Overview

OK, so basically I’ve been pretty hopeless at keeping this blog updated as I’m sure you have all noticed. Therefore I will now proceed to give you a complete overview of what I have done so far.

Also (pronounced owl-so), on Thursday the 12th of April I went to the zoo with 6 friends (3 germans and 3 latinos). That was cool, though was sad to see all the animals couped up like that. Would honestly have to say Auck zoo is better, at least by way of space for the animals. We got to see Knut, the little polar bear that was born in the zoo. He has become a bit of a celebrity in Germany; so much so that you can buy Knut shaped marshmallows and Knut sausages. Crazy, I know. We didn’t actually see him properly, as the line to see him was about 300 metres long, but we did get photos by jumping into the air with the camera above our heads and taking a photo just as we were at our highest. Was rather interesting but you can definitely see him!! Oh yea, and there was also a big Kiwi there, kindly donated by good ‘ol Aunty Helen.

On the 23rd of April I went to Potsdam with friends to check out the Lord of the Rings exhibition. It was the exact same one that they showed in Te Papa Museum in Wellington, though I didn’t see it there. Was really funny to hear Peter Jackson talking cause I could totally hear the NZ accent, which I never could before. After 4 months (nearly exactly!!) with German accents, you can really hear the NZ one!! So yeah, that was a good day out. One random thing tho, is in the entrance to the exhibition was a huge life sized model of the dog thing from “The Never Ending Story” movie hanging from the roof. I mean…what the heck right?? After Potsdam we heading back home via Berlin and met heaps of crazy soccer fans. See, there must have been a big game on cause there were all these drunk as fans in the trains and in the train station. They were all singing and happy as, not dodgy at all which was good. Anyway, we boarding the train home and found an empty room. So we got seated then suddenly 10 or so fans came up the stairs, singing and yelling and having a good time. Rowdy as but all in good fun. Their team obviously won and they were very happy about it. One guy actually got kicked off cause he got caught smoking in the train which is not allowed.



On the 27th of April I went to a “diskothek” (night club) with 2 other exchange students in Potsdam. It wasn’t fantastic cause it was a “bass and drums” night which pretty much meant every song was the good ol techno beat “boom ch boom ch boom ch” (like my onomatopoeia?) Didn’t get home till 4 so was pretty tired the next day but held up. I went with Anke and Hermann to an art market that was pretty cool, all sorts of wacky stuff for sale. Then on Sunday I went to the “baumbluten fest” in Werder. Literal translation is “tree blood festival” but it was similar to Octoberfest in the way that everyone was there to get drunk. But if you didn’t want to get drunk (like me) then there was still plenty to see and do. You could even do the bungy from a crane if you wanted!!



On the 17th of May I met Lauren from New Zealand and spent the day with her and her host family in a film park in Potsdam. Lauren lives in Bremen and she was in Berlin for a weekend with her fam. The film park was ok, though not really what we expected. It was more to do with the making of movies then like rides and stuff, but was good to hang out with a fellow nz student for the day and talk about how it’s going so far. There was a cool 4D movie we went to, with wind and stuff as well as 3D glasses. Also, King Kong graced us with his presence. At the end of the day there was a big stunt show on and one of the guys was from NZ so we chatted with him for a bit. Interesting story actually, he was in uni studying mechanics, found it boring so became a stunt man. Lol.




On the 18th of May I had an Asparagus Queen appointment and met the NZ Ambassador and his wife (Mr. and Mrs. Cook). They were both really nice and I sat next to Mrs. Cook at lunch and chatted to her. They live in Berlin and she told me to pop by sometime :P Also met Germanys Minister of Agriculture and a lot of other important people from the parliament. It was a big conference and I had to sit on the stage with all the important people while speeches were made. I also met the Harvest Queen, the Fish queen and the Egg Queen. Don’t ask.



On the 24th of May I went to Nordhorn for the weekend to meet and stay with Hermann’s parents. While there we went to my first ever handball game. Its gotta be the second coolest sport (rugby first), and Nordhorn was playing so there was a big fan group with drums and chants and things. We won 30-29. I also went to Holland (10 min drive) while we were there to visit my Uncle and Aunty and Cousin so that was really good to see family. We stayed for 4 days and then headed home.




On the 10th of June I had my last Asparagus Queen thing and had an interview with the local tv station. Then on Sunday I played in the musik school summer concert. I played the bongo drum and it was really fun. In June we get to go to a big music weekend with 2500 other teens to play, so looking forward to that!




And this weekend I have another AFS camp with all the exchange students in my area so that will be heaps of fun!!


Well, I hope you are all now well informed!!

~B~