Time machine

It is time to once again send some news back home to Switzerland. A lot of things happened here despite the fact that I didn’t write a blog for a long, long time. Luckily I write my diary every day so I can easily look up all the major events of the past few weeks. So come and join me on my little voyage through time.

Friday the 30th of November:
It was a rainy cloudy spring day.we international students from upper hutt college went to Mt. Bruce just past Fetherston with mrs. Howes and her Japanese husband who came to the Tongariro crossing with us too. Mt. Bruce is more like a hill than like a mountain and it was also not the actual reason why we went there. The reason was a little wildlife park with enclosures for native bird and plants, some creeks and ditches and of course a Kiwi tunnel. Because the kiwi birds are nocturnal they always get to stay in tunnels and caves when they are captured and living I a zoo or wildlife park. So we spent some time there watching what the live nest camera captured(in our case a lonely egg in the nest). We had a something to eat and drink in the park café and looked around in the souvenir shop before hitting the road again to Masterton. On the way there we stopped at a war memorial which commemorates the Japanese soldiers that where looked after by the surrounding community in the second world war. Very interesting for the 4 Japanese people we had with us. Not so much for me. In Masterton we went to the ‘Paua shell’ factory. Paua is a very big sea shell with a hard thick crust. But the if the crust is removed it reveales a very nice fragile shell which shimmers in turquoise. Jewelry and all sorts of souvenir is made out of it an the traditional Maori carvings are often decorated with it. For a certain reason I didn’t go back to upper hutt with all the other international students.
In my next blog your gonna hear about a British agent and why the Paua shell factory wasn’t even the third most exciting thing this day.



Greetings from a sunny country down under



dario

say 'welcome' to finland

hello my dear friends and members of the family.
i would like to announce in this little blog which is soon to be followed by a bigger one that i have again changed to another host family due to complications with julie. because the upper hutt valley chapter has much to do with the searching of host families for the international students that arrive at the beginning of february they were not yet able to find me a new place. this doesnt mean im living on the street. no, im living with andrew my support coordinator his wife kathy and his 14 year old daughter kate. i have a very good time here. but im not able to stay here for very long because one of the students that arrive in february (olli from finland) will be living here for one year. i might still be here in this family for some weeks with him. but i dont mind and i hope he doesnt either. i can go with the others to pick him up form the airport and experience the other side of the game too. something not many exchange students can do. great!

so this would be my new address:

24 liverpool street
upper hutt
new zealand

greetings dario