MY FIRST HOLIDAY WEEK!

my first holiday week is almost at its end. but i was very active. i did lots of community service.

in fact i looked after chilredn who took part in a holiday program. this is something upper hutt primary school organises to give children a place to stay while their parents are at work. all i had to do was playing with the children and watch that they dont beat each other up. on monday we had our introduction camp. everybody introduced everybody and we played lots of games with them. on tuesday we took them to the cinema in lower hutt too see 'surfs up'. this is a animated movie with lots of animals(mostly penguins) that surf up and down big waves. nothing we havent had on a screen before. not very excieting but the kids liked it and thats what counted this week. on tuseday we had a DVD day. on wednesday we planned to go to a nearby farm to see how thing work there and what animals live like and just what its like to be a farmer. but we couldnt do it because the weather was just too bad for an excursion like that. so we went to the movies again and saw 'ratatouille' which is again a animated movie. but a brilliant one(if you want to know more about it then go on this web page: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/ratatouille). today we went bowling in petone which is very close to wellington bay. it was very cool but also very stressful because we were absolutely not the only holiday group how went bowling today. so we had to be careful not to loose our kids and not to take kids with us on the bus that dont belong to our group. we always played games with them in the school hall before and after the daily activities. and today we could play outside after the trip to petone(you can find petone in google earth).

after the i finished up the program today i went to the shopping mall with anna and johnson because he wanted to get his hair cut. and im considering this to but i first had to get some ideas out of a hairdresser magazine. i now no what i want but i couldnt get it cut today because they were all booked out. so ill probably get it done up in auckland.

yesterday i learned something new about kiwi culture. you cant buy tupperware here in any store. yesterday micaela told me that fiona is gonna have a party with other women at our place. i tough: well im gonna stay in my room and read something. because i thought they might not want me to attend their women party. whe fiona came home i asked her if she celebrates something special with the other women. but she laughed and told me that they are going to have a tupperware party. at a tupperware party there is one very important person. the tupperware woman which is a woman who goes from party to party with a huge suitcase full of tupperware things. really everything u can imagine. so there were lots of friends of fiona coming over to make their orders and to eat something. the tupperware woman even makes some desserts using the tupperware things. it was like a tupperware commercial in our very own kitchen. im sure thomas would have loved it. all those little gadgets you can use in the kitchen. and all of them have lifelong guarantee!

so thats whats new

dario

My September. Pretty much all of it.

hello all together. ah there are so many things to tell u right now. i now have time to write u because we have spring holidays in the moment. first something about what ive recently done at school. well in english we do research about what language techniques are frequently used in advertisements. thats why we all choose a topic which we want to base our research on. i first took insurances because i expected insurance advertisements to have lots of text on them. and yes they did but we were supposed to collect at least 12 advertisements and i just could not find that much advertisements. well, there were fantastic commercials on TV but thats not what i needed. so i changed my topic to lip-gloss (to tonys great surprise. haha). but this was great because, first of all, there is lots of words and language techniques used in lip-gloss and secondly i have to sisters with lots of girly magazines with heaps of lip-gloss ads in it. that was great. thats it so far about english. In geography we talk about developed and developing countries and work out what a developed country is defined by. i love this topic. what i didnt like was the aids excurse we had. i think it is a very important part to learn but i had this before and we had to write an assessment on it. In human biology we have everything about the excretory system and the kidneys. cooing is good but not creative (i miss thomas. he knows why). and theory is absolute stupid because it is all about writing down which sauce goes with which finger food and stupid things like that. sports is ok. its all about having fun. much less serious than in switzerland.
On friday the 14th of september i went to the movies with fiona and micaela. we watched 'hairspray'. it is a beautiful musical with john travolta in the role of a big fat woman. this alone is reason enough to go and see this movie. i can really recommend this movie to all of u who miss the 60s and can bear the kitsch we know from 'grease'. the next morning sue( the AFS-support coordinator of the upper hutt chapter) came to visit me and my host family (actually there was just fiona and me) to have a quick chat with us about our relationship. ah, it was wonderful to talk to each other so honestly and i think im in the right family. it is now sure that i stay with fiona, tony, cherise and micaela till after christmas. if i change the family then or if i stay with them till july is not sure yet. but we seem to understand as very well and we seem to like each other.
the following sunday i spent the day in wellington ( oh my god. i love this city!) with other AFSers. we went to a italinan restaurant which was a very stylish. after that i went to eliane which is an other swiss AFSer who lives in the hills right above wellington downtown. im doing a trip with her to auckland by train (a 12 hours trip which is said to be incredible. train fanatics from all over the world come to NZ to do this trip). we had to search for a place to stay in auckland for we cant sleep in hotels or hostels without our host parents. we can now stay at the house of elianes host fathers sister. im so looking forward to doing this trip.
i had a math exam last wednesday. it was about probability and stuff. it was not difficult and i passed it. they dont have marks around here. there is just a letter u get on top of ur exam which is either E(excellent), M(merit), A(achieved) or N(not achieved).
i cooked for the first time the evening after this math exam. i made fish and chips and a italian tomato salad with basil, mozzarella and balsamic. unfortunately there was no olive oil. but i can tell u it was very good and they all liked it. after the meal fiona micaela and i went to a school theatre performance. it was sketches from the monty python flying circus. some of them were funny some of them werent. we mainly went there because my host sister cherise had a role in it. but not a big one because she was sick and could not take part in all the rehearsals. thats why they gave lots of monologues to other students.
on thursday my host grandma had her 70th birthday and we went to the 'bell house', which is a very noble restaurant at the southern end of upper hutt, to celebrate that.
on friday i went to sues house because her daughter sarah organized a AFS movie evening with burger chips and movies.
on saturday sue passed by spontaneously picked me up and drove me to her house were i finally got MY BIKE!!! WITH HELMET(is compulsory here)!!! its an absolute new bike and AFS-bought it for me. it still belongs to AFS but i can use it till i return in july. it is just me and johnson who wanted a bike because we had to decide whether we want to get the bus tickets reimbursed or whether we wanted a new bike. imagine how much freedom this is going to give me. oh my god no more waiting for the bus. it gives me around 40 minutes more sleep every day!!! i can explore all of upper hutt now without depending on where the bus is driving to.
the same evening i went to church in wellington where katharina one of the sisters who dont live at home anymore sung in a young peoples service. it was awesome. different from what we call a young peoles service. it was from young people to young people in a very modern environment. it was full (at least 300 students). i didn agree to all they said but it was a great experience for sure.
so u see im pretty busy so please do not take it personal when i dont always answer u personally. thank u so much for all ur postcards, letters and e-mails. dario

PS: thank you so much mamuschka for translating my posts!

MY CAR

THIS IS ME AND THE CAR I FELL IN LOVE WITH ON THE SPRING FESTIVAL WHERE THERE WAS A LITTLE OLD TIMER EXHIBITION.

HERE ARE UR PICTURES DEAR ELIANE AND DEAR PETER

WHAT WE HERE SEE IS THE HOUSE IM LIVING IN FROM ALL POSSIBLE ANGELS. AND THE VIEW ON THE BACK LAWN FROM MY BED ROOM.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF DARIO BRANDER

different people asked me to write something about my daily routine. well, in the morning i usually get up at 7 o'clock. then i take my shower and eat some weet-bix which are some kind grain bars which are eaten with milk and sugar (mmh...). then i make my lunch. this is most of the days three toast sandwiches with peanut butter and berry jam and two nut bars for the morning tea. at 7.50 i leave the house with my school bag of course. i then go and pick up johnson (exchange student from hong kong). he lives one road away from my house. we then make our way to upper hutt station which is a small train station from which we use to leave to wellington. this is a 10 minute walk. at the station we enter the bus to ride it for about 10 more minutes. then we get out the bus again and walk past a primary school to upper hutt college which is a big school comparable with a swiss gymnasium. upper hutt college has around 1300 students and all of them wear a uniform except of me some other exchange students and all 13th year students. we are usually 10 minutes early so we often go to the school library before our first period starts. we have 5 periods every day and every period lasts for 1 hour (but often their just 50 minutes because it can take quite a while till everybody is seated). after period two we have morning tea which is actually just a big break. two more periods and and i can eat my lunch. i usually have it outside in front of the cafeteria. after i ate my lunch i always go to the library because thats one of the places where we can get internet access. after lunch time there is just one more period before school finishes at around 3.15 pm. i then go home. depending on my mood i spend more or less time in upper hutt 'city'. i have to say im very lucky because my school way leads through the city. so sometimes i go and put some money on my prepaid card or i go and buy something we need at home (eg. peanut butter or nut bars) and sometimes when im really, really hungry we go to mcdonalds which is a dangerous place because if you go there too much u can loose lots of money. my day often ends at home where i first get the dried laundry in and fold it. the tv is often on. but i also read a lot. and i do my homework as im supposed to do. i go to bed (ooh i love my bed. its sooo comfortable) at around 10.30 pm.

so see u dario

its time for new news!

hello everybody.

its time for me to set up a new post. i had a lot of fun the last week!! one week ago we had an introduction camp up in taranaki which was organized by AFS. we drove in a van up to taranaki. it was a beautiful voyage with landscapes ive never seen before. all exchange students who live in the southern part of the northern island were there. therefore i met lots of people from all over the world. we learned lots of things about new zealand and how to behave within our host family. lots of things i already knew from our introduction camp back in switzerland. one great thing about the camp was the haka. the haka is a traditional maori war dance which is very aggressive and good to let out all you anger against anything. this dance was originally danced by the maori before attacking an enemy tribe or the english settlers. its purpose was to strengthen themselves and simultaneously frighten the enemies. but it was only the boys who learned the haka for it is a thing which is not be practiced by girls. the girls learned an other dance which is less aggressive and contains a ball on a rope which they had to swing in a certain way. I also learned how to properly throw a rugby ball. this is not easy at all because you have to give it a spin in order to make it fly in a straight line.
i was in wellington for the first time last wednesday. i went there with my older host sister because school end early on wednesdays. we visited the tepapa museum which is according to her the best made museum in the southern hemisphere. and according to me to. now that ive been there. it is a museum which contains everything from art and history (new zealand and the whole world) to flora and fauna. it was really awesome. it takes me about 45 minutes to get to wellington by train. but it is a very comfortable ride and its only 3 dollars!!!! imagine that. i really love wellington its a real big city with high-rise buildings and lots of people and a beautiful old-fashioned european looking train station.
last saturday was the spring festival in upper hutt. this is comparable with a mixture of a big street market and a fairground. there were lots of stalls selling art, food, toys and clothes from china. i had to be there for AFS. our stall was an old ambulance car from WW2. because AFS means American Field Service which was the community of american medics in WW2. i had to distribute AFS-brochures among the visitors of the festival. It was the same day on which our cinema opened in upper hutt. it is a beautiful cinema with 4 screens (i havent watched a movie there yet but i wanted to see how it looks like). before that we had to go on a 30 minutes ride by bus to lower hutt. well ive never done that but ive been to lower hutt (i went to a chinese store with johnsons who is from hongkong) and its quite a long ride. after my service at the AFS-stall cherise and micaela took me to the skate park which is on the other side of the track system.
at 7pm. we left for the beach house to spend the night and the next day there. on sunday it was fathers day and tonys birthday. it was a beautiful but windy day and i swum in the tasman sea for the first time in my life. well you cant call it swim because it was very cold and it had a lot of waves. but i was inside it.
this week is exam week and i dont have to go to school because i just arrived here three weeks ago. thats why i have lots of time to write new posts.

so have a nice day all you swiss people and others. kind regards DARIO