And time goes by

Today Tineke and I went out horseback riding. She showed me the properties on the other side of the road, and the view was so pretty I thought my eyes would pop out. I feel more and more confident on the horse, but still there are times when I really feel like jump off and walk. When we got back to the barn Tineke let me ride on one of the black horses, Baukje (yes, the same name as my host sister's, sometimes it's hard to keep them apart ;P)

It's now been three weeks since I got here, and two weeks since school started. I love it in the host family and on the farm. The family life here is so relaxed, every evening we watch tv and every afternoon when we get home from school I have a coffee with the parents, talking about the day. It's very nice. At those times I feel at home. Or, I often feel at home, but even more on those times.

School is okay, I'm beginning to make some friends other than the friends of my host sister. There are some nice people, but unfortunately there area lot of people who don't give a shit about school, they're just there to get some credit so that they might be able to graduate and get of there. Haha, we had an oral presention and 99 % of the students just went up there and read the information from a peace of paper, with a bored look on their faces. It was so bad that it was almost funny. I laughed inside my head.

Two days ago I switched out of canadian history and into music. I miss playing the piano so much, and to be honest the canadian history classes weren't the most intresting ones I've ever attended. The teacher was good and everything, but the canadian history is so boring, handshakes and signing of documents and travels to Great Britian. Give me some action, please! Well, canadians arestill famous for being nice and gentle, no revolutions here. Not like the americans. The music classes ae fine. I already know a lot of the theory and stuff, but not in english so that's good. And I get oppurtunities to make music, I think the music teacher likes my playing, and he's aware that I've been studying a lot of music in Sweden.

The school work here isn't harder than in Sweden, but it's more active. You want to concentrated and keep up on the lessons, otherwise you've got tons of homework. I have homework everyday, usually many different subjects. I'm getting used to it, it's a good way of learning to write and think in english.

A week ago me and the host family went to Fundy National Railway, 1,5 hour drive from here. The nature was amazing, exactly how I'd imagined Canada before I got here, and I think most of you people at home have the same opinion. We went through a covered bridge, the first one in my life, awesome. The day before I went with Bruno, a brazilian exchange student who lives in Moncton, and his host parents to the baloon festival. We waited around three hours for the launching to start but it was defenitly worth it. I've never seen so many baloons in the air at the same time. An the three hours before wasn't too bad either. We walked around, ate maple sugar caramals (in the shape of a maple leaf of course) and watched a horse show.

I've joined the school cross country team. We've had one practice so far, we ran about 1,5 K so I wouldn't really call it a practice. The girls there are nice, a little bit younger than me I think. Most people are younger than me, they start school one year earlier. The cross country practices are monday, tuesday and thursday. In October we're going to a race in Fredericton, NBIAA Provincial Cross-Country Champs. So now I got a reason to keep up with the running.

It's getting colder, every morning you can feel that the fall is coming. The maple leaves are about to turn red and yellow and eventually brown. I love this time of year, go horseback riding on a clear and bright autumn day, wow! I havn't been in a store for two weeks, which must be the longest time ever. I'm not complaining, I've got all that I need here on the dairy farm in Boundary Creek.

Yesterday I tried to make cinnamon rolls. But you know we and cooking, hrm... and in a new kitchen too, even worse if that's possible. They didn't have fresh yeast so I used active dry. That didn't work 'cause the doe didn't rise. Haha, oh my god, the doe is now safely put together with the horse shit ;) Don't worry, next time I'll use fresh yeast. Or make something easier. Yeah, that seems like a good idea.

The school

Now I've been going to school for four days, which in other terms means its now is friday afternoon which means weekend. School here is very different from the swedish school, and very similar to the american one. You pick your courses for each semester and those courses are the one you have, the same every day. So your pretty much stuck with them. The main thing that's different here, and the thing that i don't really like, is that your moving around and meat different people in every class. That complicates the making friends-part a lot. For lunch I've usually sat down with Bauk's friends. They are really nice, but I feel that I have to start making friends on my own, to avoid turning into Bauk's shadow.

Today at english class I worked together with two very nice girls, and I agreed to meet and eat lunch with one of them. She has her own car so that makes it a lot easier to transport fast to a lunch place. After eating we went to her place to get some books (she lives not far away from me, a few minutes by car) and I got to meet with her mom. She gave me a ride home today and we're going to the school football game tomorrow. They're very patriotic at my school, today almost everyone was wearing the school colours, red and white (Go KFF!), and I think a lot of people are going to the game tomorrow.

Another thing that's differs the canadian school from the swedish one is the homework. You get homework every single day. And the classes are really orginised, you actually lern things here (unlike some of the classes in Sweden. I'll avoid to mention some class in particular ;P). I like the teachers too, they've got everything under controll, they really want for us to learn. The classes I've got are english, political science, canadian history, world issues and statistics. Sound like typical Elin subjects, don't they? ;) I signed up for the year book team, which means I'm going to their next meeting if there is some. And I began trying out for the soccer team, ending up realising I still don't like playing soccer for competitions. I'll try out for the basketball team in the end of October, Wiebe thinks I have a good chance of making it =D And I'll probably join the cross country team.

Tonight I think I'm joining bauk and her friends for a movie, it's supposed to be funny and grows. Sounds interesting indeed. Me and my host mom went horseback riding yesterday. I got thrown off but after that I felt really in control. Wow, I've got the power! I got that whole leg thing, which made the horse, Sunny, much more active. So you now, we're riding down to the fields, traoting and cantering. It's a wonderful feeling of feedom, in this breath taking landscape.

I have to eat now, I'll be back before you know it! =P

The host family

Hi guys, sorry for my delay. Won't happen again (hrm).

I've now spent a week at my host family's very nice farm in the little tiny "society" named Boundary Creek. The nearest community is located five minutes away by car and is called Salisburg. Where by the way is where I will go to school. If you want to hang out in a bigger town you can take the car to Moncton, takes about 20 minutes. It's a very nice city, with around 100 000 inhabitants and the biggest mall in the Maritimes.

Until now pretty much all I've been doing has been to get myself to feel at home, get to now the house with surroundings. This place is beautiful, later when my internet hopefully works I'll show you some pictures. It's really idyllic with the river and the forest and the fields. The house is quite big with two or three "extra rooms". But right now I'm living in one of them.

The mom and the daugther got three horses. They are very nice, I've been horseback riding twice. The first time was a total disaster but the second time I went by myself just to practice and I think I regained some self confidence. And for all of you who are wondering; Yes, I've been over to the farm to say Hello to the cows (they are very nice by the way), and I even tried to help out with the milking chores *proud* =)

Yesterday my regional coordinater Janet decided that she wanted to gather all the exchange students in the area (which would be three) so that we got to meet each other and share experiences. So she picked me up here at the farm and we went to her house for a barbique. It was very nice, there was a brazilian guy who I had already met and spoken to briefly at the camp. Haha, my gosh, he's so spoiled. And then there was an austrian guy who wasn't at the camp, it was very nice to meet him. He didn't eat anything, picky kid. After dinner we went downtown to buy a cup of coffee at one of the coffee places. I like Moncton, it's my kind of city, not too big.

Hm, what more could I tell you... School starts tomorrow, I'm nervous of course but I think it will be fine. Hehe, at least I really hope it will be fine =) Wish me good luck!

I love you people! Don't mess things up too much now in school and at home, ok? =)