Christmas

The post you all waited for so long!!! On Saturday, December 19, the daughter of my host dad Al, Leanne, arrived at the airport in the evening. She is living close to Toronto, ON and goes to university. But I wasn't there to pick her up, because I was at the Christmas party of Julia's club (RC Calgary East). We played 'Secret Santa' and I got three different kinds of honey :) Yummy! On Sunday morning I got to know Leanne. We got along really well and she is so nice. On December 21, I met my friend from school and two friends of her to make christmas cookies and Froebelsterne. It was a lot of fun!! ;) On my birthday I went to Rotary. The gave me a birthday cake and I had my own birthdaysong :) Thanks to everyone who thought of me that day! I got a furhad from Rosemary in behalf of the club. NOW, I look Canadian :D. After that I had some of the exchange students over to my house and Marco got tickets for a Juniors Hockey Game. And John, Vini, Marco and I, we watched Canada 3:0 Finnland! It was my first game in the Saddledome - the arena in Calgary. With four Brazilians at the mall on the 23rd was not pleasant, especially when they all speak Portuguese together...In the morning I got my first Canadian haircut! :) It looks a lot better now.
And now to our Christmas: Most people decorate their houses with christmas lights, and all the parks in the city are decorated! Really nice! The christmas trees are not as casual as in Germany. My parents say, "We just take the ornaments out of the boxes and when we don't feel like decorating anymore we just finish." :D Therefore, most of the christmas trees here have all colours you can imagine and all different shapes you can imagine on them! But isn't that great? So you get a new ornament every year and you can put it on, 'cause it fits anyways. All the houses are decorated. Our stairs hat decoration, all the decorations on the tables were changed into christmas and a lot of pictures are changed during that time as well. But other than that you don't feel that christmas is coming. No cookies (I mad christmas cookies for my host family), no singing, nothing! Luckily, I had the adventcalendar of Petra! :) All the presents go under the christmas tree as soon as they are wrapped. I wrapped mine on Christmas Eve^^. That day we had the parents of my host parents over for dinner. Christian (he was an exchange student from Denmark 7 years ago and lived with Barb&Al) came over as well and we spent a very nice evening together. And the actual Xmas is Christmas Day (December 25). I got up at 8:30 am and at 9 o'clock we got our stockings. In there was chocolate, a book, a magazin, a lipstick and all those little things. The highlight from that were the mittens from the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. We prepared our dinner - as usual on special days: TURKEY!! Our breakfast was bacon, toast, pancakes - everything that's good. We unwrapped our presents afterwards. Al pickec a present for every one of us and we unwrapped all at the same time. I don't really know what the others got...and finally, everyone opened their last present all together. Of course we had to clean up the garbage for tonight. All the presents went back under the tree. Oh by the way, no one here is allowed to ligth candles and so we had electric lights; coloured and white. And for me everyone seemed to have the same ideas. From Germany I got chocolate and pictures. And from here I got souvenirs and Canadian chocolate. So that I can remember everything. I gave three Erzgebirgsengel to my host family. Again Christian came over to unwrap his presents with us, but then he left. Al's family came over for dinner. Everyone got a cracker and in there was a papercrown for everyone that we had to wear during dinner. I LOVED THAT DINNER!!!! After all those busy days we all needed a day off. On Boxing Day (December 26), we stayed at home and read, watched TV and the others had a nap. It was one of the best breakfasts today during the whole year -> left-over turkey on toast with gravy and stuffing!! Just delicious *mhhhh*. It originally was a day where everyone gave something to the poor families. And today all the stores have big sales and therefore, the malls are really crowded. I wasn't there, but I can imagine it, because the next day i went to the mall. I love that all the stores are opened on Sundays as well!! And still everything was on sale. In one store they closed their fitting rooms. Who buys clothes without trying them on?!! And when you imagine how big the lineups were the day before...incredible. I bougth a blue Ipod Nano with 8GB! After going shopping alone I met Leila and Vishesh and together we watched 'Did you hear about the Morgans'. Hmm, I go to movies farely often here - whatelse to do if you don't hang out at someone's house? On the 28th, we went for Chinese food with Al's mum. I had to try cooked oyster *brrr*. But at least I tried it and ALL the other food was soooo good - squid, gingerbeef, eggplant, rice. And I learned how to handle chopsticks. It still looks a little awkward but who cares :D. On Tuesday, there was an informal Rotary meeting where we just ate sandwiches and talked. I wished everyone a happy new year in German and had to explain that we don't say 'Happy New Year' before midnight on December 31st. With Barb and Leanne I sent my laptop away and met John (Sweden) and his Swedish family at a Mall, because he was sent home on January 6th. In the evening we went to Zoolites. So beautiful and again you can see that everything is decorated with christmas lights. On the second last day of 2009, some of us went for lunch with John; the last time we all saw him...I shopped in downtown and in the evening it was my first Flames game! I went with my hostsister Leanne and we both really enjoyed that game. I bougth a jersey 3 days before and we got an official puk! We watched the warmup out of the penalty box and her uncle explained how everything works there. Did you know that they freeze the puks and change them at least 5 times a period in order to avoid them from bouncing? The Flames beat Los Angeles 2:1 and it was a game with a lot of fights that happened right in front of us. We sat 4th row right behind the goal!!
My New Years seemed to be boring, because the event in downtown we wanted to go to got canceled. Luckily, Julia asked me if I want to come to her house. And so after fancy dinner with my family (we had lobster and beef, after shrimps as apetizer) I did go and we watched the movie 'Big Daddy'. For midnight we joined her neighbours. Firework is illegal and so everyone just wishes a happy new year at 12am...It was so quiet and at 12:30am most of the people leave and go to bed. I really didn't like that and I missed the German SILVESTER!! We left at about 1 and watched another movie - Uptown girls. And finally went to bed at 3am. It was still a nice day but nothing really unusual. The first day of 2010, Julia and I watched 'It's complicated' in the movie theatre. Another 'food experience' was Sushi on the 4th of January. It was good, but so different and I don't really like soy sauce. I went back to school January 5. Just one week of school, because we get exambreak January 13!! :) And we did nothing really challenging. We had the Calgarian legend of hockey, Theo Fleury, at our Rotary meeting. A really inspiring speech. On Wednesday, I went to our semester shutdown. Dancing non-stop for 3 hours^^. I was really tired when it ended and my legs hurt. On Thursday, we met with the exchange students and went to Chinook Mall. Guess what? we watched another movie. "Invictus" about South Africa and Nelson Mandela. It was one of the best movies I've ever seen. On the 8th of January, Julia celebrated her birthday and Leila, Yin-Yin and I slept over at her house. Again we watched movies. The next day we all were lazy and in the afternoon we went to Ana (Brazil) to celebrate her birthday. Everyone slept over at her house and the next day we had to say good-bye to Anne (Holland). She also has to go home, but not because she has to, it is because her mum is sick. On Sunday, I watched Warren's Hockey game in Okotoks with Dave and Diana. I am always so happy to see Rocky!! Monday nothing special except for school happened and Tuesday was our last day of Semester 1 classe. So sad that I don't see some of them anymore...after school we hung out and watched 'Youth in revolt'. On Wednesday (my first day off), I had my Part A English final in the morning and after finishing my trifold I went to Sunridge Mall where I met Vishesh and Marco. Vishesh was so mad without reason and so Marco and I went to the move theate alone. This time we watched "Leap Year". I really liked that movie. Yesterday was another lazy day - talking to a lot of people in Germany, cleaning my room, doing my laundry and so on. I have to make "Thank you"-cards for christmas, that is tradition in my hostfamily...Today I will go skiing for the first time! I hope I could answer all your questions! Now I will keep up with my blog. And I will upload some pictures later! Love, Bente