Just Four Days Later

Nothing huge has happened, my last post was very small, so I felt I should post again with some general information and other stuff.

Alright, my school. I go to a school that is pretty close to my home, a ten minute-ish walk. The school is very small, I'd guess that it has around 100 students, which is quite a change from the 2,500ish at Avondale College. My school schedule confuses me. They gave me a timetable, but now I'm pretty sure that was just to confuse me. Some weird joke. Crazy Venezuelan school people and their weird jokes. The classes are boring, mostly due to the fact that I don't really understand what the teachers are saying. Also, teachers here mostly dictate information to you to take notes, instead of writing stuff on the board and using powerpoints. I take Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Spanish, English, Geography, PE, and maybe some other stuff that I can't remember right now. PE and English are the only classes I actually do anything in, and I don't even consider PE to be a real class. Here kickball is a real sport. It's kinda lame, similar to baseball, not that I'm saying I think baseball is lame, but I do.

The weather here is pretty nice, but that's subjective. It's easy to like it one day, and then hate it the next. The heat is intense. For some reason we do PE in the middle of the day. I don't even have to do much to start sweating profusely, it's disgusting. Occasionally it rains, and I've experienced quite a bit of thunder and lightning. 

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but power cuts are quite common here. It's pretty annoying, but they usually don't last very long. 

In Venezuela Lunch is the main meal of the day, not dinner. I usually have Lunch after I get home from school, and then we have dinner sometime after my host-mum gets home from work. I've just been having cereal for breakfast, so no change from New Zealand there.

I recently received an email concerning my first AFS trip. It gives me lots of information about it, but I can't really be bothered writing about it right now, maybe I'll write about it in my next post. The trip is from the 18th of January to the 26th of January. It's looks quite exciting, and it costs something like 3500 Bolivares. Currency exchange here is super annoying. For some reason the Government controls it, and the acquisition of foreign currency not through the government is illegal. If you exchange USD to Bolivares officially, then you get 4.3 Bolivares for ever US Dollar. But if you do it on the street, then you can get 8 for every US Dollar. So depending on where the money for the trip comes from, it could cost me like 1000 dollars, or like, 500. I have to pay for a flight to get to somewhere for the start of the trip as well, I'm not sure where though yet. Also I have to take spending money, so it's a pretty expensive trip, it looks great though.

That's pretty much it for now I think.

Another Post

Hi, I realise that I'm a week late, but I kinda just forgot to update this. There hasn't been much happening.

On Wednesday night, my family went to Miami, leaving me to stay with my contact person, in La Asuncion, until Sunday, tomorrow. They bought the tickets back in June because, being around Thanksgiving, it's a very busy time.

School has been easy, and boring. The teachers don't make me do any work in class, they don't really care what I do. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but if one of your teachers doesn't show up that day, then you don't have class. On Thursday I had school for two hours, just two hours. There's not even any point to that. That's retarded. I'm not saying I don't like that it was for two hours only, but having to get up at six in the morning for two hours of nothing at school, it's just a little annoying. Monday that week I was supposed to finish at three, but I finished at like, 11 instead.

I can't think of anything else to write, when I'm out doing stuff, I think of cool stuff I could say, well not cool, really just stuff. But then I just forget when it's time to write it. I'll probably update this blog again tomorrow with some more information and stuff.

Caracas!

Hello to whoever reads this. I now feel a little bit less silly, so thank you for commenting, all three of you, ha.  I think I forgot to mention that I had to get a haircut a few weeks ago. It was fine, nothing horrible.

I didn't end up making afghan biscuits because we couldn't get the ingredients in time, but it didn't matter. My little presentation went well, people laughed when I told them that New Zealand had 30 million more sheep than people. Apparently I have another AFS meeting on Sunday, so I can tell you about that next time I update this.

Last Thursday night I flew with my family to Caracas and stayed until midday on Sunday. The first night we stayed with cousins and stuff. They have a very nice apartment, and I got to play Fifa 12 for the first time with my cousin (NZ vs. Brazil 1-1, oh yeah). Security is quite important in Caracas, as you would expect of a city with such high crime rates. Their apartment complex was fenced off and had guards and stuff. Every apartment complex/building I've seen is fenced off with quite a bit of security, not just the ones in Caracas actually.

Me with my Mum and Cousin.

View of some of Caracas from the cable car

Anyway, the first day in Caracas I didn't do anything, just played playstation while the others were off doing important things, but that night we went to my Uncle's apartment, and we stayed there for the next two nights. Saturday was the most interesting day. We went to El Avila National Park or Waraira Repano, which was pretty awesome. The national park covers part of a mountain range, and we took the cable car up to the top. The cable car is quite exciting, it takes you up the mountain at 2,135m above sea level, at least that's what Wikipedia tells me. At the top there's a whole bunch of stuff. There's a big walk way that you, um, walk on, obviously, to take a look around, and shops, street performers, and food places. Turns out that some people enjoy hot chocolate with bits of cheese in it. I don't know why.  Anyway, there are photos on Facebook that my mum kindly took and uploaded, and I got a few scenery shots with my iPod, which should make them easier to upload, but not as great quality. I still haven't got an adapter to charge my camera with, but I will soon.

Um, what else is there?  School is still going pretty well. It's very nice having 3 day weekends every week. I can't think of anything else. This was going to be uploaded on Friday, but I lost my internet, so it being behind schedule isn't my fault. If you want to view more photos, just go on my Facebook page.