Sending love from New Zealand

Katharina Gasser hat heuer die außergewöhnliche Chance, das erste Semester an einer Schule in Neuseeland zu verbringen. Die Schülerin der diesjährigen 4B-WS erzählt begeistert von ihren Erlebnissen.

"On the 12th of July, my mother, my brother and I traveled together to New Zealand. In total we were in the air for about 30h and because of the time difference we traveled for 3 whole days. From Munich to Dubai, to Sydney and finally to Wellington, where I would spend the next 6 months of my life.

The immigration process was very strange as you aren‘t allowed to bring various things into New Zealand, previous to the flight we had to clean all of our shoes to ensure that we don't bring any foreign bacteria onto the island, we also had to fill out a form on what we packed in our suitcases.

I arrived 1,5 weeks before the new term started and I spent those days traveling and enjoying my last days with my family. It was very strange, being awake when my friends at home were asleep and especially because it was summer in Italy but winter here in New Zealand. It didn’t snow and generally the winters on the north island are nowhere near as cold as the ones in Italy but the constant wind made it chilly but still very enjoyable for winter.

We spent a couple of days in Taupō, which is really similar to the towns at Lake Garda, after that we visited a couple of other cities and before I knew it I was already at my host-family's home and my mom and brother left to go back. I had two different host families, as my „main“ host-mother had to travel to Australia for work for the first 2 weeks of my exchange year. Additionally to that I had a host sister from China, she switched families, but we are still close friends and see each other in and outside of school.

The school system in NZ is very different from the one in Italy, you can choose your subjects at the start of the year and gender based schools and uniforms are very common. You are only allowed to choose 6 subjects and you have about 3-4 different subjects every day. Year 13 students are able to choose a study session which is just a break where they can do some self study.

The subjects I take are Chemistry, English, Maths, Painting, Accounting and History. School normally starts at 8.45 or 9.00 (mondays), it ends at either 15.20 or 14.20 (fridays). We have Wā Manaaki time every day which is basically a 45 min break, additionally to that we have a 30 min of morning tea (another break) and a 50 min lunch break.

From my host family's house it’s a 15 min walk to the beach and the Warehouse, one of my favorite stores in New Zealand. The houses in general are very different from Italy, the buildings are all designed not to collapse in an earthquake. There are a lot of earthquakes in NZ, especially in Wellington where I live. In the time I have been here there were three small ones and just recently there was a bigger one, but everybody is just used to it, so it isn‘t a big problem.

I‘m especially looking forward to the next few months here, as it is finally summer and a couple of exchange students, including me, are going on a south island trip and my host sister Amelia promised to teach me how to surf.

New Zealand‘s population is very diverse as it is made of a lot of immigrants. Even in my school with around 1.000 students, there are about 70 different languages spoken, which is really impressive. Alone in my friend group, there are 5 different cultures present: one girl's parents are Chinese and Vietnamese, but they have lived in Wellington since before she was born, one girl is from Mexico, another one has a French and Māori background and a different girl's dad is māori. People are proud of their culture and heritage and respect each other.

In general my favorite thing about NZ is that people are so nice, helpful and welcoming, even to complete strangers. You could just walk through the city and random people tell you that they love your hair or if you can‘t find something, they approach you and ask if you need help, I never experienced it in this way in Italy or generally anywhere I have ever been."

Katharina Gasser