Antonia in Havelock North

Es ist jetzt schon fast ein Jahr her, dass  ich zusammen mit meinen Eltern und meinem großen Bruder zum Flughafen gefahren bin, um endlich, nach langem Warten, nach Neuseeland loszufliegen. Jetzt bin ich schon seit fast 2 Wochen wieder zu Hause und es ist immer noch etwas merkwürdig wieder Deutsch zu reden und zu schreiben, deshalb werde ich diesen Erfahrungsbericht einfach in Englisch schreibe. :) Just a few days after I arrived in New Zealand my host mum took me to the school to see if I could be involved in this year’s school production, “The Sound of Music”. We talked to Mrs Melville, the choir teacher in my school, and she said, “ You can audition right now if you want to!”  Audition, audition… what did it mean again? And then I realised she wanted me to sing in front of her, on my own. I had never done something like that before. I had been a member of the school choir in Germany, but I never had to audition and many people in that choir couldn’t even sing! I was a little bit scared, but my host mum said, “ Yes, that would be good, I’ll just wait for you.” So Mrs Melville and I went into the music room. There she played a few notes on the piano and I had to sing them. It was surprisingly easy. After a few minutes she told me that it was good and that I could be in the nuns’ choir for the musical and that I could join the school’s girls choir “Voix de Femmes” if I wanted to. To be involved in both of them was one of the best decisions I made. I met heaps of cool people and made some really good friends. On top of that I experienced many new things. It was my first time in a real production with many long, but funny rehearsals, authentic costumes and a whole backstage team. With the choir we went to a competition (which we won, that was really cool J), and we were a guest choir in a concert with Anna Leese an opera singer from Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, who is one of the 20 best opera singers in the world. This sounds as if I was only involved in music this last year, but I also played in the girls Senior A Basketball team and had lots of fun doing things like rafting, surfing, tramping and (one of my highlights) doing the “Canyon Swing” in Queenstown. This year was and will definitely always be one of the best years in my life. I learned to be more open-minded and to just try new things even if I’m a little bit scared. I advise everyone who wants to go overseas to get involved in as many things as possible, because that makes it so much easier to find friends and of course to go to New Zealand, because it is such an awesome country and the people are all very friendly and relaxed about (almost) everything.