Week Ten Text Blog Entry Eight - an article about my country in the international press

I'm sure you would have all seen the coverage last week on NZ TV of the British Queen's state visit to the US.

Here is a link to an article in the American press covering the visit and one from the British press. I choose these articles because I found George Bush's gaffe or slip of the tongue rather amusing. As he was recounting previous visits of the Queen, in particular the one in 1976 for the bicentennial celebrations for the country's founding, he nearly said she had been there then in 1776 for the Declaration of Independence, ageing her quite considerably! To his credit Bush acknowledged his mistake and managed to reedem himself by saying 'she gave me a look only a mother could give a child.'
The Queen got her own back later at a dinner at the British Embassy in Washington when she began her toast to the first couple by saying "I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, 'When I was here in 1776,"

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Week Nine Text blog Entry - Nalini's blog about the Waitakere Diploma Trip

I really enjoyed our Diploma trip because the students are such a nice bunch! We were lucky not to get wet at the Cascades, and because the sky looked so threatening we just went for a 5 minute walk to see a huge Kauri tree. For a picture of a Kauri tree which looks much bigger than the one we saw, click on this link: http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/11698/te-matua-ngahere-223.jpg

I have provided a link instead of uploading a photo, because I found out this afternoon that we are not supposed to upload photos onto our blog unless they are our own photos!

Crystal Mountain was the next place we visited. You can find it by clicking here: http://www.crystalmountain.co.nz/

We saw many stunning pieces of crystal and rock, and a funny goat that came to eat lunch with us and scared Grace! I was delighted to try some food that my students gave me - a tasty pie from Nazi, something nice from Zainab which I think was a sort of curry in triangular pastry (I don't know what to call it), some colourful Korean sushi from Kay and some yummy food from Helen which I would call "a wrap" in English, although she probably has another name for it. Also, Margaret made some Afghan biscuits with icing and a walnut on top. In the end I didn't even have my own lunch because everybody kept giving me food and feeding me like the goat!!

I bought a pretty purple crystal inside a rock for just $5 (very cheap!) to give to our secretary because she loves things like that. Apparently the stone is called "agate". If you follow this link: http://www.crystalmountain.co.nz/ShowPage.aspx?page=7 you can see a picture on the left which has a group of gifts and includes a tall grey rock with purple in the middle. This looks like the one I bought for Joy.

Thanks for a wonderful trip!