Thanksgiving and all the other days :D

As usual I start with school:

Foods - Our Macaroni turned out really well. We wrote a test 1 week ago. They are so easy -> fill in the blanks, unscramble the words, match the correct things together, multiple choice, ... On Friday we started our new topic which is Baking Basics. We have a sub teacher at the moment because our real teacher is eliminated by the 'Calgary Board of Education' at the moment :( We had a demonstration on the 3 Basic Baking Methods and it took her more than 1 period (and that is 90 minutes!!) to show us that. And when we made our Muffins yesterday she didn't want to try them - but finally she did. Strange/Weird is the right word to describe her.

Art - we had a student teacher because our real teacher was in Paris for an Art trip of the school [yes, my school is doing trips to Europe a lot; in spring there is a trip to Brussels]. Our assignment is to cut 3 circles out of a magazine and then to copy it with pencil crayon. After that we have to connect them with pencil and the background is supposed to look 3-dimensional...it is tough.

Gym - Our actual module was Lacrosse, but it was so cold and snowy that we stayed inside most of the time. Once we played Volleyball, then we played Lacrosse inside, we played Basketball (to my pleasure), on Tuesday we went bowling!, yesterday I played soccer and today again we played Basketball. Yesterday was a meeting for the school teams and the tryouts are on the 23rd of November. I am so bad at the moment since I haven't played for like 5 months....

ELA - Today we finished reading Shakespeare. I was getting better with every day and I think I like it! Now we have to act a scene and then we have to do a poetry project, but more about that next time.

Last Friday I got my first report card. I got 98% in Foods, 95% in Art, 86% in ELA (probably because my essay is not in there :D) and 84% in PE (he took of 10% cause I am missing every Tuesday, but now I go to the Fitness center in Tutorial time and so I should get better). Everything over 80% is really good so I am very happy with my marks.

And now to Thanksgiving (that was 2 weeks ago)...we went away with the motorhome to Kananaskis Country. The campground was in the middle of nowhere. I can tell you that this weekend was quite an adventure! We left on Friday (I had no school - it was Professional Development Day; or short PD day) at noon and it is only a 1-hour-drive from Calgary. We had snow and I would say it was about as much as in Germany in winter :D. The whole weekend we had fires for warming up. I was so cold that I wore 5 pairs of socks, my big winter jacket, gloves, a had, tights, my snow pants, ... and I was still cold. I need other shoes :D Rocky had to go inside the motorhome because his paws froze...My ginger ale froze and I thaw it over the fire (don't let your drinks outside in the snow!). We had barbecued salmon in the evening - ohh yes, we barbecued outside in the snow :D. During the next day I just relaxed - talking to other people, reading, going for a walk with Rocky - he was so happy without his leash and running around the whole day with the other dogs. And the adventure never stops when you are out camping in the snow! We were 8 people for dinner in our motorhome. It was soo tight. A tip of me -> don't move even if you want to do a favor do your mum! That doesn't work out well at all. Our battery died and so we had to wash the dishes by candle light in only a small amount of water. Remember!, we were 8 people :D. Our generator couldn't keep the battery charged and the next morning we had to start the motor at 5.30. But haha, that's not as easy as you might think. We had to hook up the motor to another car cause otherwise we couldn't have started it....see, you can learn a lot of things! On Sunday, Warren joined us after a hockey game with his team in Medicine Hat. And it was the day of Thanksgiving. At 11 (!) we put the turkey over the fireside to roast it. Every 15 minutes they turned it around. And at just 4 o'clock we had dinner outside in the snow. You cannot believe how cold I was!! I was so stuffed that I couldn't eat the dessert. At night we had a slide show outside - Can you believe that the notebook worked?! The whole weekend we had temperatures below 0 and this night it got -20 degrees!! At Monday we got home and cleaned the motorhome. Now it is prepared for the winter. I forgot, we had no water and the 'washroom' was just an outhouse *baehhh*. But I take things how they come and it was soo exciting. I gained a lot of experience during this time. I had no school because of Thanksgiving and I really like the way of celebrating it. Most families meet together (not camping but just at home) and usually you have turkey made in the oven. What do you think of this weekend? I just thought "Crazy Canadians"; but I enjoyed it so much!! Even in Calgary we had snow until Thursday last week and the streets were just so bad! In Calgary there were a lot of accidents and my host mum was so afraid to drive! To the Rotary meeting I took the bus. I never did that before...you put your money in a box and then you get your ticket....I had another day off cause school started earlier as the WorldSkills competitions were in Calgary. It was not the best meeting but anyways. Afterwards I went shopping in downtown, but I still have no shoes :D it was soo slippery because of the snow.

On Wednesday I moved to Rosemary until yesterday because my host parents have been to Quebec and Montreal. All the buses were late and only half of my ELA class was at time. Our teacher's car stuck at a hill so that she was late, too :D It is crazy with all the snow - and that in October! On Friday most of the snow was gone and I was picked up for the first Oktoberfest of my life! Another RC invited me, they have an exchange student from Brazil. It was so amazing - german food, the 'traditional' clothes, the music, the dance (Schuhplattler), ... Everything is so familiar even if we don't have that in northern Germany. I had to explain that to all of them :D On Saturday I went to downtown to get everything done for Xmas. I know that it is early but a package needs 6-8 weeks to Germany. So I have to do that very soon. In the evening I met the exchange students from Sweden and Brazil and we watched some movies. It was a very nice evening! I slept over and the next day I was picked up for another Thanksgiving dinner of the secretary of my RC whose daughter went to Germany 15 years ago. It is so difficult to keep the German and after the first sentences we both switched into English. It is nice though to share the experiences and to talk about the traditions in Germany. As you can see my weekend was very busy, and the next ones will be as well :).

For Rosemary I made a salad every evening; I am getting better! ;) On Tuesday I didn't go to the Rotary meeting for the first time because I wanted to go bowling. And yesterday I moved back home.

Take care! :)

Photos: Thanksgiving in the Winterwonderland :)

Our Thanksgiving Turkey

Weekend in Waterton

So many things happened and I do not know where to start^^. For about 1 week I can totally separate German andEnglish. I mean that I do not translate and that I can remember a text I read in English in German - if you understand what I mean. I still cannot connect my notebook to the internet but at the moment I am writing this text on mine and then I copy it into the internet on the laptop of my host

parents. [That didn't work because they have Mac and so I sent it as an attachment of an email and then I got an email back with my text :).] But anyways - I am so used to the American keypad that I struggle with writing on a German keypad. I have to say that I prefer the American one^^. There are not a lot of new impressions that I have, but I did so many things that I still can tell you a lot of stuff!

On September 24, I finally got my locker for gym - so now I can leave my clothes in school and do not have to take them every single day. We had AM Schedule which means that we have the subjects in the order of Thursdays but the times are like on Fridays (for more information look at the bottom of this page). In Foods our first assignment was to cook a pudding and we decided to do a banana pudding. We did a mistake and mashed the bananas and then we let it cool down over night. The next day it looked so gross and we put in to much vanilla so that it tasted not good at all! Our second assignment was a cream soup. Did you ever make soup in the microwave? We were supposed to do that (said our recipe) and it boiled over - what a big mess! But at least it tasted really good! So I guess we did not very well with the first practical assignments of our new unit 'milk products and eggs' :D. The third assignment was just a breakfast with an egg dish and we decided on scrambled eggs. And finally our forth assignment was an omelette what I never did before. Yesterday we made Cheese Fondue and it burned. It took us 45 minutes to clean the pot :(! I never try that again! The next to assignments (we still have to do them) are 'macaroni and cheese'.

In PE we finished Football and then we went on with Rugby. That is a crazy sport but I enjoyed it. And the boys were nicer to us than in Football. So now we start with Lacrosse and Frisbee. You know what I like about gym in Canada?We can choose between two options, what we want to do. So the options that I did not do were Volleyball, Badminton and Field Hockey. We just started with Lacrosse on Tuesday, but it was my Rotary meeting so I did not participate. But actually that is THE Canadian sport. Even if you always hear that hockey is the national sport of Canada. Yesterday I actually played Lacrosse and it is really rough. I had no imagination before what it is like; I learned :D. We were outside and it was FREEZING cold. It even snowed a little bit. And I wore only shorts - never possible in Germany!

In ELA we started to read Shakespeare. The first day I understood NOTHING! But it is getting better every day. You have to imagine reading Schiller/Goethe in English. It is just so difficult. Tomorrow is our quiz about Act I. How will that be? Ok, the quiz already was and it was very easy. Even I got full marks :D. It was just to analyze quotes from the play. And we never interpret mythological refers or metaphors/similes/...So it is not very challenging.

And in Art I finished my pop can and the next assignment was to distort a face. My choice was Albert Einstein and I never thought that I can do that :D. But it looks really good. Last week we had to hand in our sketchbook assignments for September. They were:

1. Design the cover page
2. Doodling & Noodling
3. Copy a Master's Drawing

I love Art here because we only do practical things assignments :). So the next assignment I have to do in class is to use pencil and colour. That is challenging.

And one day we tried out oil pastel -> we made groups of 2 and then we got one square out of a painting and we copied it. There were 12 groups of us and so we had a painting made of 12 squares. Everyone did his own thing but it looks so nice!

I did not make it into 'Youth in Action' but I tried out for photography (which is not what I expected but anyways) and I signed in for the Husky Share Committee.
The weather changed rapidly. It was still 30° last week, and on Sunday we had snow and it was below 0°. Every night we have ground frost but it shall be warmer this weekend. To me nothing can happen! I bought a winter coat and it is soo warm ;). -- Maybe the weather is not getting better :D. Today it snowed again and in the radio they tell that you cannot go to Canmore or Banff (both east of Calgary in the Rocky Mountains) because the Highways are so icy.
Friday, September 25: We had the Terry Fox run at school. That is a run for cancer research. [Terry Fox was 18 years old when he was diagnosed with bone cancer in his right leg. His leg was amputated. It was during this time that he decided he wanted to help raise money for cancer research by running across Canada. He set out on his Marathon of Hope on April 12, 1980 in St. John's, Newfoundland. On September 1, 1980 Terry was forced to end his run in Thunder Bay, Ontario due to a return of cancer to his lungs. He had run 5,373 kilometres through six provinces. Terry died in 1981.] Everyone who wanted to spend money could have done that but it did not matter how long you ran. It is so crazy because everyone is talking about Halloween. And that is still one month.I do not know yet what I will do^^.

September 25 - 27 I was at the International Peace Park Assembly in Waterton where I spend a weekend with all the exchange students from my district and from Montana. I could not believe that I met a German girl that I already knew because we are in the same district in Germany!! It was so exciting and I was so happy to see them all again. I was a little late on Friday but it did not matter. In the evening we watched a movie and I had headaches so that I went to bed earlier. But before that we had a fire outside and we made Smores :). They are so great. I already told you what that is - it is a cracker, roasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate. I got a lot of new pins and my blazer looks wonderful now! Maybe I should take a photo :D.

Our group now has a new song (everywhere we go - everywhere we go, people want to know - people want to know, who we are - who we are, we are exchange students - we are exchange students) and we had a lot of fun with that!
On Saturday we made a scavenger hunt in Waterton. But we had not enough time and we were more interested in the deer that are just right in downtown ;). So we finally didn't hand in our cameras. I love this internationality and you learn so much about different cultures and languages! After lunch we had an orientation about the rules and not everyone is as happy with their host families as I am! Some of us went for a hike up to the Prince of Wales Hotel. We had a nice view over the whole lake and then we went to the Cameron Falls in Waterton. But it was no hike at all because the Roteract students - who organized the whole weekend for us - drove us everywhere :D so I was really happy that I decided to do the 'hike'. Most of us were so tired that they decided to stay at the camp. We designed our own t-shirts and everyone signed mine. I asked them to write down my name in their language; so now I have my name in Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Russian! In the evening we had a meeting with all the Rotarians that came for this event (do not forget! It was still the International Peace Park Assembly). It was a little bit boring.The Russian boy still has no visa so we had no chance to get to know him. That must be really damn. At midnight we celebrated the birthday of the Mexican girl. She turned 18 and it was so nice :).

On Sunday we made a boat trip with all the Rotarians to the Canada-US border (Waterton is in the South of Alberta) for the 'Hand-over-the-border-Ceremony'. Now I can say that I have been the USA!!! All the Rotarians from Montana stood on their side and the Rotarians from Alberta on the other one. And then we shake hands with each other. That is a symbol for the peace between the USA and Canada. A nice idea and such a nice experience :)! When we returned we did a last group picture and then everyone left. The next time we see each other is in January :(. I hope we can all meet before that! But our days together are count.
Last week we had the CEO and president of the Calgary Flames (for those who don't know: that is the hockey team of Calgary) at our Rotary club as the speaker - he even is a member of Rotary. Everyone goes crazy then :D. They all invited friends to come to the meeting and lots of them wore their shirts. But compare that to soccer in Germany! Maybe then you can understand that. On Tuesday the speaker taught us about high blood pressure - don't eat too much salt! 95% of the population have this problem and worldwide it is the leading cause for dead. As you can see I get more and more details of the speeches :) - even if he had a slide show and I could read everything :D.
What our Rotary meetings are like: When we come to the hotel where we meet the Rotarians have to buy their lunches. I get mine for free :D. We take our lunch and at the door to the room the Greeter welcomes us. I sit down at a table and start my lunch. Then we stand up and the head table enter the room, accompanied by the piano (Oh yes, we have a pianist!). President Larry welcomes us and we sing O Canada, accompanied by our pianist - that is the national anthem of Canada :D - and we have a different grace every week. Then we go on with eating. At 12.30pm we start with all our speakers. The president starts with a Rotary minute and then we welcome guests and visiting Rotarians. Next is 'Sparky's world around us' where we learn "about the great world of Rotary". Once we learned about Barbie :D. We sing Happy Birthday to the birthday-kids followed by a sing song of a Rotary show they had many years ago. After all that we hear several speeches of two minutes each. That is the time when I am on. Like today.And then the main speaker has 20 minutes and we finish off the meeting. It is always so much fun - and because lots of people from Saskatchewan come to Calgary/Alberta in order to work they always make jokes about that!

This weekend we stayed at home which was kind of relaxing! My host brother Warren quit his hockey team and so he came home on Saturday! On Friday at night I was at the theatre together with my host parents and Rosemary. The play was called 'Jake and the Kid' and it is placed on a farm in Saskatchewan in 1944. They had only 6 actors which had to change all the time! Originally, this was a radio series. I understood most of the sentences and jokes. Only some of them were totally blank but I enjoyed it! We had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and I learned how to eat with chopsticks^^. I am so bad using them.

On Saturday I just relaxed and cooked dinner. Guess what - I did Schnitzel! It was delicious like every time! And on Sunday we prepared our motorhome for going away this weekend (it is Thanksgiving). Rocky dug and he was so filthy. But after the bath he looked great! I wrote my report to the German district (actually that should be in Germany October 1); but everything is so exciting that I totally forgot about that.

And on Tuesday I cooked 'stuffed peppers' (a German meal) for supper.

This is a long entry: Word tells me that it contains over 2000 words. That were the past days and a new post hopefully is appearing sooner than this one did :D. With best regards from Canada, Bente

Photos Waterton

Prince of Wales Hotel

Cameron Falls

Waterton

Waterton Lake

sea eagle