The holidays have passed far too quickly and now I’ve been back at school for 1 week already, the time goes so fast! This first school week wasn’t very exciting, except that it is just raining, raining and raining the whole time.. Scott even said it hasn’t rained so much since about 100 years! Great, finally when I am in Australia. A bit depressing to be honest! But anyway, I actually wanted to tell what I was up to in my 2 weeks long holiday.

On the Wednesday in the last week of school we went to a French restaurant called ‘La Provence’ with my French class, and I even tried Maddy’s snail soufflé! It wasn’t too bad, but as I knew I was eating snails it was a bit gross… Then on the last day of school we had ‘Multicultural Day’, as you can read about in my last blog entry. On the following Friday Maddy and I went to the ‘Birds of Tokyo’ concert which was AWESOME, although I was half-deaf afterwards.. Otherwise I did heaps of other stuff on my holidays aswell, e.g. go out for dinners, to the movies, shopping, bowling, ‘Movie World’,.. I was only at home for about 3 days! All the other days I was out and about meeting up with friends.

This month’s weekends are (hopefully, if the weather would like to be good for a change!) full spacked aswell: It’s Jas’ birthday next Thursday so we’re going out for dinner in the evening, to some Japanese restaurant. On that weekend we were planning on going bush camping, and on the following weekend we were going camping again and then it simply HAS to be good weather as I would like nice spring weather for once on my birthday.. And the following weekend Lisa and I were planning on doing something together for our birthdays (hers was on the 3rd of October) and then I was invited to a friend’s birthday party aswell. The question is when I am going to have time to do all my assignments.. But oh well, only 4 more weeks left of school and 2 weeks of exams, and then finally the long awaited summer holidays!

At the moment I am lying inside cuddled up in my bed while it is pouring down outside.. As always. So I am not sure yet what I’m going to do today. In the evening I’m going bowling again in a suburb nearby, which I’m looking forward to. I might just have to start with some school work until then I guess..

Today we had the yearly ‘Multicultural Day’ at school. We had school until 11 a.m, but we didn’t really have school, in French we made crêpes for the French stall and helped to move out all the desks from the classrooms as we’re getting new ones next term. Then we had free time until 2.15 p.m. There were heaps of food stalls with food from different countries (Brazil, Germany, Serbia, India, Australia, the Netherlands and England). The food was very nice! Brazil gave away free bracelets, earrings and little chocolate things (the bracelets are luck bracelets which they tied 3 knots in = 3 wishes which are supposed to become true when they bracelets fall off, but that can take up to 1 year..), some of the Germans offered really nice grape-cheese sticks, vanilla cream and potatoes with sour cream, India had rice with a yummie meat sauce with special bread (which I had for lunch), Australia offered sausages, meat, slushies, crocodile, kangaroo and emu meat, the Netherlands had made little Dutch pancakes and England served scones with strawberries, jam and whipped cream. Oh yeah, I totally forgot that there also was French, Japanese and South African food.. So you see, there was a lot of food, and therefore I ate a little too much.. They also had some games going on, e.g. ‘World Soccer Cup in Cleveland’ or ‘Tour de Cleveland’. They also had stalls where you could get your hands or faces painted, your nails done or your hair coloured. There were two different bands who played during the whole day, they were really good! Some of the students had dressed up in national costumes and the best ones won a price. And, what I really enjoyed, was a Maori show performed by a few students from somewhere (I can’t remember the name), they were great! I recorded it, but somehow can’t upload it on to my blog..

By the way, we didn’t go camping this weekend anyway as the weather isn’t very good.. I think we’re going on Friday 22nd October instead and staying until the following Sunday, as it is my birthday on that day and I would like to do something with a few friends in the evening. No idea what yet though!

I’m sorry I didn’t take so many photos, but I was too busy..

Yesterday, after we had been to ‘Robina Town Shopping Centre’, which by the way now is one of my favourite shopping centres because they have heaps of nice clothing shops there..  But anyway, after we cruised around there for a while we went to ‘Seaworld’. It isn’t very big and mostly thought for younger children, but it was fun anyway! We went to the dolphin show which was amazing! I really, really enjoyed it. After that we went on two different roller coasters which weren’t scary at all, as Jas had warned me.. They also had a lot of animals there, so I saw sharks, stingrays, polar bears and the cutest little penguins I have ever seen! They were gorgeous, I fell in love with them straight away..

Otherwise I haven’t got any plans for the weekend, except playing Wii of course. 😉 It is actually very exhausting! I have some very sore muscles from the boxing, tennis playing, golfing, jogging, yoga,.. I’m going to become soo fit in no time. Maybe.

By the way, I’ve only got 3.5 days of school left now before the 2 weeks of holidays! We haven’t got real school next Friday because it’s ‘Multicultural Day’ at our school, but I won’t be able to be there because we’re leaving to go camping for 4 days on Friday afternoon already. We are going to Brunswick Heads, that’s in the north of New South Wales. I am so looking forward to it! We are going with friends of Jas and Scott’s who also have a German exchange student. Otherwise I haven’t got any big plans yet for the holidays, except going to the ‘Birds of Tokyo’ concert on 24th September with Maddy, that’s going to be so much fun!

Next time I’ll be updating is probably going to be after we’ve been camping.

Just a short blog entry about an Australian rock band called ‘Birds of Tokyo’. A friend told me about them today and borrowed me their album, I fell in love with their music straight away! I actually wanted to post a few of their songs aswell, but it doesn’t seem to be working.. But if you like you can look them up on YouTube. These are a few of their songs: Plans, The Saddest Thing I Know, Circles, Murmurs, If This Ships Sinks (I Give In), Waiting For The Wolves, Wild At Heart, Dark Side Of Love, In The Veins Of Death Valley or The Unspeakable Scene.

By the way, lucky me am going in to Brisbane the 24th September! Guess why..?

School in Australia is quite different compared to schools in Switzerland. First of all the students call their teachers Sir and Miss. I like to call them Sir and Miss, it’s kinda cool. 😉 As you probably all know already we have to wear a school uniform, as everywhere in Australia, and the teachers try to seem very strict about not wearing any jewellery, having your hair tied up etc., but most of the students don’t really care, they wear nail polish and jewellery and some also leave their hair untied (including me). I don’t understand why the teachers still try to go on about it if no-one listens to them anyway.. But otherwise there aren’t many rules, they’re just very strict with the school uniform. As everybody also can choose their own subjects I am with different people in every class, which actually is quite good but makes it more difficult to find friends.. I haven’t got that much to do with the other exchange students anymore, instead I usually sit with a group of Australians during Morning Tea and Lunch. They all seem very nice, but I suppose it will take a while until I’ve lived in here fully and start doing stuff with them. The English classes here aren’t at all like the German lessons in Switzerland either. Recently we had to write a Short Story and at the moment we’re reading a play. I don’t think we’ve done anything else since I came here.. In almost all my classes there are other exchange students. In Music there are 3, in Physics 1, in English 1, in French 5 and in Dance also a few. Only in Maths I’m by myself, but I don’t mind at all.  The French lessons aren’t that easy as I expected.. Of course a lot easier than at home in Switzerland, but our French teacher here is really good at French (she’s originally from Wales). But the English of the three Australians who we have French with together sounds quite funny, it sounds like Frenglish in my ears.. Their system with exams here in Australia is very different to the one in Switzerland. They mostly work with assignments. Assignments are projects which you have to hand in by a given date, then they get corrected and then you have to hand in the final copy of the assignment before they get marked. The Short Story in English we had to write for example was an assignment. They also have a few exams (I haven’t had any yet), but faar less than in Switzerland! Instead we have two exam weeks in the last two weeks of every half-year for which we only have to come to school to write the exams. I’m looking forward to that (not having to go to school) but also am a bit worried.. Luckily my marks here don’t count for Switzerland! Then.. in the Music lessons we don’t do a lot either. We came at a time where the other students had started with their assignment writing a composition already, so we didn’t have to do that, lucky us! We have done a little bit of theory, but I don’t understand anything, so there’s no idea trying to explain. But the next assignment will be choosing an Australian song (it can be pop, rock, hard rock,.. whatever) and then performing it. I really don’t like the idea of me having to borrow a violin just for that occasion and performing a song in front of everyone..  Fortunately we can performe it in groups, so I’ll be doing it with two other girls from Germany who play the piano and the guitar. In Dance we haven’t danced at all this term.. 🙁 Am quite disappointed because I miss dancing so much! We’ve only watched some weird contemporary dances on TV which we had to analyse. But she said now that the exam is over we’ll be focusing on dancing more. Physics is still the hardest subject of them all because there are a lot of words I don’t understand. Last week we went to Willowbank to some car racing training area.. It was quite interesting actually, partly. But as everybody has driven a car here more than once before and maybe even have their own car almost everybody knows a lot more than me about cars.  So for me it all seemed very complicated, but I don’t think that’s a big problem at the moment, at the latest in the exams in November, but that’s faar away.. At the moment we’re working on our assignment. We have to create a broschure about Road Safety and Improved Roads. I’ve already written down quite a lot of good ideas, but the draft due is already next week and I have no idea how and where I should start.. Maths is a lot easier than in Switzerland aswell. I think the easier part is that they move forward much slower and they practise a lot on one topic, good for me! At the moment our topic is Rates of Change. Don’t ask me what that’s supposed to mean. What was quite confusing in Maths in the beginning was that they write the 1 and the 7 differently.. But I’ve got used to it by now. They also write the : differently, with a line between the two dots, but also that I’ve got used to. The teacher usually begins a new topic with us and shows how it’s done in the front on the board and after that we can solve heaps of exercises individually. Everybody reckons that all my work is so neat and tidy, not like theirs.. I’ve noticed that their apparent laziness and “take-it-easy-ness” also gets represented in the way they work and think. But there’s one exception: their writing. Every handwriting from every girl I’ve seen so far is soo neat and tidy! They write quite slowly, but very, very nicely. No wonder they think my handwriting is “so cool” and “never before seen”.. Another interesting thing is that students, if they want to, can quit school in year 10 and start working. Otherwise they graduate after year 12 and then some start working and the others go to university, which is a lot more expensive here I’ve heard.. Bad for me, then I can’t take any advantage of my “International Baccalaureate” and go and study in Australia.. Never mind, I’ll move here anyway, one day. 😉

After school, which finishes either at 2.40 p.m or at 3.15 p.m most of the students go home and do homework or just relax. Some go to the shops, out for dinner or to the movies in the evening aswell. I usually go directly home after school and then don’t go out anymore that day. Up to now I haven’t done that much with friends on weekends, but I hope that will soon change. But it’s also quite hard to find time to do something with them because very many work on the weekend. If we do something it’s mostly going out for dinner, going shopping, going to the cinemas or visiting one of the 4 theme parks. By the way, I’ve applied for a few part-time jobs now aswell, but haven’t got any responses yet. Keep your fingers crossed, I really need a job so I can afford all my shopping habbits!

Mmh.. what more could I tell you about Australia? Oh yeah, Australians usually greet each other either with a hand shake, a hug or 1 (not 3) kiss on the cheek. I would also say that the music taste of the younger people (in my age) is similar to the music taste they have in Switzerland. I haven’t noticed any differences in fashion yet either, except that everybody seems to be very fashionable here and always wear nice clothes (I’m not saying that the Swiss people aren’t fashionable, but in my opinion the Australians are more interested in fashion, maybe because they wear uniform most of the time?). They also get dressed up very nicely on occasions, even if it’s only a birthday dinner. Lucky we have to wear school uniform! 😛 A lot of my friends have also not been overseas, but if then mostly only to America or New Zealand. A few have been to Europe (including Switzerland!), but I wouldn’t say that less Australians travel to Europa than Swiss people travel to Australia. But I’ve heard from a few who have asked where I’m from: “Ooh, I love Lindt chocolate!”, “Wow, do you live in a little wooden chalet in the snowy mountains?” or “Where do you live?” – “About an hour away from Lucerne.” – “Ah, I’ve been to Lucerne, the city is soo beautiful!”.

So you see, they also are a bit jealous of the people who live in Switzerland and not only love Australia because they have the kangoroos, koalas and the most beautiful beaches in the world.. 😉

But now it’s time for lunch! I’ll go and have a look what I can find in the fridge..

Last Saturday, as Gesa and Dorien still were here (they flew home last Tuesday evening) we drove to the Gold Coast, this time to Southport. It was very nice weather, very windy, but I still managed to tan my legs a bit. 😉 At the end of the day we also bought an ice cream at ‘Cold Rock’. We could choose what sort of ice cream we’d like (I chose strawberry) and then we could choose from a large range of different sweets which we wanted to have mixed through it. So I ended up having strawberry ice cream with fudge and strawberry Freddos, yumm!

Last Monday I met up with a friend from Germany who I had met at the airport as we got driven to our host families by the same chauffeur. We went to the movies (we watched Step Up 3D) and after that we went to a nice restaurant called ‘Fasta Pasta’. On Tuesday and on Friday I went to school as usual, which was very exciting, as always. But at least we had Wednesday off because it was a public holiday and on Thursday I went to ‘Dreamworld’ with my Physics class. The rides we went on were great, we just had to queue for ages but the rides were only  a few seconds short.. But at least they were very good. On Thursday evening I was invited to the onstage production of ‘High School Musical’ which was performed by the school which Jasmine’s nieces and nephews go to. I really, really liked it, the actors were all very talented!

And today it’s Saturday and don’t have any big plans.. Jasmine and I went shopping this morning and I gave in my resume to the manager at ‘Red Rooster’, in hope to get a part-time job there so that I can afford all my shopping habits.. And in about two hours I’m going to start making Focaccia which we’ll be eating with some salad for dinner tonight. And then tomorrow Jasmine is taking Lisa, Nora and me to ‘Movie World’ to validate our VIP-tickets. With those tickets we’ll be able to go to the three theme parks ‘Sea World’, ‘Movie World’ and ‘Wet ‘n’ Wild’ for a whole year for only $75! On Monday all the international students are going to ‘Lone Pine’. That’s a zoo full of koalas and kangaroos, apparently the largest place with the most koalas in the whole world! We’ll also be able to get photos taken of us holding a koala.

By the way, Scott has given me a nickname now aswell: SKIPPY, apparently because I skip around the whole time..

I’ve been to Straddie now, where the most beautiful beaches in the world are. 😉 I had an awesome time with Jas, Scott, Gesa and Dorien. We arrived there last Monday during the afternoon and I came home on Sunday. Unfortunately it wasn’t that good weather the whole week so I only could go swimming once..

The beaches here are really great, with white sand (I took some of it home!) and warm, turquoise water.. You should go there once if you are in Australia! Otherwise we didn’t do so much. We went walking a few mornings at 7.30 which was nice. Once we walked the “Whale Watch Track” and the other times we went on the “Gorge Track” which is a bit easier than the Whale Track. Gesa and I also went sand surfing! That was really fun, as you can see on the photos below. 😉 There was a big sand dune near our house where we were staying and some cardboard which we tried to slide down on, but unfortunately didn’t really work out.. But after a short while 2 guys came up the sand dune and they had brought “real” sand boards with them which we were allowed to use.

P.S I met my “host brother” last Sunday for the first time, he seems really nice!

Finally I’ve got time to update my blog again! Sorry for letting you wait so long.

My first week at school began on Monday with an Orientation Day for all the new international students. On that day we got heaps of information and shown around the school area. The school is HUGE! You have about 5 minutes to walk from one end of the school to the other because the school doesn’t look like the schools in Switzerland where they have several floors and max. 2 different buildings. The schools here only have one floor but is made up of about 10 differents blocks. Plus that the school here is a lot less modern than at home.. They’ve only got wobbly tables and chairs and the whole place looks a bit old and ripped down. Not hard to understand if the school’s almost 50 years old! Our school uniform took a little time to get used to aswell. The worst part of it are the shoes, they’re just so ugly! But at least I don’t have to stand in front of my wardrobe every morning for half an hour to decide which clothes I should wear. And now to the subjects: I got to choose my subjects myself, so I chose Music, Dance, French, English, Maths and Physics. I’m actually quite happy with my choices, especially Maths is quite easy here and fortunately don’t have many assignments to do (so far). The other students (including the other international students) are all very nice and I’ve already found a few new friends. 🙂 But the biggest difference from the schools in Switzerland to the schools in Australia is the athmosphere. Everybody takes things a lot easier here, sometimes maybe a bit too easy.. The students talk and laugh during the lessons and the teachers have much less authority here! I don’t know what my teachers in Switzerland would do if I would behave like the students behave themselve here.. But it doesn’t bother me, I actually quite like it that the whole athmosphere at school and between the students and teachers is a lot relaxeder. What I also think is quite funny is that all the students take lunch boxes to school, so at lunch time you can see all the students walking around with their little lunch and cool boxes which mostly contain sandwiches, a drink, a fruit and some chocolate, cake or cookies. And last Wednesday I played real hockey for the first time! At first I thought it would be the normal hockey which I know from at home, but when we came to the field where we were going to play against another school I was quite shocked as I saw that we were going to play on real grass with some very strange looking sticks.. Therefore it didn’t go so well for us because many of our team had never played this sort of hockey before and we lost 5:0.. Well, I think that’s pretty everything I can say about the school at the moment. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask!

Last Friday also Gesa (from Germany) and Dorien (from Belgium) arrived. They were exchange students in Australia last year and also lived with Jas and Scott. They seem very nice so far.

And to finish of the week I’m going to tell you what we did yesterday. We 6 (Jas, Scott, Dorien, Gesa, Lisa and me) drove to Hastings Point which is about an hour away from where we live. There we visited some friends of Jas and Scott’s who were camping there. There was also a beach near the camping area which we went to.. Geez, I didn’t know that such beaches which you normally only see in those travel magazines really exist! It was probably on of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen in my life. Turquoise water, white sand and blue sky. What do you want more? But we couldn’t go swimming on that beach because it wasn’t patrolled, so we drove to another beach which was close nearby and went swimming there instead. The water was a bit cold, but I didn’t mind.

Well, that was probably my week summarized. Next week we’re heading of to Stradbroke Island (Straddie). We’ll be staying there from Monday to Saturday (Jas has taken me out of school that week) filling the days with lying on the beach, tanning, swimming, surfing, boogie boarding and enjoying the weather which will hopefully be as nice as yesterday and today!

Great, just finished blogging in time because Lisa’s coming in 10 minutes and we’ll then head off to the city. A girl from Germany has her birthday today and invited us to lunch and movies with her and a few friends.

I’ve finally arrived in Australia now, after a too long flight with more or less good food and bad hurting knees! The food (except the dessert) wasn’t much better than on the other plane.. Well, fortunately I get lots of nice food here instead. The first “meal” I ate here was a toast with butter and marmalade. And the first breakfast was amazing aswell! Jasmine had made Australian pancakes with cream and lots of strawberries.. yumm! (It’s going to be interesting to see what I look like after 12 months..) I’ve also noticed that the orange and apple juice is much better than in Switzerland (just in case somebody’s interested). Another thing that I have noticed is that Aussies eat a lot of pumpkin. The water out of the tap isn’t that good, so they filter it, and then it’s alright. So much about the food.. And now to the house: My room is great, it has a cosy bed and a big wardrobe with big mirrors on the doors. I even have my own bathroom at the moment, but I’ll have to share it with Ben, Gesa and Dorien when they arrive in a few weeks time. I’m looking forward to meeting them! The rest of the house is very nice aswell, all clean and tidy. 🙂

Jasmine and Scott are great host parents: always nice, helpful, open and funny. I already felt the difference when I arrived at the airport in Brisbane. They’re all so helpful and nice, never in a rush and they always have time for a chat. Even the dogs are friendlier here, I even managed to feed them a (Swiss) dog cookie, and they didn’t eat me (the dogs didn’t eat me, not the cookies).

Jasmine has already shown me around about half Australia, driven me to Cleveland Point and Victoria Point and shown me all the shops in the area. They’ve got totally different shops here (except of Aldi), e.g Woolsworth (a grocery market) plus many clothing shops, Fish & Chips shops, cafés, bakeries, Sushi restaurants and even a shopping centre (yesterday we also went to the National Australian Bank to activate my account, so here I come shopping centres! I’ve already figured out that I’ll be trying a lot of new food (fish & chips, sushi, vegemite,..) while I’m here, which I’m looking forward to. Jasmine’s also tried to explain all the bus routes to me, which is quite a lot more complicated than I’m used to, but I hope I’ll have understood them before I leave. But the funniest thing about the buses is that you can buy a bus card with money on it, and every time you get on and off the bus you have to scan the card to pay! So Scott brought me one home today, so I can soon be cruising around Queensland, that was very nice of him. He’s also ordered a surf board which we’ll be allowed to use for the first time when we go over to Straddie on Monday in a week. We’ll be staying there for 5 nights, so until Friday. I hope the weather will be a bit better by then, because at the moment it’s just cold and rainy.. (the houses here don’t have a heating!) I’m looking forward to summer!

A good friend of Jasmine & Scott’s called Lloyd came over for dinner this evening because he had his birthday. We ate lamb, potatoes and vegetables. Then we started watching the “State Origin”. That’s a rugby game between New South Wales and Queensland. They’d already played 2 of 3 games, and today the 3rd game took place (in Sydney, but we followed it on TV), and QLD now has won them all! 🙂 In the half-time we ate a nice cake which Jasmine had made, together with vanilla ice cream and some sort of berry and vanilla sauce. We also went to have a look at school uniforms today.. The uniform itself isn’t actually too bad, but the shoes! So I’ll wait until Monday to buy some together with the other student called Lisa who will be arriving on Sunday from Germany. I’m glad we don’t have to wear those sort of shoes in Switzerland aswell!

So.. at the moment I don’t think I’ve got much mor to tell.. (Ah yeah, Daddy: They got really glad about the presents, and Scott is very proud about his Swiss Army Knife. Lloyd got jealous of it as he saw it, so I said I would buy him one aswell, eventually..).

I’ll uplade some photos as soon as I’ve got a few together! And I’ll blog soon again to keep you updated on what’s going on.. But at the moment I just want to kuddle under the warm blanket and have some beauty sleep..

See ya lata mate!

Now I just have a 5 1/2 hours long flight behind me from Zurich to Dubai. Everything went well, except the saying goodbye to my family and best friends.. I’m going to miss them so much!

We got heaps to eat on the plane: a sallad, some sort of gnocchi with some mushroom sauce and chicken, carrots, 1 bean, crackers, bread, cheese, butter, chocolate and a mango/coconut mousse.

I’ve been waiting at the very big and modern airport for about 4 hours now, 1/2 hour of that time looking for a toilet.. I’ve also met a girl from France who’s on her way to Brisbane aswell! So I wasn’t too bored. Only 1 hour left to departure, so I’ll soon have to go through the gate. I’ll update again as soon as I arrive in Brisbane.