Last Tuesday night I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Gritzmill with two couples from Rotary. The Gritzmill is a restaurant in Gruene, a historic town which is still part of New Braunfels but is just out of town. It was really cute and I’m annoyed that my camera was flat so I didn’t get any photos of it. However, I did get to try Fried Onion Rings, which was quite tasty. It’s just like KFC except its onion rings instead of chicken :P I ordered the Steamed Veggies to and I did not know this, but bacon is an assumed extra with your steamed veggies :P I got to try some other American favourites for dessert, Chocolate Fudge Pie, obviously it was delicious, as well as Jack Daniels Pecan Pie which was also VERY yummy. I was an absolutely freezing night! They were expecting sleet and ice on the roads in the morning, so it was lucky that we were sitting right next to the fireplace.
So the next day was my first day of school at New Braunfels High, which I was quite worried about but it turned out to be not too bad. The dress code is the stupidest thing I’ve ever witnessed. You basically have to wear jeans because the pants have to be ‘Capri’ which is mid calf and skirts have to be below the knee even if you have stockings on underneath... ahhh so anyway I’ve had to buy a heap of new clothes because I didn’t bring any over really :P The timetable and set up is so different though. We start school at 8:30 and have four classes a day as well as a 30 minute lunch break and 20 minutes of ‘Unicorn Time’ (the school mascot is a Unicorn :P) finishing school at 3:55, which sucks :P Unicorn time is just like our form class except its after the 3rd period during which presentations are made via the television by one of the journalism classes. Most of the kids don’t even listen and just play pinball on the computer, listen to their MP3 players or catch up on schoolwork.
I’m taking Psychology, Spanish, Algebra, US History, Sociology, Photography, Chemistry and English, Some of the classes are really interesting and others well, really aren’t! I’m making friends easily and have one really good friend already which is making everything else easier. I have the first four classes on ‘A days’ and the rest on ‘B days’. It is weird too because there are four different lunches, so everyone has lunch at a different time depending on where they are in the school. On both days I have ‘C lunch’.
As you know I haven’t been at my actual host families house for the past week because they were on holidays, so I’ve been at the Fischers.
They are really nice people; they own a veterinarian clinic in town. It was a little irritating having to move families within my first month, but it keeps things new and exciting :P While I was with this family I went out to their farm and got to see a little bit of the stereotypical Texas terrain with Cacti and dust!
On the Saturday night I went to a Spurs game.
The Spurs are the San Antonio basketball team (San Antonio is a big city close to me). I went with the Downtown New Braunfels Rotary club with my ‘oldie’ Perle from Belgium who is being hosted by that club. We were lucky because the president of that club was presenting the game ball so we were able to be down on the court while the players were warming up. The most popular player on the San Antonio team is Tony Parker; he’s French and is also married to Eva Longoria from Desperate Housewives. So we got to see her too from about 300 meters away through the binoculars, which is about the closest I’ve ever been to a celebrity!
The Super bowl was that Sunday night and we went to their son’s house for a party. There is a big Mexican culture here (Tex-Mex) and so there is guacamole and nacho chips with salsa dip everywhere! The son also made fried pickles :P They really do fry everything! Everyone drinks iced tea here too in big glasses with lots of ice which I really haven’t got my taste buds around. Another thing too is everyone puts dressing on their vegetables and sometimes even their fruit! Oh and because there is so much Mexican food there is SO MUCH CHEESE! Which is tasty but sooo bad! :P The trucks here are SO BIG and of course I’ve had to get used to not only the driving on the opposite side but the driving wheel is on the other side and I keep going to get into the driver’s seat which has caused some embarrassing and funny moments.
This last weekend was the SCRYE meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was AMAZING!! There were 200 of us exchange students there from different districts and states, it was great.
It was the first time I got to meet the other exchange students in my district too. The days were kind of boring and filled with speeches, but on the first night we were hosted out and I stayed with two other exchange students at a family’s house.
They were really lovely people; they are involved with rotary, actually, because their daughter is an outbound to Australia in July. She is going to be in Sydney somewhere so they were happy to have someone to ask questions, which I was happy to answer. But the best thing about the whole weekend was the second night. We had a lock-in at a school gym where they set up a dance floor and had a DJ who was playing music till 5 in the morning!
It was incredible! I’ve never danced so much in my life! Needless to say we were absolutely dead by the morning and slept in the hotel lobby before our flight and almost the whole way home! The weekend was great so it was terrible to have to leave everyone :( The good news is that I will be seeing the kids from my district next weekend because we have something here in New Braunfels. I can’t wait!!
The atmosphere was buzzing and the production was really, really well done. They actually got the car off the ground (y’all better be familiar with the story!) and it spun around in the air, absolutely fantastic.
Oh yeah, and there is a new addition to our household (well hes been here for about a week or so) Cooper!! xD He is a lilac coloured Border Collie and he is a handful!
