Monday in Newcastle

I just had an amazing day in Newcastle with three of my host sisters. :)

After having a breakfast at one nice little cafe, we took a ferry ride.

Then we climbed quite a few steps to this tower.  The view from there was nice, even though the plastic windows were really scratched and dirty.

After that 'exercise' we bought ice creams.  Vanilla cookie & Violet crumble, yum!

Then we went to the beach.  A bit different beach visit than usually, but with that weather I rather just walk instead of sunbathing...  The wind was quite hard, so the waves hit the breakwater with a lot of force.  We wanted to go to the end of the breakwater, so we needed to run through certain parts because we didn't want to get wet.  That technique didn't work as perfectly as it could have; my shoes are all covered with salt, my hair is sticky and I taste like ocean.  Anyway that was the best part of my day, and I haven't screamed and laughed like that for a while :D

After that we had lunch in Subway (I love it!) and walked around in the shops.  I found really nice big wallet, which I've already been hunting for a while.  

The Picture below is from a wall of an old building.  I thought it was really cool, so my host sister nicely asked people if they could move because I', from Finland and I'd like to take a photo.  That was pretty embarrassing, but luckily they just laughed, and I got my picture. :)

Had a great time,

Liisa

"Party"

I thought that it would be good to tell you what happened with our International night.  Well... It was meant to be a big thing, and we were required to go so it wasn't voluntary.  At first, only inbounds were invited, but outbounds became really interested so at the end they were invited as well.  That means there should have been 25 people with the foods from their countries.  But what happened?

I was already late, and it took ages to found the right house, and when we finally did it was seven o'clock and the event started at six o'clock.  There were two of my exchange friends at the door, and the rest of them were inside.  Or that's what I thought.  After a moment they told me that that was it, and we were the only people who were participating the 'party'.  Yep, nice party.

It turned out to be a nice night, but obviously really different to what I expected.  We ate my cake for dessert, and everyone liked it.  After that we watched one of my favorite movies and went straight to bed because we were all tired.

That's all I have this time, now I have to pack because we are going to my oldest host sisters place in Newcastle.  :)

Write to you soon,

Liisa

The cake

Super quick post about the cake I made.  So we are having the International night tonight and everyone needs to cook something from their country.  We don't have any good foods, so I decided to cheat.  (Good option he he...)  I made a baked cheesecake, which has nothing to do with Finland, and decorated it with berries and Finnish chocolate.  Felt really weird to go to grocery store and pay 15 bucks for a bowl of berries.  First time I needed to buy them... 

This is one of my best recipes so I'll share it with you :) 

Ingredients:

250 ml biscuits (I use digestives)

50g butter

50 ml sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

200 g cream cheese

100 ml sugar

1,5 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp vanilla sugar

2 tbsp corn starch

150 ml cream

2 eggs

- Cut the right sized circle out of baking paper and place that to the tin

- Mix the firs four ingredients 

- Press the mixture into the tin

- Whip the cream 

- Separate the yolks and whites

- Whip the whites

- Mix all the other ingredients

- Add whipped cream to the mixture

- Gently add the whipped whites

- Pour into the tin

- Bake in 150 °C for 1 - 1,5 hours, or until fully baked

- DECORATE!!!! :)) (my favorite part)

This is my mum's specialty, but also works when I do it.  I hope.  

Have a good weekend,

Liisa

Jerseys

I feel like I'm always a bit late with my posts, but there has been a lot going on.  Really bad excuse but  at least I'm writing now.  Anyway; yesterday we got our year 12 jerseys, so I guess we are officially year 12 now.  The jerseys have school colors, but my year has picked the design and the patterns.  I wouldn't say they are really good looking, but they tell people that we are the oldest ones at the school and that's what they are for.  I guess.  

My first day in school was Thursday, and we ordered the jerseys when the next week started.  That's what I would call excellent timing.

There is always the owner's name and school logo at the front of the jersey, and nickname and year at the back.  That means we are the only year in thousand years who gets number 12 at the back.  Being year 12 student at 2012, how great is that!  If you want to know what my jersey looks like and what I have at the back of it, check the pictures :)

Quite big size S garment...

The front with logo...

...and my name!

This is my 'nickname' at the back.

The whole back with the number of the year and the nickname.

Owns now one piece of clothing with own name,

Liisa

Wellington

I spent the last weekend in Wellington with people from my rotary club. We visited the caves...

The dark spot in the middle of the photo, which looks like it's missing a piece of rock, is caused by candles people used  to burn there.  That was ages ago; at the time they were having church down the caves every Sunday.
At the moment you can have your wedding held there though.

 ...and the phosphate mine

These are the tools people used to get the phosphate.

When we turned the UV light on, the phosphate glowed blue!

There are a lot of bones in the rock.

Good night,

Liisa

Singleton mines

Today after school Rotary people took me and my host sister to mines in Singleton.  We don't really have mining back home, so it was really interesting to get more information about it.  (Though I still haven't decided if I like it or not...)  As you can see the mine we visited is huge, and actually pretty close to the city.

The trucks you can see in this photo are huuuge; you can put 4700 liters of fuel in them.  They cost 4 million dollars each, and  the maximum capacity of coal is 230t, and after they are fully loaded their maximum speed is 55km/h.  

The price for this machine is 160 million dollars, ouch.

Tomorrow I'll leave from school a bit earlier and head to Wellington (check my previous post), so now I would need to pack my luggage and take a shower.  But the only thing I'm planning at the moment is go straight to bed.  Hmm...

Sleepy,

Liisa

3 / 12 = 1 / 4

Quarter of my year: gone.  Seriuosly.  A QUARTER!

That means I only have nine months left, and also that I only have one more month with my current family :'(  Obviously I will see them sometimes because we live in a small city, and they've already promised that we can still do things together even when I live somewhere else.  Anyway, I'm not looking forward moving to the next family, and I can't stop myself counting days to that.  How funny is that; I don't miss my own family yet, but I miss the one I'm living with.  Great.

I sound so depressed and that wasn't my point.  I'm just so happy with this family, and moving to the next means I have to start everything again.  I have to give a good first impression, explain why I don't eat meat, adopt all different rules and habits, get to know my "family", tell the story of my life, and last but not least; move all my stuff there... Phew.

I guess that didn't make me sound happier so now I stop complaining. 

I thought that the weekend to come is free, but no; I'm having a Rotary weekend from Friday to Sunday.  It's different than the last ones, because it's not for exchange students.  There will be about 30 people from my Rotary club, so not many people in my age.  We are going to Wellington, which is well known because of the phosphate mine and huge caves.  I'm actually kinda looking forward that; I just know that I'll be really tired on Sunday night when we are coming back, and there's whole school week coming, and Rotary weekend again and another school week to live through... But if I forget the fact that I have to sleep sometimes, yay!  My whole host family number two is going too, so I hope to get to know them better and find out that they are nice.

After this week I'll know everything about mining, because tomorrow there's a Rotary trip to Singleton mines.  That'll be really interresting, and it's good to know more about the mines because they are a huge business here.

Quarter done, three more to go,

Liisa

Football

I'm not a big fan of football, either the one people here call soccer or the one they call footy which I know as rugby.  Anyway, I really enjoyed the game we went with my host sister and her friends.  There was almost 33 000 people yelling for Australia and New Zealand (ok, mainly for Australia), so the atmosphere was great.  Actually at one point we were doing waves all around the stadium; it worked for eight rounds before people started stopping.  :D

And did I forget to tell the result?  We won 42 - 6.  Ha. 

After the game we had the best dinner; pizza on the beach, yam. :)

Had a good day again,

Liisa