Autor: Pia Speh

I’m back in Germany for a few weeks and I really miss the good time in Canada. This is why the first days were very hard for me. In Canada i had other hobbies, all the animals and most important my family and friends. Of course I was happy to be back, but I also thought a lot about the last five months. I had such a good time: My family was amazing. We had the same interests and did many things together. School was good too and with my friend it was fun all the time. I mentioned many awesome activities on my blog, but there’s a lot more. I couldn’t write about everything but I’ll always keep it in good memory. There are for example the dancing and tabata classes at the gym with Desmond, shopping with Diana and Sam, snowboarding with Pat and Dave (what I really enjoyed) and a lot more. There was thanksgiving, which I’ve never celebrated before, and Christmas 🎄. I had an incredible time with you guys! And I hope I can come back soon!

 

On New Years Eve, Diana, Desmond and I went to Diana’s cousin Dino’s house. Him and his wife and their daughter Amanda live near Châteauguay and in the afternoon the whole family met at their house. Patrick, David and Samantha didn’t come because they had plans with their friends. Nevertheless Amanda and I had a lot of fun and with the family, of course. We were about twenty people and after everybody arrived, we had supper together. Everyone brought some food, for example different kinds of salad, pasta, meatballs, vegetables… and Diana made greek spinach pie (Spinakopita) and it was delicious! Till midnight we played many games. We started with a game, where you had to wear tights on your head and in the tights were tennis balls. In front of you, on the ground, were five cups and you had to knock them over with the tennis ball and without using your hands. Haha, it was funny! Then we played two other game, one where you had to stack up cups as fast as possible and another one where you had to blow them over with a straw. The stacking game was easy, but I was really bad at the other one. Then we had dessert: Cannoli cake, butterscotch pie, brownies, cookies and we had German Stollen, which is a traditional sweet bread with raisins and marzipan. They got it especially for me! It tasted very good and the others liked it too. Later in the night Amanda and I played cup pong together and then Eckolo with the whole family. And then it was already midnight 🥂🎆

On December 30th, Desmond and I had another performance at church 🎶, with the other musicians and the choir. This time it was only for the young and teenage musicians, but Desmond was asked to play too (he’s young at heart). We played Christmas songs again, but not the same as on Christmas Eve and we were less musicians. After the mass was a church dinner. A family, which is very active in the church, invited all the singers and musicians to their house. Desmond didn’t come, but I went with Ronnie and his mother. In total we were about 15 children and many parents came too. Everybody brought some food for a buffet and we had supper together. We had pulled pork, filled bread, vegetables,… Then we (children) went upstairs to play some games 🎲. Ronnie brought a cool game called Dropmix and Graham (bass player), his younger sister Katherine, Ronnie and I played it almost the whole time. It was so much fun 🎉! It’s a music game and you have to play your cards very fast to get points. But then we had to interrupt the game, because everybody met in the kitchen. Then we talked about 2017, our good experiences and what we are thankful for. And then everybody lit a candle 🕯 in the garden, but I didn’t want to go outside, because it was too cold, so someone else lit it for me 😂. Afterwards we finally had dessert! Ronnie brought m and m brownies and Graham and I had almost all of them, because they were so good! And then we continued playing our game and then Love Letter, which is a superhero game! Haha, we played until 1 in the morning 😊.

 

Last Thursday Patrick, his friend Ronnie, my friend Larissa (she’s Ronnie’s cousin) and I went to Montreal. We wanted to take the bus 🚌 and met at the bus stop at around 11:45 and our bus was at 11:50, but it didn’t show up. The bad thing was that it was the coldest day of the year ❄️, around -25°C (-37°C with the wind), and we waited for over 30 minutes in the cold. Then Larissa’s mum asked us if we want to wait in her car for the next bus, so all of us squeezed in, but the next bus didn’t show up either. At least it was warm in the car and then Ronnie called a taxi, which came a few minutes later and we went to the next metro station. Well, we were there in under 25 minutes but it was 80 bucks (80$) 🤦🏻‍♀️… But then we were finally at the metro station and could go to Chinatown. Pat’s other friend Matthew came too. In china town we had lunch. We went to a restaurant. The food was very good! We had two frying pans on our table and different kinds of raw food, like ham, chicken, shrimp, mushrooms, broccoli, noodles,… Everyone could make their own food. And everyone had chopsticks, but Larissa and I have never used them before. We tried to eat with them, but at the end we had to ask for forks. After Chinatown we took the metro to the Fine Arts Museum. We saw different art exhibitions and many different art styles. There were some nice paintings and we also went to an exhibition with chairs. There were all kinds of chairs in different styles. It was fun! We spend about 2 hours there and then we went around downtown Montreal and back home. This time with the bus 😂

I love Christmas. It’s one of my favourite holidays of the year and it was a great experience to celebrate it with my second family in another country 🇨🇦. Some traditions are the same, but there are also some differences, like unwrapping the presents in the morning and the Christmas dinner. But let me start at the beginning:

On Christmas Eve, my family and I went to church in the late afternoon. Desmond and I had to be there earlier, because we played some Christmas songs with a group of musicians and the choir was singing 🎶. I was playing the violin and Desmond the guitar. In total there were three guitar players, five violins, a bass player, a pianist and about 20 people in the choir. I really enjoyed playing with them and it sounded very good 😍! We played songs like: I Saw Three Ships, Holy Night and Bethlehem’s Child. The church was packed and my friends Larissa and Cassandra came too. There also was a play for the children. Larissa’s sister and Cassie’s sister were part of it. They were an angel and a shepherd and very cute. After church we went home and had a delicious Christmas dinner. Diana is part Italian and they usually don’t eat meat on Christmas Eve. This is why we had pasta and fish. It was very good 😋! We also had homemade eggnog from Tara. I’ve never had eggnog before, but I like it! For those, who don’t know what eggnog is, it’s a drink made with milk, sugar, cream, eggs and sometimes alcohol. After supper we sat together for a long time and played some games 🎲.

 

The next day everyone got up early and we opened the presents 🎁!!! They were under the tree and in our stockings. And I got some too, for example a purple sequin cushion and a mug, which is my absolute favourite. It’s white and it says Blogging Day in golden font on it. I love drinking tea in the winter and I used it almost every day so far. I didn’t buy any presents for my family, but I want to invite them to a trampoline park in the next few weeks. And I made two big origami stars, a red and a yellow one. After opening all the presents we had breakfast: bagels with cheese, bacon and egg. In the late afternoon, all of us went to a family dinner. There, we had more food, like homemade pasta, gnocchi, filled peppers and much more. Then everybody was full 😂! David, Sam, Patrick, their cousin Amanda, and I went in the basement and played some games, like Shit Happens and (later in the night) Eckolo with the whole family. My parents sent it for Christmas and everybody loves it. We played for a long time and then I played some songs on my violin: Carol of The Bells (a rock version) and Who Want’s To Live Forever by Queen. The family really enjoyed it.

 

On Boxing Day, Diana, Sam and I went shopping 🛍. We picked up Amanda and went to the dix30, but it took us more than an hour to get there, because of the traffic. Anyways, we had a great day and there were many sales! We went to different stores and bought some things: Amanda got a hat at Urban Outfitters and Sam and I bought each a ring at Pandora. It was packed in the store and we had to wait outside, in the cold, for more than 15 minutes, but in the end it was totally worth it! After our shopping tour we had supper at Five Guys and Sam and Amanda showed me Mr. Puffs, a really good place for pastries 🍰🍩

Before Christmas break I had all my exams at school and on the last day, in the evening, Diana, Samantha and I went to The Nutcracker Ballet in Montréal. It was my first time attending a ballet and it was fantastic! Diana and I took the car and met Sam in the ballet building. I was wearing my Christmas sweater with a nutcracker on it 😂. First we couldn’t find our seats because there were so many people. The hall was full! We were sitting on the balcony and had a good view. We could also see the musicians in the orchestra pit 🎶. The ballet was amazing!! The dancers were very good and had beautiful costumes 😍. There was fake snow and stage smoke too. The waltz of the snowflakes, the dance of the sugar plum fairy and the waltz of the flowers were my favourite scenes ☺️. In total the ballet was about 2 hours, but there was a break between the first and the second act. Afterwards, on our way home, we stopped at a poutine restaurant: La Banquise. It’s really famous for its poutine, because they have all different kinds of toppings. Sam had a hotdog topping and I had something with bacon, pepper, mushrooms and onion. Delicious!!

 

The weekend after Niagara Falls I went to Québec City with the exchange students from my school and the school in Ormstown (40min away). In total we were about 16 students. Some came from Mexico, some from Germany, China and the Netherlands. We all had a Ped day on Friday, so we could leave for Québec in the morning. About three hours later, we arrived in the city. First we had lunch in a restaurant 🍟and then we visited old Québec. A guide showed us around and told us a lot about the city. We also saw Château Frontenac, which is beautiful 😍. It is located on a small hill and we had an amazing view over St Laurence River and the city. There was snow in the streets and we had a snowball fight afterwards ❄️. Then we had some free time and decided to go to the Christmas market, which was nearby. It was a German one!! They had all the German food, such as Bratwurst, Baumkuchen and pretzels. It was really nice!! Later in the evening we went to our hotel and had more free time. I was in a room with two other German girls. I knew both of them from the Haunted walk in Montréal, another activity we did before and one girl is in my school. We went to the hotel pool that night.

 

 

The next day we had to get up early, because we wanted to go to the civilization museum in the morning. We were on time, according to the teachers, but then we realized, that the museum was still closed and we were one hour too early. So we went to Montmorency Falls, a big waterfall near Québec City. We didn’t stay very long, because it was cold and there was ice everywhere. In the summertime you can go up the stairs to the falls and walk over the bridge, on top. But now, everything is closed. It was nice though 😊.

Afterwards we went back to the museum. They had a lot of interesting things about Québec’s history, but also an exhibition about the brain and about how you see things from different perspectives. We spend about two hours there and still didn’t see everything. Then we went to a big shopping mall, les Galeries de la Capitale. There we had lunch and did some shopping in the stores. Actually they had a rollercoaster inside the mall, but it was closed when we came there 😣…
Later that day, after we spend all our money in the stores, we went to a big waterpark, Bora Park. It was around six when we arrived there, so it was dark outside and inside too. Everything was glowing in blue, green and purple. It was a great tropical feeling 🌴. The park is quite big and has more than 12 big slides. It was sooo much fun. The others really enjoyed it too. First, some students and I went to a whitewater river and then we went to the slides. We started with the easy ones. There was also one with small boats for two people and one for six. The teachers joined us too. Later we went to the more dangerous slides. There were two really high and steep ones and the other students tried them immediately. First I was a little bit scared, but later on I went down one of the slides too. And it was awesome 🙌🏻! At the top you stand in a cabin, then the cabin closes, you hear someone haunting from three to one and then the floor opens up, like a trapdoor. It was cool!! And the teachers did it too!

Sunday was our last day in Québec City. We got up early again and after breakfast we went to the Aquarium du Québec. There they have many animals, such as seals, walruses, polar bears, and fish 🐠. And they had some arctic foxes too. So cute 😍!! The people, who work there, train the animals and we went to a show, to see the seals. They did some nice tricks and then we walked around the park in small groups. But soon our wonderful time in Québec City was over. We had to go back home, because all of us had school the next day 😫.

A few weeks ago, my host family and I went to Niagara Falls 😍! The falls are in Ontario and on the boarder of the US. In total, it took us about 7 hours to get there, but on our way we stopped at Desmond’s sister’s house. Her name is Mary. She and her husband live near Toronto and we stayed at their house for the weekend. We had lunch together and afterwards we left for the falls. Rob and Mary came too. It wasn’t cold that day and the sun was shining ☀️. The falls were amazing and the water was sparkling in the sunlight 😍😍! First, we went to the Canadian falls. They are incredible! I was very surprised, because there weren’t many people. Maybe because of Thanksgiving Holiday in the states… Therefore we could take some really nice pictures 📸. After our photo shooting we walked next to the river and went to the city. On our way we saw the American falls too, but they are way smaller than the Canadians. We went to some stores and later in the afternoon, all of us were hungry so we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe nearby. Everyone had a burger 🍔 and when we went back outside, after the meal, it was dark. And the falls were beautiful!! They were glowing! Blue, then red and purple. It was amazing 😊!

 

 

 

 

The next day, the whole family came to Mary and Rob’s house, but in the morning Desmond, Diana, Samantha, Patrick and I, went shopping in a big mall nearby 💰. It was Black Friday weekend, so there were some deals in the stores. Not many, but everyone found some nice things. Later on, at around 3pm, the family came. We sat in the living room for a while and then, Sam, Pat and I played pool with the younger children and football too.

Last Wednesday I got my report card! Term one is finished and the second term started last week. All in all I’m very happy with my marks. My best subjects are ST and EST (two different sciences). And I got 97% 🎉! I actually couldn’t believe that! I knew that my french isn’t that bad so I already had an idea about the mark (91%), but science?! I was surprised 😱. The rest of my marks is around 88% and in history I got 76. I’m also happy about it, because Canadian history can be a lot and sometimes it’s hard. It wasn’t only “report card day”. This day many colleges and universities came to the school to present themselves and inform the students about the courses and subjects. It was interesting, but there were so many students that you could only have a short conversation with the people from the colleges. Anyway, it was a great day!

Two weeks ago, at the weekend it was very cold and started snowing ❄️!! Everything was nice and white. It was not much snow, only a little bit. It was great, but melted the days after. Now you can see Santa Clauses everywhere 🎅🏻 and Christmas decoration too 🎁🔔🎄. There was a big parade in Montreal on Saturday. We didn’t go there, because I had my violin lesson in the morning, but the people in the radio talked about it. And Saturday afternoon, Diana and I saw a Santa Claus and many elves in the shopping mall. Christmas music was on an it was a great feeling. It’s only mid-November, but felt like December. Patrick started wearing his Christmas sweaters and they are awesome! I found a really nice one in the mall and I love it!! Mine is black and has a nutcracker on it. It’s sequinned and has pom-poms on the golden sleeves. It’s gorgeous 😍!! And I’m going to wear it all the time in December 😱