3 MONTHS!!!!!!!

I can't believe it has now been over 3 months since I left the Dominican Republic to start my AFS adventure! I have been so busy later that a month seems to have passed in a week!
Lets start from where I last left you: the end of my holidays. Holidays were going so great! The weather was great, the days were warm, I was having an amazing time. On my last Saturday of holidays I went to Waiheke with some friends. Waiheke is a little island in the Auckland area. You get there by ferry in about 20 minutes. A friend from school had a bach there so we would be spending the day in the beach :D. It was a beautiful day! So sunny and warm! When we got there we went to the supermarket and baught food to make tortillas. Once in the bach we set up to make lemonade, guacamole and beans. We had the greatest lunch ever! It was just delecious! We then took a walk to the beach and some of us even dared swim in the frozen water! We went to a kids sand play ground and turned really really fast in one of the weirds turning things you find there. It was soooo dizzying! The day was so great I even got a tan! That night we went to one of the girls house and had a nice get together. It was the perfect last day of holidays!
Back to school again life came back to a routine. This was rather good because I found myself spending so much money during the holidays! Days were now pretty busy with school so there wasn't much time to hang out. Besides with exams getting close everyone seems to have no time but to study. Nevertheless I've still been doing some fun things.
I went to play pool on a friday night with some friends. It was pretty cool. We were really bad but the place was nice and the music was great so it was heaps of fun. I also went to the Auckland museum with Georgina. It is such a big museum it took us a hole day to walk by it. It was still pretty fun. I learned lots about Maori culture, New Zealand history,geology and fauna. All in a beautiful gigantic building.
I also had an all girls night out with my host family. Karen, Georgia, Michelle (aunt), Phoebe (cousin), Nana (grandma) and I went to the ballet to see Cinderella. It was an awesome performance. The dancers were great, and the music was lovely, and the costumes were beautiful! It was simply great.
This last week I had to do a speech for Assembly. Assembly is like a reunion at school were all of the last 3 years sit in the hall and the head boys and girls and the principal take the stage and there's usually a speech or we sing the school song. It is all pretty formal. The principal asked me to go on stage and talk about my country and my experience so far. This was really scary. The hall was completely full, around 900 students, plus teachers. When I was sitting there I was dying of nerves. When I was finally introduced and got to the podium my heart was beating really fast and I couldn't find the words. But I had prepared a surprise, something no one was expecting. So out of the blue I pulled out a plantain from the podium. Yes a plantain, and let me say I made sure to take one of the biggest plantain I could find, because you can find them here in some secluded markets. The thing was like 40 cm long and 4 cm wide. It was definitively the biggest banana anyone in school had ever seen. Everyone said "ohhh" and then laughed so hard. It really made my day! Now evryone is making banana jokes and my new nickname is banana girl. The speech was filmed so when I get it I'll post it here.
So yes, I found some plantain here. I, who had never prepared mangu (mashed plantain) back home have now made it here and let me say it was pretty good. I am very proud of myself.
So that's a bit of what I've been up to these last days. Hope you enjoyed my summary! Please leave some comments because I do appreciate reading them. I'll upload pictures soon.
Cheers
Banana Girl