When I got to the Sydney airport, both my parents were really sad to see me go but I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to head off. When I landed in Adelaide, I was greeted by Nicole and Jane Rundle, who were to be my hosts for the next few weeks. We headed home and they asked me a lot of questions about myself and my home. A few days later, we headed to the uniform shop and I was fitted for a uniform. I haven’t worn one since fifth grade and it was really strange to put one on again! It does make getting ready in the morning a bit easier.

I was nervous for my first day of school but it turned out alright. Westminster School is a lot bigger than Athenian, so there was no shortage of new people to meet. The school was buzzing with excitement, as everyone was just coming back from winter break. I am playing both soccer and volleyball while I am here to keep me busy and active. I ended up on the Year 12 Open A volleyball team, which I am told is quite an accomplishment. In the US, there is a bigger focus on sports so the teams here don’t quite measure up to the sports program at Athenian. I only practice once a week for each sport, although the volleyball practices are at 7:15 in the morning!

Since my first day, I have met a lot of fantastic people who will be hard to say goodbye to when the time comes. My host family has been really great and I truly feel like a part of the family. They have a dog named Charlie and a cat named Tazzie, so I don’t miss my pets as much as I would without having those two around. My host family has taken me all around Adelaide and I’ve seen a lot of the beaches, even though it is winter. We’ve gone to the zoo, where I got to hold a koala and feed kangaroos out of my hand! It was really exciting, but scary at first because kangaroos can be quite big. We also went to a football game (also known as footie), which is quite different from American football. I cannot believe how physical the game is and the players wear no protection whatsoever. My host dad is really into footie. The home team (and his favourite team) is the Adelaide Crows, so we went to a game at their stadium. I had a really great time, even though it did rain through part of the game.

My two favourite classes so far have been Wood Design & Technology and Food &Hospitality. In the wood tech class, I am making a box that I hopefully will be able to get through customs! I definitely have put a lot of time and effort into it. In the Food & Hospitality class, we cook a lot of unique foods and I am having a great time. This type of experiential learning is really useful and I will definitely miss it when I leave. The maths and science classes are quite interesting, as the level of education is lower in Australia than it is in the US. It has made me grateful for all the time and effort that me and my teachers have put into my education. I know now that I am truly fortunate to go to such an elite academics school such as Athenian. It was a bit difficult at first calling the teachers here by Ms and Mr, but I have got the hang of it. I do miss and appreciate now the intimacy of the Athenian community and how much each teacher is invested in our success.

The thing I miss most from home is definitely my dog Jessie. From the emails my mom has sent me, she misses me just as much! I also miss my family, and their cooking. I am also very fortunate to have great chefs in the family! As much as the saying is a cliché, it is spot on: you never know what you have until it’s gone. This experience has definitely made me appreciate everything that’s around me and the things that my family provides for me on a daily basis.

I leave in 9 days, and I am already dreading that day! I have had such an amazing time so far, it’s going to be so hard leaving. I will miss the pies and pasties especially, they seem to be unique to Australia and I will try to recreate them for my family once I’m home. I’m enjoying the time I have left here at Westminster School. It really has been an experience of a lifetime!

After staying at Martina’s country house for the weekend we returned to her apartment in Belgrano. The next day was my first day of school. I was a little nervous because the Spanish in Buenos Aires is not only spoken fast, but it is also spoken with a strong accent. The Belgrano Day School is a bilingual school so half of the classes are in English; however, English is not spoken much outside of class. The school is in a very urban environment, which I wasn’t used to at first. Unlike Athenian the upper school is located inside a four-story building.  Because it is in the city there is no room for a sports field so we drive to one for P.E. The sports are also different here.  Field hockey is an option for the girls and rugby is for the guys. Volleyball is the coed option. Martina’s friends are very welcoming and I’ve met so many new nice people. The food at the school is very good and they even offer dessert at lunch. Most of the time I go with Martina and friends to eat in the city.

The Belgrano Day School is very formal compared to Athenian. There are uniforms and the teachers are more strict. Most of the time taxis serve as our main form of transportation. Although in the morning we take a big orange-and-white school bus to school. Many of the classes here are new to me such as computer skills, which teaches computer basics and also shows students how to create websites and cartoons.  After school we usually go to one of Martina’s friend’s apartments so they can do school work together. I’ve noticed that almost everyone who goes to the school lives in an apartment and has a maid who lives with them or someone who does housework and prepares food for them.

Yesterday we could not go to the sports field for P.E. because of the weather so instead we watched Argentina’s women’s field hockey team play in the Olympics against the U.S. Everyone cared a lot about the game and got really into it.  I felt kind of bad when the U.S. won because I didn’t care that much about the match. A few days ago me, Martina and Sofi went to a rugby match. The game is very similar to American football but the play goes on for longer and the players can only pass the ball behind them. We decided to go to a rugby match rather than a soccer match because the soccer stadiums in Argentina are very dangerous. They are dangerous because the people are so passionate about their team that lots of fights break out. The rugby match was very fun to watch.  Unlike American football, no helmets or padding are worn.

The last two weeks have been very exciting and I am having a lot of fun living in the city!

It have been several days since I arrived in Buenos Aires. Before I came to Argentina I was expecting Buenos Aires to be more tropical and touristy,  but it reminds of me more of Barcelona than Rio de Janeiro.

My dad and I had fun exploring Bario Norte and Recoleta (areas in Buenos Aires) for two days before I went to stay with my host family. Out of all the places we went to my favorite was The Cemetery of Recoleta. This is a famous cemetery in Buenos Aires where only the Argentinean elite are buried. It’s like a city of extravagant tombs. Most of the tombs consist of a little room made of glass and marble with stairs leading down to a crypt. Some of the tombs are over three hundred years old and new ones are still being built. A few of them are so old that the coffins inside them are deteriorating. I learned that it is an Argentinean tradition to celebrate the death date of a person more than their birthdate. I found the cemetery in Recoleta to be very fascinating and i enjoyed learning about a new outlook on life and death.

After exploring part of the city I went to meet my host family, the Diaz’s. The Diaz family consists of Sr. and Sra Diaz, their daughter Martina (who is my age), and their three older sons. My dad and I meet them in their apartment in Belgrano and had a delicious dinner of steak and potatoes. After dinner my dad left and the family and I headed off to their country house in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Life in the city is very fast and rushed, but life in the country house is slow and relaxing. I’m glad that I will have a chance to experience both lifestyles.

At the country house we celebrated the thirty-second birthday of Martina’s eldest brother with his friends and family. During the weekend Martina and I ate lots of traditional Argentinean food, played Mexican dominos, tried driving with a stick shift, saw Spiderman in Spanish, and baby sat her adorable baby nephew, Francisco. Family and food are very important in Argentina.

So far my exchange has been interesting and exciting. I will be writing about my experience at the Belgrano Day School soon.

I landed in Australia on July 23 and was greeted at the airport by Matt, my exchange partner, his mother, and Mr. Stewart from Westminster School.  Immediately I thought they were great and fun people to be around. We went back to Matt’s house and I met his father and his sister, and they are all still great. I found my school uniform in my room and it feels very green. I started school the Tuesday after and also started playing basketball with the school team. The rest of the week went like a normal school week.

On Saturday, we had our first game, which we happened to lose because of the refs. It was still a really fun experience to play. Sunday we went to Cleland Conservation Park, which is a place to find a bunch of Kangaroos and wildlife that isn’t in America. It was amazing. I had so much fun there and even got to pet a kangaroo and a koala. I was scared out of my mind.

I’m having fun out here.  See you on my next blog.

 

Over the last three weeks, I fully experienced The Armidale School–from playing rugby, to being in my first play, to going into the bush on Advance Pioneers. During my first Saturday at The Armidale School (TAS), I played my first rugby union match with only two practices under my belt. A high school from Sydney came over to TAS for the weekend to participate in a sporting carnival with shooting, foot races, rugby, basketball, and tennis. I played on the fourths team (lowest level of competition) as the winger. I got a couple of good tackles in and we ended up winning the match.

The following week I continued to go to classes and Monday/Wednesday rugby practices. I lifted weights almost every day with the other rugby boys to work on our strength training. On Wednesday, I left with one of my friends to go to his house for the long weekend on the Queen’s birthday. His name is Tom but he convinced everyone that his middle name was Football when he first came to the school, giving him the nickname “Footie.” We drove for about three and a half hours to a beach town called Crescent Head. The family owned a caravan park and a resort with around 30 little houses in a row where people could stay. When we got there it was already night time, so we had dinner, watched a movie, and then went to sleep.

The next day we woke up at 9 am to go for a surf. The swell was pretty big that day and after about 30 minutes of paddling for my life, I called it a day. For the entire day Footie and I surfed and skateboarded between meals. The next day we went canoeing on this gentle river nearby. About 20 minutes in, I caught a flat head fish on a hand line. We paddled to the shore to give the fish to Footy’s little brother, but he had forgotten to bring a bucket. After arguing about “who goes fishing without a bucket for fish?!” the two boys sent their little sister home to grab a bucket. We didn’t catch anything else for the rest of the day and Footy’s little brother let the fish go because he felt bad for it. Over the next few days we went on bike rides, went snorkeling, and I got second place in a skateboarding competition. It was sad to leave, but I was excited to keep playing rugby at school.

When we got back to school, Footy and I had to start learning our lines for our drama play on Wednesday and Friday. Between learning lines for drama, we had to paint one of Caravaggio’s pieces. Since I came late I did a pencil drawing on a big piece of paper. The play, “Alice Dreaming,” went really well, but was really stressful right up until show time.  Being in my first play, it was an awesome experience.

I had a relaxed weekend and hung out with another exchange student from India named Yash. On Monday we had Advance Pioneers, which is an outdoor education program. My group and Yash’s group each had three boys in it. Our two groups were driven about an hour into the bush where we hiked to separate locations and set up checkpoints for younger kids to navigate to in a race. We made a fire and relaxed in the warm sun for around five hours. Footy, our other friend Ed and I boiled water for coffee and instant noodles, and then ate food for the rest of the day.

For the rest of the week I had normal classes with regular rugby training. I got better at passing and tackling over the last few practices. Rugby will be a sport that I am going to miss playing. I said another sad goodbye to all the boys and made plans to see a couple of them in Sydney.

The weekend before last, I went with Emily and her family to Sydney. The drive there took around six hours.  The city is amazing! We went to Harbor Bridge, the Opera House, Manley Beach, and the Taranga Zoo.  I saw so many interesting animals like Tasmanian devils, echidnas, kangaroos, pottaroos, wallabies, foxes, sugar gliders and, of course, koalas.  The trip was so fun. The highlight was seeing Emily’s brother and his band, Carousel, play at a pub.  We had to watch from the side of the stage, because it was an 18-and-over venue but we got the VIP experience of watching side stage.

I have also been becoming more accustomed to NEGS.  I have my year 11 uniform and have made fantastic friends. J

Work here is different; there is not much nightly prep (homework) but there are many big projects and exams. I participate actively in most of my classes.  Physical education is run differently. There are different sports offered at different times.  I am in an activity called Zumba. It’s like exercise dancing.

This past week, I missed three days of school to do the community service activity of helping Emily’s family run a dance competition called the Dance Eisteddfod.  Dancers come from all over the area to compete. It was very interesting for me to experience what goes on behind the scenes of a huge dance competition.

All in all, I’m having a great time in Australia and can’t wait to see what’s ahead for my last week here.

Two weeks ago I went camping in Freycinet, which is located at the east coast of Tasmania. This was a year 10 outdoor education trip, with the main theme being rock climbing. Because only boys signed up for the trip, there were only nine kids. We arrived at school on Monday and packed food, tents, supplies, and bags into the ute and trailer and then piled into a bus. We drove for a few hours to Freycinet, making the occasional stop for a bathroom. When we arrived at the campsite, we set up tents and the large main tent where we kept food and kitchen equipment. Nick, the English climbing instructor, took us to White Water Wall, about a 5 minute walk away. There we learned how to tie a few knots and how to test and set up anchors. We set up anchors until sunset and made it back to camp before it was completely dark. There a few designated cooks (we all had specific jobs; I was the photographer) cooked curry while all the rest of the boys cooked rice in our trangia’s, which are essentially personal stoves run on methylene fluid. That night I was so hungry from the day of climbing, I started to eat my rice before it was completely cooked. I ended up burning my tongue on molten hot, crunchy, rice soup.

For the entirety of the next day we climbed White Water Wall and mastered all five of her climbs. On Wednesday we spent the first half of the day climbing White Water Wall again to let everyone finish all of the walls and to take down the anchors. We went back to camp and had some lunch before hiking to a new location. There we set up something called a flying fox, which is the Aussie term for a zip line. It was between the corner of a cliff, about 50 meters above water. After we all zipped across, we took a short walk to another wall called Harlequin. This wall was extremely hard after an entire day of climbing and such. One boy that had previous climbing experience made it about 15 meters up. After a couple other boys tried it and couldn’t make it as high as him, I gave it a go. I managed to beat him and was pretty proud of myself. One of the boys who tried it last was an extremely slow climber and occasionally couldn’t finish climbs. He proved to everyone that slow and steady really does win the race. He got up higher than any of us, causing all of our jaws to simultaneously drop. After him, the boy with climbing experience tried one more time, in the spirit for a bit of competition and ended up finishing the entire climb and going farther than anyone else. That night we went on a night hike to experience Freycinet in the darkness.

The next day we went to a wall that we had passed the previous night. We set up ropes and started climbing five new walls. One of the walls was a grade 22, which in terms of rock climbing is fairly high. It was mainly very difficult because its only feature was a crack about the size of a fist. When I attempted to climb it, I fell around 4 times in the first 3 meters. But after I got a hang of crack climbing, I began to get into a rhythm. Every meter up I progressed I wanted to quit, as my hands began to hurt more and more. I kept thinking that it would still be pretty impressive if I got halfway up. I decided to keep going and I finally made it to the top, I realized how much I dislike that quitter mentality that I so often keep in the back of my mind. That climb changed me a bit and it won’t be something I soon forget.

On Friday, our last day, we packed up camp and made our way back to school where we re-unpacked trailers and sorted all of our gear into the school sheds. When I got back to the boarding house, I had my first shower in five days. While thinking about how lucky I am to be able to come home to a clean hot shower, I simultaneously became a shade lighter.

The next day I slept in and had a giant breakfast and another shower. Later that day I went  with a couple of friends to a medium-sized zoo called Tasmania Zoo. I saw a bunch of native Aussie critters such as wombats, koalas, fairy penguins, and tassie devils. That night my mate Jye and I went to a friend’s house for her 17th birthday get-together. Jye, DJ (another boy from the boarding house) and I were the only boys there with around 15 girls. After a fun night of dancing and chatting, Jye, DJ, and I slept in the spare room in our sleeping bags. We woke up the next morning and called a taxi to drop us off back at the boarding house. Jye, Ahmed (another boarding house friend) and I went to breakfast in town. We went for a bit of a skate later on and I ended the weekend with some homework and laundry.

On Monday I had another normal day of school and began packing up my things. Tuesday was the school’s cross-country carnival. The first half of the day had normal classes until we grabbed our packed lunches and headed down to Scotch Park. I was in the boys open division (under 21) which was the last to race. The race was about 7 kilometers and went up this massive hill twice. I didn’t stop running the entire time and passed the boys in front of me that stopped and walked on the hill. I ended up finishing 12th for my age group out of the entire school. Later that day I had my last footie practice. Since all of the boys had run the race earlier that day, the practice wasn’t terribly hard but it wasn’t easy either.

On Wednesday I had normal school until 2:00 when the footie boys left on the bus to go to St. Pats to play a match against their thirds team (thirds being the lowest level of competition, similar to JV or novice). It was rainy and very windy that day, causing the field to be extremely slippery and muddy. This led to a lot of slipping and sliding and a very sloppy game overall. I got a couple of touches and passes and a few good tackles. Towards the end of the game I tackled a kid and he sucker punched me. I was wearing a mouth guard and it was kind of a wussy punch so it didn’t hurt at all. I got a free kick and passed it to a kid who later scored a goal. Later the same kid that punched me purposely bumped into another boy on our team and started a pretty decent brawl. All of the boys that were in the tussle got kicked off the field. We lost the game 25-30, which is an extremely low scoring game. The match started with 18 boys on each side. We ended with 13 on ours.

The next day was my final day of school at Scotch Oakburn. I said goodbye to the friends I had made over the course of my exchange and took heaps of goodbye photos. Right after school I went out to town with one of the girls to get some last minute souvenirs and gifts for friends and family back home. We caught a cab back to the boarding house just in time for dinner. Thursday was the day before term ended and each term everyone has to switch rooms in order to meet new people. Everyone’s room had to be completely emptied, inspected, and then they could move into their new rooms. All of the bags had to remain packed except for sleeping gear and necessary toiletries so they could take their bags home while the rooms were deep cleaned over the holiday. I spent my last night in the boarding house in a friend’s room.

The next morning I had my last breakfast and said my final goodbyes to all the boarding house kids. It was one of the saddest goodbye’s I’ve ever had to say. Ben Jenkinson, the Round Square representative for Scotch, drove me to the airport for my flight to Sydney.

I was spending the weekend with some cousins in Sydney. That night I went to a restaurant called “Pancakes on the Rocks” which serves pancakes with ice cream for dessert. We walked over to the Vivid Festival which projects lights and figures on buildings and structures like the Sydney Opera House. Later that night we caught a late night showing of Men In Black 3 in 3D.

Saturday I had lunch with some other relatives and dinner with even more relatives. I did some final packing and went to bed early to catch my 8:45 am flight. When I arrived in Armidale, I met Mr. Harris, who gave me a quick tour of the town. I met some of the boys in my house (Tyrrell) and went for a skate with them.

On Monday and Tuesday I began to get into the rhythm of The Armidale School with classes and class locations. The all-boy aspect of the school is a little unusual because we occasionally have a co-ed class with girls from our sister school who take a bus over to attend certain classes.

School here is very different from school at Athenian.  Exams, which are about to start, count for a much larger percentage of your grade but homework does not matter as much.  The nice thing about this is that if you understand the topic you don’t have to do the homework, but if you bomb the exam then your grade is seriously impacted.

Last Sunday was my birthday, so we went for a drive past Cape Town down the point and had a delicious lunch afterwards.  It was a great way to spend my birthday.  On Friday night we had a get together at someone’s house as a going-away party for all of the exchange students.  It was nice, except the power went out.  Trying to cook by candle light added a bit of a twist to the evening.  Because exams are starting everyone is studying, so there is not much going on right now.

 

Pierson Tan (in long pants) and new friends at Scotch Oakburn School in Tasmania.

It has been a crazy two weeks. Last Friday I went to a girls’ field hockey game against a big rival.  They lost, but it was still fun to watch and to learn about a sport that I have never seen or heard of before.  The closest comparison I can make would be if soccer was played with sticks and a small ball.

The next day, Saturday, I went to the store and got a camera so I could take pictures.  I spent some time messing around with my new camera and then we had to leave to go to Cape Town.  One of the other parents at the school, who has season tickets to the Stormers, was kind enough to invite me to a rugby game.  That game was very interesting to watch.  Rugby is a cool sport because it combines some of the contact of football, but it is fast paced and has more action.  There was even a fight.  One of the players didn’t like something about the other and he started an on-field brawl.  The refs were able to break it up but it looked like those punches hurt.  The Stormers won the game.

Sunday was a quiet day because everyone had been up late the night before. School was busy that weekend and Bridge House had a sevens rugby game.  The next day I felt sick so I stayed home from school and packed for my trip to Namibia.

One of the adults owns and operates a game preserve in Namibia and he offered for the exchanges to come for the weekend and go on Safari.  On Friday morning I woke up at three thirty to drive to the Cape Town airport.  After a two hour flight to Windhoek, we had a five hour drive to Onguma Game Reserve.  We arrived at about three in the afternoon, settled in, and relaxed for a little bit.  After a wonderful dinner of lamb and pork kebabs, we went to bed early.  Shortly after we went to our tents we heard the sound of a male leopard walking by.  We woke up at five o’clock the next morning so that we would be able to see the animals.  We drove to the Etosha National Park and drove around for a little bit.  We saw impala, springbok, gemsbok, cheetah, leopard, kudu, and elephant.  The most interesting thing we saw was a leopard stalking some springbok, but they moved off in the wrong direction and we did not see a kill.  Afterwards we returned to camp and rested before a night game drive where we saw a few genets.  The next day everyone was tired so we slept in.  We went on a drive and saw a few more animals.  That night we had dinner at the Red Fort, which is one of the lodges inside the reserve.  The dinner was wonderful and we could see some animals near the waterfall by the lodge.  The final morning we drove the five hours back to the airport to discover our flight had been canceled.  We spent the night in a hotel and made it home the next day.  This is what I have been so busy with.