(Sent by the eTwinning team in 3°A)
Last Friday, Andrew Gorge, a Canadian boy who’s in an exchange program with a student of our school, talked to us about his country and Kelowna, B.C, the town where he lives.
According to what he told us, Canada was founded in 1876 by John A. Macdonald, being July 1st its National day. There, they have the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which, without any function, are just symbolic. He also mentioned Tim Hortons, a popular shop there located in almost every part and where everyone goes, and the Canadian flag, whose most representative part is the maple leaf.
When he talked about its geographic features, he said that Canada, with its 9,984,670 km² of land, is the second biggest country in the world, and so, a drive across it, would take 82h. However, without the 8.9% of its whole territory that lakes represent, Canada would be smaller than the US.
At the same time, he told us that hockey is the national sport, and mentioned the Toronto Raptors, a basketball team that forms part of the NBA, and the Toronto Blue Jays, one of their best baseball teams, as they’re two of their best known sport teams.
He talked a bit of the Okanagan Valley too, whom is located in the border between Canada and US, having a semi-desert climate with four seasons and 15 towns in it. One of these towns is Kelowna, which is divided into Kelowna, founded in 1905 and with a population of 120,000 inhabitants, and West-Kelowna -which is newer and has a population of just 50,000 people.
He said that almost any crop can be grown in Kelowna’s orchards and an unusual wine called ice wine is prepared during winter in their wineries. And are these popular wineries where adults can make wine tours. Of course, there are other activities, like Pond Hockey in winter, when the temperatures go from -10 degrees up to 2 and golf, water ski, water board or any other water sports during the summer, when there can be up to 40 degrees.
So depending on the season, their main attractions are Mission Hill-West, the Harvest Golf Club (where Andrew works during the summer), the Big White ski hill and the Main Beach.
Kelowna has their own sport teams as well - Kelowna Rockets, Kelowna Falcons and Okanagan Sun. Kelowna Rockets is the hockey team, Kelowna Falcons the baseball one, and Okanagan Sun is their football team.
Talking about education, University of British Columbia is one of the best schools in B.C and top 20 in Canada, being as well very close to Kelowna and specialised in Engineering. There, there are different high class sports teams and exchange programs and it has a Nursery program too.
Finally, he talked us about his school, the Immaculata Regional High School. One of the top schools in both, study and sports with 250 students. It has great soccer and volleyball teams, a basketball team too, and an International program since 2012, when Blaine Melnyk founded it. As it is a catholic school, its logo is formed by a cross. Also they take part in the Terry Fox Run, which is held in July to raise money for charity to help with cancer issues.
(By Marina Emilova and Miguel Onecha)
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Hello Andrew. We would like to know a little bit more about you.
-What is your favourite subject?
Physical Education
-Do you have any hobbies?
Hockey, golf, deer hunting…I play golf in summer and go sledging in winter
-Do you have a job?
Yes, I work part-time in the golf club. This is my first year and I work from April to October, 3 days a week in the summer time. I earn $10.25/hour plus tips
-What is the most popular sport in your school?
In male teams basketball and soccer and in female teams volleyball
-What would you like to study after school?
Medicine and sport
-Do you like travelling?
Yes, I do. I've been to Mexico, USA and Spain. In Spain I've visited Madrid and Palencia.
-Do you like Palencia?
Yes, I love it.
-What can you tell us about this exchange program?
I applied for this program because I wanted to come to Spain and to have a nice experience. My partner is Jorge Manso - a student in 6F- who came to Canada during the first term. My host family here is very nice.
-What do you think about our school?
I like it. It’s a big school with nice people. It's bigger and older than my school and you have more classrooms. Besides, in my school we don’t study philosophy.
-Thank you very much. We hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in our city.
(By María González and Lúa Arconada)
