My Canadian Birthday

HELLO and welcome back ^^

Today I want to write about my birthday here, which was last Saturday, but (as usual) I forgot to blog about it the next day...
That morning I woke up at 7:00 or so, maybe half past, but I actually always do because that's the time when my hostsiblings wake up, and honestly there's no chance to sleep as soon as they start running around upstairs xD Whatever, I don't mind getting up early any more, so I just went upstairs and joined them.
The morning was pretty relaxed, I unwrapped my presents watched my hostbrother unwrap my presents and then tried to get the chocolate back ^^ We had pancakes for breakfast, and afterwards I helped my hostdad preparing the turkey dinner (*-*) for my birthday party (*---*) that same afternoon.
We had about 20 people at our place (my extended hostfamily) and LOTS of food (as always, haha :D) and then in the evening (here comes my favourite part) some chocolate cake! My hostmum put candles on top of it and they were all singing "Happy Birthday" for me. That moment I just felt so much at home and happy, it was awesome ^^
I even got some presents and really nice cards which I'd never have expected, and this really shows me how much luck I had with coming to exactly this hostfamily.
All in all the day was one of the best I had so far since being in Canada!


Other things that happened this week:
On Wednesday we went on a school trip to Toronto to see the Musical "Wicked", which is based on the Wizard of Oz but focuses on the two witches. Also, I think it's a lot darker, but it's a great story and I really enjoyed seeing it live on stage. During the intermission we all got "wicked" cookies, they were huge and green with a black hat, but totally NOT worth the 5,50 dollars I had to pay to get one :( On top of that, my lips stayed green for the rest of the day and I just didn't get the colour off xD

Tomorrow is Halloween *yay* and I'm looking forward to it :D
Lilly

My birthday cake ^^ it was soo good *-*

Trip to Niagara Falls

Hey guys,

Sorry for not writing ^^ I guess it's too late for posting something about Thanksgiving now, but we just spent the day with other family members (we went to my host-grandparents) and had lots of good food :) I didn't take any pics because I thought it wouldn't be appropriate as they were praying before starting the dinner so I didn't want to pull out my camera afterwards.
However, we're gonna have another turkey dinner tomorrow, so I hope I'll remember to take some photos then.
The meal was basically turkey with gravey and cranberries, stuffing, vegetables and dessert (which was actually the best xD). We had pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate, apple crumble and someone even made a German Chocolate Cake ^^
Here are the pictures, finally:

Beautiful fields close to my host grandparents' house :)

The actual reason for why I'm writing is because I went to Niagara Falls on Thursday :D Yes! The real ones!
It was an International Day Trip which means that all the International Students went there together and it was sooo awesome, I'm sure everyone had a good time. We didn't go on the boat though, the "Maid of the Mist", in fact we only had 35 min at the Falls. Afterwards they gave us tickets for Madame Tussaud's, a 4D cinema and some kind of Believe-it-or-not-Museum. But, hey, it was fun too, so it doesn't really matter to me.
At the falls I finally found those awesome mittens that have the Canadian Maple leaf printed on, and a winter hat that says CANADA. I love them already xD
The bus trip was only 4 hours long, and it seems as if I get used to the Canadian understanding of "far away" and "nearby":
Obviously, if you go on a trip e.g. to Niagara Falls or Toronto or some similar place, you only have to stay in the car for 2 - 4 hours, which means it's pretty close, considering the fact that you'd have to drive about 8 hours to get to the next province which is Manitoba.
However, if you want to go to the Mall and say you'd take the bike because it's only half an hour away, or even if you just want to go from the Arena to the Chinese restaurant, which is a 15min walk, people look at you like "Are you crazy? That's too exhausting, I can drive you there!" ^^

So here are some pics of Niagara Falls:

Lake Ontario *-*

the Canadian Falls

Only in Canada xD

And the American Falls

The following two gravestones are legit :D I found them in Ripley's believe-it-or-not Museum.

See ya
Lilly

Funny Questions People Asked Me

Heeeeyyy :D
Happy Thanksgiving ^^ I know it's actually only tomorrow, but today most families had their dinner (including mine) so I just felt like saying something nice at the beginning xD
However, this post is not about Thanksgiving (I might write about it tomorrow), but about some funny questions I've been asked during my time here. And there are LOTS of them O.o

1. Have you ever heard of McDonalds?
2. Do people in Germany use a different type of writing like in China?
3. Do you have cars in Germany or do you prefer to walk wherever you need to go?
4. Which place in Europe is the best to visit? (It turned out that Europe is actually a country)
5.  The winters in Canada are almost as cold as the ones in Germany! (not a real question, but it's still funny though xD)
6. Are English songs sung in German when you listen to them in German radio?
7. So you have cellphones in Germany, too?
8. Do you know what that is? (pointing at a chocolate chip cookie ^^)
9. What language do you speak in Russ- Germany, I mean?
10. And the following dialogue:
    "Have you been to Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia?"
     - "No, actually they don't exist anymore"
    "But I thought you were from Russia?"
     - "No, I'm from Germany :)"
    "Oh... so do you speak Russian?"
     - "No, we speak German"
    "But what language do you speak in Russia then?"
     - "Well, Russian I guess ^^."
    "I thought Germany belongs to Russia?"
     - "No it doesn't, it's an independent country..."
    "Ohh okay! I didn't know that :D I guess you learn something new everyday, eh? And do you speak English in Germany? With your parents?"
     - "No, we only speak German ;)."
    "But how comes you speak English now?"
     - "Well, I learnt it at school"
    "So they actually teach English in Russian schools?? I thought they wouldn't because the don't like the United States, you know."
     - "I'm from Germany... :/ "

That's it.
Hope you're all doing fine :)
Lilly

Awesome Fall in Canada *-* (pictures!)

Voilà, a few pictures I took during my bike ride yesterday ^^ The colours are so awesome, I don't even think my camera is good enough to show you how it really looks like :D

Help! It's on fire :O

I'm so glad I took the pictures yesterday, cause today it started raining so most of the leaves fell off and it doesn't look so nice anymore :'(

1 month (*party*) and waaaay too many other things

Hey guys :)

I had lots of things to do during the last few days, so this post is probably going to be a bit longer than usual ;)

Let's start with Thursday:
Thursday was Terry Fox Day. I'm sure everyone who has already read a blog about an exchange year in Canada knows what that means, but just in case you don't: Terry Fox had cancer in his right leg, and he decided to raise money for research by running all the way across Canada, 42km every day ("Marathon of Hope"). However he didn't make it because the cancer got to his lungs and he was forced to stop after 143 days, and half a year later he died. To remember him and to raise more money for research on cancer, almost every school in Canada takes part in the Terry Fox Run. Afterwards you can donate money by buying food or candy etc..

That same day our school celebrated the Franco Ontario Day (= a day for all the French speaking inhabitants of Ontario) and during French class they gave us candy. Good thing if you have two periods of French like me ^^

Friday was PA day, the most awesome idea ever: Students get a day off. Just like that. To give them the opportunity to "study" individually... haha...
I went to an Outdoor Activities Camp and we did lots of fun stuff like canoeing, high ropes, and climbing inside an old silo :) In fact, I did a lot that day, but studying was definitely not a part of it.

Saturday was nice as well, the leaves are turning yellow-orange-red now so we went north visiting the Amish people (is that how you write it??). The Amish live without electricity or any other modern technology, and basically they're just farmers. We got pumpkin, bread, doughnuts and beets, and afterwards we made pumpkin pie and OMG IT'S SO GOOD *-* add this to the list of my favourite recipes xD

Sunday I went to the movies with a friend to see The Maze Runner, which is actually pretty good but the book is just so different, I think they changed almost every scene. Like, not in a bad way, just different, but still it wasn't the same :/

Monday was figure skating practise as usual and yesterday I learned for my English test today, it was so hard O.o Seriously, all the quizzes we've had until now were nothing compared to this. The first ten questions were easy, true or false, but then the other ones were like:
"Explain which kind of character Romeo and Juliet are by using the Point-Evidence-Example technique, at least two examples each";
"Tybalt and Mercutio are similar characters. Agree or Disagree";
"Who or what is responsible for the tragic ending of Romeo and Juliet? Write an introduction, three paragraphs with three different reasons and a conclusion sentence"
Yeah by the time I turned my page over I only had 45 minutes left for all three questions, so I didn't really answer properly... Whatever, I'm not the only international student in this class so I guess I'm not the worst anyway xD I'll just try to do well on the next assignment.

Lilly

Oh and right now I remember that one word I didn't know during the test -.- it was indeed...