New Zealand's school system is a bit different to the german one, e.g. because they're having their most important exams, the NCEA's (at least the seniors, which are year 11-13) only in the end of the year, in the last three weeks before the holidays, while we would have them all over the year in these nice Klausurenphasen. In these last three weeks before the school year ends finally the students only have to go to their exams so they don't have any other school. Most of the international students don't sit the exams tho (only the ones who are finishing school here have to sit them of course), but therefore we get the end of the year program.
Wow that was a long introduction, but I hope everyone understood it now.
This blog entry will be about the trips in the end of the year program, what, where and how we're doing (it). :)
Day 1 & 2/Monday and Tuesday: 5-6/11
Today and yesterday we went to Te Tii Marae which is a Maori Place (Marae is kinda the central of a Maori tribe where they come together to celebrate things, discuss things or have for example funerals etc. (or they just hang out there whatever). We stayed there for overnight (all 80 internationals + teachers + the Maori instructors were sleeping in the biggest room, boys on the one side, teachers etc. in the middle and girls on the other side) and learned a lot of things about Maori culture.
That was actually a really nice experience and I feel like the whole international group just got closer (idk if you can say it like that). The only annoying thing was a special teacher (I'm not gonna tell the name, but maybe she/he was just annoying because i don't like her).
Day 3/Wednesday: 7/11
Today we did the Mahinepua Peninsula Walk which is a beautiful "hills up and down walk" near the sea, so we had a wonderful view of the sea, the cliffs and the New Zealand landscape. After that we just went to the beach but didn't do much more so I'm just gonna add some pictures :)
Day 4/Thursday: 8/11
Today we went snorkelling in the poor knights islands which was so beautiful even tho it was freezing as and we didn't see dolphins or sharks or whales or found gold and got rich!!!! I'm disappointed.
No just joking but I thought I should maybe sometimes do some more jokes on this blog because otherwise it'd just be more boring.
So again. The snorkelling was great (still freezing but still wonderful), but I guess (again) I can show it the best way through pictures (and I know my daily entries are super full of information, but I don't have endless time and I'm not really a good writer so just be happy with the pictures, thanks)
Day 5/Friday: 9/11
Day 6-9/Monday-Thursday:12-15/11
Sailing the last four days was great! I kinda found a new hobby because of the learn how to sail program, that the ones (including me obviously), who didn't take any academic plus program, had. The ones that took another program (which is not sailing) went on a camp (for example surf camp, which was the same camp as I did in the first holidays so I didn’t want to do it again). The ones that had sailing academic plus before, went on a camp over the weekend and teached us these last four days. Luckily I was asked by someone who turned out as a really good sailor (which i didn’t know before so i was a bit sceptic at the beginning) and he could teach pretty good which made it even more fun.
For those who have a bit of an idea about sailing, we were sailing optimists the first day on a lake which was extremely boring because we had no wind at all (only the games we played-mostly swimming tho-were fun) and the other days on mistels (idk how to write it) and 420. On the last day we went on a speed boat kinda thing (forgot the name haha) which was incredible unstable and hard to sail but so much fun because we were the fastest ones (as long as we didn’t capsize).
Btw do I have so many scratches and bruises on my whole body as I had in kindergarten the last time maybe when we were still playing outside everyday, buuut I‘m (still) going to take the sailing academic plus for the next two terms (you have to take it for two terms if you want to choose it)!! :)
And for those who are interested, here are some pictures:
