Trade Me Auctions Up and Running!

We have just listed the donations we have been given so far for auctions on our Trade Me account (for those of you outside of NZ, Trade Me is our version of Ebay). We wanted to have an account specifically for the fundraising but you have to be 18 so they're all listed here :) Please check them out and help spread the word! We've started them all at low prices below their RRP, grab a bargain for Christmas! Here are some of the awesome auctions we have at the moment:

Fundraising begins!

A couple of weeks ago we started emailing companies asking for sponsorship/donations for a raffle and auctions. We were so surprised at the response we got, even companies that weren't able to help us emailed us back with lovely emails wishing us luck with the exchange! The companies that have donated are on the right side of the blog so make sure you check them out! :)

Today was the first day of the raffle that we have put together. We had a stall at a market in Orewa and sold raffle tickets along with boxed Cookie Time cookies which were kindly donated.

This is our stall at the market today, the man next to us Paul was selling his book called 'Shanti the Grass-Eating Lion' , it's a great read for a great cause so check out the website! His wife told us about when she went to Italy to a place called Cinque Terres, it sounds and looks so amazing! We were both searching it up when we got home gahhh can't wait!!

Cinque Terres

Everything in our raffle has been generously donated and the prizes are:

1st Prize: Waitomo Caves Family Pass (worth $115.00, donated by Tourism Holdings Limited)

2nd Prize: Barkers Gift Tub (worth $75.00, donated by Barkers)

3rd and 4th Prize: Flossie.com Gift Vouchers (worth $50.00 each, donated by Flossie)

5th, 6th and 7th Prize: Killinchy Gold & Whittakers Ice Cream Vouchers (worth $29.97 each, donated by Emerald Foods)

8th Prize: Chelsea Sugar Prize Pack (worth $20.00, donated by Chelsea)

9th Prize: Collective Dairy Prize Pack (donated by Collective Dairy)

10th Prize: New Zealand Natural Gift Voucher (worth $10.00, donated by New Zealand Natural)

PLUS Spot Prizes From Cookie Time (donated by Cookie Time)

We are drawing the raffle on the 31st of January 2013! If you're interested in buying tickets please contact us on em.and.lils.italian.adventure@gmail.com :)

While at the market two lovely ladies, Angie Pangie Designs and Narnie Knits, offered us some handmade donations to help with fundraising as well! We are going to start up a Trade Me account to auction off these, along with some other items! Thank you so much to all of these businesses for their kind donations!

We're both so excited, every day we get closer and closer to Italy and the experience of a lifetimeee ♥

Chapter Meeting 28/10/2012

Here are some photos from the chapter meeting we had yesterday.
It was Halloween themed so we dressed up. Emily went as a Ninja & I went as a Princess ♥
We carved pumpkins as well as listened to speeches done by exchange students here from places such as Finland, Switzerland and Chile! - lils

New Zealand Style Jack'O Lanterns. Ours is on the left!

Emily with our Pumpkin

Me (on the left) with Jess, who is going for an exchange to Chile for a year!

Obama casually sweeping the floor. 

our groupyyy :) we are all the newly selected students in our chapter and we all met each other when we had our Interview Day! From Left back row- Aiden, Graeme, Michael, Jess, Me (lilly), Charlotte, Bryar

Left bottom row - Warrick, Emily and Isabelle. 

Rebecca - she wasn't at the chapter meeting :(

Group Photo of all students who were at the chapter meeting!

First Video Blog!

Please watch and don't forget to like and subscribe :)

Italy babbyyy

The last 2 weeks have been waiting... waiting... waiting, but on Friday we got confirmation that we are going to Italy September 2013! :D YIPEEEEEE

Other Auckland AFSers have been posting in the Facebook group the last couple of days saying they got phonecalls so we've been on the edge of our seats, especially since it's school holidays here at the moment. On Friday morning one of our friends, Jess who is going to Chile this February, said she had gotten the confirmation in the mail so we were both real excited for when the postman came! The big brown envelope arrived in the postbox and we quickly got on the phone to each other we were so crazy excited!! We opened them up on the phone and we both got Italy which is absolutely amazing :D In the pack there's some more stuff for us to sign and tshirt order forms which makes it seem so much more real! We're both busy researching Italy even more now that we actually know we're going next year. Here's some interesting facts about Italy we found ;)

1. Italy has three active volcanoes: Vesuvius, Etna, and Stromboli.
2. Italy is often called the Bel Paese, which mean beautiful country.
3. Italy has 20 regions and 6 islands.
4.Italy speaks a national language, which was based on the Tuscan dialect, but each region still speaks its own dialect.
5. The piano hails from Italy.
6. With almost 40 million visitors, Italy is the fourth most visited country in the world.
7. The average Italian consumes 26 gallons of wine a year.
8. The vespa scooter was invented in Italy in 1946.
9. Italy has the most hotel rooms of any European nation.
10. Everyday 3,000€ gets tossed into the Trevi Fountain.
>> 11. Italy’s national flower is the Lily!
12. Sixty percent of the world’s art treasures are in Italy.
13. Italy has won the World Cup four times.
14. The average consumption of pasta in Italy is 25 kg per person per year.
15. The violin and the cello were both invented in Italy.
16. Italian pizza originated in Naples during the 18th century.
17. Italy holds the Guiness record for having the most elevators.
18. Italy has more famous fashion designers than any other country.
19. Italy has hosted the Olympic Games three times.
20. The espresso machine was invented in Italy.

...interesting right?! hahaha

^when we visited the bookstore the other day :P

Home Interview time!

We both had our home interviews on Wednesday and other than some awkward silences they went really well haha :)

Emily:
My home interview was at 7:30 and I had an exam at school in the afternoon so I rushed home after to get ready. I know everyone says you should just act normal when the interviewers are there and you shouldn't tidy any more than usual and everything but yeah, like I'm sure every other past AFSer has done my family and I were cleaning and tidying all over haha. Two ladies came to my house, one was a past AFSer (NZ to USA) from 30+ years ago and the other was a Mum of an AFSer! It was pretty cool hearing about their experiences, especially since the lady's daughter who went on an exchange went to Italy! She told us heaps of stuff that I didn't know like don't think I'm stupid but I had no idea there was a massive Italian Mafia?! Everyone seems to know that now when I tell them but anyway...

My Mum wrote down some questions she wanted to ask them about me visiting England to see family while on the exchange, scholarships, contacting family etc. They seemed to know the answers to them all so it left us feeling like we knew a lot more about it all. They had a sheet of questions they had to ask me as well, it was things like are you quiet or loud, enjoy school or not etc. Then they had questions to ask our whole family like what we like to do together, who's the dominant one, formal or informal etc. I also had to choose my final top three countries for my exchange. Originally they were 1. Italy 2. Switzerland 3. Portugal but one of the ladies said that Switzerland is very academic orientated and I would find it hard not speaking German so I changed it to Norway. I'll be happy with any of these countries but I've really built myself up for Italy so fingers crossed that both me and Lilly get it!

If anyone reading this is a future AFSer don't worry too much about the home interview! Prepare questions before so there's not awkward silences and make sure you're left knowing everything you need to know.  It was pretty much just like a big chat and they stayed for just over an hour :)

Guess who just got accepted?!

So big news... WE GOT ACCEPTED!!

We have a Facebook group with all of the Auckland AFSers that were at the selection day and on Monday night 4 or 5 of them got a phone call to say they were in! We were both sitting by the phone freaking out but we didn’t get a call :( On Tuesday night people started posting in the group saying they were in and the freaking out started again but this time WE GOT A CALL!! We both have home interviews on Wednesday so we’ll write another post after that but we’re SOSOSO excited!! This is actually happening :D

Selection Day!!

Today was the AFS Auckland Selection Day! We weren't both together the whole time so we have written 2 separate posts about the day, so here they are :)

Lilly:

I can’t believe that the interview is over, it doesn‘t seem long ago when my mind was filling with crazy ideas of what could possibly happen in the interview. I’m so happy to say that the interview went better then I expected!! All I have to do now is wait till I get the call saying whether I am in or not…..gaaahhh I just want to find out now!!

When we arrived at the meeting today we were given a presentation about the AFS program. We were then taken to a room where we did activities together that got us talking with all the other students who are planning on going on the exchange. We were given a sheet of questions which we were made to go over so we could prepare for the interview. My page had scribbles all over it with things I wrote down that I could talk about, from all the experiences that I had.
There was about 15 of us and everyone was so lovely! Its actually quite amazing meeting people who you hopefully will be able to have life changing experiences with ! Aww I actually love them so much and I really hope everyone gets in!

My stomach is filled with Butterfliesssssssssssssssssss.

Weeoooo im sooo excited. Cant keep still. Hopefully next time I blog its all Great News!!
Till then,
Lilz xxx

Emily:

So today was the Auckland selection day! I was really nervous at the start because I didn’t know what to expect but it all turned out pretty good :) 

When we arrived there (it was a a baptist college place in the city) we went into one big room with our parents and the volunteers talked to us and showed us a slideshow. There were about 12 kids plus parents. Then the parents left and we played some games. We did 2 lies and a truth, a game where we had to make a bridge out of newspaper in groups, one where we had to wrap string around us all (while having the instructions given to us by someone speaking Portuguese haha) and one where we had to stand on a flag and turn it over while the whole group was still standing on it. The games were all really laid back and it gave us a chance to get to know each other which was great because everyone was so friendly!

After the games we all got given a sheet of paper telling us what to expect in the interviews. Once we were given these the volunteers left to set up for the interviews I guess and the room was pretty quiet while we all read through the list. The questions were things like ‘Give an example of a time where you had to give advice to someone?’ and ‘Give an example of an issue that you feel differently towards than other people or groups that you know? How do you deal with this difference in opinion?’ I think most of us found them kind of hard to think up examples for because we hadn’t really experienced the issues before. Some people got called down for interviews while the rest of us went to the kitchen where we started to eat some of the shared afternoon tea. There were two girls there that had come back from Brazil (and somewhere else in South America that I can’t remember…) they let us ask them questions about AFS and the whole experience which was cool too J I got called down for my interview after about an hour of waiting and talking. There were three ladies who interviewed me one lady who had been to Italy (!!), her Mum and another AFS returnee. They were all really lovely and made me feel a lot more relaxed. Turned out they didn’t ask me any of the questions on the sheet, it was more just like a chat about me and how I would find the exchange and stuff like that so if you’re worried about your interview don’t be! The interview went pretty well the only question I got a bit stuck on was ‘What person are you in your group of friends?’ because I always find it hard to describe myself but yeah I think it went okk… I hope so anyway…

After my interview Lilly got called down and I waited in the kitchen talking to the other students a lot of them want to go to European countries too other than 2 to Japan and 1 to Costa Rica I think. When we got back Lilly found most of the students on Facebook and we’ve all been talking which is really cool because we might all be going together :) Lilly and I tried to separate ourselves because we knew they were watching and it wouldn't look good if we only talked to each other the whole time, but I'm glad we did because we got to talk to everyone and meet some awesome people. 

Although I thought the interview didn’t go amazingly I always think things went worse than they actually did so fingers crossed! And now the waiting game begins...

I’m so nervous!

The adventure begins!

Ciao we're Lilly and Emily from Auckland, New Zealand. We're both 16 and in our 2nd to last year of high school. We're hoping to be exchange students from the end of next year in Italy! At the moment we're in the fundraising/applying stage, but hopefully this time next year we'll be eating pizza under the Leaning Tower of Pisa! ;)

We're going to be going with AFS and it all started with a talk from a volunteer at school. We are going to be doing vlogs on Youtube as well as keeping up with this blog leading up to leaving as well as regularly when we're there. You can subscribe to our Youtube here (: This blog and Youtube will be used from now until the very end in 2014. We wanted to make this blog and Youtube to show people who are thinking about an exchange what it's like for us starting off not knowing the language, culture or much about the country other than the pictures we reblog on Tumblr haha.

This week we have started off our fundraising by selling lollies at school that we've bought in bulk. This is the beginning and every bit counts (:

Other than the lollies we are starting to walk home from school every night that we can. It takes us an hour and a half and we save $1.10 on bus fare. WOO! (laugh here) We have some bigger fundraising ideas planned for the next couple of months too. If you have any ideas we would love to hear them, just comment or email us at the address at the top of our blog.

Addio!

Lilly's on the left and Emily on the right