Last Week Of School

Hey you all!
Last week was my last week of school before the Christmas break (*yay*) and after 16 weeks of school, it's something I really, really needed.

Wednesday was the Food Sharing Project day, which is apparently kind of like a Christmas tradition at my High School. Every class is assigned a less fortunate family, and each student brings something to fill a box for them, for example food for a turkey dinner on Christmas Day, presents for the children, or just something small to make them have a nice Christmas time. I brought a dozen eggs and some German chocolate, and I hope that our family can enjoy their Christmas break :)

Thursday we made gingerbread men in foods and decorated them with icing and sugar sprinkles. After foods I was allowed to skip English class, my hostdad picked me up and we went to the Holiday Extravaganza at my brother's school. His class was singing "12 days of Christmas", and by now I know it by heart, just as all the other Christmas songs that are played constantly on the radio.
Btw, Frosty the Snowman is my new favourite xD

On Friday was my very last day of school, and actually there isn't much difference between German and Canadian schools regarding the last day before Christmas break:
Running around looking for friends to give them presents, watching movies (Christmas version of Madagascar, Home Alone, the Polar Express...), playing games (les loups garous in French class; we haven't been doing anything else for the last two weeks... somehow, our teacher managed to combine the werewolf game with the use of past tenses).

And of course, OUR Holiday Extravaganza :D
I was so impressed by the school spirit on that day!
The whole school was kinda acting like on a concert. A lot of people were waving their phones during the performances, and cheering really loud, even if someone didn't do so well.

One of my friends was asked by the principal to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and to screw it up on purpose, as an experiment to see how students would react. So she "forgot" the words, but the whole school just started to sing the song for her.

Afterwards the principal told us that it was fake, and the reason for the experiment. He said that there's still a lot of bullying and discrimination at Canadian High Schools, and he wanted to see if this concerns Bayside as well.

Seriously, the schools here have so many programs against bullying and intolerance, but they are still concerned about the issue even though, at least compared to German schools, the kids here are so much more open and tolerant towards each other.

There's no complaining about stupid teachers (at least nothing serious... not more than complaining about too much homework etc.).
Nobody is excluded because of the clothes he wears, the things he likes, or the friends he has.
People can openly say that they like books and join the Book Club, without someone making fun of them. Also, joining the "Gay Straight Alliance" at our school doesn't automatically mean you are gay, but just that you want to do more for the rights of homosexuals and against intolerance in general.
Students with a disability are completely integrated into the school life, and I have never, ever heard anyone joking about them for sitting in a wheel chair or looking different.

I bet that in Germany, people would have at least talked about them being different from the others, but that's not the case here. These students are treated exactly like every one else, and I think I'm actually the first person right now to write about these differences, because basically, in our daily school life, they don't exist. 

Anyways, I just wanted to show you how the issue of bullying and intolerance is treated here compared to German schools, and also that the effort put into such programs can actually change something about the situation.
German schools are definitely not doing enough, or if they are doing something, it's not persistent enough. I think that a good school spirit can actually help solving the problems, but unfortunately this is something that I have only really experienced here, on a Canadian High School.

So, I hope you all have nice Christmas Holidays, I'll write again when they're over :D
Lilly

You know you're missing something...

... when you spend your evenings watching youtube videos of people baking bread O.o

I need bread. Immediatly.
Tomorrow I will check out the Global Food Store, and if they don't have it, I'm going to buy special flour at the Bulk Barn and bake it myself.

Some International Students at my school actually bring "real" bread for lunch ("real" meaning no toast, but still nothing compared to fresh bread from the bakery), but they don't know where their hostfamily buys it.
If I succeed in baking my own bread, I will bring a whole loaf to school. Everyone will be so happy *-* (an exchange student's dream).

Update - this is what I made a few days later:

It was perfect :D Well, not exactly. In fact, I forgot to put salt in the dough xD But still, I enjoyed my bread so much, especially as nobody else really liked it, so I had it ALL for myself :)

Reindeer Hunt 2014

Hello here I am again,
with lots of news:

REINDEER HUNT STARTED TODAY!
 
Some of you might be like "What? Hunting?", but this kind of hunt is actually just a game at my school :D Everybody gets a card with another person's name, and that person gets your name, too. After that you have three days to find your target, follow it, and tag it when it's not looking.
The winners' names land in a box for the next round, and the game will continue during the next three weeks until Christmas break. I think the final winner will get some money and a huge reindeer trophy or so.

Here's the link to a video that explains this year's reindeer hunt a bit more in detail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUQgdj1PbGQ&feature=youtu.be

If you don't know the person you're supposed to hunt, you can go to the learning commons and pay a quarter to the librarian, who will then print off your target's timetable and yearbook picture. *stalking*

The whole school is going crazy about the game, and you see people hiding under tables, in the washrooms, waiting in front of classrooms for hours, or just running from one place to the other.

I was really excited for reindeer hunt because I think it's an awesome game and it should definitely be brought to German schools. So last week during lunch I spent a huge amount of time working on strategies (like for example spinning around constantly while walking through the school, or wearing sunglasses with mirrors in the edges so you can see in both directions), and this morning I even went to school in my runners and without socks, because people told me that boots are actually the most dangerous thing to wear during the hunt (no fun, with - 4 degrees).

I got the name at the end of period 1 (I didn't know the boy) and while I was still wondering who "Evan" might be, he had already tracked me down and was like "Can I have your clip, please?"
I mean, seriously?? I had prepared myself for hours, and then, five minutes into the game, I was out! xD I didn't even get to walk out of my classroom...
I was a little disappointed by myself, so now I just started to help others catch their reindeer.

Tomorrow I might change my strategy, though, as I saw others randomly walking up to people and clip them when they're not looking, even though they're not their real targets, but it's just funny to see their faces when they think someone got them xD
I'm becoming mean :D

Lilly

Montréal Trip

Bonjour à tout le monde,

OUI, on a visité Montréal ^^
We went there for two days, with a huuuuge groupe of international students, and it was awesome!
Although we didn't see much of the city itself, because we only rushed from one thing to the next and did lots of stuff inside (like museums, a bagel factory, the cathedral...)
But the only thing I really remember from all the museums is that Montréal was founded in 1642 xD

During the trip I tried to use French, but actually Montréal is probably the worst city in the world to learn that language... everyone's bilingual and as soon as you make a small mistake, they know you're a tourist and switch into English :/

The two dinners we had were pretty awesome, although the first one was really embarrassing for me -.-
It was in a "pirate restaurant" in Montréal and we were kind of watching a show while eating. Each table formed a crew, and you always had to send one member to do a task. The person who won would get a card, and in the end the group with the most cards won. Their prize was to choose one person from each table to come up to the stage and dance (a really, REALLY embarrassing dance), and the moment the guy announced that, I knew they would choose me -.-
Firstly, because the winning group's captain was one of my friends, and guess what, I think I was the only person at our table whose name she knew.
Secondly, because it's ALWAYS the person sticking out that's being chosen, and unfortunately I was sitting with my friends from Korea and Japan, so I tried really hard to disappear behind one of them while eating my apple pie (I think I've never stared so intensly at a white plate).
It was no use though, so two minutes later I had to perform the "drunken bear dance".
And YES, there were (of course) those friendly people who video taped it, so I would always have a memory of this amazingly embarrassing moment of my life :'(

The second dinner was on the way back home, when we stopped at the "Sugar Shack".
It's a place where they produce maple syrup during spring time, and the one we went to had a restaurant too, so we got to eat dinner there.
The food was amazing, they served pea soup, eggs, sausages, bacon, pie, baked beans, pancakes and fresh bread.
And a bottle of Maple Syrup.
Sooo we put syrup on top of everything, and especially the bread tasted so good *-*
Just spread some butter on fresh bread (still warm) and then dip it in syrup, you'll love it!

That's basically all I did on the trip. Eating, museums and more eating xD
On the weekend I tried to do some of my homework, but it's just so much and my marks don't really count anyways, so I gave up after an hour.
And the Canadian Super Bowl game was on, which I had to watch, too ;)

Next week's going to be a lot of work then, with three tests, a literary discussion in English and two presentations :(

See you later
Lilly

Typical houses in Montréal, they have their stairs outside xD might get slippery during winter :P

Notre Dame in Montréal - a pretty church, but the plastic floor kinda destroyed it...

First Snow

Gooooood morning ladies and gentlemen,
Yesterday was Thursday, November 13th, please look through your window to see the first Canadian snow :D ^^

My Canadian Birthday

HELLO and welcome back ^^

Today I want to write about my birthday here, which was last Saturday, but (as usual) I forgot to blog about it the next day...
That morning I woke up at 7:00 or so, maybe half past, but I actually always do because that's the time when my hostsiblings wake up, and honestly there's no chance to sleep as soon as they start running around upstairs xD Whatever, I don't mind getting up early any more, so I just went upstairs and joined them.
The morning was pretty relaxed, I unwrapped my presents watched my hostbrother unwrap my presents and then tried to get the chocolate back ^^ We had pancakes for breakfast, and afterwards I helped my hostdad preparing the turkey dinner (*-*) for my birthday party (*---*) that same afternoon.
We had about 20 people at our place (my extended hostfamily) and LOTS of food (as always, haha :D) and then in the evening (here comes my favourite part) some chocolate cake! My hostmum put candles on top of it and they were all singing "Happy Birthday" for me. That moment I just felt so much at home and happy, it was awesome ^^
I even got some presents and really nice cards which I'd never have expected, and this really shows me how much luck I had with coming to exactly this hostfamily.
All in all the day was one of the best I had so far since being in Canada!


Other things that happened this week:
On Wednesday we went on a school trip to Toronto to see the Musical "Wicked", which is based on the Wizard of Oz but focuses on the two witches. Also, I think it's a lot darker, but it's a great story and I really enjoyed seeing it live on stage. During the intermission we all got "wicked" cookies, they were huge and green with a black hat, but totally NOT worth the 5,50 dollars I had to pay to get one :( On top of that, my lips stayed green for the rest of the day and I just didn't get the colour off xD

Tomorrow is Halloween *yay* and I'm looking forward to it :D
Lilly

My birthday cake ^^ it was soo good *-*

Trip to Niagara Falls

Hey guys,

Sorry for not writing ^^ I guess it's too late for posting something about Thanksgiving now, but we just spent the day with other family members (we went to my host-grandparents) and had lots of good food :) I didn't take any pics because I thought it wouldn't be appropriate as they were praying before starting the dinner so I didn't want to pull out my camera afterwards.
However, we're gonna have another turkey dinner tomorrow, so I hope I'll remember to take some photos then.
The meal was basically turkey with gravey and cranberries, stuffing, vegetables and dessert (which was actually the best xD). We had pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate, apple crumble and someone even made a German Chocolate Cake ^^
Here are the pictures, finally:

Beautiful fields close to my host grandparents' house :)

The actual reason for why I'm writing is because I went to Niagara Falls on Thursday :D Yes! The real ones!
It was an International Day Trip which means that all the International Students went there together and it was sooo awesome, I'm sure everyone had a good time. We didn't go on the boat though, the "Maid of the Mist", in fact we only had 35 min at the Falls. Afterwards they gave us tickets for Madame Tussaud's, a 4D cinema and some kind of Believe-it-or-not-Museum. But, hey, it was fun too, so it doesn't really matter to me.
At the falls I finally found those awesome mittens that have the Canadian Maple leaf printed on, and a winter hat that says CANADA. I love them already xD
The bus trip was only 4 hours long, and it seems as if I get used to the Canadian understanding of "far away" and "nearby":
Obviously, if you go on a trip e.g. to Niagara Falls or Toronto or some similar place, you only have to stay in the car for 2 - 4 hours, which means it's pretty close, considering the fact that you'd have to drive about 8 hours to get to the next province which is Manitoba.
However, if you want to go to the Mall and say you'd take the bike because it's only half an hour away, or even if you just want to go from the Arena to the Chinese restaurant, which is a 15min walk, people look at you like "Are you crazy? That's too exhausting, I can drive you there!" ^^

So here are some pics of Niagara Falls:

Lake Ontario *-*

the Canadian Falls

Only in Canada xD

And the American Falls

The following two gravestones are legit :D I found them in Ripley's believe-it-or-not Museum.

See ya
Lilly