'Canada, eh'

Hm, I've recieved some news from home that you're all waiting for a new post. I can surely understand why, it's been I while since I last wrote.

To be honest, it doesn't happen much of interest here in Boundary Creek, New Brunswick, right now. I have my share of happiness and misery, sometimes I really wonder what I'm doing here and I wish I would be back at my dear Stagnelius and in spend the days with my lovely class mates in SP3C. But as it is for now that is not the case, I'm far away, in a different country on a completely different continent.

But I'm not entirely complaining, most of the days are good. Every morning I ride with the traditional yellow school bus and I go to my five classes. It seems like the whole school knows who I am, since they been presenting me at all the assemblies and everything. It's not too bad, I've got people to talk to and usually someone to hang out with at lunch time.

In the afternoons almost everybody goes to work or simply takes the bus home. I've tried to attend some of the school activities, but there aren't that many since the school is so small and most of the kids work after school. I thought about trying out for the basketball team but when I heard there are always some people throwing up in the garbage bin on the try-outs, I gave it all a second thought.

I love the life here on Salisdairy farm (yes, that's the name of it). I almost live for the coffee breaks when the dad comes up from the farm and has his afternoon coffee. It's right when we come home from school so I usually spend half an hour after school drinking coffee and chatting a bit. It's cosy, makes me feel at home. I like the evenings to, when me, my host mom, Wiebe and Baukje all cuttle up in the sofa and watch the OC. It's true, I've become an OC freak, hit me if you must ;)

In the evening and sometimes in the afternoon I say 'hi' to the horses in the barn and do some barn chores. I love it, especially mucking the stalls. You get a chance to work with your body and the brain can go for a break. And you feel useful. And you get to be surrounded by the wonderful smell of horse. I might sound sarchastic, but I'm actually not. Last week I went with Bruno (from Brazil) and Christof (from Austria) to the mall (They are exchange students in Moncton), and god I felt misplaced. There were fancy, fashionable people everywhere and all these expebsive formal clothing. Uah, I just wanted to go back to the farm. Last weekend I went horseback riding two days in a row too. Man, I thought I would day when I got out of bed on the third day, my legs hurt so badly ;P

I don't say 'no' to some traveling sometimes though. Last week we went to Fredericton (the capital of New Brunswick) with the cross-country team to attend the NBIAA Provincial Cross-Country Champs. It was fun, at first I didn't think I wanted to go there but the coach convinced me, and it turned out to be worth it big time. I got to know some people a lot better, I got to see parts of Fredericton which is a beautiful city and I got to wear one of the famous JMA Armstrong High team sweater with the high fashionable colour combination of dark red and light blue (I know, no wonder no country chose those colours for their flag).

Last week their was an assembly in the gym called Pepperoli (I'm not sure that is how it's spelled). The school does it before the last game against Peticodiac, which is their rival school, and people dress up in the school colours (which I've already described) and some people even paint their hair and faces.In the gym the whole high school sits down and watch all the different chool teams being presented (including the cross-country team =D), they showed a movie from the year book staff (which I'm a part of =D) and then it ends with everybody singing or screaming along to the school anthem. It was so much fun, I will honestly bring it to back to Stagg.

Sometimes I get the question if I've noticed anything special with the Canadian English. The most obviuos thing I can think of is the Canadians way of saying 'eh' after almost every sentence. 'I know, eh', 'Nice weather today, eh'. I have to admit that I'm about to start with it myself, I can't help myself, it is such a nice way to end a sentence, don't you think, eh?

I'm adding some pictures from our turkey thanksgiving dinner (and some other random pictures). Turkey is not a part of the family's thanksgiving traditions but I made them buy with the argument that I havn't come the whole way to North America to not it turkey at Thanksgiving. So, we had turkey.

Tomorrow and Friday are 'Parent Teacher days', which fortunatly means that we've got those two days off. Ah, time to sleep in and rest, we definatly deserve it after a hard three day week ;P On Friday I'm going to help Paige baby sit three small kids. Wich me good look, we're gonna carve pumkins. It'll be interesting, bringing pumkins and small children together *gulp*. By the way, thank you dad for the Donald Duck magazines! I am very greatful for those, they are nowhere here to be bought. I find that strange since Donald himself is actually born in Canada's country neighbour the United States.

Fall in New Brunswick

I am so sorry for the delay, everyone! I understand if you begin to wonder if I'm still alive or not, but for your information; Yes, I'm alive.

I have a really good feeling right now, but as with everything else in an exchange year, everything goes up and down. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here and sometimes, quite often actually, everything feels right and I feel strong, grown up and independent. It's a wonderful feeling.

Soon I've been here in Canada for two months, time flies by so fast sometimes I can't even see it. I'm going to school with the school bus every day, trying the best I can to fit into the school (ehich isn't easy, believe me. They've known each other for 12 years. But I'm doing okay anyway). I have one quite good friend. her name is Paige and she is so nice. She takes me to things and her family almost starts to feel like my second host family. With her dad teasing me all the time about swedish meatballs and her boyfriend and sister and mom. They are all wonderful, thank you so much for everything!

Yesterday I had thanksgiving dinner with Paige's family. That was very nice. We didn't eat turkey though, but that's okay, I made my host family make turkey for our thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Baukje and Wiebe are threatening with stuffing it down my throat if I don't finish it (they would rather like to have chicken). Hmhm, we'll see about that is my response.

Today we went apple picking. It was really nice, beautiful autumns day, I felt like a real canadian climbing those trees (especially when the ladder fell completely over, hehe). But no more apples for today, I see apples everywhere, even when I close my eyes.

Hm, do I have anything more to tell you... yes, sorry for not answering things, like emails and stuff, I realise I'm not very good at that. It's not because I don't want to talk to you, it's just that I don't really have time and when i have time I forget or don't really feel like it. I'll try to improve, promise! Yes, another thing, we made up countries in the political scinece class and presented them in front of the class. People said I looked so confident and acted like it was perfectly natural that our country existed. For that I must thank the Model United Nations, finelly I got to use my cool MUN attitude. It really helps you, anyone who ever doubted about the meaning of MUN, never again.

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.