Tenth Week

Monday: After only a few hours of sleep, I got up at quarter to six and my stomach was still a bit sore. At half past six the final of the European Football Championships was on TV. Michel picked me up at twenty past six and we went into the deserted town of Nelson. There was only a roadman making noise in the otherwise calm and quiet sleepy city. Michel had decided to watch this final match live, because after earlier games in the competition sometimes people had told him the result before he watched the replay. This really annoyed him and he didn’t want that to happen after the final. The match was live on Sky-TV and school-owner James offered to come and open the school for us at 6:30. We were five minutes early and it was freezing outside. At half past we saw the Sports Café opening, just 30 metres from school, and there was a surprising number of people around it immediately. Unfortunately James didn’t come. At twenty to seven we decided to send him a txt-message that we would watch the title-fight between Germany and Portugal in the café. It was warm and cosy there and with the other people around us the right atmosphere. After half-time Michel went home to pick up his girlfriend for the second half. Fortunately Spain scored a goal and won the hard, prestigious match. We went on to the English Centre and watched the winner’s cup presentation there until 9 o’clock. Concentration was a bit hard today, especially near the end, because I just felt pretty tired. After school I wrote my diary for the last week and, because I was tired, went to bed early.
Tuesday: Chika and Hitomi surprised me with a birthday card. The two Japanese girls who I had spent lunchtime with several times and who were also in the bone-carving workshop wrote lovely things to me and were nice enough to tell me about the Japanese part of it. In the evening I stuck to my plan to do a lot of homework. I worked on it for many hours and it was past eleven when I finally decided that I was too tired to keep on going.
Wednesday: Today Christoph Hüsler, a brass-band friend from Switzerland, had his first day at the English Centre. Despite initially not wanting to come to the same school as me, he was pleased to see me, had a lot of questions and I was happy to help him to have a good start here in Nelson. The yoga class was pretty easy for me, either the exercises were easier or I was getting better. I hope it was the latter. Jude asked me if I wanted to go to the youth-group tonight and because I felt pretty tired with a bit of a headache I was at first reluctant to go and decided to concentrate on my homework instead. But then she convinced me that going there would certainly be good English practice and would – unlike homework – would have a social element as well. And I didn’t regret it. It was good fun and at the end I saw an inspiring movie about an arm- and leg-less man who didn’t only cope with his immense disability but also made the best of his possibilities. He became a motivation-trainer with the ability to show people that they shouldn’t feel hindered from getting on with life and overcoming difficulties, and that everyone’s capabilities are much greater than one would expect. Naturally it was very authentic, presented by somebody who had to deal with such a severe handicap. Unfortunately I came home late and went straight to bed, so I didn’t do any homework.
Thursday: There were a lot of people at salsa class today. Some of them were new and some had only been to one lesson before. So we only practised the basics for today, apart from one dance I had with Mayumi at the end of the lesson. But I still enjoyed myself and the great atmosphere; I didn’t feel bored at all. It was fun to be there, to shake a leg and to try to make it easy for the newcomers to learn dancing. After salsa class I organised somebody to pick Christoph up for tonight’s brass band rehearsal. I wanted to give Liz a lesson, but unfortunately there was no intermediate-band practice today and the band room was locked. Instead of a practice we had a discussion about rental cars. I’m pretty sure I’m going to travel by car, but I haven’t made up my mind definitely. There were only 13 people at today’s rehearsal, but once again the atmosphere was great and I enjoyed it a lot.
Friday: Once again I had to tell Dillwyn that I hadn’t done any homework. Nevertheless we had a good lesson and a great discussion about travelling and borders. At lunchtime I was Dave’s photo-model for his private project about foreigners. He is going to give a presentation with some of his pictures at his photo-club. In the afternoon I started watching the beginning of a movie, but then planned the weekend. I made a reservation for a scenic flight with Hanna on Sunday. Then I had a beer with Hanna, Christoph and Dominik at the House Of Ales.
Saturday: Dominik, Christoph, Hanna and I had agreed to meet today at 10 o’clock in front of the Suter Art Gallery. I first went to Hanna’s home-stay and waited for her. We walked into town together and as we were passing by the car rental company, I thought I would ask for my sunglasses. There was nobody in the office, but the owner replied on the phone that he had found my sunglasses and that he was going to be back in the office in an hour. This delay caused us to be a little late at the gallery. Christoph wasn’t there. Because the exhibition only opened at half past ten, we went to the café behind the gallery. There I tried a hot lemonade with ginger in it, recommended by the waitress. I had sent Christoph a text-message, but he didn’t show up. The gallery was rather small and we were through it in no time. We went on to the Nelson Museum on Hardy Street and on the way I picked up my sunglasses. We spent more time there, but I was getting tired. At one o’clock we were sitting in the Golden Bell, a Thai-restaurant, waiting for our dishes. It was a great meal and it was cosy, too, so we stayed there quite a long time talking about everything under the sun. Unfortunately the weather was getting worse but we still climbed up to the Centre Of New Zealand. A cold wind blew from the sea, making our time up there rather uncomfortable. On the way down we saw “The Kauri Tree”, which must be a kind of attraction. Its importance was shown by the little fence around it, but we couldn’t find out why this tree was special. Back home I rushed to have a cake baked by the time I was picked up for the International Dinner Party. It would be a similar event to the one at my home-stay some weeks ago, but this time it was at Pastor Allan and his wife Linda’s home. Unfortunately the cake was still in the oven when Ingrid came, but she didn’t mind and used the time to try some of my Swiss cheese. This evening turned out to be great. There were only about 25 people, but still heaps of different types of food. After dinner I played card games with some of the others and had a lot of fun. Now it was pudding-time, as Linda used to say. Even though I had baked my cake in a hurry, it smelled pretty good, and I got compliments! Allan suggested I should become a professional baker, and a Japanese lady asked me for the recipe.
Sunday: After sleeping in and getting up at nine o’clock I felt too tired to do anything and went back to bed. In the end it was just before noon, when I got up and prepared for the afternoon. I was going to go with Hanna over to Motueka for a scenic flight. Therefore Michel lent us his beloved car for a couple of hours. After a short discussion about the flight track, we got into the little aeroplane and up to the snow-covered mountains. Our pilot said there hadn’t been as much snow since 1978, and this white blanket over the landscape looked just incredibly beautiful and fresh. It was a very special view of the upper South Island. After the mountains we flew over the Abel Tasman National Park, where I could see the track I had been walking along a few weeks ago. The colours of the water, the beaches and the forests were so amazing that I couldn’t get enough of it. But after one hour and two minutes and about 270 pictures (!), the flight was over!