Something to look forward

I didn't have time to make the gingerbread house today because I have assessments due and my host grand mum had a little Christmas thing today.  But tomorrow I'll try, and hopefully you'll get a good post about that.

Tomorrow is my last day of school this year!!! Our summer holiday (as funny as it sounds) is about six weeks long, so it'll be good time to catch up with people and do things with my host families.  Actually we have school on Friday as well, but I don't because I'm skipping Friday to go to Newcastle and spend time with other exchange students.  We have planned a Scandinavian Christmas tradition day, and then some of us will stay the night and maybe we go to the beach or shopping on Saturday.  I can't wait!

Last school morning in a while is waiting, 

Liisa

Gingerbread

Usually before every Christmas my family and I make a gingerbread house. This year I don't have my family helping me, but I still thought I could make it just for my host family, because here it's a special thing to have. So I made the dough today, and after being in the fridge till tomorrow I'll try to make the actual house from it.  This is my recipe for the traditional gingerbread:

150 g of butter

75 ml of syrup

100 ml of sugar

1 tsp of ginger

1 tsp of cinnamon

1 tsp of cloves

1 egg

1 tsp of baking soda

about 400 ml of plain flour

- Put the first six ingredients into a saucepan and heat with medium heat till you see the first bubbles

- Take off from the stove and cool down

- When cooled down add the eggs while gently mixing

- Mix the baking soda into the flour (this is something I never do but I guess it's more professional to do it that way), and pour all the flour to the dough, or till it's still soft but not dripping

- Take a piece of plastic wrap and pour the dough onto the middle of it.  Fold all the sides close to the middle so you get a rectangle shaped block 

- Put your block into a fridge and let it stay there overnight

If you want to do normal gingerbread figures, the next day (or you can do it day after that as well, it doesn't matter at all):
- Sprinkle some flour to the table so the dough does not stick to it
- Use a rolling pin to make your block flater; 3 mm is maybe the best thickness
- Cut the shapes you want and move them onto a baking tray
- Bake in the 200°C oven about ten minutes


This time I made double the amount because I'm going to make a gingerbread house, but usually one block is enough.

I'll let you know how to make a gingerbread house soon,

Liisa

Wollombi

Today we went to Wollombi which is a tiny village about one hour drive away.  It was really cute place, but when the population is less than 300 there's not that much to see.  And it was raining the whole day, so our trip could have been better.  But at least I spent some time with my host family and saw one more place which is always good. :)

I've been making Christmas cards and I'm going to send them tomorrow.  I know it may be a bit late but I didn't realize that it takes ages to get something to the other side of the world during Christmas time...

Can't wait the holidays,

Liisa

Preparing Christmas

It's really obvious, but I'm still going to say it; Christmas here has totally different meaning than it has in Finland.  I can't believe that to some people plastic tree and fake snow are nice Christmas decorations.  I'm not saying there's anything wrong with them, it's just that I'm used to having different things and traditions.  And shops full of black Christmas trees and red fake snow sprays.  Oh god.  :D

My host family gave me two Christmas tree decorations which I put to our tree.  (Notice: here you can 'build' the tree really early, instead of melting it few days before the actual celebration.) 

The tree is full of all different and really cool things.

One more picture.

Was singing carols in a church today,

Liisa

At the moment

- I'm having free weekend next weekend because the Rotary cancelled our camping trip.  Such a shame, I was really looking forward that! :/

- We've been already thinking about our flights back, which sounds really weird.  We don't need to all fly back at the same time, but it would be nice. Not that I couldn't fly by my self, just that it's pretty boring to sit 22 hours alone.  I guess it would be good to book the flights before New Year, but because we would like to do it as a big group it's a bit hard because everyone has different plans.  Maybe 1.7., 8.7. or 15.7., we'll see.

- It's Finland's independence day today, congratulations my 94-year-old country! :)

- They got the first snow of the year back home, finally.  Usually it comes at the end of October or at the beginning of November, so it was really late. I hope it stays there and they'll get white Christmas! :)

I have so many school things undone, I wish I could skip tomorrow,

Liisa

The parcel

Today I got a parcel from my family!  Salt liquorice yum yum yum!

Super cute tiny little book about how daughters are the best thing; totally agreed.  haha.  It says 'My daughter, my treasure'. :)

I also got an advent calendar (the one with pictures!) but because the parcel had been folded it needs to spend time under my heavy things so it's nice again. :)

Good night, 

Liisa

Tired

I came back home from Tocal today, from the place we had the Rotary meeting in.  My weekend was awesome, but a bit sad at the same time because it was the last time we were all together.  I wasn't really taking photos because we didn't do that interesting things; just had lessons and spent time with each other.  Anyway when we were leaving, it started to rain sleet.  And I am being serious.  In Finland it should be really snowy and it's not, and here it should be summer but it's raining ice, cool. 

On Saturday night I had my first actual water gun fight which was a lot of fun.  Obviously I've had water guns before, but it was lots of fun to have teams and run in the dark.  :P

We were meant to go to bed at eleven o'clock, but few of us stayed up the whole night which was fun.  It didn't really make sense because now I'm tired, but it was fun thing to do, especially when I can't remember that I've ever had done that before.  

I came home half past three today and opened my computer, and even though I wasn't planning to, fell asleep.  I woke up in a while and checked the time which was 7.00.  I was sure that it was morning and only thing I could think of was "no no no I can't go to school I can't I'm too tired". Anyway I went to the kitchen to see if anyone else was awake, and for my surprise they were preparing dinner.  That was one of the most confusing moments so far; I just got up, looked like there had been an explosion in my head and I thought it was morning.  I can't even imagine how weird that would have been to my host family... :D 

Anyways now I go to bed so I can get some sleep and hopefully look a bit better tomorrow :D

Had great time and got to know really nice new people,

Liisa

December!

Today is the first day of December, and people here are exited because it means that summer starts.  For me that's funny thought but never mind.  I also opened my Advent calendar! :)

Will be catching the first train here, and first one alone ever tomorrow,

Liisa

P.S. I need to wake up after five, I hope I won't over sleep and miss the train, that would be sad. haha.

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