Kiwi In Canada!: Final Months Of An Exchange Student

Heyhey,

Christmas is soon and so comes that excitement of going to the beach and tanning....that is a little hard right now seeing as im finding myself shovelling snow in negative temperatures! Ive been having such a good time that i've forgotten that I leave in less than 4 weeks.

Christmas holiday time has been A little different so far. The presence of snow is just amazing, but the novelty wears off when it rains and the snow becomes heavy...which is somewhat annoying when you go to shovel it from the driveway. Ive been doing that often now, more often than when I arrived last winter cause my current host family has A 10month child which is totally different to my previous 3 families, and I guess its all apart of the experience- even being woken up by crying at 3am is apart of that! My host family have been no less than amazing- always asking if the baby woke me up etc. Instead of buying a pre-cut or fake tree for Christmas, my host family go out to A field, find a tree they like and cut it down. I was lucky enough to be the desegnated cutter-of-trees...oh JOY! So our tree is at least 8 1/2 feet tall and about 5 feet wide at the base- yea, the tree is big!

About 3 weeks ago I was lucky enough to go on an all expense paid trip to Chicago, Illinois. The outbound to NZ, his Dad coaches A rep hockey team and he was kind enough to ask me to join them. We set out from Burlington which is south of my town, Guelph, at around 8am. After a farely boring 9hour bus trip we arrived in Chicago at around 5pm. I thought it was cold in Canada but Chicago was definatley colder. So this was trip was all about sight-seeing and shopping, but I was lucky enough to stand in the penalty box for a game. This was such an experience. The referees pretty much lost control of the game and to make A long story short, I wasn't standing alone for very long.

The final day I was there my host Mum, Sister and I went for a downtown excursion. We walked down magnificant mile which is like the Rodeo Drive of Chicago. We ended up down at Navy Pier which we walked around for about an hour. It was amazing. The huuge Ferris Wheel was an amazing sight to see- at night the entire structure was lit up which was awesome. The highlight of my day however, was going to the House of Blues and watching the roof almost cave in. The restaurant part was on the lower floor and the concert arena was upstairs. Who wouldve thought that 800 thirteen year old kids would be able to move an entire concert floor? I was assured by my waitress that the floor wasnt going to cave in as the pillars in the restaurant holding the roof up were hydrolic springs.

We ended up leaving Chicago at 4:30pm, after the teams' final game and got back into Canada around 2am- it then took another 2 hours before I got into bed! I guess taking the highway headed to Detroit was a bad idea- traffic held up by almost 2 hours before we got onto the right highway! Passing through the boarder there and back was surprisingly easier than the time I went to Buffalo- no problems this time! Good thing we didnt go through Detroit, as Ive heard they're notorious for useless interrogations.

So for now, im making the absolute most of my time- keeping busy with rotary stuff, partying etc. I have my final last week of school this week, which is pretty sad. School has been so awesome. I have so many close friends now, and its going to be like saying goodbye to all the exchange students all over again- awesome.....

So this will be one of my final blog posts; ill try and get another 2 in. One after Christmas and when I get home. If not, see you all in about 3 weeks