Highschools in Canada often offer a lot of extracurricular things after school. I decided to join the musical this year. Our musical was Shrek, the Musical. We had to audition before our director decided what role we would get. I was part of the ensemble. After all the roles were given out, we started with rehearsing. First we had some vocal coaching before we started with learning all the dances. It was a lot, we often had to stay after school until 5 pm or sometimes even longer. I'm so happy I was just part of the ensemble because the main characters had way more things to learn and to remember. We rehearsed before our opening show on the weekends too. During the rehearsal time, I was so done with the musical and I couldn't remember why I joined in the first place but after our first show I remembered why. It's such a nice feeling when people are standing and clapping at the end of the play and you are just happy, exhausted and overwhelmed with everything. We had 6 shows in total, a show was around 2,5 hours long. So if the show started at 7 pm we had to be there at 5 to get ready, do our make-up and warm up our voices. We all spent so much time together, we grew together and we became a family. Our last show was absolutely the best, but also the worst one. We all were sanding on the stage crying after the curtains closed for the last time. After our last show we split up in smaller groups and went to different locations to have small parties. I miss all my musical friends so much even though I hated them during rehearsals. It was amazing experience.
xx, Anna
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The international team organized a trip to Vancouver over the first weekend in January. We left Campbell River on Friday morning at 6 am and drove down to Nanaimo to catch the ferry to Vancouver. We had a guide showing us around the major tourist attraction, like the Olympic Cauldron and the steam clock. We also visited the Queen Elizabeth park. We stayed in a hotel in Burnaby right next to a big shopping mall.
The days were planned very strictly but we got see lots that way. Right after we came off the ferry we went to flyover Canada, it's a virtual tour flying over Canada. It's really interesting to see the different skylines and sceneries across the country in such a short time. then we had some time to check out the mall next to our hotel and eat dinner there. We checked out the local ski mountain and a really nice suspension bridge on Saturday and we also stopped at a designer outlet and had some time to check out the stores there and buy some nice stuff. On Sunday we checked out Granville Island, it's a small island downtown Vancouver with a lot of small stores and a big food market. It's a nice spot to meet for coffee or go shopping for a birthday present for your bestie. in the afternoon we had time to discover downtown on our own. I spent my time walking around alone and eating sushi with a sunset on the steps of the art gallery. it was a nice weekend, even though the style of exploring a city we did is not my style. xx Anna Christmas this year was different, nice but different. First of all the Christmas decorations here are crazy, the first were up the day after Halloween and they were colorful. The Christmas baking is different too, my host mom made delicious candy crackers (normal salty cracker, then some caramel and on top some dark chocolate). My host dad and me went to pick out a Christmas tree, it's normal here to just drive into the bush a bit away from the town and cut down a tree. So picked out the best tree in the whole forest and brought it home. it was a big to tall, we had to cut off ca. 1 meter. Christmas is spread out over a couple of days. It all starts with Christmas eve, dec 24. On Christmas eve is normally not too much happening, the kids go to bed early and the the parents play Santa Claus. The next day is the big day. I got up early in the morning because that's the time all the gifts. We sat down around the tree and handed out the gifts from underneath the tree. There were lots of gifts for everybody, I got a blanked hoodie, two pair of socks, lots of candy, a small box for all my jewelry and a thermos cup for my coffee. i gifted my host mom with nice swiss pen and my host dad with a swiss army knife. After everybody opened their presents, we had a big American breakfast with pancakes, bacon, eggs and fruits. the rest of the day we spent preparing for the big Christmas dinner with family at our place. My host dad made a turkey with mashed potatoes and vegetables. We had my host grandma, my host brother and his girlfriend over. On December 25 I met my host moms grandpa, so it would be my great grandpa. I also met a bunch of my host moms family, like her aunts and cousins. It was really nice meeting them and feeling accepted by them. Another really nice part about this Christmas was that we had snow, I finally had a white Christmas again. xx Anna Thanksgiving is in Canada in October while the states have thanksgiving at November 25 this year. It's normal to come together with the family and eat a big dinner. Most times it's turkey with stuffing and gravy and some veggies and for dessert a pie.
We celebrated thanksgiving with the sister of my host mom and her family and the son of my host dad and his girlfriend in Victoria. We drove to Victoria on Friday after school, we stopped in Nanaimo for dinner. Nanaimo is about a 1.5 hours drive from Campbell River. On Saturday, we went sight seeing and shopping in Victoria. Victoria is a beautiful city with an older part and some small stores. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia, so you can see some old government buildings. On Sunday we had Thanksgiving dinner. It was awesome to meet the extended family of my hostfamily and spend some time in another city. xx Anna Halloween is so big here. We had a whole halloweek in school with dressing up and my creative writing teacher had a spooky assignment every day for us. On Friday before Halloween almost everybody had their costume on and there was a competition for the best costume, the winner got a chocolate bar. My host mom and I decorated the house on Friday evening. On Saturday we finished decorating the house and went Candy shopping for Sunday evening. I bought the last stuff for my costume and did my make up on Saturday evening. My costume was amazing. I made a matching coat with a friend. On Sunday we carved the pumpkins and prepared the candy. the first trick or treater knocked on our door at 4 pm. I helped handing out the candy for a bit before I did my costume and make up. There was competition going on for the best pumpkin in front of our door so I had hurry with my make up. I waited for my friends so we could go together to another friends place and watch a movie. Halloween ended with a sleepover at my friends house and a tie between my two pumpkins and my host dad's pumpkin. We had no school on Monday after Halloween so we slept in and enjoyed the day off. When I walked home on November 1st, all the Halloween decoration was gone and the first Christmas decoration were up. Just crazy.
xx Anna The school system in Canada is very different then then school system in Switzerland. You don't have a consistent class for the whole school year. You have different people in every course you take. I t's possible to have a class with grade 10, 11 and 12 students, but other classes are just one grade. And right now the school is different because of Covid too. We have a 2 classes 10 weeks system so we don't have a lot of different people around us. i really like this system. I can focus on one class in the morning and on the other one after lunchbreak. And i don't have to study for 4 different class for a final exam. My first two classes were Science and Creative writing. I realized that the preconceptions about the education level are true. it's not the same as in Switzerland. I knew all the stuff in Science 10 from my school in Switzerland. I could have changed my schedule but it was nice to get good marks without studying ;) My next classes are gonna be Math 10 and skills exploration (it's something like woodworking and metal working together).
The Teacher-Student relationship is way more casual than back in Switzerland. And even the principal walks around in the hallways and talks to the students. Sometimes he just walks into a classroom and stands there for a couple of minutes before leaves. There're a lot of clubs or activates after school. I joined the musical and Basketball and i got Band practice every Monday and Thursday before school. I can have band before school because schools starts not until 8:55. That means I can almost sleep in. And school ends at 3:05. We have a 40 minutes lunchbreak where we can walk to the nearest subway and coffee store, but we also can get food in the cafeteria from the north island college. It's in the same building as the high school. Since the college has a foods class that cooks all the food themselves the food is really good for school food. A lot of teacher leave their classroom open over lunch so you can eat in there or you can go outside. But I really like to get some fresh air in lunch break before i have to wear my mask again. xx Anna It's not just the school day with mask it was also a lot harder to get to Canada and get my visa. But from the beginning.
The first problem with Covid was to get my visa. There's not one Canadian consulate in Switzerland. So I had to leave the country. Me and my dad traveled to Düsseldorf, Germany. The next part was my quarantine. it wasn't clear if I had to quarantine in Canada or not. I traveled to Canada without knowing if I had to stay the first two weeks in my room or if I could do stuff with my host family. I was fully vaccinated so I didn't had to quarantine. The school is different here, not just because it's Canada but also because of Covid. the school year is divided into four quarters. Each quarter 10 weeks long. Over 10 weeks we just have two different classes. One in the morning and then on in the afternoon. After 10 weeks we switch classes. Here in Canada is the vaccination mandatory stronger. You have to show your vaccine passport before entering a restaurant or watching a hockey game. I really hope that Covid soon ends and things are normal again. xx Anna The first two weeks after my arrival was no school. School starts in Canada September. So I had two weeks time to get to know my hostfamily and get to know Campbell River a little bit. My hostmom took me the the Elk Fall Provincial park the day after my arrival. It's a beautiful nature and there is a big waterfall. Afterwards we went groceries shopping for the first time. I was overwhelmed. All the candy and chips, here is a much bigger selection than back in Switzerland. I never saw a lot of all the chips flavors, like Ketchup Chips (I'm not a fan). And all the bags are bigger. The smallest ice-cream container is the largest in Switzerland. Not just the food is different also the roads and cars are different. The roads are wider and the cars are bigger. First I was confused by number of trucks driving around in town, but that's normal for here. Some trucks are even taller than me.
The day after all this new stuff, we went to the campground and checked out if there's a place for us. Some friends of my host parents were already out there. So I met the niece of my host dad. She's the same age as me and she's also at timberline. We got along well with each other from the beginning. It was nice to know someone who's going to the same school. But before school started we went camping. We stayed at Campbell lake for almost two weeks. I slept in a tent. There were a lot of friends of my host parents around. I never felt lonely or not welcomed. They included me from the beginning on and I felt like family from day one. So we played bean bag toss and other games in the evening or we just sat around the propane fire. I had my first turkey dinner out camping. Some friends brought their infrared cooker out there and did the turkey in there. Other people did the stuffing and gravie and some others did the dessert. We often cooked together and shared our food. So I got to try all the different food and new stuff. It was amazing how fast I was part of this family and friend group. An advise: Be open and just sit around the fire pit even though you might don't know them. You are going to be asked questions about your life back home and what's the difference between Canada and your home-country. Or you ask them about a word you don't know or a food they mentioned you never heard of. Just be open. I was lucky my host family went camping with me, because other international students just sat at home and did nothing. The school district had some activities planned for the international students, but they were only once or twice a week. I was on one activity from the school district. It was an scavenger hunt, so we had to walk around in downtown and solve quizzes and do some tasks. It was nice to meet some international students. On Friday for school we had to pick our locker. These first two weeks were over too fast. It was amazing to have some quality time with my host family and get to know some friends already. xx Anna My host family is a small family. I don't have any host siblings living in the same house but my host dad has two kids, both already moved out. I also don't have another international student as a sibling because it's the first year hosting an international student for my host parents.
They have large friend group and other family members in this town. I already feel like I'm part of this family. My host parents also have Farrah, their dog. She's 3 old and she always wants to play with her ball. They live near a big forest, beaver loge. I saw two bears once in there when I was on my way home from school. they were farer away but it was a weird feeling walking with bears in the same forest. I think my organization found the perfect fit for me. I feel like I'm home already. It's amazing how just a little bit activity can help to feel welcomed and comfortable with the host family. I wasn't always in the mood to talk to them but I still was in in the main living room reading or doing my homework. It opens door if there's the possibility to ask them what's for dinner or maybe ask them if you don't understand your homework. It was weird in the beginning to live in a strangers house but they not strangers anymore. i learn every day something new about them, a new word or something new about Canada. xx Anna The last weeks in Switzerland. All my friends had summer break so I could do a lot of stuff with them. We hung out at the lake and had some sleepovers. I traveled alone to Munich and visited my cousin. In the last official week of my summer break, I was in a scouts training camp. I met a lot of new people and made some friends but after a week in a tent I was ready for my bed. My friends all had to go back to school after 5 weeks summer break, but I could stay at home. It was nice to sleep long when my friends had to get up early and go to school. I met Tara, one of the other Swiss exchange students, this summer in Zurich and it was nice to know who's going to also spend a year in Campbell River. I spend a lot of my last two weeks with my best friend just hanging out and talking. I made a goodbye book, it’s a book where my friends designed pages and I first looked at these pages in the plane. I designed the first few pages. I introduced my hometown and Campbell River, I put some pictures of my school in it and there was a page about my host family. I also made a list for my friends to write down their favorite song and movie, some Swiss words I have to teach my Canadian friends and a Swiss meal I should cook in Canada. I gave this book to six different people, so they had time to design their two pages. Start early with something like that, I just started two weeks before I left, so not all the people I want to write something in there could do it. I slowly started to pack all my stuff. All things were lying on the ground so I could go over everything again and again. And then I had to pack my suitcase. I packed all my things in there, surprisingly every thing fit, but the suitcase had to be 23 kg. I weighted it and it was way over 23kg. I had to unpack stuff.
I had a goodbye dinner with my some my friends at McDonalds on the weekend before I left. We had a lot of fun together but there were also some tears. I couldn’t realize I wouldn’t see them for 11 months. And then the last day in Switzerland, Monday the 23rd of August. I spent the afternoon with my guy best friend, I said goodbye to some other friends and made my Spotify playlist with all the song recommendations from my friends. In the evening, my mom made one of my favorite meals, a pasta casserole. We played games and I had to finish packing my suitcase. I couldn’t sleep this night, I was to nervous and excited. But I knew we have to get up at 4 am to go to the airport. We picked up girl best friend, she took a day of work so she come with me to the airport. My flight was at 10 am but I really didn’t want to miss this flight. We were at the airport at six in the morning. I met Madlaina, we flew together to Vancouver. Our first flight was to Frankfurt, Germany. At the gate for the flight to Vancouver were mostly exchange students. There were exchange students from Italy, France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and more countries. I tried to sleep on the flight to Vancouver but I couldn’t really sleep. Finally in Vancouver I had to go through immigration for my study permit, I had show all my covid test and vaccination information to someone to make sure I don’t have to quarantine and take my suitcase through customs, before I had to go through security again. And then I could go to my gate for my third flight. At this time I was awake for 24 hours. When I finally was at my gate I still got 4 ours until my next flight. I bought some coffee and food and watched grey’s anatomy. My last flight was just a 40 minutes flight to Comox and from Comox we had a shuttle driving us to Campbell River. It was long day and just fell into my bed as soon as my host parents picked me up and showed me my room. I was happy I didn’t miss any of my flights and didn’t had to quarantine. I still couldn’t realize I am going to be in Canada for the next 10 months. xx Anna |
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I am 15 years old this school year I am in Canada and I want to let you guys now what I am up to. Archives
February 2022
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