My first week of school had been a great experience. Noticing all these differences between my own school and Herschel. I have finally gotten used to the dress and the tough shoes. Going to school is becoming a routine. Putting on the dress and shoes, packing my bag and my lunch packet and being driven to school. School begins at 7.45 every single day and officially ends at 3 ‘o clock with Friday as an exception. On Friday, school ends at 14.10 resulting in a longer weekend for everyone, going to the beach and doing other fun things.

The classes I am taking are drama, art, consumers, math and English. For drama we are doing a play to perform on the 90^th birthday of the school. This is quite an unusual play since it takes place in the pool. Not only for drama, but for art too, we have a project for the school’s birthday. We have to design a fantasy creature to hang up above the pool. I am taking my classes together with Lotte so we don’t get lost, and if we do anyway, we will not be alone.

Next week we will be baking a lemon merengue pie for consumers. With this recipe, I have no doubts that the pie will be delicious.

Recipe:

dough
1 packet of tennis biscuits
125 g margarine

lemon filling

½ liters of lemon juice
1 tin of condensed milk
3 yolk

Merengue

3 egg white
75 g sugar

This weekend we went to Ratango Junction which is an amusement park near canal walk. I went together with Lotte, Lourents, Loic and Loren. We went straight to the slingshot which is a kind of launcher which was amazing. We had to put on a special special gear and we were hung up facing the ground. We went up backwards and once up, the guides were giving us these signs which I didn't understand at all until Lotte said I had to pull the red cord. I pulled the red cord which I considered a huge mistake considering the function of it, launch us!

On Sunday, my host family took lotte and me to Stellenbos, to Nicole's (Lauren's siter) university. Afterwards we decided to go spier where you can pet cheetahs and owls. We were very lucky because they had baby cheetahs which was quite exceptional. Before we could go in and pet them, we had to clean our hands and the soles of our shoes. We were only allowed to pet them on the back and along the sides seeing that they are very ticklish around their head and belly. What really surprised me was that they purred, just like a domestic cat. They were so adorable and had to almost fight back the urge to take them home. After petting the cheetahs we went to the owls. I could see some owls sitting on a stick and one of the volunteers asked, 'Would you like to pet them?' and I thought, why would I pet a dead animal. Apparently they weren't dead after all, they were just sitting very still. I eventually pet them and they were surprisingly calm and especially soft. Unlike the cheetahs, they didn't purr, but they were cute anyway.

The First Day of School

It's half past six, my alarm goes off and I get out of bed. After a nice shower I walk back into my room and stand in front of my closet. I open it slowely and see my schooldress hanging and at the bottom of the closet I can see my brown shoes staring at me. They aren't just looking, they are literally staring as they are made of this tough leather. Although my shoes are terrible and the design of my dress is 90 years old, I am still looking forward to wear them, as this will be a whole new experience for me.
After Lauren and I got dropped off at school, we went to assembly in the theater. The theater was filled with girls with blue dresses stystematically sitting in rows by their class. The rest of the day was actually like a normal school day but much better. I could choose my own subjects which eventually were: Afrikaans, French, English, maths, art and drama. the lessons were completely different to our lessons in Holland. In most of the classes absolutely no speaking was allowed and the classes were much smaller than what I was used too. My favourite subject so far is drama. This is mainly because we can talk and do exercises to relax. Tomorrow we will have our drama lesson in the pool.

I will tell you everything about that and more another time

Unpacking my Bags

The last couple of days literally felt like holiday. I spent most of the time in the pool or tanning in the garden considering that it has been over 25 degrees every single day. I've been settling in, unpacked my bags and tried to adapt to this new way of life.

On Sunday I went to the beach together with Lauren and her sister Nicole. This was quite an experience as there were many people selling things on the beach like coke and ice cream. They would then say all these little jingles like, 'A cokie for your oukie' and 'A lolly to make you jolly'. They would randomly talk to you and say that their ice cream comes from Iceland and the Coke is magical. The beach is very different from our beach. You can see mountains in the distance, the san is white and the waves are enormous. The only thing which reminds me of Holland at the beach is the temperature of the water which is surprisingly cold. At night, all the exchange students came to my temporary home for dinner which was really nice to hear how they survived the first few days. Lourents had a sunburn already from being at the golf course for 3 hours.

On Monday, Lauren had organized a "small" welcome-get-to-know party which turned out to become much bigger. This was a great idea seeing that I could meet some girls already so I wouldn't have to follow Lauren around the entire first day of school.

Today we went to school to pick up Lauren's school books and meanwhile she showed me around the school. We'll find out tomorrow how it is to actually go to school here, my first SCHOOL DAY!

desert

first day

I finally arrived in South Africa, the moment I had been looking forward to for half a year. I still can't realize that I am really here, at the other side of the world, in a different family. A place where it is actually not cold and where it's not raining 24/7.

Of course, for every new destination you want to go to, you have to travel, which I did yesterday. My dad and two oldest sisters brought me to the airport early in the morning and what a surprise, it was raining. When we arrived at the airport I dropped off my bag which appeared to be 27 kg, highly overweight but I managed to take out enough clothes and books and took it in a bag as handluggage. then it was time to say goodbye. It was really hard to leave my family behind and of course everyone got very emotional. I turned my backs on them with wet eyes and I could see Lotte coming to me and we went to the gate together with lourents joining us halfway. Around 9.45 we could go on the plane and start the 2nd half of our exchange.
There were many movies involved in our flight and many useless games to kill the time. Luckily I sat at the window so I could look outside and enjoy the amazing view. I have seen a desert for the first time in my life and I was amazed. there was literally nothing, only sand. This might sound obvious but I was overwhelmed by the emptiness. I then understood why there was no wildlife.

9700 km later, we finally arrived in south africa. when we stepped out of the plane we could see our host families standing a floor lower, waving at us and making these excited movements. After we took our bags we went straight to our host families and hugged them like we've known them for ages. It was really nice to see everyone again. I went straight to bed as it was around 1 AM.

the next morning I woke up and looked outside the window, seeing clear blue sky. The view which was invisible the night before appeared to be wonderful. you can see mountains and many trees. Today we went swimming in the pool which was very refreshing since it was around 25 degrees. The rest of the day, Lauren just showed me around the neighbourhood and took me to the shops where we had a lovely smoothie. At the end of the day, my host family took me out for dinner at Waterfront. A perfect beginning of an amazing exchange.