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? =)

The Niagara Falls

I feel very good about this: When I come home, and people are gonna ask me if i evere saw the Niagara Falls ('cause mainly that's all people know about Canada) I'm gonna answer them by saying 'Yes, I saw the Niagara Falls on my 10th day in Canada'. You couldn't use your time better, it was totally amazing! I will never again do anything that'll be anywhere near the experience in standing on a boat, dressed in a plastic rain coat in the middle of the horse shoe falls (the Canadian falls).

There are two falls, the american one and the canadian one. The canadian one's of course about ten times more amazing then the american one. That is actually the truth, it's not only because I'm living in Canada and have a good eye to this country, as you might think. I'll tell you why; First of all the canadian fall is formed like a horse shoe (therefore the name), the american fall is just flat. Second is that in the american fall there are plenty of very big rocks, browsing and stopping the water so that the height of the water falling is divided into two. Third of all, I mean come on, american or canadian, what do you choose, not a very hard question ;) Okay, so maybe I am a bit partic.

We left after breakfast and three of those magic yellow schoolbuses took us first to Niagara on the lake, a lovely little town, though very touristic, then to the flower clock, where we didn't stay for long since it was raining and finally we arrived at Niagara Falls city to see one of the worlds greatest wonders, the Niagara Falls. We went on the Maid of the Mist, a tour boat which took us right into the falls. Fantastic! I costed twelve bucks but it was worth every single penny of it.

The time between Maid of The Mist and dinner at Plannet Hollywood we spent in the city. Me, Gabbi, Wiebke and Annika. Wonderful girls, I love them! Unfortunatly I can't say the same about the sourroundings arond the falls. It was like a tivoli street, with theatres, museums, wax cabinetts, ghost houses, souvenier shops, fast food resturants and flashes and lights and noise everywhere. I didn't buy anything, although it would be nice to have a sweater which says 'Canadaian' or something like that, but I'm going to stay here for a year, so there's no hurry.

After an very entertaining dinner we went to see the falls by night. They light them up with flashes and lights in different colours, it looked quite spectacular. But personally I prefer the falls by day; natural glory.

The end of the camp is getting nearer. It feels a little bit sad, I've been getting used to the routins here and all the nice people. But of course I can't wait to meet my host family, I'm so excited about it :D And the farm... wow. Today was our last day in the normal classes, on thursday we're going to do something different I think. We wrote our name on a post card and passed it around the class for everybody to write a little comment on it. It was nice, Hilda collected them and she's going to send them to us in a month, 'when the honey moon with our host families is over'.

Tonight we're going to see a musical, it's called 'We will rock you'. Ring any bells? Moha, I thought so, music by Queen. It costs 40 dollars and is not compulsory, but I think I'll never have this opportunity again, it isn't very expensive for being a musical. Or, at least i like to tell myself so ;)

Toronto: The largest city in Canada

Yesterday was a Toronto day. It was assume, I've never been to such a big city before. It wasn't the most beautiful city I've ever seen ('cause I'm so cool and have been to so many cities, or not), but it sure was something special about it. Very north american with all the high buildings on each side of the road and with all the skyscrapers. First we went to the CN Tower which is almost a compulsory thing to do when visiting Toronto. It was cool to see the city from above, although we didn't see all of it, it's too big for that.

After the CN Tower we had the whole afternoon off to do whatever we wanted. I myself went to the harbour with Gabbie to catch the farry for visit on Centre Island. I liked it out there, it was like a big park with big green areas, idyllic little bridges, carousels and animals for the children, unbelievably expensive ice cream, and so on. All the things you need for a perfect picnic day.

After Centre Island we intended to visit China Town, since noone of has had ever been to such thing before. Unfortunatly, and although I was an excellent map reader (hrm), we didn't have the time to go there. That'll have to be for another time. Nevertheless on our way there, we found some very cool shops in Queen St, for example one were you could find a least a hundred different buttons.

After we'd catched up with the other EF people and eaten our dinner at the Hardrock Cafe all of us went to a baseboll game. I just have to say this, I'm sorry but: Baseball is quite a boring game to watch. At least if you're watching it for too long. It felt like they almost didn't do anything, the catcher and the pitcher and whatever their names are. It's not at all as cool and dramatic as it looks like on TV. So we sat down for two and a half hour, taking pictures, talking, clapping when everybody else was clapping, booing when everybody else was booing, you know. But now I've been to a baseball game, I'm proud of that and I'm very glad we went there. Just wish I would have getting to know the rules before the game, instead of afterwards.

I've been taking a lot of pictures, with my digital camera, so now you know all you people who were wondering why a brought the analog camera. You'll be very pleased to know that now I'm wondering too.

The camp

Okay, now it's my third day here on camp in Toronto. It really doesn't happen that much around here, or, not as much as I would want to. Now is our free time and I come straightly from a soccer tournament between the four homerooms. Unfortunatly our homeroom didn't win, but we made a good third.

Today and yesterday we had our first classes; English, Canadian Geography, Life in Canada and something wierd that's called Administration. The main purpose of that class is to collect money from the students for different events. Yesterday afternoon we went to the second biggest mall in Canada. It wasn't as big as I'd thought it'd be, but yet big enough to get lost in three times. Thanks heaven for information desks!

It's amazing, I would guess probably 50 % of all the students here are germans. They are everywhere, I'm living with three of them myself. And they all speak german to each other, great! Or not. No, now I'm being a little bit unfair, they were much worse in the beginning, now they actually speak mostly english.

So, there isn't very much more to tell you at the moment. People are very nice here, open minded. Sometimes the conversations fade out and it gets all quiet. That is sad, but that too is getting better as the camp goes on and there are more things to talk about. And oh, the japanese girls are so funny, they're like a big choir.

During these two weeks I won't be able to show you any pictures since I can't get them into the computer, but once I'm with my host family I will. I'm so tired, now I'm gonna go and read.

Arrival in Toronto

This is unbelievable! Here I sit, in the library of the university of campus in Toronto. Two chairs away sits Gabriella from Stockholm. She is really nice, we sat next to each other on the plane from Paris. By the way, the trip went just fine. It wasn't difficult at all finding the terminal and the gate in Paris, Charles de Gaulle. The signing was very clear and there weren't that much people. Not at all as chaotic as I'd thought it'd be.

On the airport I ran into a whole group of EF students from Germany and Switzerland. I spoke a little with some of them, but of course they talked in german with each other so it wasn't easy for me to take part of the conversations. I was very happy to pop into the Swedish girl, Gabriella. She told me that out of those 6-800 students that go to Canada every year 400 of them are germans. Not really hard to believe.

So, now it's half past four in the afternoon, and my guess is we got here by two a clock. We have this afternoon off because they know we're tired and would like some time to unpack our luggage and two move into our rooms. We live four students in each "apartment", and in each apartment are four rooms, so we've got one each. That's great, some privacy (I know, but come on, I'm swedish).

Apart from Gabriella I've been talking to some asian girls, some from Germany and Switzerland and I've also spoken to an australian girl, who has been here in Canada for half a year by now. She and her friend are like, leaders here. They know were everything is and I think they are going to talk to us about what it's like living in a canadian host family.

Since we've spent the afternoon here on campus I havn't seen that much of Toronto yet, except for the 40 minutes by bus it took us to get here. But one of the differences I've been noticing the most is the different colour of the traffic lines and lights.