All good things must end :(

Hi everyone, its Tom here.....
So officially the exchange has ended. In a matter of minutes I went from exchange student to holiday maker and now I'm sitting in bed at 12:00pm in wait of my family who will be arriving tomorrow morning. Yesterday we saw Jazz off at the airport and in about half an hour she will be arriving back home in Australia after a very long 21 hour flight. With any luck she won't have ended up in Africa :) Its extremely hard to believe that its been 2 and a half months since I've seen Australia. It only feels like a couple of days since we were in the airport ready to head off, and equally, it only feels like just yesterday that me and Jazz were informed that we had recieved the scholarship. In fact the whole year has seemed to fly by, everything has happened and gone by so quickly. And so much has happened, but the exchange has definately taken up the biggest amount of time. But it was time well spent, I will remember these days for the rest off my life.
   If you are reading this and considering going on exchange, what are you waiting for. Exchange is an amazing thing and you can only do it when you are young. I've gained so many things from exchange, things like life skills and I've seen so many things that some people will never see in thier lifetime. The experiences and knowledge you gain is incredible and all it takes is a little bit of courage and an open mind.
   Thank you to all those who make this exchange possible, you all know who you are and the amount of effort you put into this program is incredible. And finally, to all the people that I've met on this exchange, I will remember you always.

So this is Tom signing off for the last time.

Thanks for reading and following our journey along the way.

Tom S/V



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :)



The last Week!!!

This is second last time I'll be saying hello to everyone as this is our last official week of the exchange. On Sunday this week, Jazz will be flying home, the exchange will have ended, but I will be staying in wait of my family who are coming on Monday. Anyway, this being the last week of spring meant that all the christmas decorations started coming out all over the place, inside and out. Also on Friday all of the Christkindlmarkts opened, and they are basically in every town. So that will be a of my blog today but more a part of my blog next week.
   This week we had school as usual and on the weekend we did some more sight seeing of sorts. First of all, on Friday night we went to the Christkindlmarkt in Rosenheim. It was extremely busy being the first night but we spent a while there, bought some food and then headed home. Other than Europa park and Venice, that was easily the busiest place I've seen so far.
   And yesterday, we left at 9:00 in the morning and headed to Rosenheim to see an exhibition about the deep sea. That was pretty cool and interesting to see how all the exploration and research is done on the abyse. We then headed to Munich to see a festival/market called Tollwood. Again, that was really cool and interesting. Plus it was really cool to see the place where Oktoberfest is held but with nowhere near as many tents and stalls.
   So as the exchange draws to a close, only now is it starting to dawn on me that I've been away for 2 and a half months. It's gone so quick and now I see why people always say the longer the exchange the better. I had another enjoyable week and I'm hanging out to see what the last week brings.
Tom

The last full weekend :( :)

Jazz again for the second to last time!

So this week has been just the usual school, school and school. But this weekend has been all about Christmas markets and cold weather.

Yesterday on Saturday my host mum and dad, Jojo and I went to FlintsBach and went to the first of three Christmas markets; Weihnachtsmarkt. We didn’t go there until 4 so that way it was starting to get dark and it looks much nicer when its darker because it’s all light up with lights and candles. It was really nice and all of the stalls with the different bits and pieces they had were so cute and pretty. Some of this market was inside and the rest was outside. While being here i tried a warm punch drink, which I didn’t like that much and some Bavarian chips; they were potatoes cut into a swirl and then cooked in oil and covered in salt, super healthy! But they did taste good. After looking at everything it was 5.30 so Jojo and I decided it was too cold and we walked home. On the way home it was so cold that one of my fingers turned white and my face felt frozen. But we survived :)

Today, on Sunday My host mum and sister, Jojo, our friend Babsi and I went to Kufstein in Austria and we went to two markets here. The first one was at a castle; we walked up many many steps and saw a really nice view of Kufstein. The market was in a tunnel area around some of the castle and all along the sides were stalls set up with all different kinds of creations. At one of the stalls there was actually a vase and some candle holders made out of trees from Australia. After this section we went outside into a large circle area that is used as an opera type place in the summer, but for the winter it is used for the Weihnachtsmarkt, but they did still have a group of men singing some songs, which was really nice and made it feel like Christmas more. Once we had finished looking around at all of the stalls and the castle itself we took a 1 minute train/cart back down to the city. While we were walking to the car we saw another smaller market in the city area so we decided to have a look at this one as well. There wasn’t much to look at and it was mainly just for food stalls but it was still nice and they had a band playing; not too sure what kind but they looked like a school or family group. The girl that was singing looked about 16 and was so good and she sung Christmas songs to set the mood.

Overall all of the Weihnachtsmarkts were reeaally nice and I enjoyed seeing all of them; also just for our luck today it even snowed while we were at the castle Weihnachtsmarkt! It was really pretty.

On Tuesday I am going to the Rosenheim one with Jojo and our friends. It should be nice as well.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back for my final one next week!

Von Jetz, Jazz :)

Market at the castle.

Outside at the castle market.

City market.

Inside the tunnel.

Entrance to the stalls in the tunnel.