Australia

After 1 and a half day of travelling, sitting in airplanes, waiting at airports we were landing in Melbourne. I don’t count Sydney because I could not realize any extraordinary change, any difference from Europe or Shanghai. But when we descended around Melbourne first thing I realized was, that the clouds where really low. I have never seen clouds so close to the ground. The next thing that caught my eye, as we came closer, was the vegetation: The trees and wild meadows are strange. Very strange. I have never seen these kind of trees! Landing in Melbourne went well and a Lady from the agency I was on exchange with helped us get the boarding card for Burnie. Luckily! Because we had overweight. Long discussions followed, the lady at the counter even talking on the phone with the australian branch of the agency. In the end we had to pay for it and would get the money back later. We got on the plane, a mini plane! I have never been in a plane this small before. The landscape and the sea were beautiful as we flew past it. I could spend the whole day in a plane flying around. Well, landing in Burnie went well my host family waiting for me and my small host sister being really excited! Actually more excited than me, I would reckon. All of them hugged me right away and were very welcoming. After we had some lunch we went to our 'new' home. My host mother showed me around, but we didn't spend to much time there, since we went to buy some chicken for dinner and then headed off to my 'grandparent's house'. And again my host mother showed me around: Greyhounds, sheep, and cats. My host grandfather trains and goes to races with the greyhounds, as I was told. I was also introduced to ‘my uncle’. I was really tired, so I relaxed in front of the TV in a very comfortable armchair, my sister on my lap. I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t eat anything for dinner, although the others did and asked me more than once if I wanted something. At about 6 o’clock we started our way home and I was actually happy about that. I unpacked some things and asked at what time I should get up the next morning, since we would be visiting my new school. 8 o'clock should be fine, I was told :)

So, after a lot of paperwork (a lot!) I am finally off to Australia. Though that was, by now, 3 months ago, but by now I finally managed to access this blogg. Well, I guess I will start off by letting you know how I came to going on a student exchange year...
In August last year our teacher was going around giving us leaflets which encourged us to go and check out different agencies, which organized student exchanges. One Saturday morning a whole lot of them gathered at a school close to where we lived so my parents and me went and took a look. From then on, everything raced by basically. I decided to go to Australia or New Zealand since I have always wanted to go there (don't really know why, though). Well, here I am! The hardest time was probably when we had to wait for an answer from the agencies telling us whether I was put in the program or not. In the end it all worked out and, like I said, after heaps of paperwork I was off to Australia, living the adventure :)