Aotearoa part 1

Place where treaty of Waitangi was signed.
Host Family
Bay of Islands
Cape Reinga
Hole in the Rock

Aotearoa means New Zealand in the Maori language, and that is what I saw over the Easter Holidays. Literally, I almost saw all of New Zeleand.

I may or may not be able to fit this in to one post but lets see shall we.

The Easter holidays started off to an amazing start with getting out of school early on Thursday to travel to one of New Zealand's must see places, The Bay of Islands. But before we could get there, we were picked up in Auckland by my host sister in this wicked as silver Hyundai van (she works for them and was able to use it as a family bus) and driven to her flat to stay there for the night. Just a nice relaxing evening and I also had the pleasure of eating Hell's pizza for the first time, one of NZ's favorite eateries. Auckland is NZ's biggest cities and it actually reminds me a lot of my hometown of Tampa. A tight city center right on the water with nice houses and apartments that line the water all up the bay. Its a lot like Bayshore for people that live in Tampa. Auckland has about 1 and 1/2 million living there and is the most "busy" place in NZ. The farther south in the country you get from Auckland, the more you hate Auckland. And if I would tell someone from Auckland that I am living in Invercargill (a major city on the south island) they would either not know where it is or just say "O... Invercargill..." Auckland is like a different country to the people on the south island, as the south island is to people in Auckland. People that live in the big city are just considered busy townies. It is a very weird relationship to have in such a small country with an equally small population. Not sure if I have said this before, but NZ is known for having 40million sheep (i think its a little less now) and 4 million people.

We then left Auckland the next day for the Bay of Islands which also might as well be in a different country... well at least from Invercargill at any rate. Invercargill is the cloudiest place in NZ and is cold and rainy and windy almost all year. Bay of Islands looked like it could have been our of some amazing Caribbean island... but better. Sandy shores combined with other rocky shores and often cliffs cover the coastline of this Kiwi getaway. Quite literally a bay of islands, the place was definitely not bad on the eyes. Our vacation house that we rented sat right at the end of a peninsula on a hill that led right down to the clear blue water. The peninsula is part of a town called Russell, one of New Zealand's first white people inhabited towns. There is a lot of NZ history on this part of the country because this is where the European people came NZ, came up with the Maori written language, and collaborated and signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the Maori people. This is STILL a very very big issue in NZ and has helped shine light on the differences I find between the white and Maori people. (Its all very complicated and there is more to this whole thing but this is the gist of what I have learned) When the treaty was signed the white people were highly more educated than the Maori people and had the treaty written in both Maori and English and through the misinterpretations of the Maori people with the treaty they were seen as taken advantage of by the white people by modern day Maori people. They essentially signed over the right to vast majorities of their land guns, some European commodities, etc. At the time the Maori people thought the treaty was good but now as time has gone by they see it as wrongful. To this day the Maori people still are fighting the Treaty of Waitangi and trying to attain lands lost in this treaty. OK, so now it gets weird with the whole thing that it was many many years ago and people saying that Maori people today are not affected by it and cant claim land that was peacefully signed away that long ago by their ancestors. Also it should be noted that there are no longer any pure blooded Maori people in NZ anymore. This makes Maori people mad at white people and vice versa. For example: my host father sells farms and was going to sell one to this guy when a Maori man stopped it because the land used the be his ancestors and was wrongfully taken away so the government gave it back to him. Its hard to say who is right in this argument, but its definitely taught me something very interesting about NZ.

wow I just got really off track... anyways the Russell is a really cool place to stay in with a very limited touristy feel and great restaurants right on the beach. While we were there we took a day trip up to Cape Reinga, the most northern tip of NZ where a lighthouse sits right at the end. This is where the Pacific ocean meets the Tasman Sea in a fantastic way. You can see the line where they meet on a windy day that starts right at the shore and goes far out into the sea. It truly is brilliant. On the drive there you could definitely tell you were approaching the end of some land even though it was still very hill. After that we all swan at the most northern beach in NZ and then we did one of the coolest things ever. Sand boarding! you get a boogey board at the top of these MASSIVE and STEEP sand dunes and just run and dive with it down them. You fly down them so fast and hit the bottom and skid for about 40 meters.

The next day we did a speed boat ride to the famous Hole in the Rock, and actually went through the whole in the rock! I was not expecting that one! On the way there we saw a school of about 40 dolphins jumping and playing around in the water. Never seen anything like that before. And the rock was also fantastic, when I come back to NZ I am definitely doing that boat ride again.

The rest of the trip was spent relaxing and playing gin rummy (sp?). A perfect start to a perfect vacation.

He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

Now I know why they say this in the song, Down Under, because vegemite is disgusting. Well actually in New Zealand they have Marmite which is almost the exact thing, but whatever they taste like the saltiest smoothe spread you have ever had. They in no way compare to our peanut butter that I was told to believe in the States. I made the mistake of thinking vegemite was a chocolate spread at my host sister's flat, smearing tons of the stuff on a piece of toast, which in turn made me gag and spit the vile thing into the sink. I guess you are supposed to eat it on toast with a lot of butter and the thinnest spread of the stuff.

Ok I have not written in here in awhile (with good reason) but a TON of stuff has happened so I am going to try and get through 2 today.

A few weeks ago I had been awarded with a part in a short play because I was sitting closest to my drama teacher at the time when the other guy managed to not show up. So anyway, BAM I am in a competition called Sheila Win. Our play was taken out of Hamlet and we did a modern interpretation of it, wearing actual gear worn in WW2. I played the messanger and had a couple of lines to memorize and we had about zero practices before the actual competion. I should also mention that the winners of the competion win a free trip to Christchurch for five days for a bigger Shakespeare competition. Shakespeare is really not my thing at all but I really wanted to win this trip because my school won last year and they had a blast there. So with our gear all set and our lines memorized we went to the show at Center Stage in Invercargill. It was actually very nerve wracking because our play was meant to be serious and I am not the most serious guy, and it wasn't until we got right on stage that I realized how many fighting scenes we had...

The play started off good, and then my part came on. How stupid I must have looked up there! I completely forget sometimes that I have a different accent then other people and that not everyone knows I am from America. First line: "Gracious my Lord, I should report that which I say I saw." Confused faces in the crowd I'm sure thinking to themselves "what the hell kinda accent is this guy trying to put on???" Well anyways I am then strangled by the main character and shoved to the ground on stage. Then another guy comes out and the main charater strangles him to death. then another guy comes out and they fight again, pause, then again, pause, and then that guy kills the main character. The play is only 11 minutes long and as you can see the last five minutes were a constant barely-rehearsed fighting scene. Bound to look stupid on stage with high school kids trying to be serious and constantly fighting. I also forgot to mention that at the end I was a scavenger and had to take all the gear off the dead main character including his shirt (that happened to be a tight long sleeve one that took at least 20 awkward seconds to rip off) I believe that our very serious take on the play somehow came out looking somewhere between funny, awkward, and bleak. Well thats over with and needless to say we did not win. However, another team from our school did, so thats good. They were 3 guys that were also in our play but did another funny one on there own that was very impressive. I do have to say though, that all in all it was a very good time and I am SO glad I did it. I mean come on, how random to do this in New Zealand. Who knows maybe I will still be able to go to Wellington anyways with those guys as, I dont know, stage manager?



I am trying to remember other stuff I did before the play, but it was mostly sports practices and getting more acquainted with New Zealand and the people here. I can honestly say I feel more like I live here now than a tourist. Especially in Invercargill, it just feels like home, and since I have been doing sports, getting involved in school, doing lame shakespeare things, doing school production, and other stuff, people here see me more than just a random exchange student. This makes me very happy as this is the exact thing I would like to achieve.

AFS Camp

Before I start with afs camp I can talk about what I have done since the Motatapu.

I made the first 11 soccer team which was pretty cool and I did another thing that was definitely less exciting. Over the weekend I needed a ride home after a water polo game and my ride asked me if I wanted to help him and a few other people make cheese rolls for a fundraiser. Cheese rolls are a south NZ treat that is similar to a grilled to cheese but you make them before hand, sell them, and then the owner cooks them. Pretty much just bread with a soupy cheese mixture on top then rolled into a little log. So anyways, I assume I am going to someone's house to make about 60 to 100 rolls and then all of a sudden we pull up in my school's parking lot. I ask what are we doing here to a response that we are making cheese rolls. We walk into the catering room and.... I see crate upon crate upon crate of bread stacked high and wide along all the walls. Turns out we had to make 48,000 CHEESE ROLLS! No joke! It was to help raise money for their history class to go to Vietnam. I am not even going to Vietnam! We arrived at nine and the first few hours were kinda fun because it was so random and we were just listening to music but when the clock hit one o'clock I hit the cheese roll making wall. I became a zombie making roll after cheese roll. We ended up making them until 3 in the morning! what a great friday night! I cant even look at another cheese roll.

Week of school went well and then on Thursday after school I got picked up by my afs support coordinator to stay the night in Edendale before our very long drive up to Christchurch on Friday morning. T-vo (Paraguay) lives in my city and came up with us and Mia (Norway) lives at my support coordinator's house. So USA, Paraguay, Norway, and NZ all got in a truck Friday morning and set out on a freakin long journey to afs gateway camp. We left at around ten and got to Chtch (Christchurch) at eight. We took around turn close to camp and ended up taking the craziest road to get there with many cliffs, sharp turns, and bikers all the way up. Upon arriving I found a lot of my friends that I had made in Auckland when I first got here. The majority was South American kids which is fine with me because I love to practice my Spanish and they are the most out going people of all the international kids.m The camp was at Living Springs, a camp site on a bay outside of the city. It was very beautiful. First night all the kids just got re-acquainted with each other and talked unitl late at night when every one was just so tired they had to go to bed. The next day we did a lot of pointless classes that we had already done in our home country, when we first arrived in Auckland, and now were doing yet again. So that was pretty lame but after the classes were over we had our free time. We jumped on trampolines, took pictures, swam in the indoor pool, and talked about our lives in NZ. Everyone is loving this country and no one seemed to have any major problems and if not then no problems at all. Already the semester students are complaining that they do not want to go home and the six months is not long enough. I felt a little inferior to all the other kids because they all had improved their english to much and were becoming fluent AND also had their first language. So I tried as best I could to mix with the hispanic students so that I may improve my spanish. I think I did pretty well and had major crack ups along the whole way with my mispronunciations. We also had a "party" that lasted until 3 in the morning with pretty much every one just sitting down on the floor and talking to each other. I find it very interesting how easy it is to make friends with people that you barely even know just because we all share the commonality of being in a different country. Hopefully with these new friends I made I can make use of it in the future and go and stay with them so I can see the rest of NZ. I might be able to go to the north island and stay with my Bolivian friend Manuela over the holidays and just go around and explore the island I do not live on.

The camp was definitely a great experience for me minus the 18 hours worth of driving I had in 3 days. This holiday coming up is also going to be such an experience. I am going to the Bay of Islands to go scuba diving, Stewart Island for a 3 day hike( nz's third island), Routeburn track for another 3 day hike, and possibly many other little trips on the north island. We have holidays in school after every quater or term and they are all pretty long. Should be a nice break from the routine of school and my best chance to experience everything NZ has to offer.

embarrassing and not so embarrassing

These are just half the bike racers by the way.
View from our vacation home.
The start of the Motatapu right outside of Shania Twain's land. Some people flew helicopters to the start, it was pretty insane

While I still have any dignity left I will shead some light on some past events.

Lets start with the history behind the first story: When I first arrived in NZ I was greeted by my smiling host family at the ariport who then took me to their amazing house in Otatara. Upon arriving, they generously gave me a letter, a NZ flag towel, NZ flag pencil case for school (both were a hit with my NZ friends), and a ten day pass for a gym that they attend. A week ago I decided that I would like to go to the gym and work out as I have not done it in a while and I felt like doing something active. My host mom said it would be ok, but it is not a regular gym, but a gym for classes. Host mom- "There are spin classes, boxing classes, etc. You are signed up for the body attack class, so I assume that is the boxing one." Me- "ok thats cool, I am down for some boxing." When we pull up to the gym it hits me for a very scary second that this could be some aerobics class with all women doing step up. I voice this in hopes that my host mom knows this is not what I am getting myself into and she says "o, no look behind us there is a guy." It was a sixty year old man in short shorts and tank top but non the less he was a dude. I am feeling a little bit better. We walk inside and my worst fears are imagined. About fifteen high school girls, three older women, the old creepy man, my 13 year old host brother, me, and an instructer in the craziest clothes and hair that I could not possibly describe through typing. She motions for us to gather around the stage and I am saying to myself "F this! F this! F this! what I have got myself into?!" The next thing I know the music is on and she is leading us through a dance/run in place combo that not only takes coordination (something I dont have) but also the desire to run/dance in place in front of girls your own age and an old creepy man (something I also dont have). An hour of pure hell. Well it wasnt all so bad. I was laughing my head off from the entertainment the instucter was giving me with classic lines such as "I hurt so much, but Ive never been so alive!!!" "Now your a famous football player! Go and win the Heisman!" "We are strong women in here!!!" I was laughing the whole time. They were all syncronized dances that you immediatly had to go into and just pick up as you went along. I could not for the life of me get one of the moves perfect. I was always a step behind everyone, or bent over laughing. Classic.

Something less embarrassing: I had rugby trials last Thursday. I was DREADING the trials as I have never played or even watched a game of rugby. People told me I should try out but then would laugh and then some people would sincerely say that I should not try out. I really did not want to but I thought to myself that I would regret it for a long time if I didnt. Im in NZ anyways, I got to try out! I just went out there not knowing what to expect with my gym shoes and running shorts. I got stares for that. "The americans out here and he doesnt even have boots or rugby shorts." I was told to play on wing because of my size and speed and it was definitely a good choice for me. Trials is just a big rugby game by the way. I had no practice, no viewing experience, no nothing for my first time playing real rugby (i have played a little touch and hold rugby but never tackle or anything serious). I am not going to describe how to play rugby for those of you who dont know but the general idea is that you got the ball and you try to get it to the other side while the other team tries to tackle you (there are no pads involved and everyone here calls football a puffter (gay) sport). You can only pass the ball backwards and your team runs in a long line across the width of the field. I played on the outside where you get way less action, but when you do get the action you are usually trying to get a try (score). For my first time playing I was pretty happy. I got a few runs and one long run, made 2 tackles, and caught the ball after a punt.

Side note: I am in the school library right now and a few kids have realized that I have a blog and have begun to read it. I really dont like this because even though I am not writing anything bad about anyone its just uncomfortable that they are looking at it. I dont reread my blog and I dont want to think that they might be judging what I have past put down or anything like that.

And for not emabarrassing at all:

Over the weekend I competed in the Motatapu Mountain Bike race! AMAZING! Not as hard as the Moonshine race I competed in a few weeks ago but it was still very very challenging. It is one of NZ premier racing events and had over 2000 riders in the biking race alone (also a marathon run that I originionally thought I was going to do). 2000 may not seem like a lot but when every one is on a mountain bike, it is MASSIVE! I started around in the middle for my category (junior recreation) and passed over 500 people in the first hour on a small track. O the track goes through Motatapu Station, Shania Twains land that she only opens up once a year for the race, and ends at Arrowtown. It goes through a valley through the mountains with fantastic views the whole way. There were multiple creek crossing along the way and 5 river crossings at the end that were so wide and deep I had to get off my bike, carry it over my head, and run through the rushing waters. I finished in a time of 2:42, 18 minutes ahead of my goal time.

The race was in Wanaka by the city of Queenstown, the capital of adventure in the southern hemisphere.  You can sky dive, bungy jump, jet boat ride, ski, ride the gondola, luge, go to bars, eat fine dining, swim in the massive lake, or basically do anything amazing in this place.  My family has a vacation home in this city right on Lake Wakatipu (main lake and it is massive. queenstown sits right on it). It is small but three stories high, cozy, and an just a great place to go on vacation to. I would actually love to just live there. There is a plum, apple, and some other kind of fruit tree in the backyard. In fact, my host brother picked about 100 plums off the tree and sold them at the race. On our way up to Queenstown I heard all of the stories of what it was like to grow up in NZ and how this city was a second home to my host parents. The town has changed a lot since then to be more touristy but it still has a quality about it that keeps the locals coming back and has the kids at my school saying its their favorite place in NZ. Next time I go up I am bungy jumping and jet boating, should be an interesting experience...

Host dad cheering me on along with the Bullings who are family friends. you also get a shot of my host brother at the end asking if the cameras on. I did 2:42, Mrs. Bulling was a little off...

Breaking News!

Our sunday afternoon tramp.
The Tikitimus Mountains (I think thats how you spell it)
The Wind Farm Race. Had spectacularly massive windmills to ride under, but you had to get to the top of the very steep hills first to get to them.

I should really be doing my homework but... I dont really feel like it

Today, Sunday March 7th 2010, something awesome happened: My host dad said that I was the best exchange student to be staying with his family! Ok, now this may sound pretty whatever and it was just said as a side comment right before dinner, but I have to say this comment was massive. My host dad is nothing like my real dad and he just does not say things like this or voice them. He is very cool and often very sarcastic (like my dad at home) but in a different sarcastic way that you can't always tell if he is actually being sarcastic. He says real things and sarcastic things in the exact same way. He is very friendly, a very hard worker, and a great businessman. He is very well known around town, and in fact, the whole Ryan family is very known around town. But anyways, with the personality that he has he often does not say things very seriously to me. For example: when I got my new haircut and I asked him if he like it and he said, "It looks gay." Or when I finished the Moonshine race and beat his estimated time for me by 25 minutes he said, "that was a pretty good wee effort." However this is not negative at all, when he called my haircut gay joking around with me he knew that I knew him well enough that I would not get offended and find it funny. And with my bike race, he knew I did good but he did not want to be over complimentary of me cause that could make me cocky or something. So thats why before dinner when he said that I was the best exchange student to have at their house was so huge to me. This is also precisely why I made this post, just because of it.  My host dad is a very interesting person and has lived a very interesting life along with my whole host family and I should really write about them more. I'll try to make that my next post but I really think I should do it at the end because I learn new things about them and the amazing things that they have done everyday.

This past week and weekend definitely had its ups and downs for me.  Way more ups though (actually there werent even any downs durring the week). I got my new haircut, I became the Southland 3,000m champion (the most southern province of NZ), had an awesome mountain bike race at a wind farm, and had an incredible tramp up to the top of Bald Hill. The downs consisted of miscommunications and not having a cell phone that resulted in a guy that I thought I was pretty good friends with blowing me off and missing my first Saturday night party that I was supposed to go to. Those two things dont relate to each other though. The other down came from America but that is pretty much resolved, but it is definitely weird to have your home country life collide with your experiences in your exchange life. BUT ANYWAYS that comment tonight totally made my weekend and the downs feel like nothing to me now. Its nice to say that the worst parts of my whole exchange so far are so few and so minor that they can be forgotten within a day. New Zealand is pretty F-ing awesome... or should I say SWEET AS BRO!

side note: you can't wear tennis shoes and jeans here. They will call you a snean or a shnean, I am not really sure which. Just never do it. I unfortunately did it my first day of year 13 camp and no one was there to tell me it was a mistake. So when I was up in Dunedin I got a $30 pair of Dunlops which I am very happy with. Shoes here are so expensive! like $200 a lot of times! This is another up for me.

also... Jason kyte if you are reading this I dont have your e-mail but if you send it to me I can find out more about Tuatapere. The Bald Hill we hike up today was in the "Longwoods." It is also right by Tuatapere. I will also definitely make it to the Clifton Caves before long--- anyone reading this like "what the hell is he talking about?" my cousin posted a comment on my last post about his friends that used to live near my town

more dictionary words just so i dont forget later  (note: some are offensive but I just want to show what it is like.)::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Bogan= white trash i think?

mufty= you can wear whatever you wan to school

puffter= someone you think is queer or someone who is British

puffed= panting 

lemon aid= sprite

skux= I still have no idea what it means but I hear it all the time

mountain oysters= sheeps testicles

root= to have sex with

yank= what americans are often called sometimes offensively sometimes not

suss= figure out

In the future for me----

this weekend- to Queenstown for the Motatapu mountain bike race and will be there all weekend

next weekend- to Christchurch for AFS camp. will be all the South Island kids

haircut and beach photos

Just drive up and on to the beach.
Sand dunes everywhere, and they can get massive
I did not get too adventurous with the haircut or anything but maybe I will my next one here. O and one haircut at super cuts: $15. One haircut here: $70
Big empty beach that you can drive on... amazing

A day for sports... and Shakespear

Sports day was pretty crazy. I woke up and found my younger host brother in the bathroom with his face covered a tribal-like black paint design. I asked uncertainly "umm... so are we going on the bus like this?" I got a simple "duh." So I did up my whole face in black, found my shortest black running shorts and long running socks, and then just got on the bus. I was so worried to find people in regular clothes on it but I was pleasantly surprised to find the whole bus a mess of orange, blue, red, black, and green. Even the seats were found to be covered in paint. A very fun bus ride I must say. The beginning of sports day started out with each house gathering all their members together and march on to the main field doing chants. I am proud to say that I came up with our house's main chant of "we are Pearce and we are black! we have balls which the other houses lack!" Our house leader was going around with ideas the week before and I said this as a joke and what do you know, it becomes our main one. Coldstream was painted orange and wore kilts and freshly skinned sheep skin from the day before (some had maggots in them). They were the best looking because they all looked like characters from braveheart and a guy even came out onto the field galloping on a horse! The rest of the day was spent doing athletics (track and field). I qualified in all the running events and Pearce came in fourth out of the five houses. it was the first time in 19 years that we did not come in last. We all cheered like crazy.

This next bit is an e-mail to my sister discussing my school's Shakespeare day where the year 12 and 13s dressed up as shakespearean characters and recited lines as a monologue from the play. Note: only a minority dressed up and a minority of that minority recited lines. ok:

Shakespeare day was fun, and I totally forgot my lines. A lot of people dressed up but not a lot had a speech. So anyway my house was the first to go and this one kid (the freaking best actor in the world who the fundraiser was actually for, to send him to london to go to the globe theatre) was first and did amazing. O yea, all the year 12 and 13 came to watch, about 200 people plus. They all sat in a huge circle around the hall with the judges table about 1/3 of the way from the end in the middle. And then the judges say "anymore from pearce? anyone at all? no one?" I could not remember my speech for the life of me so I just sat there thinking to myself "well F that shit." But then all of a sudden some random guys that I had told earlier I might do it but I did not really think I had the guts said "hey trenor, its trenor, hes doing one." Then a kid next to me pushed me in to the middle of the hall. Since i could not remember any of my caesar speech I immediatly thought of the romeo one that says "but soft, what light through yonder window breaks" cause I remembered that I knew a little bit of that. The good actor recited his acts and scenes and shizz before he started but I said "well I have no idea what scene or act it is or whatever and im not exactly dressed the part either (i was dressed as caesar) but here it goes." So I did this damn romeo speech and messed up like 3 times even though I only knew a few lines and then after I said one line I forgot those words so I said "for it is sick and pale with grief... eh.. (que long silence)..." and then I just bowed. It was a very abrupt ending and no one thought it would end there. it was pretty lame but also pretty funny. Everyone elses were all also relatively stupid so i did not look bad or anything so it was just kinda fun. Our house came in second for shakespear day! A complete success id say. Im in the paper today for it along with everyone else who dressed up. We had to parade the streets in our outfits. It was a very weird day but im glad i did it. I dont want to just be the random foreign exchange kid. I was pretty much smiling the whole day from the stupidity of it all. I bid good morrow to you Lauren. 

I am to tired to write about my weekend and championship day but Ill get that in very soon, both were pretty interesting. Here are a few more differences I have noticed:

It is was easier to make a conversation or meet someone in America, but it is also harder to make friends. You have to make an effort in NZ for them to talk to you/like you but thats pretty much it. If you give effort, they recognize it. Whether it be not knowing how to play rugby but just jumping in (even though you may mess up a lot) or just talking to someone about the farm their family owns or an upcoming sports even, kiwis will almost automatically accept you. I had about two conversations with this one kid and the next day he invited me to go out his farm to four wheel. With my experiences in America you can meet someone really easily but it takes awhile to actually become friends with them and it is often, dare I say it... awkward for awhile. Here there is now awkwardness with people. You don't walk down the hallway and see someone you kind of know and whip out your cell phone to act like your texting to avoid their gaze or something stupid like that. When you have met someone your pretty much golden. Another thing I have noticed is the accent thing is still weird. I desperately want to get the accent but whenever I talk or say something to a kiwi in their accent, they always say "that sounds weird, dont say it like that." For example: the name Becca  here is pronounce like bEAcca like ea at the beginning of eagle, whereas americans pronounce the vowel e like "Eh." I ask my host brother Liam how to say the name slowly and he says bEEEAAAca. I repeat back exactly bEEAAca. He responds "why do you say it like that like the first part is a birds 'beak'" I say thats because thats how you says it. I say it again like him to which he says it still sounds wrong, and then he tells me to say it like americans say it and then I do. I say Becca like with no ea sound at all in the middle then he says "NOW you said it right, its just like that, bEEAAca."    Me- "wtf"

host moms explanation is that when they hear an american talk they already know from tv what its going to sound like therefore whenever I say something how they say it even if its exactly like them it will sound wrong because it will just sound different coming from an american. Then how am I supposed to get an accent??? this may not make any sense at all even though it does to me, its just hard to explain via typing. 

another different thing here is that if someone says they are going to drink piss, that means that they are going to drink alcohol.