Saturday 28 March 2015

North trip 5 -12th March 2015

So not last week but the week before I went on my first Rotary trip with 40 ish other students from around the world well mostly Germany!
Instead of being interesting and describing all the cool places we visited could that would take an age, I decided to take what I wrote in my journal  each day on the trip. Although each day seemed long, it was over in a blink of an eye. so here goes..

Day 1
Was a little bit late to the bus this morning but we weren't the last ones.( I stayed the night with my second host family and they are hosting a boy from Canada) Started on the road at 7.30, had 2 pit stops on the way so i got to talk with other exchange students. On the bus trip I saw a few unique things which I didn't expect to see- well really i didn't know what to expect at all, like two donkeys walking down a hill by themselves, also saw a farmer on riding a horse doing work n his farm, sort of normal but he was wearing traditional looking poncho and hat, we drove through an orchid area place where all the orchids stopped mid way up a mountain and it looked like the grey mountains were wearing green skirts. Made it to La Serena at 3pm and went straight to restaurant for lunch and then dropped off our bags at the hotel that we would be staying at for 2 nights, and went down to the beach, back at the hotel afterwards I was sitting talking with a group of girls, we were sitting on the ground and the most exciting thing ever happened... there was an earthquake! It was such a cool experience to literally feel the solid earth be as fragile as glass and be moving.
Day 2
This day was the longest but probably my favourite from the whole trip. We left the hotel for the day at 10.30 and went to the mountains. We made stops at a viewing tower that was designed like a castle. Also a gigantic dam, the water gets collected from the melting snow coming down from the mountains, it was really cool looking and had great views of the valley's. There were some cute little stores at the car park area so i spent a fortune.. not really, on little gifts for my family and something for my rotary blazer. The next stop was at a museum which had lots of reading cards which i couldnt understand so i am not too sure who the museum was about, i think it is about the lady who first made Pisco... not even sure if she had anything to do with Pisco. We kept on travelling up into the mountains and stopped in this cute little town that looked like I expected all Chile towns to look like before I came here, we had a really good lunch at a restaurant where I had my first taste of a Chilean drink thing with wheat and a peach and I think tea, it tasted very good but I was uncertain about the texture. There was a church just around the corner that we could look at while waiting for the bus. As it turned we were headed towards an observatory where we watched 2 videos about the exploration of the planets and how far away everything is and then the comparison of some of the planets compared to earth, it made me seem very very small, when i saw what else is actually out there. Then we went outside and were shown where Orion, Leo, Taurus and Gemini were in the sky, we also looked through a mega huge telescope at the moon. Arrived back at the hotel at about 1.30 and got ready to leave the next morning at 6
Day 3
Today was a bus day. I sat next to an American girl on the bus and we talked for ages until the counselor's told us to be quiet and go to sleep but as soon as we woke up again we were talking again like a pair of old ladies. Had lunch on the go. Stopped at the famous hand in the Atacama Desert, the hand was really huge! When we got to Antofagasta we had some relaxing time and then walked to a restaurant for dinner, I was talking the whole way with 2 German girls who were so much fun to talk with, also talked with them through all of dinner and for the whole time we walked on the waterfront and back to the hotel. very quickly went to sleep that night.
Day 4
in the morning we went for a little walk around to see a miniature Big Ben in the middle of a plaza that was gifted to Antofagasta by England, and other historical type buildings like the old train station that had the station dressed up like it was from back in the day. On the bus we carried on to our next city, we stopped at a mall for lunch and to buy a present for a kindergarten aged child. Then we traveled out of the city to San Pedro de Atacama, Talked a lot of the way with a girl from Bermuda, and it was so interesting to hear about her country, before we got to the hotel we made a stop at Valle de la Luna, we walked through a salt and quartz cave and then climbed a dune to watch the sunset, the view from the dune was so amazing I was in love with it! That day happened to be women's day, so our counselor's organised the boys to serve the girls cake and fizzy after dinner, it was a nice time to chat with the other girls.
Day 5
We left the hotel super early to go up the mountains to see the geysers, it was sooooooo freezing. Had breakfast and then went back down the mountain to see some flamingo's . We had lunch at a really cool Brazilian restaurant, it was a bbq style lunch and i ate so much that I was glad to have the rest of the afternoon to walk around the shops in town. This day was a 'bus day' so it feels like we didnt do much but we saw alot.
Day 6
Today was our last bus day from San Pedro to Iquique our last city. We stopped off at a kindergarten and gave our gifts, unfortunately only four kids were there that day, we then walked to a restaurant for lunch and then carried on in the bus to a small place called La Tirena where we visited a fabulous church, the interior was so amazing. The view going down the mountain into the valley bit of Iquique was so breathtaking, when we got to the hotel we had time to relax and go for a swim before dinner. After dinner I talked for hours with two girls, it was so much fun! Went to bed at 2.
Day 7
Had a late morning, went on a tour of a replica ship Esmerelda which sank in the Iquique harbour, I didn't understand anything more than that so I just took loads of pictures. Our tour group got in trouble for taking Titanic pictures and the front of the boat, we then took a tour boat to go to the actual place of the sunken ship, there were so many seals swimming around the boat and laying on the floating island things. Had fun after lunch walking around a super confusing mall bought hippie pants and 2 dresses for only 8 luca which I couldn't believe. Walked round to the beach where I had a lovely afternoon swimming and looking at the stalls and comparing our exchange experiences with the other students. After dinner we got dressed up to go out to a discoteque that Rotary had booked for us and just outside the front door of the hotel were workers protesting, they had alarms and drums and other noise makers, it was very exciting to see. The night at the discoteque was super fun, That day was maybe my fav day of the whole trip.
Day 8 (last day)
We all went to a miners ghost ton called Humberstone, we were able to go into houses and the school and theatre and the 'haunted hospital'. Spent a good hour there and then made our way to the airport to fly back to Santiago, I sat next to a girl from Finland. When we landed we stayed on the runway for 5 minutes, so everyone assumed that the plane was parked and got up and then the pilot growled everyone so everyone sat back down apart from one of the Rotarian counselor's who got in trouble again.
So that is the North Trip, our next trip is to Easter Island in May, and am really looking forward to it.  

Wednesday 4 March 2015

First week of school

So the first week of school was only 3 days, because my school started on a Wednesday. Most schools start early March, but mine decided to be a bit different.
The first day I woke up at 6 after a terrible nights sleep. I was unsure what time I would be picked up or when I should leave the house or where precisely I should be picked up because I was not told until the day before that school starts at 8 and that My second host mum would pick me up. So I woke up at 6 to be safe, only to find out at 7 when I told my host mum that I was leaving for school that she was driving me to be picked up at 7.30, so that was annoying to only find out then that I could have had an extra 30 minutes sleep that morning, but at least I finally knew what the morning schedule was going to be.
On the first day my second host mum who is like my organizer/counselor type person, walked me into the school and she introduced me to my form teacher and other teachers. She waited with me till assembly began at 9 and we were arranged into our form classes. During the whole assembly which was only 30 minutes long we had to stand, which killed me because my bag (we had to have our bags on too) had all of my books in it, expecting that I could leave them all in the classroom as I knew that I only had one room the whole year and the different subject teacher came to us. But alas that was not so, we only had one class that day which was History it was so frustrating not knowing what was being taught, so I googled the topic when I got home. School finished at 12 that week, and next week it finishes at 1. But then they are trying to kill us with a 9 hour day the following week which I am not looking forward to. That first day I was walking to our form class from the assembly behind 3 girls who realized that I was new and turned around to say hello and introduce themselves, well I bet they think they made a mistake there because I've stuck to them like limpets, there is no way they are getting rid of me for the rest of the year! They are really nice though and at lunchtimes we go around the school and name things in Spanish for me and I tell them what it is in English. Also found out that I have 4 pairs of the wrong socks for school, but no-one cared so I didn't bother telling my second host mum, personally I think that the socks that I have suit the uniform much better than the proper socks. The first bell I heard went on for so long I actually thought that it was the fire alarm bell, I had to ask if that was normal, they looked at me a bit funny for that. Also No one takes any notice of the bell when it rings and stays outside for ages and only in their own time do they meander over to their class. The most unusual things I have noticed is that the student kiss their teacher on the cheeks and hug them whenever they pass, and that they call teachers and other staff aunty and uncle. The students also like to smoke straight after school right at the front gate, and its not just a few, it is EVERYONE, but smoking is so common for everyone over here that it wasn't much of a surprise.The classes I have done so far are Maths, English, Language -which is like English class in NZ, and Philosophy.





' Family ' photo of the first day of school. 

School Uniform

First day of school!