Hello everyone!

Yesterday, Sunday June 16th, my Mexican friend and I went whale watching. Yes it's my second try after we had a disaster in September. You might remember it: Rain, rain and more rain, wind and no whales. Well I got a free pass so now on a beautiful sunny summer day we tried again. It was the perfect day to go out on the zodiac and after a nice drive down to Brier Island, we had to take two ferries and because my dad knew one of the captains we got to sit in the driver's cabin on top of the ferry, we arrived in Westport. It's a nice little town and after registering and getting our orange wetsuits we drove to the wharf and got on the zodiac. With us there were another older couple and three adults, the captain and his wife and a biologist. We headed out, a zodiac drives really fast and jumps over the waves, it was really fun and after about an hour or so of looking the captain saw a sprout and there it was. A huge humpback whale! Until you see a whale yourself you don't believe how big they actually are! They are huge! After seeing it a few times from farther away it came up to the surface about two to three meters next to my side of the boat! It was amazing and unbelievable! We saw another fin whale from farther away and when we met another whale watching boat we saw another humpback whale. He had a funny name and they said he comes back every year. We and the other boat followed him around for a while and finally he showed his tail! I didn't get a good picture of it cause it was too exciting but some other people did! It was funny because you could always hear us and the people on the other boat go like woooow or ahhhh when the whale showed himself and the tail. After a while he got interested in the other boat and stuck his head out a few times to say hello. He did that right next to the other boat! When he swam away he even got under the other boat that was funny to see. We spent about an hour following him around and then we headed back. It was just amazing and I got some good pictures and I made a video, I'll upload it later. Because it was such a sunny day and the wind was blowing hard in our faces I got a nice sun/windburn on my cheeks and my nose. But it'll be a nice tan after a while :)

Last week plus today was my last week of regular classes at DRHS. It was so hard to believe and I still don't believe it. This week is exam week I have my Math exam tomorrow and my English exam on Friday. Then I have to come on Friday, June 28th, to get my report card and that's it. I can't believe it and probably won't be able to believe it until it actually happened.

Last Wednesday in the first period one of the teachers, he was my French teacher in the first semester, had his annual concert. He has a little band and they play all kinds of country, rock'n'roll, blues music etc. It was really funny and fun and we had a great time there! In the second period my Child Studies course went to the childcare center here, it's like a kindergarten and we spent about an hour and a half visiting the children and playing with them. It was a fun time and the children were so cute! The last two periods after lunch were the award ceremony. Everybody that participated acitvely in extra-curricular activities and earned points for that or was the most valuable player or the coache's pick to get an award got one. It was great to see that all the kids are happy and proud about what they do for their school and that they are recognized by the school and the coaches for what they do.

They also gave the international students their certificate for being and studying in Nova Scotia and at Digby High. Every International Student in Nova Scotia gets that, but our school included it in the Awards Ceremony. That means every international was called to the front by their real name, which resulted in lots of laughter when all of us were called, especially the Asian students. It was just funny because our principal wasn't able to say any of our names right :) That was cool and now the whole school knows us, because we went in front of the whole school to get our certificate. They even filmed the whole ceremony, but I'm not sure for what purpose and where it'll be able to be seen.

That's about everything I can tell you. I'll go now and enjoy my last two weeks!

Julia