Being busy

There hasn't been that much happening this week, but the weekend will be full, or actually the weekends following.  

On Friday there's our own exchange student meeting organized my one of us, so I'll skip the school (yep, again) and take the first train to Newcastle. I'll be there few hours too early, but otherwise I'll be too late.  Then we'll hopefully have a great day and in the evening a Rotary person picks me and one boy up and we'll go to her place.  First I was planning to take the train back, but it doesn't really make sense to do that late the night because I have to get back to Newcastle the next day,  leaving here from seven.  I hope this will work out!

So from Saturday to Sunday is our compulsory Rotary meeting.  It is the last official time (and maybe the last one ever) to catch up with our whole group, because the outbounds are leaving in January.  

I'll be back on Sunday afternoon.

Then from the next Friday till the Sunday I'm going camping to Sydney, that's something I'm really looking forward!  Another exchange student's host club is taking her there and they asked if she would like to ask someone to come with them; I happened to be the lucky one she asked. Actually it's not normal camping it's special thing.  "Glamping is a luxury camping experience.  Unlike traditional camping where you lug the tent and gear with you, with glamping it's all set up and ready to go on your arrival." "Cockatoo Island is 15 minutes by ferry from the heart of Sydney's tourist attractions."  I can't wait!

I guess that's pretty much all this time.  Tomorrow is the first day of December and I just heard that it means that the summer starts.  Hmm.. :D

Will be skipping three Fridays in a row,

Liisa

Terrigal

Finally the post about my weekend!  I was really busy doing my school work and talking to my family last night so that's my excuse being late with this.

So, the place where we spent our weekend is called Terrigal; it's a town at the Central Coast, with population less than 10 000.  It turned out to be my favorite place in Australia so far.  Terrigal was the first place where I've been, where a lot of the people spend their time at the beach and surf, where everything has something to do with the sea, where you can walk bare feet everywhere without being weird, where everything seems to be very relaxed; that kind of place foreigners think the whole Australia is like. I got a bit annoyed that I live in Singleton when I could as well be living in a place like that; even though living in a town where every second person looks like a super model could be a bit challenging.

From my photos you can't see the whole place, and that's why I'll put this one here as well.  Nice, isn't it! :)

http://images1.au.reastatic.net/456x342/props/402566979/Main@20Feature/20101111111555.jpg

We drove to Terrigal on Friday morning and it was raining almost the whole way there, so we decided to go to one of the shopping centers.  It was still rainy on the Saturday morning so we ended up doing a bit more shopping in the other huge shopping mall.  Many of the shops' windows were decorated with Santa Clauses and reindeer and snow, even though it's getting hotter and hotter all the time.

For the rest of our weekend the weather was good, and we went to all the little surfing and clothing shops and just spent time at the beach.  From these photos you can't see the beach properly but it is there!

The big rock in the last photo is called 'The Skillion' and it's the main land mark of Terrigal, offering amazing views.  We went there when it was dark, which actually was one of the best thing during the whole weekend.  Finally it was dark and cool and I saw the stars.  I loved it, maybe because here I'm not allowed to go out when it's dark, when back home that's something I do for the half of the year.

Reaching for the stars,

Liisa

A month until Christmas

It keeps raining, even though not as badly as yesterday.  There's still something to look forward; only one month till Christmas!  Or actually one month and a day until the day people here have their celebration; here the day for it is 25th, but for some reason back home we celebrate beforehand, on 24th.  It doesn't feel like Christmas in the middle of all this darkness and snowlessness (I bet that's a word...) though.  But it'll be one more experience, that's for sure, and that's exactly the reason I'm here so I'm not complaining.  I just love the Christmas we have, they way it has been for last 16 years.

I'm not going to school tomorrow, because my host family wants to take me to Terrigal, which seems to be a nice little place right next to the beach. We'll stay there for the whole weekend and come back probably on Sunday night.  It doesn't look like it's going to be a nice beach weather, but there's big shopping centers nearby so I'm sure we'll have something to do.  I'll write about that trip as soon as I can, but there will be a few days break so you don't wonder what's happening. :)

Looking forward packing tomorrow morning,

Liisa

P.s. It has been the first week when there's more Australian readers than Finnish ones!

Raindrops

I was planning to write about my cool new sunnies (notice: an Aussie word!) and how it's already getting up to 40 degrees even though it's not summer yet, but after today that would be cheating. Today's theme song would definitely be this.  I don't mind rain, not at all, but when there's more than five centimeters water everywhere in school, and you have to wear a skirt or shorts and normal shoes, it's a bit too much...  It was one of my first posts where I told that I just bought bright yellow rain boots; I'm missing them at days like this. :D  But I'm ready for tomorrow with this new awesome umbrella, bring it on!

I finished school early today, so I baked a cheesecake for this family. Something really weird was going on with their oven, and instead of the normal 1,5 h baking time it took THREE HOURS to get the whole cake cooked.  It ended up looking really different, but my host family said it was good.  I'll taste it tomorrow so I can be sure it was ok :D

Can't wait to snuggle into my warm bed,

Liisa

Gifts

Usually exchange students bring some little gifts or souvenirs from their countries to give to the host families.  Sounds like an easy thing, but what makes it a bit harder is that you can't take anything big or heavy if you don't want to send them separately and pay quite a lot.  And you also have to realize that you are supposed to give those things to all your three or four families, so in case you are not a millionaire, you may not want to buy anything too expensive.  

Couple of Aussie exchange students have been asking what did I take, so here is a little list:

- A small vase from famous Finnish designer

- A cheese slicer.  This seems to be a weird thing to take, but they are really useful and people here don't have them.  And even though it's not a Finnish invention, it's still from Scandinavia, and it's made by a big Finnish brand.   

- Our salty liquorice.  Only rare people in Finland don't like it, but for foreigners the taste of it can be a bit too much.  I had one spare packet of these, and I opened it at the same day my second host family got theirs.  Now there's one more thing I miss... :D

- Serviettes from really good Finnish brand.  I knew that this brand is sold in other countries as well, but it has really surprised me that I've already seen two people carry marimekko bags in my city.

Only 18 school days before summer holidays,

Liisa

Afternoon

We spent yesterday afternoon in Hunter Valley gardens.  They have a lot of little shops there as I told you earlier, and we went to couple of them.

This is the cheese shop we went to, but they also sell gelato so we got one each.  Mine was raspberry and it was good, but actually looked even better.

I like black and white things a lot, so I got two cards to put onto my wall.  

Taking the first bus to school from here tomorrow,

Liisa 

New room!

These pictures are from my new room.  I love it especially because of the double bed and the huge windows. :)

We don't live downtown, so this is the view from my window.

We are soon going down to the place the vineyards are, because they have nice little shops there.  I'll make post about that trip probably tomorrow.

Getting used to everything new,

Liisa 

4 / 12 = 1 / 3

Today has been the biggest day so far, because:

- I've been away for four months

- I've spent one third of my year

- I moved to my second family

And besides all that, in Finland there's a thing called name day, and today is mine.  In calender there's names for every single day, and when it's the day with your name it's called your name day, and it's like a little celebration.  Anyway, that wasn't the biggest thing today so I'm moving on... :D

After having a nice lunch with my second host family, we came to my new home.  They have been showing to me where everything is, and I'm just unpacking my bags (the most ridiculous thing to do, is to spend two days packing everything and then unpacking them all the next day = heaps of work).  This house is about 10 km from downtown, and my room is super nice (I'm going to send pictures about it tomorrow).

There's definitely nothing wrong with this family or especially with this house, it's just really confusing to think that I'm not just visiting, I'll live here for these three months.  These are not just new strange people, they will be my family for a while.  And that I can actually unpack my bags, because this is where I'll stay; my room, my bed, my closet.

I like it when I get to know new people all the time, but it's not always that easy; I bet it's almost impossible for other people to understand the feeling when you go to live into a strange place, and when you finally get to know the family you live with and the way they do things, you move away.  And you have to start everything again, straight from the beginning. I wrote it like it would be really bad thing, it's not, I'm just trying to make you get the feeling I'm having at the moment.

Now I'm really tempted by my super soft double bed, so I'll write more tomorrow.

Good night, 

Liisa 

Packing

I started packing my bags last night because I knew it would take time.  I was right with that, but now I'm ready to go, ready for new adventures with new people.  I've never moved before (if the moving from my home to here doesn't count...) so it feels odd to pack everything I have, and even think about living somewhere else with other family members.  Just when I got to know people in this house, their lifestyle and habits and stories.  I'm super excited but at the same time a bit sad.  But I really hope that I'll still see this family sometimes, even though I live somewhere else.

Okie dokie, here comes my stuff!  I'm actually a bit surprised that there's only two bags plus three little ones, not as bad as it could be.  The most surprising thing is that there are only two small bags more than I had with me when I arrived (and the other one is only for school clothes); obviously I haven't done my shopping well enough... :D But in my opinion; quite well packed for one year.

Last night here for a while.  I will be coming back when we are having holidays, but that'll be just a short visit. 

Looking forward the new part of my year,

Liisa 

Rainy day

It has been raining for almost the whole day.

I thought packing would be easy, but after starting it today I see couple of tiny problems in it.  OH GOD WHERE DID ALL THIS STUFF COME FROM!  I've been laughing to other exchange students who have already moved, when they've told that instead of having those two bags they had three months ago they now have seven.  At the moment that seems to be my destiny too...

Second last night here,

Liisa 

Bondi Beach

Today I had my art excursion to Bondi Beach.  They have a Sculpture by the sea event there, which was the reason for us to go.  The art works were all totally different, from all materials you can think of.  Here are couple of examples of them, if you want to see more, just go to the image gallery at the website.

After the walk we had free time so I saw the Bondi Beach! :)

What an amazing day,

Liisa