I arrived in New Zealand on the 12th of January 2018, after 16 hours of travel in total, I arrived in Christchurch, and Jane, my first host mother picked me up from the airport; on the way from Christchurch I remember being wide awake and looking out the window the whole way, and being really surprised about all the paddocks next to the road.
When we first arrived in Waimate I was shocked it was a massive change from where I came from.
.JPG)
As most of you know my first host family was the Bells, that meant that I was living out on their farm in Waihaorunga, to people surprise I actually loved it out there, I had a great time and it was completely different from what I am used to, and I think that is why I liked it so much, because it was different and that’s what I wanted from my exchange, the opportunity to have a different life from what I was used to, out of my comfort zone. But to be honest I think I touched one sheep the whole time because they are not as friendly as they appear on TV.
My day to day here changed quite a bit, from having a busy life back in the city I went to a life and a year I could just enjoy those small moments, like going with Peter around the farm, for a “short” drive that would be for an hour AT LEAST.
I can say that after living on the farm for almost four months I learned a lot of stuff and I actually enjoyed a lot.
My next months I would be spending them at the Rollinson's, this was clearly a different experience. While living with them I had a great time having great chats with Suzie which were pretty much daily chats or more like me blabbing whatever interesting thing I had to say, or my birthday in NZ which I celebrated by having some girls from school over to the house , and also what would be my first NZ ball experience, walking around the Whitehorse for the first time, and also discovering that being able to run for 70 minutes on a hockey turf is not equivalent to being fit, because I was puffed after a 100 meters of walking. Another great memory is going for a flight with Mark over Waimate which gave me quite a different perspective from town, or also the times when I would arrive from training and smell pizza, which is amazing and after eating at least 4 pieces we would watch a series with Suzie, usually watching 1 or 2 episodes if I didn’t fall asleep.
On my first day of school, I was terrified in a way because it was such a small school and I didn’t really know anyone. I’ve loved my experience at Waimate High School and I have made heaps of good friends. As part of school and because of the subjects I choose at the beginning of the year I got to go on some trips, such as biking around Queenstown, which not only gave me the chance of see this town but also I learned new skills as well, also we’ve had skiing trips or rock climbing which I would say was my favourite so far and I hope I can do it somehow when I get back home, additionally we had a tramping trip which was really good and a really good experience and I learned a lot on that trip.
Also at school, I have had different opportunities mostly sport related such as athletics, which I got the chance to compete for javelin and as some may know made it to the south islands, and having results with which I was quite happy with since I’ve never dedicated much time to it before in my life, and also Korfball a sport that I literally learned while playing on the tournament, because I have never heard it before coming to Waimate High School.
I also got to go to District 9980 in Dunedin. While there all the Exchange students had to do a presentation. We decided to base our presentation on the TV show "family feud" basing it in common misconceptions of new Zealand and exchange students in general, such as things like thinking that the hobbits live in the forest. This was the perfect moment to get rid of my doubts about New Zealand and get the meaning of some slang, like ´yarn´ which at the beginning I honestly thought that meant going knitting with someone and seriously every time someone would say like “ oh yeah we had a quick yarn” I honestly thought people were knitting and I couldn’t get what was the deal with knitting, later on, I would find out it means to have a chat with someone.
Here I realized that so far the scoreboard was New Zealand: 1, Fran: 0.
This year I also had the chance to play hockey, for me this is one of the most important things when coming to New Zealand since I’ve been playing for almost 9 years, so I was really keen on playing this year. Sadly, there was no team in Waimate, so I ended up joining a team in Timaru, Cambridge hockey club. Thanks to the rotary club and the people in it I was able to make it to training every other Thursday, I wanted to especially thank Jane, Peter, Paul Griggs, Dylan, Raewyn, Pauline and Kate who helped me to get to training and sometimes matches.
Playing for this club I learned a lot about commitment, even though I was living half an hour from Timaru I was still going to the training and most of the games in the weekends, also I was able to improve my hockey skills, and the best thing of this season is that after of months of driving up to Timaru for a match or for training we won the tournament on what was a really tight match, and then I also won the prize of most promising high school girl in my club.
Today I’ve decided to dedicate a whole slide to the Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin, a place which as you can see in the pictures I’ve been a few times, first time I went was for the opening match of the rugby season which was Highlanders vs. Blues, I loved the match and I was left wanting more after that, and for that I´ll have to say thanks to Chris and Sheila Paul who invited me and Kate to that match. Next time I was in there was for conference, Ed Sheeran concert, Pink concert, and the one thing that was sitting on the top of my bucket list was to go to an All Blacks game. When the day for that game came we were so pumped as we were waiting for it for weeks with Astrid and Sonja, exchange students whom I was friends with. Jane and Peter took us to that match and I can say that it did meet my expectations, I also learned something valuable that day, perseverance. Astrid, Sonja and I decided to make a sign for our favourite player, Jordie Barret and after a lot of shouting we made it to national TV, just for like 3 seconds, but we appeared.
A lot of you might be wondering, “okay, but what has she learned about New Zealand, what places has she been too”
During this year I had two major tours around New Zealand, the first one was the north island tour in April, we started this tour in Wellington, and went to Auckland stopping in Taupo, Rotorua, Raglan and Paihia. Some highlights from this tour for me was the chance of doing rafting for the first time in the Kaituna River in Rotorua, and go through the Tutea Waterfall, which is the highest commercial waterfall for rafting; in Rotorua we also went to Tamaki village and we had a traditional Maori Hangi, this is where I truly learned the most about New Zealand´s Maori culture, and then I had great food as well. On Anzac day we ended in Paihi, I didn´t know that, but Astrid and I wanted to go to see the sunrise on the morning and when we went to ask they told us about this special day and how there was a memorial service early in the morning and asked us if we wanted to go, of course, we said yes and we woke up at 5 in the morning to this memorial, this morning we walked behind the people and then we ended near the beach, and experienced and I swear that it was the best morning because we saw the sunrise while the service was happening, and seriously it was mind-blowing.
.JPG)
The next tour I went to was the South Island tour on the last school holidays, in this tour I had the chance to tick some more things from my bucket list, first of all, bungy jumping, and also fear factory.
We started this tour in Christchurch, and then we went to Tekapo, Doubtful Sound, Queenstown, Wanaka, Franz Josef, Motueka, Kaikoura and finally Christchurch. I must admit I felt like an expert when we were going through Tekapo because most of the kids of the tour were from the North Island so they didn’t even know what it was, but to be fair I’ve only been on Tekapo once before, just once.
I got to do quite a few things on this trip, but apart from Queenstown, where we decided to WALK up the skyline, because we were all pretty much broke exchange students at that point, I would say my favorite bit was doubtful sound, where we went on an overnight trip, here I got to kayak thru the sound and later on we got to jump on the water, which I kind of regretted the moment my body made contact with the water because it was only 7 , so yeah it was freezing cold, but of course I decided to jump two more times, because you know YOLO, you only live once, right?
Finally, I need to mention my last host family, for the next couple months I’ll be living with them. I moved in the 29th of September, and I’ve felt very welcomed , and I am really looking forward to the things we will do because even though I’ve only been living with them for about a month I have had some amazing experiences, such as “work” experience, going fishing, where we didn’t get the best results and also going for walks.
I also wanted to thank again the Rotary club of Waimate for hosting me, because without you guys I would have not been able to come to New Zealand.
I think coming to Waimate was the best thing that could have happened since I have made great memories with people here who became friends and pretty much family.
And I am really looking forward to this 2 months I still have left.