I am a Kiwi Kid.

One thing that being away from New Zealand has taught me, is that I am proud to be a kiwi kid and I think I always will be.

The amount of love for my country has grown so much and it has made me see New Zealand in such a different light to how I saw it before I left. It is now not the country that was so far from everything and a place I just want to get away from, it is now a place that I know is one of the best places for someone to grow up in and a place that is amazingly beautiful and is a place I want to go back to. I am not too sure how long I want to go back there for as it still is in the middle of the sea with nothing much but Australia nearby and there is a lot of the world I still want to see, but New Zealand is home.

A thing that kiwis are that I don’t think the rest of the world are is keen to make ourselves be noticed by wonderful crazy things. I mean a Kiwi invented a way to throw yourself off a bridge without killing yourself. It is wonderful!   

We also have wonderful things in New Zealand like Vegemite and Marmite. (Personally I do prefer Vegemite but I am a fan of Marmite on white bread.) And Pineapple Lumps and Jaffas. Good work New Zealand for coming up with these things.

One thing that Stockholm doesn’t have is Fish’n’Chips. Stockholm the place with so much sea and water. It really would be a perfect thing to have but then again if they did it would probably not be the same as the greasy stuff you get from down the road!

One thing that is hard with being a proud kiwi girl is that New Zealand gets a lot of shit ripped out of it. I don’t think a day has gone by here in Sweden where someone has said something against my country.  Yes most of the time it is done in jest but do you see me making fun of your country because you are small or because you sound different to how I do? NO! I know that is more often than not one against many more than one but that doesn’t make what you say about my country true. I would know I am the one that has been there!

There are two other Kiwis in Stockholm and we quite often catch up for some good old Kiwi time. It is nice to have those two so that we can just be Kiwis together. We can talk “talk” Kiwi to each other and we understand! It is amazing that these two girls I meet on a plane six months ago and now are two people that are sometimes the best people to be around!  

Now I am going to clear a few things up.

One. Yes I say words different to you and speak different to you but that is what happens when you come from different places and I happen to think the Kiwi accent has character and quirk to it that makes us who we are!

Two. You have heard of us. So you know who The All Blacks are and you know who Peter Jackson is. Right well then you know at least two things that helps make New Zealand who we are. So stop saying you have never heard of us. We may be small but we are not unknown that is for sure!

Three. Yeah that is right my country is amazingly beautiful. And yes I can see that beauty from my bedroom window, as I walk to school and pretty much where ever I go. And yes it is even prettier than it looks in the movies.

Four. We are not all hobbits.

Five. Not everyone in New Zealand knows Lord of the Rings of by heart.

Six. Sheep are cool. Don’t say bad things about sheep. We like sheep but no I don’t own any sheep myself.

Seven. I am in no way Australian. And my country is in no way part of Australia.

Now we have that one sorted, just one last thing.

I am a Kiwi Kid and I am bloody proud of that fact.

  

Snow and a good apple

One thing I thought I would never get sick of is the snow. I was wrong. I am now done with the snow and am quite looking forward to it melting away into some giant puddles that I can jump into! 
Spring is on its way though. The last few days I have woken up to hear birds singing in the trees outside! I mean birds singing has never been this exciting to me! It is also getting a lot lighter at night. It doesn't get dark till about 5.30! It is an improvement from 3 that is for sure. And it is even getting a tiny bit warmer! Yet this week I am away doing the most Wintery type sport ever, skiing! This time I hope not to end up on crutches though. So far so good. Although ski lifts seem to hate me. I fell off the same lift three times. But on the more positive side I only face planted once in front of a group of guys! Also I think ice on the slopes follows me from ski field to ski field. Today there was so much ice I was going as slow as sloth down one slope so I wouldn't making snow angles in the middle of the run! 
One thing with snow though is that it can make life really fun! Like having snowball fights with your friends or rolling around in it after being in the sauna and then getting back in the sauna! Snowball fights have taken on a whole new level of fun here. One because you never run out of snow and two because who doesn't want a face full of snow and ice! 
It is also rather funny when you jump into snow thinking it won't be that deep and you need up being waist down in snow! 
Other than playing in the snow and skiing I have also been going to school strangely enough! My new subjects are going well but the homework and tests are mostly way to hard!! I had a philosophy test the other day and could not understand what the sheet was asking me to write about. I think this is partly because I have never been given a book in this class and the teacher also goes off topic a lot, like I mean he starts talking about whales or something and by god is that confusing! So I just wrote that I didn't understand and may I please have a book. My teacher came up to me after the test and was like "you didn't understand that did you?" And then he said "maybe I should give you a book." That was two weeks ago and I still haven't got that book!! In drama I am in a play and I am modeling a t-shirt in it! I also have one line which I have to try remember and right now I can't quite do that! I also had a Swedish test the other day! That was fun apart from the fact that I bet half of it is wrong or just sounds silly! Then while I and most of the school was having lunch a clock came on the big screen my school has in the lunch space with a sign at the bottom saying be here at 12.00. I had no idea why but stayed there anyway. Then the Harlem Shake song came on and one person stood up and started doing the Harlem Shake and then so many people (teachers) came out from no where and joined in! It was probably the best part of the day or even the best part of being at this school yet!! Mind you I think another one of the best things that happens at school and also happens a lot more often than teachers dancing (although that has happened twice now) is when we get to watch a movie in class and the movie is in English! It is so wonderful! It has given getting to watch movies in class a whole new level of greatness! 
One thing that has been quite hard lately is seeing everyone back home going off to university and things and it is making me wish in someways that I could be starting university now to and be joining in with all of the fun and not still be in high school! But I chose to go to Sweden over going to university with everyone else and I am happy with that choice hugely! But it still is strange to see. Like when I Skyped my parents in summer time and I could see the bright lovely warm sunshine outside and they were eating raspberries in front of me. That was also hard to see. 
I can't really think of anything else that would be exciting to read about right now so I will leave it here.
Wait one last thing while typing this I have been eating my first really tasty apple in Sweden! 

AFS Ski Trip

Over the last four days I went on an AFS ski trip. The trip was made up of two really long bus rides, a lot of skiing, making new friends, getting no sleep, drink way to much coffee and ending up on crutches!

On Thursday morning we all met at Stockholm’s central bus station to start the first of our long bus rides! This bus was a double decker bus which made I all the more exciting and somehow I managed to get the front seats on the top level giving me a wonderful front on view the whole way. As we set off on our way to the ski field around 7 hours away there was a lot of “hi, sorry I can’t remember your name from the first camp, what is it again?” But during the course of the trip I got to know everyone pretty well!

We had two stops on the way to get lunch and pick up one person and then one other stop to pick up a few more people. Then we got there! We got sorted into our rooms and went to dinner. That night was spent catching up and talking to new people and gearing ourselves up for a big day of skiing the next day.

The next day started nice and early at 7.30 in the morning. Went to breakfast in my pajamas, which was a bad move as I had to walk outside and outside was cold. Breakfast and coffee to get the day started then it was time to get ready to go of skiing! I have found out just how much I hate ski boots. They are the hardest thing to get on and off and they hurt like no tomorrow when they are on for a full day! I started off my day skiing on a blue slope. The slopes go from green being the easiest, to blue, then red and the black as the hardest. Starting on blue may not have been the best idea as I screamed just a little when going down but I didn’t fall over so I took it again and got a lot better as the day went on! After lunch me and a group of others went to the other side of the mountain! To get there we had to take a gondola up to the top! This was really cool but also really awkward to get on and off of when you are wearing ski boots and carrying skis and poles and the thing itself is moving! But the other side had much nicer runs so it was all worth it. While going down these runs I got taught how to ski parallel, although I couldn’t do it I gave it a shot! At the end of the day I went back down the gondola as I didn’t really feel I was good enough to go down the red slope just yet.

That night involved dinner with everyone and more catching up and even less sleep!

Day two of skiing was even better than the first! Well defiantly the first part! I learnt how to parallel ski and became a lot better at skiing and was able to go a lot faster without going down the mountain yelling “shit, shit, shit!” I think that shows improvement! But at end the day I thought I would go down the mountain on the red slope rather than on the gondola. I thought yeah I can do this I have been doing pretty well on the blue and others have been saying that I will be alright. This was not true. I completely owned myself! I was going down with Jesse who knows how to ski really well and was taking me though how to get down this steep run when it got really quite icy and I had all my weight on my right ski and ended up going to quickly for my liking and couldn’t stop myself. This is when I decided to fall over. I theory this was a great idea. In reality it was the stupidest idea I have ever had! My right ski came off and I went rolling down and down the hill. As I have rolling my other ski kept hitting my right knee. I ended up twisting my knee and having to go down the mountain on a snow scooter! Once down the mountain I got my knee taped up and was put on crutches. One thing I have learned is that crutches, ski boots and ice are not a good mix. Makes walking every hard!! On a plus side though I got to go on a snow scooter!!

That night we had a sort of dance party which was a lot of fun!

Then it was time to go. We packed up the bus said goodbye to the ski field and got on our way until the bus door got so cold it wouldn’t stay closed! But once we got that sorted we headed off home!

Having this ski trip was so much fun and it was so great to see everyone again and have a good old time with very little sleep!

And I mean you can’t have a good time without having a story to tell. That is the really reason I owned myself!!