This weekend has been rather quiet. My mom's side of the family has left back to New York.  One Fun fact about New Zealand is that Christchurch and Florence are on the exact same latitude  as each other (but in different hemispheres). If you could see through Christchurch, you would be able to see Florence, Italy. Italy and New Zealand also have almost exactly the same land area. Now on to what we did this weekend. Today (Sunday) we got to visit the beach side of Christchurch. The beach part of Christchurch is a lot like Encinitas because of the ocean and the weather.

While my family was here we went and did an Adrenaline ropes course that has zip lines, rope bridges, and swings. My cousin and aunt went on it. I have to say that course was the toughest thing physically and mentally I have ever done. The zip lines were the easy part, but everyone had a real problem with climbing over the wire at 13 meters. One of the hardest things about it was that when you were climbing over the single rope the tall skinny trees started swaying making the middle of the rope wobble up and down. When we first got to the course we all gave awkward glances at each other. It was much different than we expected it to be. There was only one supervisor on the sight and the two safety lines you had were all manageable by only you. In America they probably would have someone up in the tree with you at all times. After we left we had planned on going to a play but arrived to late to get in. We decided to go to an improvisation skit. It took us a while to find where it was held. The skits were extremely funny. So far this has been a great long weekend.

My aunt's broken finger x-ray

This week my 2 aunts and cousin visited us here in Christchurch. They have been here for 2 days now. The first 2 weeks of there trip was spent back packing the North and South island. On their trip my aunt nearly fell of the edge of a tall mountain. She broke her finger on the tumble. I get to skip 2 days of school this week so I can spend some time with my mothers side of the family. We plan to visit Quake City, a simulation of the earthquake that destroyed the city back in 2011. We also plan to go fishing this weekend. 

On Tuesday our school had a mufti day which means we don’t have to wear a school uniform. The whole day was spent on the field competing in sports. Our school has 4 houses, Red house, Blue house, Green house, and Yellow house. Each house gets a point when someone wins a sport. In the end my house (Red) won with the mosts points. Some of the sports included an 800 meter race, 100 meter race, long jump, high jump, discus, and shot-put. After the day was over I had a horrible sun burn.

A STROLL THROUGH 2  PARKS

Victoria park /w Christchurch
in the background

On Saturday we went to a Shakespear play called "12th night" in a park called Mona Vail. The park was very English and Hobbit-like. One famous line I learned was "Some are born with greatness, some achieve greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them". I texted my Aunt Claire, who is traveling around New Zealand right now, and she texted back "keep on thrusting".... go figure!

 Today (Sunday) we took 2 buses up to Victoria Park. The 2nd bus ride was up many many steep hills. The bus clipped a small car on the side of the road, scratching the mirror and denting the side of the bus... Luckily, the bus and the car were not damaged too badly, but the bus driver was really shaky after wards. The walk up to Victoria park was long. After that we went to a cafe to get brownies. School has been going very well. All of the classes seem relatively easy and there is not very much homework. I have made several friends in my form class over the past week. Next week we have a day called "sports day". We don't have to wear a uniform to school that day, instead we have to take part in several sports such as, long jump, 100 meter sprint, and a relay race.

The first week of school went very well. I got to my classes on time. Math seems rather easy. We are studying things like square roots, which I have done before. I am struggling in history though. We had a test about New Zealand history and all the questions were asking what was New Zealand's prime ministers. I asked the teacher what to do since I had no clue on who any of the people were. Eventually I had to skip half of the questions. The other classes like English and science went very sooth. In science we made a chemical mixture that changed colors and heated up when we added powder. In graphics class we learned how to draw 3D squares. We used the squares to draw circles within them. The teacher said this was a practice on how to draw circles at different angles, to give perspective to a 3D drawing. Let’s talk about some stuff other than school, shall we? This week on Wednesday there was another 3.8 earthquake. I was playing computers games while my mom was out shopping and felt the jolt. The earthquake lasted about 10-15 seconds. Today on Sunday there was a 3.6 except I slept through it.

Here is the link to the earthquake site in New Zealand 

http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/felt

My school uniform!!!!!

Today I has my second day of lessons. I first went to my form class. We had English with my Form Teacher. The other basic classes that we are required to take are Science, Math, Social Studies, and PE. Some differences I have noticed are what they call specific names here. For example a form class in America would be called a homeroom. Some of the electives I chose were Digital Technology, Graphics, and French. All the teachers see nice and very helpful. In PE we had to change into our PE uniform and jog a couple laps around the gym. After that we played some games that include Basketball. After the 6th period we al get to go home. Well, the first 2 days of school have gone great so far and I hope they will remain that way.