First Weeks

*Spoiler alert* haha dit wilde ik altijd al een keertje ergens gebruiken ;).
Deze blog post had ik een jaar geleden al op Facebook geplaatst, maar ik heb besloten om dit ook maar hierop te posten, gewoon om alles Australia related op één plek te hebben.


Ik heb besloten toch een blog te beginnen, zodat ik alles terug kan lezen als ik weer terug ben in Nederland, of als ik tien jaar ouder ben, 20 jaar ouder ben, 30 jaar ouder ben, etc. Ik heb een klein beginnetje gemaakt dus dit is een voorproefje van mijn meerdelige eerste blog post

I was wondering for a long time if I should start a blog or not, but eventually I made the decision to just do it. I don't have to have a weekly blog or something like that, I can write whenever I want and whatever I want to write about. So I have been here for about two and a half weeks in Australia and I have a lot to say, I'll just start at the beginning...

...preparations...
At first (about one and a half year ago) I was planning on going to do a high school year with EF (Education First). I saw a little brochure at school in Holland and I thought I should just take some actions, so I went to this information gathering with my mom. After my mom agreed with me going to Australia, I had to do an 'interview'. That was some sort of test to see if my English would be good enough, if I could 'survive' the new culture, and so on... I also met a new friend during that interview and her name is Lindy, we stayed in touch and even now we haven't lost our contact. However, I got accepted by them and I had to fill in heaps of forms about things like my health, school grades, my family, my hobby's etc. Then it was just a matter of waiting to hear something from my Australian host family. After a while I got the message that EF didn't accept high school students in Australia anymore... I was very disappointed and my dream seemed like it had fallen into pieces. After a lot of hassle I found this other organisation 'Into' who had a partner organisation in Australia called WEP, I explained my situation and I got accepted really fast by Into and I had to fill in all kinds of application forms again, but it was worth it! Lindy stayed with EF, but she went for a different programme called a 'Language Year'. Eventually I got my first contact information from my host family and then everything went really fast!

...goodbye...
The last couple of weeks at home in Holland weren’t that easy. I had my final exams (of the year), I had to think about what I had to take to Australia, I mean, I still had to pack for a whole year, A WHOLE YEAR! And of course I had to say goodbye to my friends and family…
I had one week of summer holiday before I went to Australia and I spent it doing lots of stuff with my friends and mom. Two of my friends actually organised a surprise at the beach, we went longboarding, I thought my day couldn’t get any better, but when I got home, my garden was full of friends and screamed surprise! They actually organized a ‘surprise farewell party’! I cried, it was such a nice thing of them to do and I appreciated so much! My neighbour was taking pictures and some friends were doing the barbeque and I was just enjoying the perfect moment. After a while I even got a longboard from a couple of friends, how lucky can a girl be!? I got heaps of little presents and sweet letters I was only allowed to open in Australia; it was the best day of my life and I’m really grateful that I have these friends who organised everything and that showed me they actually care about me, I really love them all!
A couple of days after that I went to the airport… I of course took my longboard with me, and three of my best friends went with me to wave me goodbye. There was a lot of hugging and crying, and the next moment I walked through the custom men and I was on my own, I started my new life…

…arrival…
It was the 24th of July in the morning when I left home, I got in Australia at about 10pm in Brisbane. Now that’s what I call a long travel, I was really tired but also very excited to finally be in Australia! I had to give up a snack I took with me from Holland at the border in Australia, I figured out that the government here very strict is, but the people who live here can be very laid back. When I arrived my local representative was waiting for me to pick me up. She gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, in Holland it’s usual to give people three kisses on the cheeks, so I was trying to do that and that got us in an awkward situation… I had my first culture difference experience! I was so excited about it that it didn’t bother me at all! She gave me a water bottle, which made me remember one of my greatest concerns when I was in Holland, would I be able to drink water from the tap? I drank a lot of water back home so I was afraid I had to buy like three bottles of water a day to keep up with my habit. It’s luckily safe to drink the water from the tap here, so that also gave me a lot of joy, it really was a big concern for me in Holland. ;)
However, my local rep and I went to Mount Cootha the same night, that’s a point in the city where you have a beautiful view of the CBD and some suburbs. We also went for a little drive around the CBD and then we went home. I was very tired so I just went to bed, there I was finally able to read a letter that two friends wrote back in Holland, I was only allowed to open it at my first night in Australia so I was very curious. Then I finally went to sleep… The next day my real host mom came to pick me up with her sister, they are both really lovely women, just as my local rep. On our way home to Glenore Grove, we stopped at Ipswich and then I finally got to my new home! Over there was my local coordinator waiting for me so that we got to know each other, she is like a ‘trust person’ she is the one I can go to if I’m having trouble with my host family or if there’s something else and I can’t or don’t want to talk about with my host family. The organisation is very keen on the wellbeing of the exchange students, which is really nice to know. At the same day I went to school to pick up my host sister, I was very nervous to meet her, but I really wanted to pick her up. She was a little bit quiet and shy at the beginning, but I think we’re good sisters right now.

…First week…
The first week here was a little bit tough, I constantly thought about home and me not being able to see my friends and mom for a whole year made me very sad… Also the fact that I completely lost my independence was and still is difficult for me, the distances here are huge and you can’t get anywhere without a car, so that means that my parents have to take me everywhere at any time. WEP told my host family to keep me busy so I won’t think about those stuff a lot, so we went to Brisbane Down Town with my host father, we went to the movies and of course I had to go to school the next Monday. That was really scary, but everyone was really friendly and curious about the new girl, so everyone’s asking questions and stuff like that, which is nice, otherwise I would just be sitting in the classroom saying nothing. School was really different to what I’m used to, because they have several small buildings with about four classrooms per building, so for every lesson you have to walk outside, in the open air to go to your next lesson! That is amazing and it gives you a little bit of a feeling of freedom. The kids are also really informal with their teacher, which is something I didn’t expect because you have to wear a uniform which gave me an impression of a very strict school. Another thing that’s also different, is that we only have four lessons a day, and just six classes for the whole year! Some lessons can take one and a half hour, but some of them can only take an hour. That’s weird for me, because every lesson takes 50 minutes in Holland. We also have ‘houses’ at school. We have the stingrays, taipans, redbacks and scorpions. It’s just like in Harry Potter, kids are in a certain house and during the year everyone can collect points for their house and after the athletics carnival the house with the most points wins. Those are the things that are ‘most different’ to what I’m used to at home.
We also had two students from Korea staying at our place, they were here for three weeks, but they didn’t really interact much with us. However, they gave me some Korean food and when they went to movie world with school, they gave me some lollies they bought over there.
After two weeks of me being in Australia, they left.