Exchange Students Mark, Madelaine, Daniel, Christina
with Mrs. Dawson, Teacher

Clarenville - Wednesday, May 10
Travel Log by Mark

It was 5:48 p.m. Newfoundland time. I was very tired when I arrived in St. John's. I walked through the door at the airport and the first thing I saw was Daniel's host. He was huge. Then I saw my host and then Madelaine's. We went to get our luggage, Daniel and Madelaine got theirs, and I got one of mine. I couldn't find the other one. So, the Newfoundland teachers told me that we would come back and see if my luggage had arrived when we picked up the Calgary people. To pass the time and to get to know our billets, we went off to the Avalon Mall in St. John's. At the Mall we went to the arcade. After a while, we went back to the airport to pick up the Calgary people. I checked if my luggage had arrived, but no luck. They said to check tomorrow, so we got on the bus for the two hour ride to Clarenville. We were dropped off at Andrew's house about 1:00 a.m.. I met his mother and went to sleep.

Clarenville - Thursday, May 11
Travel Log by Madelaine

This morning when I woke up, I forgot I was in Newfoundland. After I got changed, my host and I made our way to Balboa Elementary School which was only 5 minutes away from the home where I stayed. Their school is not that different from ours. Our school is just bigger and has a greater population. They have a lot of split classes, and they have eight school day cycles. I found that very odd. There's an upside to it though, they get a fifteen minute recess. That means they get three breaks during the day. After the short tour of the school, the principle buzzed us down to the office. He said it was too wonderful a day to stay in school. We had to wait for the others to arrive. When they all came, we split up into two vans. Mark, Daniel, Jeff, and Andrew rode in one van, and Danielle, Christina, Adam, and myself rode in the other.

We then made our way to Bonavista. The drive up was very long. It was pretty nice looking out the window. That kept me occupied for a good hour. The scenery was very different from what I am used to. It was basically made up of mountains, trees, and a lot of water. We finally arrived at Bonavista. We got to see the Matthew. This was the boat John Cabot sailed on when he discovered Newfoundland!

The boat was inside a building. The workers were still renovating it, and it looked pretty interesting. Everything was still in its place. We were only allowed to explore on one side of the boat. The other side was drying from wet varnish.

From there, we drove to the end of Cape Bonavista which had a light house. We took pictures on the rocky cliff that over - looked the water. It was really high up. We just couldn't help it, we had to chuck rocks down from the top. Since we were on the North Atlantic it was very cold. Then, we drove to Dungeon National Park. There, we saw a split water way where big waves passed through two separate dungeons (holes that had been worn away in the rock). We then went down to the beach. There, we found a lot of rocks and bird bones.

After the picture taking, we were starved. LUNCH TIME!!! We ate at
N and N's. We all ordered burgers and fries. The food was good, especially the cookies. After lunch, we drove back to Shoal Harbour. That night, a night dance was held by both Clarenville Middle School and Balboa Elementary. I got to meet a lot of the students from both schools. After the dance, we said our byes and went home.

Clarenville - Friday, May 12
Travel Log by Daniel

I woke up at about 7:30 in the morning , but that was Newfoundland time. In Winnipeg, it would have only been 5:00 am, so I was still a little jet-lagged. Jeffery and I had trouble making it to Balboa Elementary on time because we were both tired from my arrival. We almost missed the bus which was departing for the docks. It was a short bus ride, but the boat ride to Woody Island took forever. There was lots of beautiful scenery, but the weather wasn't all that nice. As soon as we got there it started to rain which eliminated all of our sight-seeing. We attempted to have a scavenger hunt, but the rain must have made us quit, because within five minutes we were back inside the resort listening to music. We had two Newfoundland meals which were the highlight of the day. We stayed there until about four-thirty, and kept ourselves occupied by making home videos. Before we left, we visited a small museum the island had on display. When we left, Jeff slipped and fell into a muddy puddle; he got mud all over his bright orange pants. I returned to Jeff's house at about 7:00 in the evening. Jeff and I got a ride from his sister to Carpenters - a local convenience store. On the way, we picked up Mark and his host, Andrew. We rented 'American Pie', and Andrew bought lots of candy. We all went back to Jeff's house, watched the video, and made some more interesting home videos. Some of it was of Jeff's house, but most of it was just us making idiots of ourselves. We wanted to have a sleep over, but Jeff's grandmother wouldn't let us because we had to wake up extra early for the Heritage Fair. I said my byes and my goodnights.

Clarenville - Saturday, May 13
Travel Log by Christina

On Saturday, May 13, we got up early to get ready for the Heritage Fair. We all met at Clarenville Middle School and we set up our projects. Then, we sat down and waited for the judges to come around. They asked us hard questions. For lunch, we had a choice of pizza or chicken. After that, we got to walk around and see some of the other projects. They had some really good ones there. We got called up on the stage to receive a free T-shirt from the people at the Heritage Fair. At the end of the fair, two students, a guy with a project on the Vikings, and a girl whose project was on Root Cellars, had won to go on to the National Heritage Fair in July, in Ottawa.

After the Heritage Fair, we went to a restaurant called Don Cherry's.
It was really nice, and they had good food there. They served big portions.
After the restaurant, we were allowed to do anything we wanted.
Jeff, Daniel's billet, invited us to his house for a party-type get together.

Before we went there, Karla, Danielle, Madelaine, and myself went to go get some lobsters down at the dock at Garden Cove. We got home late and went straight to bed. Tomorrow was a big day for us; we were leaving.

Clarenville - Sunday, May 14
Travel Log by Christina

Sunday morning, we got up and drove to Clarenville Middle School. We got there and put all of our bags and things into the bus. I said goodbye to the family I was staying with. We went to St. John's and did some sight seeing at Signal Hill..

Then, we went to Ches's Fish and Chips where they have the best fish and chips in North America. We all got a certificate for eating at the restaurant. We got back on the bus and drove to the airport.

We waited for a while,
then we left Newfoundland with tears in our eyes.

We got off the plane in Toronto, and we were there for an hour.
(see photo of us waiting in Toronto).
We shopped at the Toronto airport.

We arrived in Winnipeg at about 5:30.
All of our families were there waiting for us.
We were very tired, so we went home.