Enjoy your holiday!

Hi there:)
I hope you enjoy your holiday!
My school started only four weeks ago, so I don't have holiday already. But that doesn't matter. I really like the school and my subjects. I have only three, English language, maths and geography. All the people are very nice and the teachers, or the tutors (that's how they are called), always look that we exchange students understand everything. Altogether are the subjects mch easier than in Switzerland. In maths for example we do things we did in Switzerland in the third or forth Bezirksschule. And in English we looked at nouns and verbs. But I think it's getting more difficult with the time and at the moment I'm glad about it, because it's easier to understand. Though the understanding is acctually no problem anymore. :)
I didn't really make friends yet. It's quite difficult, because there are different classes in every subject and you see the people only twice a week for two hours. And in these you can't talk about something different than the subject. But it's still early and I already know some really nice people.
Beside the school I train twice a week in an athletics club, surprise, surprise ;)
The Training is just great! It is really hard, but the group is so nice and the coach is funny :)
I really love it! :)
And my hostmother is also really nice! Since last Friday we live now in the new house (My Hostmother and me moved house)  It's a really cute and cosy little house. I definitely prefer this one to the old one.

Old house

Moving...

New house

Again enjoy your holiday and have a lot of fun!
Bye Lena

daria í frí

Hi guys!
I hope your all doing as well as I, because I like my life here in Iceland from day to day more (:
Now I have frí (=vacation) but it's only three days -Wednesday til Friday. We don't have longer holidays because I think I have almost the whole december free, except maybe a few tests I have to take. And they finish school in beginning of may, so we don't have more school then you do..
I really enjoy my vacation, althouh I don't really have plans, except sleeping long, going to choir and violin lessons and meeting friends, but it's wonderful!
Yesterday we baked Icelandic pancakes with one of the other exchange students and an Icelandic girl. Icelandic pancakes are similar to crepes. They are really thin and not that easy to make. It needs a special pan and you have to be very skilful. Sóley, the Icelandic gril wasn't patinet enough to do it and Mateo, the other exchange stundent was sleeping, so I had to do them, but it was a lot of fun, and in the end they looked really good and also tasted awesome. But it was a lot and I ate that much, that I couldn't eat icecream in the evening and I had to look on my siblings eating the best icecream in town :(

 

 

Sóley, Mateo, Pancakes and I (:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also don't speak that much English anymore. At home, I speak almost only Icelandic. I understand it if people speak slowly and with easy words. I can also almost always say, what I want, that they understand me, but it's not always correct, because in Icelandic every word changes and that kind of hard to learn, as the guys of you in Latin maybe know. Imagine speaking Latin, that's Icelandic :P
In school there are some people, they speak English with me, althoug I speak Icelandic, but I think they'll change to Icelandic soon.
I also have English classes, and there we learn a lot, or we should learn a lot (our teacher don't know how to keep us quite). We mostly learn vocabulary and not that much grammar but I have some grammar for you -in Icelandic :D
But the teacher is nice. In the last class before the vacation we watched Friends (:

conditional clauses in icelandic

enjoy your vacation!

Last week before "Variowoche"

Hi all, Alisha and Poorvi here :)

You guys in England and Iceland (?) will be happy to hear that the weather here in Switzerland has not been that nice (autumn is coming quite quickly). Anyhow, here's what we did this week:

In English, we started Unit 4. We read about 35-year old journalist who went to school as a pupil for a week to find out if school these days is more difficult than when he was at school. In the end he said that you can't compare school from today with "his" school.

Our next project for "Of Mice and Men" is to choose a character and describe it. We'll start that after our holiday (yes, that's correct as vacation and holiday have the same meaning in British English :D)

On Friday we played a game :) It was like "Stadt, Land, Fluss" with these topics: Food, Sports, Personality, Transport and Travel, Describing People and Money. It was fun :)

So, that was everything concerning English... But we want to tell what else happened during the week:

• Monday: we had a music test and we didn't have any maths :D
• Tuesday: nothing special :P
• Wednesday: PE (sport): 5km run. Only 6 girls ran (+ all the boys); the other girls were sick / injured. Noah was the fastest. We also had a physics test and another one in economy.
• Thursday: first test in Chinese for Chinese fans :P
• Friday: funny game & Zucchini-Chocolate-Cinnamon-Bread :) and now: PE... 

Wishing everyone a nice "Variowoche" and to those who will have an extra week of holiday: Enjoy them!

And last but not least: Enjoy your time wherever you guys are right now :)

See you soon!

Alisha and Poorvi

Rainy greets from the south-east coast of England ;)

Hei there :)

I'm staying now in my hostfamily for almost two weeks and I really enjoy it to be here. I've got a very nice hostfamily. My hostmother is very friendly and Emily (she's four) is so lovely. Also the male members are very nice. And I feel very comfortable.
Last week it was about 30 degrees over here :) No clouds and no wind. Just sun. And it was beautiful and a perfect time to swim in the sea :) :)
I went to the beach a few times with my hostmother, the children and the dogs, they really enjoyed their swim.
But yeah now the weather changed and it is raining all the time (just british weather).

Also the school is nice. But they just have to do 4 subjects and on a day you just have three lessons...
Thats weird xD But there are a lot of free-lessons between the lessons, so you have to stay in school about six hours.
And you don't have sports lessons...:/ I really miss it.
But the people are very nice and friendly. And also the teachers try to include the exchange students (there are fife on the whole school). So it's going well.

I hope your school is not to hard and stressful at the moment and I really hope that your weather is better than mine ;)

With the best greets from Whitstable, Vanessa :) <3

Of Mice and Men

We have been reading the novella 'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck for four weeks now.

To help you guys comprehend the story we are writing a summary for you. :)

To start up, the main characters:

George Milton

He is a small and quick man, clever and smart. He has strong and sharp features and slender arms, strong hands and a thin and bony nose. Inside, George is really friendly and helpful, even though he doesn't always show it.

Lennie Small

His name doesn't describe him at all. Lennie is a very tall and big guy with very strong arms and hands. But he is not very bright. He behaves like a child and always forgets everything.

And now, the story:

George and Lennie are ranch workers. They travel around and look for work. George takes care of Lennie and helps him out of trouble. Sometimes it's hard for them to find work, because Lennie sometimes does strange things. Due to Lennie's strange behavior, even though he doesn't want to cause harm, they had to leave the last ranch. So they have to find a new job on a new ranch.

George sometimes gets mad because Lennie forgets everything. Lennie always feels very sorry and tries not to forget.

They found work on a ranch and until now everything is going quite well, because George speaks for Lennie and helps him to do everything right.

But we guess that something might go wrong and that the two guys are going to get in trouble.

Have fun with the book :D

JB and JD

hi guys!
It seems as if you are all doing well and working really hard in English class.
I'm still speaking English a lot, because everybody speaks English here and it's easier to have a conversation in English than in Icelandic, althoug I'm really trying to speak Icelandic, whenever I can, because I really want to learn it.
But yesterday I went out with the other two Rotary exchange students in Iceland and we spoke English the whole evening. As I came home around 11 p.m. I talked to my parents, again English. Before I went to bed, I wantet to write up my diary in German and I really had to think about the German and so I decided to write in English because I was to tired to think about every word! It was really strange, as I realised, that I was thinking in English and I couldn't remember words in my mother tongue. But I hope, that I'll soon have this feeling with Icelandic, then I want to learn Icelandic and not English, as other exchange students did the year before.

Mateo (Ecuador), Jessica (USA) and I in Reykjavík

At school I'm also in an English class. The level is, compared to all the other languages they learn at school, quite high. The teacher is also really nice and she was also an exchange student in the States, so she speaks English quite well. I like this class, because I understand a little bit more, than in the other classes, altough they speak often Icelandic in class. The school is anyhow really different here.
Everyone talks, whenever they want and they don't care about the teacher. It depends on the teacher, but they use their cellphones and computer always in class. If someone calls you in the lesson, you just walk out of the room and talk to him.
The English teacher tries to work, but it's not as easy with our class as she think it is. But we are having a test on Monday and fortunately I can explain the words, instead of translating them into Icelandic (:
The grammatical stuff we did, was about adjectives and adverbs and contracted sentences, but we worked more on the vocabulary then on the grammar. I'll see, how my first test in Iceland will be, but it doesn't really matter, I just have to take the exam that the teachers get their pay!

And I still love Iceland!!! It's wonderful and it's getting better every day. And guess what, last Thursday I didn't rain the whole day. It was just clear sky and after the frost from the night it was really warm during the day.

I wish you all a good time and keep on writing!

<3

Lena and Rahel Special

Ladies and......... Gentlemen
(drum rolls)
Welcome to the Lena&Rahel Special Show.
Okay, just kiddin'. ;)
We are sitting here in Rahel's room and we are eating self made cookies. That's  the awful truth. Really. We went to the cinema before and watched the film "ELYSIUM". The reason why this is in capital letters is: äh, we don't know. Actually, the film was very good (Lena thought it was very impressive...), but... Yes. It's a big BUT. It was sometimes so disgusting, totally blood-splattered, a lot of violence. Too much for our soft hearts. :(

Now, let's go to the serious part... (blue, dazzled light) (veeery depressed playing on the violin...) (taking out tissues....)
GRAMMAR (dadada (deep breathing))


-ed/ -ing adjectives
Some adjectives are used with two different endings.
e.g. boring/bored.
What's the difference?
1. The teacher is boring, because he talks all the time. (Is actually boring)
2. I'm bored because of the teacher. (Feeling just bored)

can/could/to be able to
I can cook = I am able to cook -> knowledge/ability/qualification
I could cook -> a specific offer/possibility (e.g. I could cook if my mother would help me)

can't/must/might/may
Impossible -> can't be
Certain -> must be
Possible -> might/may be

And now, we're going to enjoy our evening.
(happy music is played dudelidu...)

Lena&Rahel