Fasting, Cinema and Rotorua

Kia Ora!
(Pronounce: KiOra. :D. )

Kia Ora is a Maori-Greeting, I guess it means something like 'Everything Good on you'.
How are you? I'm exhausted, but fine because my weekend was great.

The weather was really nice, it didn't rain too much.
Let's start with...probably Thursday, which was a very hard day.

Thursday:

So, why was Thursday a hard day? My friend Parham is fasting because he is Muslim and it's Ramadan. I told him I'd fast with him for one or a few days. So I fasted on Thursday...I had a good breakfast and after that I wouldn't eat 'till 6am.
It was especially hard because during Media-Studies (we had Media-Studies-workshop during all periods) a classmate brought a birthdaycake and our Media-Studies teacher brought little cakes and french fries -.- . But since some of my classmates dared me by saying something like 'Ah, Timon, now you're getting weak?' I didn't eat ;D.

After school I went to Alex's place. I met his sister, she seems to be ok. I found out that Alex's family isn't Christian but Baha'i which is a slightly different religion. Very interesting.

In the evening I went to the movies with Alex and I ate something. I made it 'till 6pm, so I'm very proud xD. Probably I'll do it again tomorrow, I'm not sure yet.
Alex and I went to 'Tomorrow when the war began' which was pretty good. Afterwards we met Heather, Jim and Hamish at Burger King and ate something.

Friday:

Friday...I didn't fast on Friday ;D. The Rotary meeting was interesting, my future-host-sister Danae talked about her trip to Fiji where she helped rebuilding a primary-school. She sponsored her ticket herself, which is very impressive!
I also met my future-host-dad (Danae's step-dad) Tim. He's cool (he's a policeman, so he has to be cool :D. ).

After school I met up with Alex again and he wanted to sleep at my place, but he missed his bus -.-. So that didn't happen.

Saturday:

Saturday Morning (early morning, somewhere around 4 in the morning) there was a earthquake in Christchurch. Christchurch is on the South-Island and I am on the North-Island, so don't worry, we were not affected by that earthquake. Unfortunately some people Heather and Jim know where in Christchurch, but they are ok.

After I got up Jim took me to Casabella Lane again and I went busking for an hour. This time most of the people were youths so I didn't make as much money as last time (I was alone, Alex couldn't come). I also had to stop at 12 o'clock because Geoff Tizard picked me up to go to Rotorua with his wife Raewyn for the weekend.
By the way: I decided to go busking with my saxophone one day as well, I think that will be fun.

Geoff took me to his place and I relaxed for a short time. Geoff and Reawyn are into scuba-diving (so am I) and they made a wonderfull dive-calendar. They gave me one. The photos they made are so cool! They dived with Humpback-whales! So, I decided I want to do that and I will dive with whales one day, it must be amazing :)!

So somewhere around 1 o'clock we went off for Rotorua. We stopped in Tirau (the city with the big sheep and dog ;D! ) where I met Sarah, an classmate from Photography, and we arrived in Rotorua at 3:30.
We met up with Libby and Tim and went for a walk through some thermal areas. Do you remember the last photos from Rotorua I showed you, the ones with the geysers? We walked up to those very close and also saw different mudpools. It was very impressive.
Oh, on that walk we also saw a dead Wallabie (those little kangaroo-like animals.). I suggested Libby to eat it, but she said 'You're sick' and walked away xD.

Sometimes there suddenly where heaps of birds flying around over the sea, but unfortunately I couldn't take a photo because I had no camera with me :S.

At a souvenir-shop Geoff bought me some lovely badges for my Rotary-Jacket, I really like them, they're very nice :).

In the evening there was the talent-contest 'Rotorua has talent' organised by the Interact-Clubs (Interact, the Rotary-youth-group) of Rotorua. There were about 25 performers I guess, most of them Singers or Bands, a few instrumentalists and dancers.

A guy who played a guitar as 'lap-guitar' won the contest. Lap-guitar is to lay the guitar down on one's lap and then kind of hit it and make sounds with different methods. He was quite talented, yeah xD.

When the show was finished Geoff, Raewyn, Libby, Tim and I grabbed some dinner and then we went back to the hotels.

Sunday:

Today was pretty cool. In the morning Raewyn, Geoff, Libby, Tim and I had some breakfast in a little restaurant in Rotorua. Well, the morning wasn't perfect because my neck was hurting so much that I couldn't really move my head, but it's ok now.

After breakfast Geoff and Reawyn took me to a place called Te Puia. Actually that's the thermal park I made photos of the last time I was in Rotorua. This time we walked that path and came very close to mud-pools, boiling lakes, steaming holes and the huge geyser! It's so amazing and beautifull, I didn't see anything like that before.

In that park there was also a rebuild Maori-village, I took some nice photos. I'll upload them as soon I get back to Heather's work I guess.

Another highlight was that we went into a Nocturnal-animals-house in the same park and I saw my very first Kiwi :). They are so cute, and quite big :D. I found that really cool, but there were no cameras allowed in there so I couldn't take any photos.

So...at 15:30 I was back home from a really cool weekend. When I walked into the house Hamish really shocked me because he slept on the couch and I didn't see him first :P.

We had dinner with Laura, Alex and Hamish and afterwards went to another church (South City Baptist Church?) which was really cool. There were heaps of nice young people, so probably I'll go back there next week.

I skyped with my family in the evening and chatted with some friends. And I think now I'll finish this blog-text, so keep on reading and have a great week ;)!

See ya!

Yours,

Timon.