this class, was sitting on our table, waiting for the teacher to call our name, going to the teacher so he could sign our schedule, go back to our seat and then wait for the rest of the class. After Geometry it was the same at U.S. History. My next class was Myth&Folklore, and it was the first class we didn't only wait. The teacher explained the classroom rules. Not that interesting, but still better than just waiting. After Myth I had Drawing, it was actually once again the same, but it wasn't as noring as before, because the girl on my table was very talkactive, so I had to speak with her. She was very nice. Then I had Japanese, it's somehow quite strange, but not really noring. The teacher as well explained the rules and gave us a sheet with the course expectation on it.
Then I had lunch. For only half an hour. While I was waiting in the line, I met Yanisa, a girl I knew from the Volleyball practice. But She went off to sit down with her friends pretty soon. So I started to talk with to other girls, 2 freshmen who were really nice.
After lunch I had Computer Application, American Literature and Chemistry.
Comp App was as boring as Geometry. But American Literature was much better, because we had an Icebreaker. This means the teacher handed out a sheet with sentence like:
someone who's an only child. And then you had to go to your classmates and ask them, and if you found someone who the sentence was true for, he/she had to sign your sheet. So I got to talk to people and I had something to do, which let the 30 minutes pass a little bit faster.
The last class then was Chemistry. The teacher told us something about the grading and all this stuff, but also about himself. It was actually quite funny.
After my last class I had to go to homeroom once again, to hand in the schedule, evry teacher had signed. Then I headed over to the buses and went home.
Today I already had my second day. It was an A-day, so I had Geometry, Myth&Folklore, Japanese and American Literature. Since we now had like one and a half hour each classe, we finally started in all classes, but most of the time it was only about the procedures. Still better than yesterday.
Before Geometry started, I met an other exchange student, from Germany. She's very nice; and on this place I wanted to spot, that we only spoke English with eachother!
So now, I'm going to do my homework!
Good bye
So Yesterday I had my first schoolday at an American High School. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? But I tell you, it is only exciting for the first 15 muntes, afterwards it was boring. Why? Well you're going to see, when I tell you more about my first schoolday:
I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning. That's pretty early, especially for me. But anyway. I left home at 6 o'clock, to go to the schoolbus-stop. My schoolbus left at 6:21 and arrived at school around 6:45. The first hour in school was homeroom. We got our schedule and all the information about A and B days, lunchtime and all this stuff. After homeroom I had Geometry, but only for half an hour: All we did in this class, was sitting on our table, waiting for the teacher to call our name, going to the teacher so he could sign our schedule, go back to our seat and then wait for the rest of the class. After Geometry it was the same at U.S. History. My next class was Myth&Folklore, and it was the first class we didn't only wait. The teacher explained the classroom rules. Not that interesting, but still better than just waiting. After Myth I had Drawing, it was actually once again the same, but it wasn't as noring as before, because the girl on my table was very talkactive, so I had to speak with her. She was very nice. Then I had Japanese, it's somehow quite strange, but not really noring. The teacher as well explained the rules and gave us a sheet with the course expectation on it.
Then I had lunch. For only half an hour. While I was waiting in the line, I met Yanisa, a girl I knew from the Volleyball practice. But She went off to sit down with her friends pretty soon. So I started to talk with to other girls, 2 freshmen who were really nice.
After lunch I had Computer Application, American Literature and Chemistry.
Comp App was as boring as Geometry. But American Literature was much better, because we had an Icebreaker. This means the teacher handed out a sheet with sentence like:
someone who's an only child. And then you had to go to your classmates and ask them, and if you found someone who the sentence was true for, he/she had to sign your sheet. So I got to talk to people and I had something to do, which let the 30 minutes pass a little bit faster.
The last class then was Chemistry. The teacher told us something about the grading and all this stuff, but also about himself. It was actually quite funny.
After my last class I had to go to homeroom once again, to hand in the schedule, evry teacher had signed. Then I headed over to the buses and went home.
Today I already had my second day. It was an A-day, so I had Geometry, Myth&Folklore, Japanese and American Literature. Since we now had like one and a half hour each classe, we finally started in all classes, but most of the time it was only about the procedures. Still better than yesterday.
Before Geometry started, I met an other exchange student, from Germany. She's very nice; and on this place I wanted to spot, that we only spoke English with eachother!
So now, I'm going to do my homework!
Good bye
Samstag, 28. August 2010
Hello =)
So I finally found some time to give you a quick update.
The meeting with the counselor was OK, the counselor was very nice and explain everything. The only bad thing was, that like 3 of the classes I actually wanted to take were already full, so I had to change. But anyway, for the next year I'm going to have Geometry, U.S. History, Myth&Folklore, Drawing, Japanese, Computer Application, American Literature and Chemistry.
On Wednesday Lorena and I went to my school again to figrure out, where my rooms are and stuff like that. After we found my homeroom, we went on to search the other rooms, but before we could do it, we met a very nice teacher. She explained me everything, and told me, if I have any problems or just need somebody to talk, I could always come to her. Now I feel ready to go to school on Monday. The only thing I don't like about it is, that my school bus leaves at 6:20 in the morning and I need about 15 minutes to the stop. That means I have to leave home at 6 o'clock in the morning.
On Thursday we went to the Strip. We parked at the Excalibur and then started to walk down the Strip. It was fun, but I haven't seen all of the strip by now, so we will go there again.
Yesterdaym Aspen, my hostmum's gradndaughter spent the whole day here, because her mom was working, and the school she's going to was closed. Aspen helped me making a carrot cake, which turned out good, but it just didn't really tasted like a carrot cake^^
In the afternoon, we went to a swimming pool. There were like 5 life guards for 2 pools, much more than I'm used to from Switzerland. After the pool, we went home and Yolanda, Aspen's mother came to pick her up. This day with Aspen was very exhausting, because she always wanted to play with me, but I had a lot of fun and I was never bored, during the whole day =)
Today we went to the other end of Las Vegas (we drove about40 minutes in the car to get there) for the EF Welcome Party. There I met Kathi once again. She's very happy at her new family, and she was smiling all the time. But we had to leave already after 1 and half hour, to go to Aspen's Birthday party.
It was a really nice party, everywhere in the room were some Mermaid decorations, and at the end of the party there was a Piñata.
I will try to post again after my first week of school
bye for now
Johanna
So I finally found some time to give you a quick update.
The meeting with the counselor was OK, the counselor was very nice and explain everything. The only bad thing was, that like 3 of the classes I actually wanted to take were already full, so I had to change. But anyway, for the next year I'm going to have Geometry, U.S. History, Myth&Folklore, Drawing, Japanese, Computer Application, American Literature and Chemistry.
On Wednesday Lorena and I went to my school again to figrure out, where my rooms are and stuff like that. After we found my homeroom, we went on to search the other rooms, but before we could do it, we met a very nice teacher. She explained me everything, and told me, if I have any problems or just need somebody to talk, I could always come to her. Now I feel ready to go to school on Monday. The only thing I don't like about it is, that my school bus leaves at 6:20 in the morning and I need about 15 minutes to the stop. That means I have to leave home at 6 o'clock in the morning.
On Thursday we went to the Strip. We parked at the Excalibur and then started to walk down the Strip. It was fun, but I haven't seen all of the strip by now, so we will go there again.
Yesterdaym Aspen, my hostmum's gradndaughter spent the whole day here, because her mom was working, and the school she's going to was closed. Aspen helped me making a carrot cake, which turned out good, but it just didn't really tasted like a carrot cake^^
In the afternoon, we went to a swimming pool. There were like 5 life guards for 2 pools, much more than I'm used to from Switzerland. After the pool, we went home and Yolanda, Aspen's mother came to pick her up. This day with Aspen was very exhausting, because she always wanted to play with me, but I had a lot of fun and I was never bored, during the whole day =)
Today we went to the other end of Las Vegas (we drove about40 minutes in the car to get there) for the EF Welcome Party. There I met Kathi once again. She's very happy at her new family, and she was smiling all the time. But we had to leave already after 1 and half hour, to go to Aspen's Birthday party.
It was a really nice party, everywhere in the room were some Mermaid decorations, and at the end of the party there was a Piñata.
I will try to post again after my first week of school
bye for now
Johanna
Donnerstag, 19. August 2010
Two weeks =)
Heyho =)
I'm here in Las Vegas for two weeks! Unbelieveable!
What happen in these two weeks?
SO at the first weekend I went to the cinema with my wonderful host mum Loreena. We went to see Inception, a very cinfusing movie, and I had to explain it to Lorena, becuase she didn't really got it.
On Monday was Lorena's birthday and her daughter Yolanda invited us for lunch. So we went to the Mirage and after Lunch, Lorena, Aspen (Yoland'y daughter) and I went to Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. It was an awesome day and I had lot of fun.
The next day we went to my High School to get my registration done, and also to the athletic office, to get my sport package. The sports package is actually a form you have to fill out, to get the allowance to do sports at the school.
We also went to the library, to get my a library card.
On Thursday we went once again to my High School, to bring the registration form and the sports package back. In the athletic office they told me, that they are practicing Volleyball at the moment, so I could go home and change and then come again to practice with them.
So I had my first Volley ball practice. It wasn't even that hard, but still exhausting.
On Friday I went there again. The people were all so nice and friendly, I really had fun, and even though I was quite bad at it.
The weekend was pretty boring for me, because my hostmum had to work and I actually could only be at the computer or watch TV... but in the afternoon my host mum took me once again to the cinema, this time we saw "Eat, Pray, Love", Julia Roberts' new movie. It's a good movie, but there is NO action in it.
Well then on Monday went to the Volleyball Try-outs, I had already improved a little bit, and I was quite proud of myself. On Tuesday I had to go to the Try-out again, after the Try-outs, they told us who's in the team and who's not. I wasn't surprised at all, when they announced, that I wasn't. The pnly bad thing about it is, that I actually don't have to do anything until school starts at August 30... so it's once again watching TV, being on the computer or reading.
Oh I forgot to tell you, that I'm going to meet the counselor today at noon, to discuss my classes and all this stuff. I'm quite nervous, because I have no idea, what I have to do there, but luckily Lorena comes with me.
And: Fabiola, my lovely twinsister is travelling today, to her host family in South Dakota, in a little town with a population between 1000-5000 people. A whole different experience than me, but at least the time difference is now only 2 hours, not like before 9 hours. That makes it a lot easier to skype with her =D
Good bye for now
I'm here in Las Vegas for two weeks! Unbelieveable!
What happen in these two weeks?
SO at the first weekend I went to the cinema with my wonderful host mum Loreena. We went to see Inception, a very cinfusing movie, and I had to explain it to Lorena, becuase she didn't really got it.
On Monday was Lorena's birthday and her daughter Yolanda invited us for lunch. So we went to the Mirage and after Lunch, Lorena, Aspen (Yoland'y daughter) and I went to Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. It was an awesome day and I had lot of fun.
The next day we went to my High School to get my registration done, and also to the athletic office, to get my sport package. The sports package is actually a form you have to fill out, to get the allowance to do sports at the school.
We also went to the library, to get my a library card.
On Thursday we went once again to my High School, to bring the registration form and the sports package back. In the athletic office they told me, that they are practicing Volleyball at the moment, so I could go home and change and then come again to practice with them.
So I had my first Volley ball practice. It wasn't even that hard, but still exhausting.
On Friday I went there again. The people were all so nice and friendly, I really had fun, and even though I was quite bad at it.
The weekend was pretty boring for me, because my hostmum had to work and I actually could only be at the computer or watch TV... but in the afternoon my host mum took me once again to the cinema, this time we saw "Eat, Pray, Love", Julia Roberts' new movie. It's a good movie, but there is NO action in it.
Well then on Monday went to the Volleyball Try-outs, I had already improved a little bit, and I was quite proud of myself. On Tuesday I had to go to the Try-out again, after the Try-outs, they told us who's in the team and who's not. I wasn't surprised at all, when they announced, that I wasn't. The pnly bad thing about it is, that I actually don't have to do anything until school starts at August 30... so it's once again watching TV, being on the computer or reading.
Oh I forgot to tell you, that I'm going to meet the counselor today at noon, to discuss my classes and all this stuff. I'm quite nervous, because I have no idea, what I have to do there, but luckily Lorena comes with me.
And: Fabiola, my lovely twinsister is travelling today, to her host family in South Dakota, in a little town with a population between 1000-5000 people. A whole different experience than me, but at least the time difference is now only 2 hours, not like before 9 hours. That makes it a lot easier to skype with her =D
Good bye for now
Mittwoch, 4. August 2010
Host family...
Hey!
I'm now sitting in my room at my permanent family.
How I got here? I will tell you:
After leaving camp at 3 am we went to the airport in Burlington. At 6 am my plane to New York left. Once landed in New York we had to wait about half an hour in the plane, before we were allowed to leave it. But actually it didn't matter, because I still had to wait about 3 hours on the airport in New York and you couldn't really do anything. But anyway my next flight was the ond to LAS VEGAS.
When I was sitting in the plane I became so nervous about where I am going to now and all this stuff, because I got the information about an arrival family at midnight before I left camp.
When I finally landed in Las Vegas everything was good. I got toknow my arrival family and was told that I will go to my permanent family on monday.
My arrival family was very nice and even though I had to sleep on the couch for two nights I enjoyed being with them. On Sunday we went to visit my arrival mum's daughter, at the other end of Las Vegas. There we went swimming in the pool and I cooked together with my arrival mum a very easy dish. It was a very nice day.
On monday my arrival mum had to go to work at 6am. But the arrival dad and the 2 sons where around so I wasn't alone. Then around midday Julie, my IEC came to poick me up and bring me to my permanent family. But we still had to wait for the approvement from the Boston office so I stay with Julie and her 2 exchange students (Kathi and Lorenzo). When the approvement finally came up, we were at Julie's house and my host mum, Lorena, decided that she will come and pick me up.
While we waited for Lorena to pick me up, I was talking to Kathi and tried to cheer her up, because she doesn't fell comfortable at Julie's and she also felt very home sick.
Now to my host family:
Lorena Brown is a single lady. She has got a daughter, who already moved out and s very sweet kitty. Yesterday her granddaughter was here and I had a good time with her by playing Line-up 4 and cooking with her.
Lorena was born in Honduras, so she grew up speaking spanish and learnt English when she moved to the US and had to learn it, because of school and friends and stuff like that.
I actually don't know what she's working and how old she is, bit it actually doesn't matter.
In the next few days I haven't planned anything and school won't start befor August 30 so I have a lot of free time. May be I will write again to tell you some news about living with my host mum... we will see.
I'm now sitting in my room at my permanent family.
How I got here? I will tell you:
After leaving camp at 3 am we went to the airport in Burlington. At 6 am my plane to New York left. Once landed in New York we had to wait about half an hour in the plane, before we were allowed to leave it. But actually it didn't matter, because I still had to wait about 3 hours on the airport in New York and you couldn't really do anything. But anyway my next flight was the ond to LAS VEGAS.
When I was sitting in the plane I became so nervous about where I am going to now and all this stuff, because I got the information about an arrival family at midnight before I left camp.
When I finally landed in Las Vegas everything was good. I got toknow my arrival family and was told that I will go to my permanent family on monday.
My arrival family was very nice and even though I had to sleep on the couch for two nights I enjoyed being with them. On Sunday we went to visit my arrival mum's daughter, at the other end of Las Vegas. There we went swimming in the pool and I cooked together with my arrival mum a very easy dish. It was a very nice day.
On monday my arrival mum had to go to work at 6am. But the arrival dad and the 2 sons where around so I wasn't alone. Then around midday Julie, my IEC came to poick me up and bring me to my permanent family. But we still had to wait for the approvement from the Boston office so I stay with Julie and her 2 exchange students (Kathi and Lorenzo). When the approvement finally came up, we were at Julie's house and my host mum, Lorena, decided that she will come and pick me up.
While we waited for Lorena to pick me up, I was talking to Kathi and tried to cheer her up, because she doesn't fell comfortable at Julie's and she also felt very home sick.
Now to my host family:
Lorena Brown is a single lady. She has got a daughter, who already moved out and s very sweet kitty. Yesterday her granddaughter was here and I had a good time with her by playing Line-up 4 and cooking with her.
Lorena was born in Honduras, so she grew up speaking spanish and learnt English when she moved to the US and had to learn it, because of school and friends and stuff like that.
I actually don't know what she's working and how old she is, bit it actually doesn't matter.
In the next few days I haven't planned anything and school won't start befor August 30 so I have a lot of free time. May be I will write again to tell you some news about living with my host mum... we will see.
Abonnieren
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