Exchanges to Remember

My name is Allie Avard, I am a grade 10 student at LCS and I have been given the opportunity to go to St. Andrews College in Christchurch, New Zealand. The experiences that I have had have been ones I will remember for a lifetime. As I left my parents at the airport, there were a few tears, a lot of nerves and an overweight bag just to begin with. Then we headed off. As Patrick and I went through security and got on the flights it got better. We were off on a huge adventure. The flight was long, five hours to Los Angeles with an eight and a half hour layover, then hopping on the twelve and a half hour flight to Auckland and lastly a two hour flight from Auckland. As we got off the flight we meet Patrick’s exchange Luke and shortly after mine Daisy. I couldn’t have been luckier with my exchange partner. Daisy and I are close as ever and we both play ice hockey, which was the best part.

 

As I am a border at LCS I got to be a day student here at St. Andrews, it was a shock at the beginning but I have learned to love it. I came for a change and that is what I have got. Daisy has a brother George who headed off to university but first he went and played for the New Zealand National U18 team in South Africa. Daisy had the opportunity to play for the New Zealand Ice Fernz national women’s team and left me for three weeks and I couldn’t have been prouder to be her exchange partner. Sam and Alistair, Daisy parents, took me in as an only child and I couldn’t have been luckier to have them as my exchange parents.

 

As Daisy played on the Canterbury Women’s team, which is the provincial team, we went down to Gore, New Zealand, which if you are from NZ you would not think it was that great, but I thought it was great. It is the capital of country music in NZ and I love country music so that was super interesting for me. Daisy’s team ended up winning the tournament which was very exciting for them. Gore is seven hours away from Christchurch so we stayed at their family friends house for one night on the way there and one on the way back. At their house they have a sheep farm and a deer farm. They also had two cattle named Bob and Nigel, we got to pet them and it was so fun.

 

As St. Andrews is a lot bigger then LCS it was a shocking change. The amount of people is mind blowing At LCS you could name everyone in your grade and most in others but here you can barely name half of the grade it is so big. They are much stricter with uniform and rules for example you are not aloud to wear your hair down or you have to be wearing your blazer to and from school every day.

 

Two months before my departure I had a lot of second thoughts, I didn’t want to go, school was so fun I didn’t want to leave. Two weeks into the trip I decided that this was pretty fun and that I had made the right decision. I believe that every grade nine should apply for exchange because it is a life changing experience that you will never get again.

 

 

 

My name is Patrick Hannivan and I am on exchange at St. Andrews Collage (STAC) in New Zealand for 8 weeks over the winter term. I have had a great time in New Zealand and at STAC. I flew over with Allie Avard '18 who was also going to STAC during the same time.

 

The flight over to NZ was long. A 5-hour flight from Toronto to LA with an 8 hour lay over in LA. Then a 12-hour flight to Auckland with another 2-hour flight after that to Christchurch. I first met my exchange partner, Luke, his mom and 10-year-old sister in the airport. They were all very kind to me and we all got along really well.  Once I was settled in Luke’s house, his family took me out to the west coast for some sight seeing and to see New Zealand before school started which was amazing. Also I got to go sight seeing in the Mount Cook basin on a geography trip with STAC. Both trips were amazing and would definitely recommend going sightseeing at least once while on exchange.

 

STAC is a very big school compared to LCS due to it having around 2,000 students ranging from year 0-13, which is equivalent to kindergarten to Grade 12. Also the uniform is a lot more formal compared to LCS, here the students have to were a blazer, tie, dress shoes and black socks. But luckily exchange students can wear their own schools uniform. Also I would say the rules at STAC are stricter in general.  But so far I would have to say my favourite thing to do in New Zealand would be surfing. Every Monday there are only five classes instead of six, and the sixth slot is used for around 50 different activities that you sign up for at the start of the year called options, one of which being surfing. So every Monday I get to go surfing along with Allie and my exchange partner Luke who both also did surfing, which is awesome.

 

The week leading up to my exchange was a very stressful week for me. I did have second thoughts about coming on exchange plenty of times. And when I arrived in New Zealand it took me 2 or 3 weeks to get comfortable. But I will say that all the preparation of packing and setting up flights and stress of missing classes and school work is all definitely worth it. All in all, I’m definitely glad I choose to come on exchange and would recommend it for anyone looking for a once in lifetime experience.

 

 

 

For my exchange, I am staying in Ballarat Victoria, Australia for about eight weeks. When I first arrived my host family took me to their vacation house in Torquay since they were on break the first week I arrived. Their house was right near the beach so we walked down and swam in the ocean every day. It was on this beach that I had a surfing lesson and surfed for the first time ever. It was more fun and was quite a bit harder than I expected but I loved doing it.

 

I was shocked when we went back to their main house in Ballarat the last weekend before school. All of the friends I met said my host family had a nice house but I never imagined it would be like this. The house has two pools, a tennis court, a hot tub and a mini theatre room…it’s massive! I love seeing the faces of all the people when they first come into the house and see the true size of it and I probably had the same expression my first time. I'm definitely going to miss this house when I leave.

  

At school, I have made a lot of friends, especially with the other exchange students. There are two people from Colombia that I have become close friends with named Lorenzo and Camilla. The school here is a lot more strict about uniform, which isn't very good and most of the teachers have me do their work and tests which make it so I have to cram all my catchup into the evenings which I'm not a fan of.

 

My host family has been very kind to me and allowed me to travel with them to Noosa, Queensland. They own a unit one kilometre from the beach which was stunning. We walked through the national park along the coast there which left me amazed by the sights of nature and coast. The weather in Noosa was perfect the entire time making the whole weekend amazing, I also had one of the best burgers of my life there at Betty's Burgers. 

 

My experience here has been amazing and I'm looking forward to going to Sydney this weekend and Melbourne later on. I'm missing everyone back home and can't wait to travel back but at the same time, I never want to leave because I love Australia so much. I will never get forget my experiences here and am so glad I decided to come here even though it was scary at first.