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Nele managed to get us tickets for a Simple Plan Concert (Rock band) for free! But since the Concert was in Penticton, which is about an hour drive, we needed a ride there and our first three driver opportunities all didn’t work out for some reason so in the end we just asked Peter if he would want to give us a ride there. And Peter could stay at his parents’ house during the concert, because they live there. Nele had her nervous attacks already hours before the concert started; that was also because we got Meet and Greet tickets for free as well and we were all pretty excited to get to speak to the band after the concert. Clara, Nele’s Brazilian host sister, came with us (Marlen and me), because her birthday was soon and it was her birthday present.

 Before the concert; Clara, Nele, Marlen

The concert was really nice; there were quite a lot of people there, even though the concert wasn’t sold out. After a tiring night we were all pretty excited to speak a few words with the singers and, of course get some pictures taken with them. They were really kind and nice to us! In the car ride all of us almost fell asleep and were happy when we arrived at home and, glad that choir wasn’t going to take place the next morning .

On Friday in my Foods class we got to cook for the first time! Of course we started with something easy; Apple Crisp (similar to an apple cake). When it turned out very well my cooking partner and I enjoyed our dessert with everyone else.

Next Tuesday was Valentine’s Day! Here in Canada they celebrate it more than in Switzerland so everyone was quite excited. The day before Marina and her friend met at our house and baked heart cookies. And then they even cooked chocolate and filled it in cute shapes. On Valentine’s Day they gave all the delicious treats to their friends and families (that me! ). In the Foods class we cooked the perfect recipe for the day: Strawberry shortcake (with lots of whipped cream that we whipped by hand!) That night at skating in Rutland we even took a ‘Valentine’s Day Picture’ of everyone, who was there.

On Wednesday there was a Career Fair tour for all the grade 10 students from our school. During our D-Block class the busses arrived (seven school busses that were full in the end) and they drove us to the exhibition. It was a good opportunity to learn about all the options the students have after High School. There were information from over 30 different universities and they showed you all the courses they offer.

Thursday morning I had to wake up earlier, because we were going to go snowshoeing today! The first surprise was that there was at least 10 cm of new snow in the garden and it was still snowing heavily. So I put on my snowboard pants and shoes and hurried to school, where all the busses arrived too late. Since we were going to the ski resort Silverstar, which is about one and a half hours away, the plans moved a bit because of the delay. But finally all 30 students arrived in Vernon and half of us went cross-country skiing and the other half snowshoeing. We got our snowshoes attached to our shoes and off we went. Our guide showed us the different techniques we could use for snowshoeing but the actual part is just normal walking. She took us to the trees and into the woods, where we had to be careful not to run into trees or fall.

The tour, which contained wandering downhill, sliding on our butts and climbing, took us about one hour even though it normally takes two. After that everyone was very exhausted, the cookies and apple ciders in the end fitted perfectly. The journey lasted a whole school day so when we arrived back at RSS we went straight back home. I got ready for skating and left the house again pretty quick. The plan was that we were going to go skating in Downtown again after my skating . So my skating friend Jordyn and I were ready to go after the session on the ice, but then we got a message that the rink was closed in downtown, because of all the new snow (it didn’t stop snowing the entire day). But minutes after we decided to go anyways and after we picked up a friend on our way we arrived there. We were about 10 people again and most of them I knew now. We decided to hang around at Starbucks and Benz Coffees and soon it was already time to go home. Even though we didn’t end up skating, it was fun .

Friday was a Pro-D Day (no school) and so we went up to Big White. We decided to exchange our boards and skies again to I skied with Marlen’s skies and she took my board. Nele rented a snowboard and so all of us were quite beginners, especially Nele, who hasn’t been standing on a snowboard before. By chance we met Miguel, a Mexican exchange student, up there and since he is a beginner as well and quite scared anyways, he decided to join us. We had lots of new snow and today (Sunday) we even cracked the 200 cm mark of snow base at Big White! It was a fun day with lots of falling from everyone, though.

The next day I went to the movie theatre with Marlen and Miguel in the evening. We watched the Woman in Black. It was the scariest movie ever! :O All three of us kept pulling something in front of our eyes so we couldn’t see. The only little sunny part of the movie was Daniel Radcliffe (the actor of Harry Potter, who played the star role in the movie).

 After the movie

But besides that we were all terrified after the movie and I was really glad that Marlen was going to have a sleepover at my house that night. We even watched the second movie of Harry Potter that night cuddled in our bed sheets. The next morning we enjoyed waffles for breakfast and after that we headed out to the mall, where we met the other girls from school.

  Beautiful Breakfast

Monday was the beginning of the new semester. All new subjects, new classes, new teachers! In French 12 class I don’t really know many people, because most of them are in grade 12, but on exchange students is taking the course with me. I am taking this course that I don’t forget everything in French, because that goes really fast and I already realized that and she takes the course for the exact same reason as me . Even though they aren’t as far in French here as at home, because they have only had it for three years and I have already had it for 5, I learn quite a lot and remember all the things I’ve learnt back home. Their French here is quite different though, because they speak Québécois (the language they speak in the French part of Canada, Quebec). My other subjects are Foods (cooking), Math and Production Graphics, where I already know plenty of people, because its grade 10. The first week went quite well and the teachers are very nice! I am still in the Concert Choir of Peter (7.30 in the morning :O ). Marlen and Nele went to a cheer competition again this weekend so on Saturday Jordyn, the skating girl, wanted to do something in delay because of my birthday, but then it didn’t quite work out until the evening so we met at the Starbucks Downtown to go skating on the ice rink Downtown right beside the big lake afterwards. We had two ‘birthday’ cupcakes and I got some cute presents for her. When we arrived at the rink it was already dark and they had all the pretty lights on beside it; the rink was still quite busy with little children and their parents. Little by little all of Jordyn’s friends from her school arrived and in the end we were about 15 kids. All of them were really nice and wanted to learn about ‘cold’ Switzerland. We had lots of fun skating around the open rink holding hands, everyone with their Canada gloves.

After a while when everyone’s toes were frozen we decided to head out for Starbucks (again ) When we had all warmed up and walked back to the rink we had about 30 minutes left and then Jordyn and I already had to leave, because Jordyn had to be home early and since she gave me a ride home, we had to say good bye to everyone soon and jump into the car as fast as possible, because we were already running a bit late. My Birthday evening was awesome and I really enjoyed it. To meet all those new people was great, even though they all go to another school (OKM). It was really kind of Jordyn to drive me and we had a fun ride home.

On Sunday I didn’t go snowboarding; instead I slept in and enjoyed my day of doing nothing until 4pm, when I was going to meet three exchange students from KSS (Kelowna Senior Secondary). One of them is going to leave Canada already in three days and we wanted to celebrate the last hours with her. So we went out for supper in a nice Italian restaurant. The food was very nice and we had a great time talking and eating.

 Anna, Hannah and Miguel

Soon we already had to take the bus home and say good bye and we promised to see each other again.

Wednesday the big trip to Vancouver started! At 8.00am all the exchange students from all the schools in Kelowna, who had signed up for the trip, met in front of the mall, where the tour bus picked us up. We were 50 kids, just enough to fill the bus. There were only a couple seats left. Everyone was on time and we even left 10 minutes earlier. The drive was shorter than planned and we arrived in Vancouver at 1pm. We had a few hours to relax, unpack and stay in our hotel rooms. The hotel was very nice and just outside Vancouver Downtown, we mostly had rooms for 4 persons and I shared the room with Hannah (Holland), Merel (Austria) and Anna (Switzerland). We headed out for Grouse Mountain (West Vancouver) at 3 o’clock, a very nice view point from where we could see the whole city of Vancouver. We had wonderful weather what is very unusual for Vancouver, where it always rains. On the ground of Grouse Mountain we took the red, big Gondola to the top, which really reminded me of Switzerland, because we have the exact same ones at home and they were even made in Switzerland . When we arrived at the top we were all totally amazed by the sunset. We watched a short movie about Grouse Mountain and then everyone went skating on the outside pond in the dark with lots of cute Christmas lights around us. After a few hours we went home again, where Tim, Merel, Hannah, Anna and I went to the Starbucks right across the street of our hotel.

 Grouse Mountain

 Sunset

The next morning the two supervisors (Marsha and Donna) took us to the University of Vancouver (UBC). It was a nice blue-sky day again. The area of the University is huge for all the 41000 students who attend the classes there. Since the weather was so perfect we took many pictures before we went to an exhibition in UBC.

 Hannah

We took care of our lunch that means we went to the cafeteria where all the students eat at 12pm. All the students stormed out into the cafeteria and it filled it in a few minutes; it was very crowded. There are lots of eating stands with food from many different countries. In the afternoon we visited the Vancouver Aquarium, where we saw lots of different fishes, but also spiders, monkeys.. First we watched a 4D movie about fishes and animals. That was very funny, especially when the water sprinkled in our faces and the “shark teeth” came out of our seats. Afterwards we saw a dolphin and beluga whale show outside what was very cute.

In the evening we ate supper at the famous Old Spaghetti Factory in Vancouver Downtown, but that was not all of the evening! After the delicious Spaghetti Bolognaise it was shopping time! The bus drove us to the Pacific Center Mall, where we had two hours to shop. After that we were all very tired and fell assleep in our soft bed sheets very fast.

The next day was very busy again. The bus drove us to the long, old and shaky Capilano Suspension Bridge. When we came to the other side of the river we could go to the Treetops that are connected by small wooden bridges with hot chocolate in our hands. After that we went to the Science World Center, where we watched a movie about Dinosaurs in a tent with a round ceiling and a very huge round screen. For supper we drove to Granville Island, kind of like an eating mall with lots of different little stands with fresh vegetables, fruits, candy, chocolate, meat etc. They had food from all over the world; even Swiss food. None of us knew where to eat and what to try, because it was just way too much food . Especially the Mexicans were very excited when they saw their Mexican food! After our stomach-filling supper they took us to the Planetarium, where we got to watch another movie with a round ceiling and huge screen. This time it was a laser and light show.

Saturday was already leaving day. First of all we got surprised by snow when we opened our curtains of the hotel room. It melted during the day, though. Actually it already began to rain right after we got up and since it was pretty bad, the supervisors (Rick Oliver arrived on Friday) decided to change the plans for visiting Chinatown; instead we went shopping! And it wasn’t just somewhere; it was in Metrotown. The biggest shopping mall in Vancouver with over 500 stores! Unfortunately we only had two hours to explore the whole building. That’s the reason, why everyone was too late to the appointment at 12.30pm, but everyone was in the bus eventually and we headed out back home to Kelowna, Orchard Park Mall. When we arrived there we had to say good bye to some of the students, because they are already going home after 5 month here in Kelowna, what was quite sad.

The four days we spent in Vancouver were a success and a great experience! I met lots of new international students and we had an amazing time and lots of fun.

The first holidays that I have experienced here in Canada, just began! Now Christmas time has officially started and everyone is excited with buying presents and decorating every single corner with stars and lights.:D On Saturday I had a baking day with Tina. After I came home from skating, we turned on the TV and started watching a funny Christmas movie, while we also began to take out all the different ingredients for Christmas cookies. We baked for about four hours and ended up with five different kinds of cookies. During short breaks we treated ourselves with hot chocolate and sat in front of the TV. It was very relaxing and we had a really good time.

Marlen and I have decided to get our hair cut before Christmas so we went to the hair dresser on Sunday. To get our hair cut didn’t take us long at all, because we both just got it trimmed a half an inch, but the more important part was to get our hair curled I haven’t done that before and it was exciting when we both stood up from our chairs and had a look at our new hair style. Certainly we had to have a picture taken first.

When I came home Peter just brought in the Christmas tree. It is a huge, full tree and fills at least half of the living room. After Peter put the light up the tree it was Tina and my job to put up all the decorations. When we were finished we were all very proud of our work and enjoyed the Christmas feeling.

Christine invited me over for making ginger bread houses on Monday and certainly I agreed. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that well, because our icing wasn’t good enough and it was very difficult, but we ended with three houses instead of five . The good thing about it was that we discovered that we won’t build houses together anymore even though it was fun. When Peter came to pick us up proudly with his new red car, the roof of one house just fell off.

Tuesday and Wednesday was Big White time and in between we had a sleep over at Marlen’s. On Wednesday we split up with the guys, because they wanted to jump so Marlen, Nele and I ended up together, but there was still one guy, Finn, who didn’t feel like jumping and so he joined us. It was a great day and we got along very well with each other. When I came home that day I had to wrap all my Christmas presents I had bought and put it under the Christmas tree.

Nele came over on Thusday, because all three of us wanted to do a Christmas baking day, where we bake German-Swiss cookies. Since Marlen’s hostmom had her birthday that day she came later, but Nele and I just finished the first sheet of cookies, because these were the most difficult ones: Orange cookies. It took us a long time to figure out how it could work better and so in the end we just put them into the oven and hoped they would turn out well; and they did . The next cookies we made were Zimtstern and they weren’t that difficult so that was good. The next day we finished our baking with Vanille kipferl and afterwards we watched the old german version of Cinderella: Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenputtel. That evening Christine and Tyler came over for supper and afterwards our neighbours joined us as well. It was a crowded evening even with two little dogs in the living room, but we had a good time and I even got to know a new Swiss chocolate brand .

 Under the Christmas tree with Christine and Sidney

This morning Peter and I went shopping for the brunch tomorrow; on Christmas morning. He took me to little European stores. Most of them were German and had Swiss specialities as well (chocolate, Raclette, Ricola, Züri Gschnetzlets..) and I felt a little bit like at home.

On Tuesday we had the big choir concert! Peter was the director and he organized the concert of the Concert Choir (~ 80 kids, where everybody can sing, male and female), which I am joining, the Chamber Choir (~30 girls, auditioned, only females), the Dungeon Choir (20 guys, all-guys-choir). We had many rehearsals for that performance; since September and first we were quite unsure if the Concert Choir is going to be a success, but in the end it was really great. The whole Concert came out very well and we had a large audience. It was the fist time I performed with a choir and I really enjoyed it. Peter was very satisfied and proud of us! The next day was Tina’s birthday! She had the day off from work and relaxed at home. In the evening we had an International Christmas Party, which was a turkey dinner for all the international students with their families. There were about 400 people there and it was busy, but really good and in the end even Santa Claus came to visit and we sang Christmas songs. Unfortunately Peter couldn’t come, because he had the Band Concert that day. Tina and I went there afterwards and enjoyed the Jazz Band and Senior Band from Peter. Meanwhile Marina baked a pretty cake for Tina, but she couldn’t finish it before we came home so we decided to eat it the next day. Friday evening Marlen and Nele came over and had supper with us and after that Marina and Peter took the cake and turned the lights off. The cake was very cute decorated from Marina in a shape of a heart with strawberries and raspberries.

Sunday was Big-White-Day again. But the weather was, not like the last time, foggy and cold. But Marlen and I certainly brought the sunshine with us we changed our board and skies. So she tried snowboard the first time with my board! Since we have the same shoe size, I could wear her skis and she my board. It was quite difficult for her in the beginning and she fell a lot, what really hurt after a few hours, but we made a pretty good job and she learnt how to turn on both sides. For me it wasn’t the first time on skis, but it was very different to ski the first time after 5 years and in the beginning it felt weird, but after a while I got used to it and I liked it. After another adventure day we were tired and went home quickly.

This Thursday was the big opening of Big White, the ski hill of Kelowna.

 Big White moose

It is one of the largest ski areas in Canada so lots of people went up there this weekend. Since most of us have gotten a season’s pass we can go there whenever we want. On Sunday we went there the first time and we were very lucky, because the day before the weather was very bad and you almost coulnd’t see anything.

It was the first time to wear my new snowboard stuff and everything fitted perfectly. The busses (there were three full busses, each with 45 students in it) picked us up near the school at 8 o’clock and drove us about 45-60 min. to the hill. We were very amazed when we arrived at Big White. It is a very cute village with lots of wood houses with many holiday apartments. It was very sunny and there was a lot of snow everywhere (even though in Kelowna city there isn’t any snow). When everyone was ready (I was in the same bus with Nele, Marlen and Timo) the exciting part began. The snow was very soft and dry; perfect condition . I was surprised how many students snowboard and I was very glad. Marlen and Nele ski, though. We always changed with whom we were boarding with. (4-12 teenagers ) It was good that we didn’t have a big difference between more and less experienced skiers and boarders , so we were all about the same. Except that most of the guys were a little bit better than the girls and jumped all different kinds of stunt in front of us

We were almost the whole time on the ski run. Although there weren’t many lifts open yet, we tried many different slopes, from easy to steep, and discovered more routes that especially the Canadian guys showed us. We didn’t even take a long lunch break, but in the end we still wanted to stay on the hill. After all when we sat into the full bus at 4pm, we were all very tired and fell asleep very quickly during the ride since it just began to get dark.

 we three after a very nice day and with a little red cheeks