First day of school

Dear Travel Diary

Sunday, April 11, 2021

After Debbie told us about the movie 50 First Dates on Sunday morning, since many scenes of this movie were filmed at Sea Life Park Hawaii near us, we almost had to watch the movie. So we enjoyed breakfast again with fresh fruits and the movie in front of the TV. Afterwards, Debbie drove us to Sandy's Beach, where we spent a cozy afternoon. However, the waves hardly allowed us to go into the water. But we could admire various surfers skillfully conquering the waves.

In the evening, we had visitors and the whole house was full of people, as well as dogs. Two more little mischief-makers who scurried around our legs and enjoyed jumping on my bed. But since I was pretty tired again, I decided to go to bed right after dinner. So unfortunately, I missed the dart competition. Anyway, I will definitely be part of the next family night. I won't miss it!

Monday, April 12, 2021

Today, we had to get up early. My alarm clock rang at 5:45 am, but I didn't need it because I woke up at 5:30 am once again. After a small breakfast, we went to the bus stop and patiently waited for our bus. For a moment, we thought we had missed the planned bus because it suddenly disappeared from the app. We already imagined the scenario of arriving late on the first day of school... Luckily, a bus still showed up and took us into town. We actually know at which station we need to get off, but due to a misunderstanding, we went one stop too far. Jänu, not a big deal, the distances between the stops are quite small here.

Arriving at the school (7:45 am), we were told that we were way too early. We didn't receive any information and Tony said that the school starts at 8:00 am because of the placement test, so we preferred to arrive there too early rather than too late. So we bought some After Sun lotion in the store below the school, so that next time I won't accidentally smear myself with sunscreen after sunbathing and taking a refreshing shower... Oh Diane, sometimes you can be such a scatterbrain!

Once we were back at the school, I had to complete various formalities and was then called in for a small interview. This helped Griff, one of the teachers, to get a first impression of my level. There was also a listening, reading, and grammar test to be completed. After one test comes before the next test, as apparently we have such test series every Friday to track our progress.

Then Fabienne gave us various information and showed us around the school premises. After that, we were already released at around 11 am and could use the afternoon freely.

Together with Nadine and Laura, two other students who had their first day of school today, we went to Ala Moana Center, the world's largest open-air shopping mall. However, we didn't see much of it because we went in search of food for Laura. She lives in the student residence where she has to prepare her meals herself. When we finally got that done too, we made our way back home. Nadine lives near Chantal and me, so we could wait for our bus together. Unfortunately, we missed the right bus and had to wait for the next one for about an hour. So our bus connections are not very good, to answer that question right away. It's a direct line, but not very frequent during the day. But that's just a luxury problem too.

So now we are back home and entertained by a nerve-wracking bark concert.