Toronto II

12th of October, Sunday

We had a hard time finding the Toronto Zoo. It was also on our city pass so we figured, why don't we go? We looked at the pandas, giraffes, rhinos, but the most entertaining was the polar bear cub. 

  After the zoo, we spent a little time in the Royal Ontario Museum. It had a nice Korean and Chinese exhibition, but otherwise wasn't as interesting as the rest. But at least we used all 5 tickets in our city pass. We spent hours in the Eaton Centre. It's a huge mall. Ladies will understand how women can get lost in there. I didn't buy anything, other than a cup of coffee for Herb.

  We had dinner at Signs. It's a restaurant I've been wanting to go to since July. It's run by deaf people. It's supposed to raise awareness of the deaf culture, as well as to create jobs that would be normally impossible to find. We had a lovely Ukrainian waitress, she signed slowly, so I understood most of what she said. I've been preparing for quite some time for this. I borrowed a book from Anne, amd learnt the basic words and expressions. I could introduce us and make (extremely limited) small talk. The restaurant itself was gorgeous. It's brand new, modern, creative. The food was absolutely delicious! I had a thai chicken potato appetizer. It's like  a luxury restaurant with normal prizes. It's fun to order food signing (there's a cheat sheet), and there's no judging if you mess up (personal experience). So we had an amazing dining experience there.

  On the way home we stopped at Niagara Falls again. It was raining, and everything was cold, but it was beautiful. The whole waterfall was lit up with different colours. We arrived just in time for a firework show too. I was soaked within minutes, because the mist came up all the way to the viewing pavilon, forming a cloud of light rain. But I didn't care about it. I was mesmerized by the beauty of it. 

  Getting back to the US was easy, thank God. We arrived to Skycrest drive at 1 am. This was an incredible weekend. I had an amazing time with my wonderful host family. We bonded over this trip more than we have in the last month (and believe me, we have). We made a lot of pictures that I'm going to upload. 

Toronto

11th of October, Saturday

I woke up to a fresh cup of Tim Horton's coffee and a breakfast muffin. Herb got up early to get some Canadian breakfast. Our first stop was the CN Tower. We got our Toronto Passes (a ticketbook to the most important sights in the city), and we were the first to go up. The CN Tower is a 457 m tall TV Tower, that's open for tourists to see the city. You can see all the way to Rochester, across Lake Ontario! It has an open air balcony (which was freezing cold because of the wind), and a glass floor too. It can make you dizzy, just to look down at it. Sun freaked a little bit out, me and Herb joked with her about it. We spent about an hour there, just looking at the city in the shine of the morning sun. The weather was amazing, luckily.
  Our next stop was Casa Loma. It's the only castle in North America. It was built by a rich businessman, who has a very sad story. Henry Pellat brought electricity to Toronto from the Niagara, but the town took it away from him. Then he made a comeback with airplanes, and those were taken away from him too. He died a poor man, but he made history. Casa Loma was his residence. It's pretty, and built with good taste.
  After the castle, we visited a Hungarian restaurant!!! Yes, it was original Hungarian with Hungarian decoration, waitresses and menus. I spoke Hungarian to a stranger for the first time in almost 2 months, and I only made 10 grammatical mistakes! It felt weird. I was not in my element. But we had great bean and goulash soups and filled cabbage and debreceni sausage. I didn't realize how much I missed Hungarian food. I only had foreign stuff since I've been here, even the water tastes different. But this kitchen had genuine Hungarian specialities. As it turns out, there's quite a bit of a Hungarian community in Toronto. They have their own deli, butcher, everything.
  We also went to the Science Centre. Hungarians might know the Csodák Palotája (Palace of Wonders), which is very similar. It's an interactive science museum. It was quite fun, to stand in front of a giant tree, be in a room with no sound, see how I'll look like when I'm 70 (picture below).
We stayed till 5, and by that time, we were very tired. We walked a lot. We went back to the hotel, and I fell asleep right away. I woke up 3 hours later.
  Toronto is beautiful. It reminds me of Philly. I haven't seen one building, that I would consider ugly. It's modern, lots of skyscrapers and a lot of glass. I could live here. 

Birthday - Niagara Falls

10th of October, Friday
I woke up at 9:30. Waking up to thinking "it's my birthday" is pretty happy and positive. I called my Dad's aunt, Nanó, who was born on the same day as I was, only 80 years earlier. I wished her a happy birthday, and she was really happy to hear from me.
  I got a gift card from Herb and Anne and a coin collecting book from Sun. I also got a package from Hungary, from my parents. I opened it while we were skyping. We called each other at 11, which is 5 pm in Hungary. I was born at 5:12. They had cake for me that they ate while we talked. I got  abunch of stuff from them: a phonecase that looks like my cat, a Budapest T-shirt, candy and a pendrive with a lot of videos and pictures from home. We talked for 1,5 hours. This was the first birthday I spent away from my family, abroad. I missed them a lot today.
  I finished packing and I had time for a Switched at Birth episode too. Herb came home, and we left at around 2. We picked Anne up at her wokplace, and went straight to Niagara Falls. Crossing the border to Canada was a piece of cake. And after we did, I saw the Niagara Falls for the first time! It was magnificent. It's been a dream of mine to come here, and I finally did. It's beautiful, huge and breathtaking. It wasn't as loud or cold as I expected. We took a lot of pictures. We stayed there until sunset, then we walked over to Clifton Hill. It's a hype city right next to the falls. It's like the Las Vegas of the Ontario. Lots of neon signs, a Ferris wheel, arcades, restaurants, millions of attractions. We had a celebrational dinner at the Rainforest Café. It's decorated like a jungle, with robotic animls and waitresses dressed like explorers. The food was good too, I hada  steak. At the end, Herb asked our waitress to do something funny for my, so she lit a candle in an ice cream, and loudly asked everybody at the restaurant to wish me a happy birthday. It was kinda funny.
  We walked a little bit, looking at the cool stuff there was to see at Clifton Hill. Including aan open air mini golf course with dinos, a vulcano and a house that's upside down. We walked into an arcade and played 60 tokens away. Apparently, I can shoot a laser gun and can swing a samurai sword pretty well, who'd have thought? We only won 118 tickets, that was worth a Canadian keychain, a zombie fingerhat and 3 jumping frogs.
  We got into the car and left for Toronto at 10. We got there at 11, and we settled in to Marriott Hotel. It's pretty fancy, I can't complain.
 This day was an absolutely amazing birthday! Although it was sad, that I couldn't spend it with my family, I had an amazing experience not many can have. It was a great and happy day. A lot of people wished me happy birthday, and I feel lucky to have so many friends!

Canandaigua victory and Wendy's

9th of October, Thursday

Today's the last day I can say I'm 16. It's pretty funny, that one day from now, I'll be a year older.
  School was normal. I forgot to finish my Creative Writing project on time, so I had to write it between classes in the morning, and I turned it in handwritten. In class, we shared our finished twisted fairy tales. Rosie wrote about supid Snow White, who married all 7 dwarves, Kyle told the story of the princess, who did plastic surgery on herself (yes, pretty creepy), Chris set the Sleeping Beauty in a 21st century novel, with no happy ending. Noah wrote about a power hungry Peter Pan, and surprisingly, there even was a story about Slenderman. I shared my fresh story too. I didn't go with my original idea, I just quickly wrote one, so I'd have something to turn in. It's the ending of Tangled, that I've twisted, and it turned out to be rather depressing
  We left at 3:15 to Canandaigua to a volleyball game. It was a 45-50 minute busdrive. We won the first match, lost the second, and won the last two again. So it's a big W for win overall. There were a lot of Canandaigua fans, very little of our own, so it was tiresome to overshout their cheer. But we, who didn't play, and the JV team managed.
  Afterwards, we went to celebrate to Wendy's. It's a fast food restaurant. I've heard a lot of bad things about how inhealthy it is, but I've never been to one before. This was in a building together with a Tim Hortons, in Canandaigua. I had an Asian Cashew Salad and a Wrap. The salad was quite delicious. On the way home, coach kept asking, who was in charge of Bori? Who let Bori have a salad at Wendy's?
  We arrived at 10 at Athena. Herb took me home, and I started packing for Toronto. Haven't finished yet. These are my last minutes as a 16 year old, though at home it's already my birthday. Both my parents sent me emails already. 

My Rotary Birthday

8th of October, Wednesday

I had a Psych and a History test. I ruined my 100% average, I messed up 1 or 2 questions. Oh well ... :D. I spent my luch and both study halls in the library. Then Kim picked me up for Rotary. She was in Seattle to visit her son last week, and she brought back a pretty pin for me! It's really nice.
  In today's meeting, my club proved further on, how awesome they are. Usually when people have birthdays on that week, we stand up and sing for them. But this week they left me out of the list. I didn't think much of it. But after we've sang, Al invited me up the stage, like he always does, to say my fun fact and word of the day. He asked what Happy Birthday in Hungarian is (Boldog Szülinapot). It was spooky, because actually that's the word I chose for today hours earlier. Then the whole group wished me Happy Birthday! I got beautiful flowers from Keith and Larry, a cake from Kim, and a card, signed by everybody! (If I left anybody out, who contributed to my gifts, I'm sorry and thank you, and tell me, so I can thank you personally too) They sang me the Happy Birthday song again, and I was so moved! It was incredibly nice of them! I felt so spoiled, because I am being treated like a princess. I'm so lucky to be a part of the Rotary Club! I sang the Hungarian Happy Birthday song too.
  I'd like to shout out a huge THANK YOU! to my club, for making my day. I'm so grateful I met you guys!
  My afternoon wasn't as phenomenal as the club meeting. Larry took me home, and I watched the season premier (I couldn't yesterday), and it was pretty good. But, I mean, what kind of season premier ends with another cliffhanger? It's the torture of the fangirl.
  I had a tough practice with a lot of conditioning. The coach made us compete afterwards, for who should be in the starting lineup tomorrow (the players who'll be in the game from the beginning). It's a fair thing, but I don't even hope to make it.
  After practice, Michelle gave me a ride to Dube's to a pizza party (a pasta party with pizza instead). I didn't stay long, we went to Walmart with Anne to buy ribbons for volleyball for tomorrow. (We wear our uniforms and a ribbon in our hair). I personalised each peace for the girls, we'll see what they'll think of it.

Stressed? Nah ...

7th of October, Tuesday

Today, I slept trough my alarm. I overslept. Herb didn't go to work today, so he could take me to school.
  AP Psych was interesting, we talked about special topics in our memory unit. I think I have a photographic memory, because I take mental pictures of everything.
  On PE, Mrs Stevens made us complete a quetionaire, on how stressed our lives are. There were questions like: Do you have a lot of responsibility? Do always have a lot to do? Are you working hard? And obviously, I asnwered 5 out of 5 to every one of these. I'm an exchange student, I do a lot of things, and I try my best every day. No wonder my stress level number was extremely high! But I don't feel stressed. I've been used to high expectation since I started school at the age of 7. I always had a billion extracullicular activities, and I always had a good academic achievement. So I don't feel stressed at all. And being an exchange student hasn't changed one bit about that. I'm just happy to be here.
  I have 2 tests for Wednesday, one in Psych, the other from History. While we were in Ms Dyer's room with Dube, as usual, I studied for them. I also had time to watch an episode of Doctor Who, I missed. My friend Chris was talking on and on about how awesome that episode was (he's an extreme Whovian), so I just had to catch up to him, I was afraid he'd spoil something. It was a pretty good episode, I admit, but it wasn't the best.
  We had a game against Gates-Chili today. We had so much energy before the match. We danced and fooled around, until we had to warm up. By the time the team had to perform, we were tired. We lost the first 3 matches sadly. Volleyball's really about the moment. It doesn't seem obvious, that the player needs to be in just the right emotional state, to do well. And that's hard to maintain, if we start loosing points.
  When I got home, I made some milkrice. It's a dish we often eat at home, and I haven't had any since I've been here. It's cooked rice that's cooked again in milk and sugar (well, in my case, sweetener). It was really delicious with cinnamon. Reminded me of home.
  I'm really looking forward to the Supernatural season 10 premier tonight! The season finale was a major cliffhanger, I've been thinking about it all summer!

Martyrs of Arad

6th of October, Monday

Happy Birthday Noémi and Larry! What a coincidence that you guys were born on the same day!

Today is a small national holiday in Hungary. It's the day of the "13 Martyrs of Arad". On this day, we remember the 13 rebel generals, that were executed by the Austrians in 1849. They were punished because they took part in the revolution in 1848. It was an important historic time in Hungary. We usually remember it in school, where they sometimes read a letter or a poem about the happenings. Those 13 Hungarian men are now famous in my country, there are many roads and squares carrying their name.

I had a rough start today, waking up from 4 hours of sleep is one thing, and waking up to a freezing cold morning is another. Put the two together, and you'll know how much motivation I had to get up. But I already know, that my "A" day schedule is pretty good. I started with an AP Psych, then continued with French, and English. I stayed up so late last night, to write an essay for English, but I didn't have time to print it. So I printed it on Creative writing, and agreed with Mrs. Masters, that I'll put the paper into her folder by the end of the day. But by the time I got to the main office, it was already closed. I hope the teacher won't be so cross with me tomorrow.
  I brought my laptop in to school for the first time, and I was really happy I had it. I could use it on Creative writing, I could watch movies in study hall, and surf the internet if I needed something.
  We had a game today against West Irondequit. We lost, big time. To our defense, that's a really good team with an amazing record. And we got scared. I didn't play today. The busride back was too quiet. I hope we'll do better tomorrow, I want my girls to have a win and cheer up.
  Regardless of how gloomy the evening was, I had a pretty calm, peaceful day. I have a lot of friends in every class now, and I don't feel lost at all. I know the routine well, and I fit in.

Apple festival

5th of October, Sunday

We went to church in the morning, and afterwards, we went to the apple festival in Hilton. We parked at the fire station, and took a schoolbus to the festival itself. It was awesome. It was kind of a cute fair. There were less apples than I expected. We had some beef sandwiches at the Hilton Rotary stand, and some hot apple cider because it was still chilly. There were stands all over the place. A lot sold crafts, and a lot were foodstands. It was fun, walking around with Herb, Anne, Sun and Xynan.
  After we've got home, I skyped with my mom, and relaxed. I did my English assignements on college essays too.

Aquinas volleyball tournament and Rotary clambake

4th of October, Saturday

I got up at 6:30. On a saturday. We had a volleyball tournament from 8:30. So we met at the bus, went over to Aquinas. On a tournament, there are many many teams, and you usually play around 4 games. Two matches / game, if it's a tie, the score difference decides the victory. Our first game was against HFL. We lost, but we didn't loose our spirit. We won the next two games. I played in the third game. The coach sent me in at the end, when we were winning. Michele was jumping and clapping when we swtiched places like crazy. Everybody cheered, surprisingly some people from the other team too. I was middle hitter again. I hit one good one, and I had a kill!!! The ball was about to drop in front of me, so as a last try, I hit the ball from the bottom in a weird, desperate way. It ballanced on the top of the net, and fell to the other side. It surprised me and the opposing team as well, because the ball dropped to the ground. Everyone cheered, because nobody thought it was gonna go through. So I have stats now, as Coach P later said. They keep score on how many kills and digs somebody has throughout the season. Now I had my first kill.
  After that game, I did lines. It's basicly standing on the corner with a flag in your hand, and signal if the ball is in or out if it's near the lines and the referees can't see. It was pretty boring, nothing really happened. Our last game was at 2:30. By that time, we were exhausted. So we lost the first match, but got back up and won the second one. The score difference was no to our advantage though.
  We watched the JV team play their games, but I was just too tired. I fell asleep for like 10 minutes. After the "last game" turned out to be 3 more, Jerry, our bus driver took the varsity team back to school early. It was 4:45 when we got there. My legs and back was hurting from all the standing I did. But I enjoyed the day with my team, we laughed a lot and had fun. I think we did pretty well. Scores will be announced next week.
  Herb and Sun took me home. I spent around 15 minutes there, I changed into a nice dress and my Rotary blazer, and we went on the Rotary clambake. While Herb did the shopping, I met a lot of my Rotary club's members and their friends and families. It was held in the Rotary Lodge, in a park. It's a nice building, but the weather was really chilly. I tried clams, they were good. I'm not a big seafood person, but some things, like clams for example, I like. I only spent an hour there, and when Herb was done, he took me home. It was a really nice get-together.
  I fell asleep on the couch wathing Pawnography, a funny TV show similar to Jeopardy. I woke up at 2 and climbed upstairs. Today was a tiresome day.

  

Spirit Day and the first time I played

3rd of October, Friday

Today was amazing! One of the best days I've ever had. The theme for the whole school was black and gold, the official colours of our school. It was Spirit Day, the last day of the Spirit Week. I've seen some pretty awesome costumes today as well. I wore a black T-shirt with a yellow scarf and a gold skirt. There was glitter and feathers everywhere on the floor, everyone was excited and having fun.
  At 7, the seniors had a quick breakfast, this happens once a year as well. Then we went to our classes. We wrote a test on AP Psych, I didn't study, but I wasn't anxious. Question 10 demonstrates how humorous our teacher, Mr Frisa is (picture below).
  We watched a movie on AP English and History. On Creative writing, we, seniors were called out, and we took our senior class picture in the gym. About 300 kids in one picture. It was difficult to contain that black and gold croud!
  Then the pep rally began. It's an American tradition for high school students to gather together bedfore the big games (homecoming), and cheer together for all the teams that compete.We changed  into white (I put on my warmup sweatshirt from volleyball), and hid behind the door of the other side of the gym, in a really small passageway. We were waiting until the rest of the high school filled the gym. (Both viewing stands were pulled out, so there was just enough room for everybody.).
  Our signal was the SpongeBob themesong playing. We ran out, jumped up and down and shouted at the top of our lungs. We sat down, sang a song from SpongeBob, and went to our places at the gym. Everyone was super hype, and excited. We cheered for everything.
  The teams ran out into the middle. Our volleyball team too, it was great. We went back to our places, and the homecoming kings and queens were announced. There was one from every grade.
After celebrating our "school royals", the races began. Previously, you could sign up to participate. 5 boys and 5 girls from every grade teamed up, and completed challenges like running in a potato sack, skateboarding and running with flippers on. The seniors won most of the challenges, but the final scores will be announced next week.
  The we had a shouting contest. The cheerleaders of the school organized a lot of the pep rally, and they asked every grade a question: "What is your cry?". And the class had to shout as loudly as they could: V-I-C-T-O-R-Y. The class that was the loudest, won. And this year the seniors did! Yep, we were pretty loud. So still drunk from our victory, the whole school rushed home for the weekend. Not the volleyball team. We had a home game we forgot about. Good thing I brought my uniform! So after hanging out with Dube till 3:30, we went to the gym.
  We were playing the Arcadia Titans. This was our homecoming game, and we didn't let ourselves loose to this team! We did very well in warm-ups, and in the first game too. We won by approximately 10 points. So we took the lead at the second match as well. We left them far behind.
  The match was at about 19 points, when the coach comes up to me, and says:
"You ready?"
"For what?" - I asked.
"You're going in the next game".
I was absolutely out of my mind! I wanted to play for so long now, but I was really nervous. So next time there was a change, Coach P walked me up to the side of the court, and called Michele off. Middle hitter position, in Michele's place!!! That's really tough, Michele's an amazing player. When my teammates saw me walking there to get on the court, I heard gasps, and everybody started cheering! My very first time on the court, and I felt happy, overwhelmed and really confused. I had no idea where I should have been. My head was spinning, I overconcentrated on the game. Good thing Brooke was there to help me, she told me where to stand and where to run. And my friends helped me with the passes and sets. They took a risk by setting a ball for me to hit on the weak side. Sarah later told me she was really hoping I'd at least get the ball across, It was risky, and I knew it. But I didn't think about it. I just hit it, and it was so hard it was almost a kill!
  We won the second game right after that (I went in when we were at 22). I was so happy! My friends shouted and hugged me, and cheered. Everyone congratulated and said how proud they were. Everyone knew it wasn't a big thing, but it was for me. They certainly made this night memorable. I was so moved that I actually dropped some tears of joy. The adrenaline was still pumping when the third match began. I cheered again, and I was absolutely satisfied with myself, my life and the world. By the end of the third match, Herb arrived, to witness the second time I played on the court. It was also at the end, when we had a huge lead. I didn't hit the ball this time, but I did send it back. We won the third match too, and won the game. It was awesome. It worked out well, for us to win, and the coach could put everyone in, even me. A lot of people congratulated me, and I was hype. I was so nervous, and afterwards, I still felt energetic.
  The whole team was proud of themselves. It was the girls who won this game, I just took the show by playing for the first time ever.
  I told everybody in my host family about the game, and we chilled for the rest of the evening in front of the TV. I feel so lucky to have found this group of people with whom I play volleyball with. They're great! And now even the exchange student who doesn't understand a lot of the game has a record, and happy memories of the first time she played.

Pink day

2nd of October, Thursday

Today's theme on spirit week was a cause which our grade supported. The seniors chose breast cancer, so everyone wore pink. I only had a pink T-shirt, which I borrowed from Sun, so I was one of the modest ones. A lot of people were really weird and funny, especially the guys. Other grades wore white for lung cancer, green for authism and blue for diabetes.
  I fell asleep 3 times today. On History, where we watched a movie, on advisement, where I had nothing better to do, and on the bus on the way to our game in Hilton. We lost.
  We finished our day with Anne, by watching an episode of Switched at Birth.

Chris and Kyle, all in pink

Shawn and Brooke, in pink of course

On select choir (both are boys)

Dube and Mark on choir

SpongeBob day

1st of October, Wednesday

Spirit week continued with SpongeBob day! At least for the seniors. The freshmen and the sophomores dressed up in superhero costumes, the junior's theme was the Flintstones, and ours was SpongeBob. I got a T-shirt from Herb, with SpongeBob on it, but I was really simple compared to what a lot of seniors did. Some costumes were brilliant and funny. Truly, this was the best day at school I had so far. Everyone was in a good mood, everybody laughed at the other's funny ideas, and life was good.
  We spent AP Psych in the library, working on our project. We started watching the Kite Runner movie on AP English, which I've seen before, but it's a good movie, so I don't mind.
  Larry picked me up at noon for Rotary. I brought the gerbaud with me, to raise money for my Discover America Bus Trip.  I put it on the coffe table at the club. I announced why I'm collecting money, and Al (our president) encouraged people to go ahead and take some. There was a line for my cakes! So it turned out to be a huge success, it was completely gone by the end of the meeting! The money collected proved that my Rotary Club is way more generous than expected. Thank You so much! I'm really grateful!
  After Larry took me home and I had a little bit of rest, I had the toughest practice we've had for a while. The coach made us sprint and do conditioning. But at the end, we played volleyball, and I was on fire! Ok, not literally, but still. I thought I was pretty good compared to myself.