This week of school was supposed to be TAKS week. TAKS is a series of standardised tests that students (except seniors) throughout Texas have to take, which for me means I get the mornings off school :) However, our entire county is out of school until May 11th because of the Swine Flu. Apparently there have been three cases suspected to be Swine Flu in New Braunfels so all the schools are in quarantine and a lot of public events have also been cancelled, including rotary :P, to prevent the spread. I think this is fantastic :D but it also means that the end of the school year will be extended for another week probably which interferes with a few things.
So tomorrow I am moving into my second host family, Tom and Chrissy Clark. Tom is my YEO and I also stayed with this family during Pam and Gary’s last holiday. I’m not sure what the postal address is but I will let you know. In this family I will have younger sisters and I will be sharing a room with the oldest. Also, there is very poor internet connection as they live out of town so it will definitely be different.
As I said before, two weekends ago was the Mo-Ranch conference in Kerrville. Not all of the exchange students could make it, which was disappointing but still a good time as we (exchange students) did not have to attend most of the seminars so that gave us some free time to hang out, go swimming and canoeing down in the neighbouring river. There was also a rope swing and giant slide into the river which were good fun too :)
From last Wednesday afternoon till Sunday morning I was in San Antonio for the Fiesta celebrations. It was another Rotary activity hosted by the San Antonio West club who had a special meeting the Wednesday evening which we exchange students were guests to. That evening we were put into host families, I stayed with the four other exchange students in at the host home of Alice (France) who live in San Antonio (her host sister is a Rotex who comes to most of our activities and we are all really close to as well). The family are originally from Venezuela but have lived in Texas for some time now, however, breakfast and dinner were often meals from Latin America.
On Thursday we did a full day of sightseeing. Our first stop was the San Jose Mission then we went down to the River-walk for lunch and guided boat ride, then on to see the Alamo, The Tower of the Americas and The Texas Institute of Culture. It was a long, full but fun day.
Friday was even better! We all went to 6-Flags which is an amusement park. It was fantastic, we rode all the biggest and scariest roller-coasters, got wet on adventure river rides, took photos with cartoon characters and danced with the park mascot!
Saturday was the last day of Fiesta so we actually saw and participated in some of the celebrations happening in the streets. A number of streets are blocked off and stalls and stages are set up and people can eat, create, purchase, watch and participate in a number of activities going on. In the morning we marched in a parade carrying our flags. It was really interesting to see all the other parade participants, there were some very eye-catching costumes! After the parade we did some charity work. For two hours we stood around rubbish bins making sure the right kind of rubbish went into the right kind of bin, taking it out of one bin and putting it in another if need be :( Needless to say it wasn’t my favourite part of the day! After that we had some free time and we all just wandered around the stalls and sat by the river and relaxed before leaving for dinner. After dinner we went to the main parade, it was three hours long, but not at all boring, unfortunately we did not get to stay for the entire thing even though we were there till about 10pm.
The next morning we left for home at about 10am which sucked :( The time had gone so fast and it was the second last ‘official’ time we are all going to be together.
No comments:
Post a Comment